Environmental education versus formal education

Every January 26th we celebrate Environmental Education Day. With pain we see that from the basic concepts there is an extreme ignorance:

We call the Environment by half (Half Environment).

We confuse the basic unit of life (ecosystem) with the system that surrounds the whole (The Environment is The Universe).

It is incredible to hear or see written environment or that the environment is what surrounds us, that this animal or plant is in its environment, in the XXI century.

The environment is the Universe and not simply what surrounds us, because what surrounds us at a level of organization called the ecosystem.

The environment has mass and energy, depending on its velocity as Albert Einstein told us. On our planet we have called them natural factors, which interact with each other. In 1972, at the Human Environment Summit, we came to the conclusion that mankind is a natural factor of this planet.

Part of humanity has ignored this knowledge, a redoubt, a minority, holds possession of the ecosystems and natural factors of this planet, thus exercising the power of privilege.

These compulsive accumulators generate, with this model, the exclusion of large masses of humanity from opportunities of access to food, goods and services in a systematic way, which is called poverty.

Formal education and non-formal education (especially that provided by the media), keep concepts, knowledge hidden, exposed incomplete or through lies such as fake news (Fakenews). We cannot realize this nefarious process.

Environmental Education is considered subversive and any undertaking to exercise it, in defense of ecological units or to express it in communicational form, is considered an act of rebellion and contrary to development and the economic model. That is why being an environmentalist is so dangerous. A few years ago in Colombia, the "Environmentalist Child", an eleven year old child, was threatened with death for saying on his YouTube Channel about the environmental dangers of "fracking".

Formal education does not finish indicating how humanity should relate with itself and with the environment, in a harmonious way. But there is an ancestry, an unconscious memory transmitted in the form of informal education (in the family, community), that recognizes us as environmental factors to each person, we repeat, that have been hidden from us, said incompletely or falsely.

But the predominant model of society gives ownership of ecosystems and natural factors to a minority group of humanity. Any incursion into a privatized ecosystem or natural factors owned by that group is considered a crime. We cannot relate to nature because it is privatized.

Cities are ecosystems modeled by humanity. They are ecosystems dominated by mankind with its presence, activities and constructions. Of course, this ecosystem is subjected to property. Those excluded from property and education (within this, environmental education), have to expand the territory in search of the opportunity to continue living and can commit anti-ecological activities.

In its eagerness to disregard the precepts of the Environmental Summit of 1972, 1992, 2002 and 2012, which is a lack of environmental education, humanity granted ownership and price to environmental factors and renamed them natural resources. It is an agreement within humanity, human laws and not a natural law.

This is how the majority of humanity is excluded by ownership of natural factors and ecosystems. Poverty becomes in fact the population excluded from ecosystems. Therefore, we cannot say that poverty, the poor population is predatory of the environment.

The wealthy class owns the means of production, depredates and pollutes with its production model. To create evidence (we are evidence-based sciences), science, technology and innovation are needed to prove it. To say that poverty is predatory, the media at the service of the rich class and the politicians who support them are enough.

The future will depend on the defense of the planet and humanity. With the recent and active pandemic of COVID-19, we have seen the seams of the clothing of some sectors, which have given to the question of solidarity, shared responsibility, access to factors or resources, nothing to be surprised about. These are the same people who say that the poor population is predatory. They are environmentally and socially excluded.