Editorial Shirley Walters ferris@iafrica.com
Climate Justice and Adult Learning and Education (ALE)
How do we, adult educators, scholars, activists, play, engage, inhabit ‘climate justice’ – its theory and practice? What roles can we play to mitigate and adapt to the dramatic, anticipated environmental changes? It’s a vast, complex landscape which requires collective insights, imagination, and action. Solving the climate crisis affects all aspects of society. Therefore, our own education as adult educators, scholars and activists is essential.
Three years ago, PIMA started a series of conversations on Climate Justice and ALE as we believed that adult educators and lifelong learning practitioners have much to contribute to inter- and trans-disciplinary teams and movements to develop climate--just responses to the climate emergency that is unfolding. This Special Edition of the Bulletin builds on the webinar interactions – the themes mirror and extend some of those discussions and debates. It is a partial account of the many issues that arise. The Bulletin has three sections: (1) Concepts and contexts (2) What works, and lessons learnt (3) PIMA Business.
The PIMA team which is designing and facilitating the webinars and co-creating this Bulletin, are (in alphabetical order): Liz Boulton, Jane Burt, Shauna Butterwick, Darlene Clover, Colette February, Dorothy Lucardie, Joy Polanco O’Neil, Astrid von Kotze and Shirley Walters (Convenor). We are hoping that the Special Edition can be used as an aid to discussion within our networks to deepen and expand praxis. We encourage you to use it towards this end.
We start with a poem. Serap Brown provides a glimpse of the interconnections between COVID-19 and the climate emergency. We all have rich experience of the last 18 months that can serve us well, to respond to both future pandemics and the climate crises. COVID as a zoonotic disease illustrates the close relationship between the virus and accelerated climate change. As environmental thinker and activist Vandana Shiva argues, the emergencies created by the COVID pandemic, planetary extinction, loss of species diversity and global warming are inseparable.