by Silvia Musso
The study makes us free and contributes to the advancement of society. This is doubtless. But how does the scientific activity pollute? Let’s think to a student next to get their degree. To write a thesis it is necessary a large amount of energy: you print, burn, keep the pc on for long time, travel, use the telephone, write e-mails, buy books and DVD, connect to Internet, participate to conferences and seminars. The most environmentally conscious people try to compensate with useful and innovative initiatives, such as Graziano Isaia, a new graduate in Science Education at the University of Turin, who has chosen to offset emissions by buying a tree. The process has been certified by FilieraCO2 (University of Basilicata).
The editorial staff often receives the abstracts of thesis and researches in environmental communication by recently graduated university students or from doctoral students. To avoid seeing them die in the shelves of a home library and try instead to give them a little visibility, we decided to dedicate some articles to their reviews.
It also wants to be an invitation to those who want to send us their work and abstracts. Environmental communication is a discipline to be defined that can be treated according to different points of view. We want to give a small contribution to its codification and dissemination.
We begin this process with the work of Isaia, The Geography of Energy. A journey through the problems of Gaia and the good practices for its preservation (Rapporteur Professor Caterina Simonetta). The author starts with the simple consideration that while the man is causing serious environmental damage, among other local administrations and ordinary people, it has spread more and more, the desire to change society and to direct development in a sustainable direction or different from that which characterized the last two centuries. There are indeed many examples of people who with small or large actions, positively intervene to the conservation of the Earth, living beings and life.
The tenacity of these individuals that may seem a luxury or a utopia is still a wise address, which should be communicated and disseminated. The author then asks: what education can do in that regard? «The educator, which means each person invested with responsibility for education, - Isaia says - it should take to heart the environmental problem as it is the source of profound suffering and inequality that are the opposite of the expectation of profound pedagogy, which seeks to elevation of the humankind. The educator should be at the forefront in the communication of the problem and suggesting solutions. Education promotes joy, harmony, sharing, future, hope. If it teaches anything else, it cannot strictly be called education. While the health of Gaia, for mainstream economists, is probably a matter of immediate benefits, and to scientists is a matter of numbers, for the educator is a moral duty».
We believe that the proposed route with this research, a detailed and rich collection of both theoretical and practical notions (a first part theoretical, focusing mainly on issues related to the energy topic is followed by chapters devoted to the presentation of numerous case histories throughout national) that every educator - especially those that deal with geography, that at least in primary school, coincides with the studio environment - needs to know to be able to teach.
Children and young people are very sensitive to environmental issues and may reveal unexpected solutions and even immediately applicable. Relationship between educators and students can not miss a constructive debate on these topics, because by comparison there may be a desire to take individual behavior wiser.
Educators can and should focus the training on the most pressing environmental issues of modernity because, as Isaia also says: «After all, education is always a matter of choice and it should choose the best».
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