Mother Pelican Vol. 22, No. 1 brings together critical insights on education and societal transformation amid ecological limits. The collection follows a familiar but potent structure—
See ~ Judge ~ Act—that exposes the stark reality of overshoot, explores its moral and psychological contours, and gestures toward nascent pathways for collective response. Yet, when the issue is read as a whole, a series of tensions emerge, demanding urgent clarification about
how education can prepare societies to endure limits without fracture.
SEEING: Limits Are No Longer Abstract
The Seeing section unequivocally confirms that the material basis of growth has been breached. John Mulrow anchors degrowth as a biophysical imperative, confronting the uncomfortable truth that economies have outgrown planetary limits. Ugo Bardi’s recalibration of the World3 simulation model reinforces this diagnosis, showing that overshoot dominates global trajectories. Gail Tverberg clarifies the mechanics: modern economies are propped on promises of future goods that planetary systems cannot sustain.
Thorsten Daubenfeld warns of a “Seneca Cliff” threatening global democracy, while Trenz Pruca suggests systemic collapse may arrive far sooner than mainstream discourse admits. Vlad Bunea’s interrogation of equality under contraction highlights the uneven terrain on which any post-growth future will unfold. Kirsten Stade and the duo C.J. Polychroniou and Alexandra Boutri reveal how power, faced with limits, doubles down on extraction and authoritarianism rather than restraint.
This section’s clarity demands acknowledgment: the growth economy is colliding with physical boundaries, and denial is no longer tenable.
JUDGING: The Crisis Is Moral, Psychological, and Political
Building on this diagnosis, the Judging section explores the ethical and cultural dimensions of contraction. Richard Heinberg’s analysis of energy prices and William E. Rees’s argument for inevitable terminal overshoot dismantle residual faith in techno-fixes or smooth transitions. Art Berman’s critique of the renewable dream further erodes hope for substitution maintaining growth dynamics.
Lyle Lewis underscores the need for collective emotional regulation, framing calm not as individual virtue but social survival skill. Robert Jensen’s examination of patriarchy reveals cultural denial and domination as responses to loss of control. Reynard Loki foregrounds women’s leadership as key to resilience and environmental stewardship, while Helena Norberg-Hodge and Henry Coleman root sustainability in local, relational food systems.
A notable tension emerges: emotional formation and pedagogies of grief remain implicit rather than explicit. Post-growth is a condition of sustained loss and uncertainty, not a short crisis. Education that fails to address these affects risks producing informed yet emotionally destabilized societies.
ACTING: Education in a World of Limits
The Acting section, featuring Ted Trainer, Nilgün Cevher Kalburan, Reynard Loki, and others, points toward actionable insights. Trainer’s Education in a Sustainable and Just Society insists education must foreground sufficiency, cooperation, and simplicity—capacities not of expansion but of survival under constraint. Nilgün Cevher Kalburan’s research on early childhood education demonstrates resilience as a relational capacity grounded in care, emotional regulation, and mutual support—capacities that must be extended to adult learning.
Reynard Loki’s work with indigenous and environmental defenders reveals the real-world stakes and risks inherent in acting under contraction. Adam Parsons’s moral challenge to the global community regarding hunger further grounds post-growth ethics in urgent human needs.
Before concluding, it is crucial to insert a focused pedagogical framing that synthesizes these contributions and offers practical guidance.
Pedagogy of Crisis: A Short Guide for Action
Education under ecological overshoot cannot aim at progress or continuous improvement. Its task shifts toward containment: of expectations, consumption, conflict, and fear. This pedagogy answers to the altered horizon of post-growth.
Following Ted Trainer, education must normalize sufficiency rather than success. Modest material expectations, shared provisioning, and cooperation are not ideals but necessities for continuity.
Nilgün Cevher Kalburan’s work reminds us that resilience is a relational capacity learned through care, patience, and mutual support. Extending this to adult education emphasizes collective endurance in scarcity.
William E. Rees underscores the biophysical reality: overshoot demands literacy in limits—accepting non-negotiable ecological constraints without denial or misplaced optimism.
Finally, the pedagogy embraces an ethic of emergency. When voluntary restraint fails, imposed limits follow. Learners must engage with dilemmas of rationing and prioritization, not to achieve consensus but to maintain social cohesion and dignity.
In practical terms, this means participatory learning through simulations, community deliberations, and ethical reflection on sacrifice and fairness. It prepares not for harmony, but for endurance without social collapse.
Such education also challenges the illusion sustained by carbon accounting and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) metrics that growth can continue if measured better. The pedagogy instead fosters acceptance of hard limits.
Closing Reflection
Viewed as a whole, this issue underscores a stark reality: education for post-growth is not a straightforward solution but a condition of possibility for collective survival.
It will not make the transition just or peaceful by default. Yet it may prevent total social fragmentation. It will not preserve abundance, but it may preserve dignity.
If the transition from growth to post-growth is truly a crisis of biblical proportions, education may not be the ark that preserves civilization intact. It may be the fragile vessel teaching enough people how to live with imposed limits—so that something recognizably human endures beyond growth.
What remains unresolved is whether adult education can nurture the shared moral grounding, mutual care, and collective wisdom required for communities to face ecological limits together, when growth ends and endurance becomes a common task rather than a private struggle.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Luis Antonio González Santos is Associate Professor of Public Administration and Accounting, Faculty of Economic Sciences, National University of Colombia, and director of the Accounting Observatory. His research focuses on critical accounting, environmental governance, and sustainability, with an emphasis on the genealogical method. He has contributed to international debates on education for sustainability and socio-ecological transitions.
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