(Continued from page 7) What we need is a sustained period of interest in the
environment — a plateau, a permanent paradigm shift. And it’s coming. When the third wave hits, this one will last, because the issues are not going to go away, the science is only going to tell us harder realities, political leaders will be forced into action, and concern about the environment will embed itself in popular culture. As environmental educators, will we be ready? H.G. Wells’ statement that “Human history becomes
more and more a race between education and catastrophe” is widely quoted, but we rarely hear the next sentence: “Yet, clumsily or smoothly, the world, it seems, progresses and will progress.” The world progresses, perhaps clumsily, and environmental education should be an integral part of that progress. The race is on — the race to save a planet in crisis as well as the race for environmental education to become a player in our culture. The great green tsunami is coming, and we have a choice: to sink or swim, to rise to the chal- lenge or let the wave pass us by.
Mike Weilbacher has been teaching and writing about environmental concerns since the 1970s, presenting key- note addresses and participatory theater performances in schools, museums, nature centers and conferences across North America. He writes a weekly column for his hometown newspaper and directs the Lower Merion Con- servancy, a neighborhood land trust based in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania. His website is <
www.mikeweilbacher.com> and his blog, Natural Selections, can be found at <www.mik
eweilbacher.blogspot.com>.
Page 8 GREEN TEACHER 83
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