As all environmental educators know, we are living through a critical time in the history of humankind. There are political, industrial and economic forces rapidly propelling humanity toward disastrous social and environmental conditions entirely of our own making. We have lost for ourselves the relatively pleasant conditions of the Holocene and have entered a dramatically unstable period now commonly described as the Anthropocene (a catchy and critiqued neologism), and a time also analysed as the Capitalocene (Haraway Reference Haraway and Moore2016b). In transformative resistance, there are vast, interconnected social and educational movements struggling against these business as usual (BAU) trajectories, with many hundreds of millions of people seeking more equitable and desirable relationships between humans and the exquisite, living planet we call our only home.

Envisioning Futures for Environmental and Sustainability Education deliberatively explores backcasting (how we got to here) and present/futures casting (what works/where we can go). The editors and contributors of this book set out to speculate and demonstrate how it is possible to reclaim our futures and rescue ourselves from ‘systemic global dysfunction’ (see Lotz-Sisitka et al., Reference Lotz-Sisitka, Wals, Kronlid and McGarry2015). The editors, Peter Blaze Corcoran, Joseph Weakland and Arjen Wals, must be congratulated on what they and their collaborators have achieved in this fifth volume in their Education and Sustainable Development series.

With 86 contributors, this large collection of authors address philosophical, ontological and pedagogical concepts related to envisioning environmental and sustainability education in and from different places across the world. Their task is to find means and ways for realising more stable futures than those we are currently on track to inhabit. ‘Futures’ is deployed as plural, as every person alive (and soon to be alive) will experience this world and this and future time in different ways. Envisioning is tremendously important when the sum impacts of humanity are overwhelming the Earth system at accelerating magnitude and amplitude.

The editors invited contributors to illuminate how environmental education (EE), education for sustainability (EfS) and education for sustainable development (ESD) can address the present-future. EE/EfS/ESD (as related fields) are as subject to the same accelerating socio-environmental changes as any other fields of endeavour. The interesting feature of this text is that all the contributing authors are trending towards similar (if complex) generative understandings for what is needed — more pleasant futures are to be peopled by agentic, critical thinkers capable of deep caring, self-learning and creative problem solving.

In speculating visions for present and future educators, and as learners, the book is divided into three parallel parts: a triad of principles, perspectives, and praxis. The first part, principles, explores matters such as the ontological journey toward transformative learning, restorative learning, intergenerational learning and ethics, ecological selfhood, civic and citizen sciences, the meanings of personal and professional development, and teacher education in the Anthropocene. The second part, perspectives, turns an international eye to systemic change, student initiatives, curriculum and pedagogy, educating for ‘the good life’ (moving beyond modernity) and importantly, preparing for complexity and uncertainty. The third part, praxis, addresses environmental and sustainability in the ‘dystopic’ present. There are chapters on the struggles of educators to practise their visions, case studies of powerful responsive practice, innovative pedagogy that works indoors and outdoors, and transformational education attempts in formal and community education settings. Education in response to (increasingly common) climate related disasters is a highlight. There is a myriad of wonderful ideas here to pick up and run with.

This is a great collection to look into and find what is useful and interesting for you. There are 34 chapters, with an excellent introduction by the editors, bookended by a graceful foreword by Akpezi Ogbuigwe and a grateful afterword from David W. Orr, who reminds us to celebrate ‘how far we as educators have come to integrate environment and ecology with education at all levels’ (p. 439). There are many chapters useful for teaching at tertiary level, and many chapters that will stimulate future research. There are wonderful case studies and sensitive discussions of meaningful practice in which to find inspiration. It is a powerful, collective work and will be a significant and important guide for researchers and practitioners for years to come.

Any immediate future is going to be messy and chaotic. This is not necessary a ‘bad’ thing if a large part of the messiness has to do with educators finding their way forward toward a greater flourishing of human and other life on the planet. We know the human project is presently precarious and that bacteria and jellyfish remain unconcerned. Donna Haraway (Reference Haraway2016a, Reference Haraway and Moore2016b) writes about this messy but transformative condition as the Chthulucene, a neologism compounded from the ancient Greek khthon = emanating from a subterranean earth, and kainos = time, where we learn to live response-ably on a damaged earth. She writes that the Chthulucene ‘can be a fierce reply to the dictates of both Anthropos and Capital’ (Reference Haraway2016a, p. ii). Haraway's idea of ‘staying with the trouble’ and remaining as ‘kin’ is a vision for respecting the living earth and for respecting ourselves. We require each other in unexpected ways and collaborations. After all, she argues, we must go on.

In seeking to outline collective environmentally educative response-ability, the editors have brought together a world collective, in this book, and in their preceding four books of the series. This is a mighty feat. Do make use of this great collective.