If sustainable development should be defined differently in PA and Cambodia, who should do the defining? Is that a proper role for me, as a white guy living in New Jersey? How has UNESCO played the role of development expert in defining education for sustainable development?
In the developed world sustainable development is centered around sustaining current levels of consumption and capital (human, social, manmade, natural). In the developing world should the focus be on development? A sustainability curriculum in Cambodia should address pressing material needs, such as malnutrition. A sustainability curriculum would be concerned with increasing material well being, increasing consumption.
Hartwick argued that a nation would remain sustainable if the total capital stock remained steady. In this way a nation could trade natural capital for human capital or manmade capital.
K = K[H] + K[N] + K[M]
However, sustainability education in Cambodia aimed at improving farming practices increases both human capital (skills and knowledge) and natural capital (environmental services). It might also allow money spent on manmade capital like tractors and fertilizer to be spent on more productive uses. The total capital stock of the nation would increase.
Is this so different from the American example? A recycling education program would increase human capital and slow the reduction of natural capital, leading to an increase in total capital stock at time t+n.
So maybe I’m saying the most base logic of sustainability education is universal: increase the total capital stock by increasing human and natural capital. But the curricular objectives are wildly different between a program designed to introduce low/no fertilizer farming and one that focuses on recycling. Again conservation vs. development. Maintaining a level of material wealth vs. increasing wealth.
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