GreenHearted Blog

Check this page for all the latest updates to the GreenHeart Education website as well as musings on transformative education for sustainability.

Hollywood Schlock and the Demise of the Future

I made the mistake of going to see Iron Man last night. It was a warm summer night and the movie was being shown outdoors on a big screen set up beside our community hall. Living near the ocean, we don't get many warm summer nights, so I couldn't resist the excuse to sit outside on a Saturday evening, eating popcorn al fresco while being eaten by mosquitoes.

Before going, I made another mistake: reading only half the New York Times review of this "summer blockbuster" of a movie. "[A]n unusually good superhero picture," it said. "[A] script ... that generally chooses clever dialogue over manufactured catchphrases and lumbering exposition." "[A] crackerjack cast." Sure sounds like an adult's superhero movie, I thought, just like a 10-year-old friend had described it. This will be fun. I forgot to read about the plot.

I started squirming only a few minutes in. Violence, sex, gambling, dismissive and disrespectful relationships ... and some of my students were sitting on the grass, watching this.

The inherent "it's okay if we kill them but not if they kill us" message had me seething under my breath. But when a scene menacing torture began, I packed up my lawn chair and left. Luckily, the friend I'd carpooled with felt the same way.

Here's the thing. Just yesterday, I received by email a WorldChanging article (one I'd read months ago) about the perils of trying to get people to go green through social marketing. To make a short story even shorter, according to Dr. Tom Crompton, to create lasting change, groups working for environmental change should be targeting the intrinsic set of values that motivates the public, rather than tantalizing their extrinsic desires.

Well, Dr. Crompton fails to notice that our "intrinsic set of values" has been manipulated by Hollywood, Madison Avenue and Big Money interests who benefit every time we're made to want things we don't have. Our society's new default values are greed, selfishness, get-the-other-guy-first, and bigger is way better.

These "new" values (which used to be called sins) are drummed into our heads and hearts, both consciously and subliminally, every time we watch TV or sit through a Hollywood movie.

Wondering how you can help save the Earth, the future, and the children? Turn off the TV and boycott Hollywood schlock. Create your own entertainment (human beings did that for thousands and thousands of years!), and determine your own intrinsic values.

You know, stuff like Thou shalt not kill (even on screen), the Golden Rule, and reverence for all life.

And if you've seen some movies that promote Earth-friendly and life-affirming values, please send me their titles. I'm thinking of making a new webpage to help parents and teachers choose books and movies that are part of the solution instead of promulgating the problem.

Environmental Health as Backdrop to the Green Curriculum Model

Environmental health and ecosystem health serve as the backdrop of the green curriculum model because everything we do as educators should contribute to the health of our students.

Arts for the Earth

Art holds the power to transform. Where do music, theatre, dance and the visual arts intersect with environmental education? How can they contribute to a future that sustains life?

Sustainable Family Development - Helping Families Go Green

So many environmental efforts are aimed at individuals, but isn't the family a primary unit of change in our society? Sustainable family development helps families develop "green" competencies.

About Us

GreenHeart Education is Julie Johnston and Peter Carter, a teacher and a doctor, who together have over 35 years experience in the environmental / sustainability field.

The Future Generations Party — An Economic and Political Solution

Educational solutions to the sustainability crisis are important, but not enough. Our economic system needs transforming, and our political systems need to be reminded that future generations matter.

References for Barriers and Enticements to Environmental Learning and Action

A list of the references for a literature review on barriers and enticements to environmental learning and action, as part of a master's degree in (environmental) adult education.

Enticements to Sustainability and Environmental Learning and Action

Enticements to sustainability are the cultural, psychosocial and educational ways to inspire and motivate environmental learning and action.

Environmental Education Enticements to Sustainability Learning and Action

Environmental education enticements are the ways we teach about the Earth that lead to deeper, transformative learning and action.

Learning Enticements to Sustainability and Environmental Learning and Action

How we teach our students, both children and adults, can serve as learning enticements that motivate them to embrace sustainability and take environmental action.

Integration as an Ecological Teaching Tool

Integration of sustainability learning into the rest of the curriculum is an ecological teaching tool that counters the dangers of reductionism.

Psychosocial Enticements to Sustainability and Environmental Learning and Action

Psychosocial enticements to sustainability are those internal and personal enticements that stem from an individual's beliefs, attitudes, values, motivations, and rewards.

Cultural Enticements to Sustainability and Environmental Learning and Action

Cultural enticements are collective, society-level invitations and motivators to sustainability and environmental learning and action, such as a transformative shift in our Western worldview.

Global Warming as the Overarching Focus of Curriculum

Global warming must become the focus of curriculum. In order to prepare students for their carbon-constrained future, they must learn about climate change and renewable energy technologies.

Do Ostriches Really Stick Their Heads in the Sand -- Like Humans Do?

Just wrapped up our community's Earth Day activities, which were postponed a month ago due to a freak snow storm in April! The twentieth anniversary of our annual beach clean up was held this morning (run by a wonderful friend of mine), then Earth music (by some great local musicians) and a round table discussion on local solutions to global climate change, all on the "green" at our little island plaza. We invited reps from several different community groups/sectors to present their ideas.

There was a good crowd at the plaza -- until we started talking about climate change, that is. People just drifted away then. So sad. Both climate change and our aversion to hearing about it, learning about it, solving it.

How do ostriches breathe with their heads stuck in the sand? I remember hearing that they don't really do that. But we humans sure do.

As you'll see in my section on Barriers (and specifically Psychosocial Barriers), the human brain shuts down if it can't conceive a positive future.

So what does that mean for mitigating global warming and climate change? It seems to mean that most people see the situation as hopeless. (They're not conceiving a positive future, so they deny the problem or simply turn away from it.)

Here's the irony. All the solutions we need already exist. We just have to implement them. (Renewable energy technologies, a new economic system that internalizes environmental and social costs, stopping the burning of all fossil fuels, a 21st century curriculum for sustainability ....)

But it's hard to even get people to attend an event like the one we held today, let alone stay and listen to the solutions (after they've listened to the music).

But maybe, just maybe, if we keep talking, keep sharing these solutions, we'll hear those popping sounds of people pulling their heads out of the sand, ready to listen. They'll rejoice that the solutions exist, and get on with saving the future for their children and grandchildren.