Apocalypse Now? A Plea for a Positive Turn in Education for Sustainable Development

Appeals for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) are typically underpinned by a rhetoric of urgency, referring to very existential threats caused by global change or increasing levels of consumption. The strive for sustainability has mainly been taken up in the educational community as a challenge to unlearn unsustainability and reverse (or at least mitigate) the hazardous consequences of consumerist lifestyles. This keynote address challenges this response for its inherent danger of patronizing students and causing discourage and apathy among learners rather than opportunities to envision a desirable future and develop competences to engage in societal change towards it. At the beginning of the recently launched UN Global Action Programme on ESD, educational practitioners, researchers and policy-makers are encouraged to critically reconsider contemporary practices and approaches and seek inspirations for a positive turn that more genuinely and more effectively engages with the idea of ESD, namely: shaping the future we want.