Richard Kahn: Toward Ecopedagogy

Richard Kahn's "Toward Ecopedagogy" is a very heavy article addressing his concerns toward environmental education and how society has developed around pressing environmental issues.  One example he provides regarding the human population and wealth distribution is "So, as approximately 1.2 billion people live on less than $1 per day and nearly 3 billion live on less than $2 per day, the roaring heights of global technocapitalism have been unfortunate indeed for nearly half of the human population."

This quote provides the staggering statistic that half of the people living on this planet live on, at best, only $2 per day.  Although some might deem this unfortunate or that the people living in poor conditions can and should be helped by donating to certain foundations or raising awareness, due to the discussion in Tuesday's class, it could also be argued that there is a system set up so that the poor exist in copious amounts for a reason.  In order to make unequal living conditions in other countries, such as the United States, look better, the Devil's Advocate of the situation would say that the "system" or the government, or whichever "Big Brother" figure is present, is having that significant poor class exist so that those living with less than the higher class in their society can think "well, at least I'm not as poor as those populations having to live off of $1 a day."