This book comprises nine academic articles from past issues of the Journal of Moral Education by writers from different cultures and moral or religious traditions who examine culturally biased links between moral education and environmental concern. The articles span the developed and developing world, from England to South Africa, and from China to Brazil. I found the different perspectives raised in the book fascinating, anticipating that there would be some common themes such as the impact of ‘nature-deficit disorder’, a term famously coined by Richard Louv on the level of environmental concern in educational settings and the moral education approaches used to address this. This indeed was the case.

The traditional approach to environmental education to a large extent focuses on how we can ‘fix’ the environmental crisis by our actions. This often falls on deaf ears as most of us are dependent on the privileges of our Western lifestyle, such as the profligate use of fossil fuels. What is refreshing about this collection of articles is the questioning of the traditional view of moral education as teaching individuals about virtues and how to relate to others. In the first article, Michael Bonnett asks the reader to consider what gives meaning to our life — invariably, it will be our home and local environment. He extrapolates caring for the local to caring for the intrinsic value of nature, and argues for a recognition that we are all emotionally engaged or ‘emplaced’ in our own social and cultural environment, and make meaning of our world through this. Take away our familiar objects and routines and we are lost. He argues that rather than moral education being seen as what society or ‘others’ decide for us, we need to acknowledge the intrinsic, transcendent value of nature, rather than as something to be managed or fixed by our behaviours. He thus stresses the importance of the local environment as a starting point for establishing a meaningful connection to nature.

Bonnett also talks about the need to dislodge the current dominant Western global metaphysical climate, from one based on an industrial-militaristic-consumeristic consciousness to one that is ecological, holistic, and compassionate.

I recommend this book for those struggling with traditional approaches to environmental education that do not really address the deeper, moral connection with nature that we as educators should be nurturing in the children we teach. Learning in schools is essentially intellectual, not emotional. Conventional thinking treats ‘us’ as subject and the environment as object. Emotional engagement with nature through experiencing it with all the senses is essential to develop the ‘body-mind-heart-spirit’ connection, described so well in the article by Heesoon Bai, which transforms the environment into a source of mental and spiritual enrichment. Bai explains the Buddhist concept of ‘bodhicitta’ (our potential for goodness), which has been waylaid by another Buddhist concept of ‘hungry ghosts’ whereby we, the teachers, have mostly been conditioned by our Western culture to be never satisfied with what we have, and this is what we impart to our students. The cultivation of another Buddhist concept, ‘sunyata’ (zero, nothingness or the spaciousness of the mind-heart), enables us to:

In other words, cultivating our inner nature and healing ourselves of our alienated consciousness is essential if we are to promote a caring and compassionate respect and love of nature in, first, ourselves and, second, in our students. We are, after all, what we teach. Thus, environmental education could be seen as essentially moral education that involves psychological healing.

Other interesting concepts that are being used to link environmental and moral education in the African context include ‘ubuntu’ (connectedness to community) and ‘ukama’ (connectedness to the cosmos). Harmony is an important value in Confucianism, which again can be promoted in environmental and moral education.

In the second article, Bowers compares the role of individual intelligence, which is culturally biased, to that of ecological intelligence, which uses all the senses, examines cultural assumptions, and considers relationships. The latter, he considers, is a much better basis for critical thinking when dealing with issues of environmental concern.

A different sort of article on setting up a school in Canada based on ecological principles describes how the worldviews of the teachers changed through the process, which proved painful and alienating in some cases but was ultimately rewarding. Two of the articles deal with school-based projects, one in China and one in Brazil, but it was the more philosophical articles that I enjoyed the most.

I personally believe that caring for the environment can be very much enhanced through moral education that encompasses the emotions and heart-space as well as the intellect. This book validated my view and gave me a much broader perspective on how other societies are dealing with the moral issues surrounding environmental concern.