Climate Change, Environmental Refugees, and Peace Education for Building Bridges of the Heart

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Tuesday II)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Peace education around the world

Proposal

Introduction

In 2018, the temperature in North Pole has reached a historical record at 32 degree, the melting point temperature, which is about 30-35 degrees (Fahrenheit) higher than normal. The ocean warming up quickly is bringing more and more natural disasters to the earth such as powerful hurricanes, long period of drought and fire, and abnormal weather patterns. Water resources are becoming scarcer as lakes and rivers dry up. Scientists anticipate that in the next decades to come we could have 200 million environmental refugees. In anticipation of about 20 million Bangladesh refugees who may enter India due to sea level rising and people losing their homes and land, India has built a 2000 kilometers long wall along the border with Bangladesh, and the Border Security Force has the order to “shoot to kill” which has resulted in hundreds of innocent people losing their lives every year.

Just in October 2018, UN Scientists warned that the human race has less than a decade to act dramatically to reduce global temperature rise below 1.5 degree Celsius before we arrive at a point of no return. No longer is it enough to simply meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, of which if all were met would leave emitting 58 gigatons of CO2 in 2030 (Del Bello, 2018). Reduction of emissions to at least 38 gigatons is necessary to prevent the temperature rise of above 1.5 degrees (Del Bello, 2018). It is time for peace educators to be ready to act as conflicts at local, regional, and global levels can flare up due to the environmental disasters and fighting for control over resources. Scientists warn that a 2.0-degree increase in temperature would bring radically increased rates of heat waves and vector-borne diseases like dengue fever and malaria. We as peace educators have a major role to play. More than ever that we need to learn to work together.

Using the existing division between Pakistan and Bangladesh, the authors will explain how we can use a bridge of the heart as a metaphor and as a tool for us as educators to come together for the greater good. The wall between the two countries is not only physical but of an ideological one too. However, using a bridge of the heart as a framework we can employ the power of peace education to activate our capacity for compassion and care for one another.

Main Perspectives and Methodology

Humanity has great capacity for compassion. We need to prepare people and younger generations to be ready to give our hands when a home is washed away; to open our doors to receive people rather than building a wall or fence to keep them away. Peace education has an incredible role to play in the next decades to come. Peace educators need to cultivate a shared identity of our common destiny; to see all people and other life as capable of working together for our mutual survival. Presently education has focused on cultivating the mind’s analytical ability but has neglected its role in nurturing compassion and empathy. Attributes such as compassion and resilience are essential to equipping historically disadvantaged groups such as women to emancipate themselves and their communities (Mainlay & Tan, 2012).

We posit that instead of building walls, peace educators are effective agents in building bridges of the heart between communities to empathize and to assist each other. Using a combination of case studies and scholarly inquiry, we will demonstrate the need and effect of compassion and resilience in bring communities together. We believe rising above preexisting strife or conflicts and finding ways to work together based on our common humanity is critical for our survival. Natural disasters are blind to national borders; we must also be blind to it when aiding others. Peace educators need to develop both philosophical arguments and practical curricular contents to facilitate our society moving toward embracing the notion of our common destiny.

We will highlight practices that create a force of recovery for all communities engaged, and that it can set precedent for future generations. Our examination will also signify the importance of local, regional and global emergency preparedness, regardless of national or ideological identity. Creating the sense of urgency and agency is part of peace education’s mandate.
Bridging the heart is needed at a micro level too. We will discuss how the bridge of the heart can be an emancipatory force in left behind demographics as more able-bodied workers migrate elsewhere. Using the left behind communities in Nepal, we will examine how women from differing economic levels and communities have put aside differences to come together. They have used climate change and other environmental disasters as an emancipatory force. Like the prior example, this is important for the precedence set. It will remain as a pathway for education and entrepreneurship for future generations.

Methodology

We combine a range of case studies and philosophical inquiries in the paper. We delve on the philosophical issue of our capacity to care; we use qualitative research methods to examine cases, drawing from primary and secondary sources. Examples from Nepal, China, the United States are drawn upon.

Significance

Peace education will have a great role to play due to environmental disasters and the dwindling of resources which can engender conflicts, huge loss of life, and longtime suffering. Building on the idea of bridging our hearts and having a common destiny on the same boat, we posit peace education should advocate for people reaching out to help each other and to share resources and opportunities, and to empower the historically disadvantaged groups to play major roles.

Reference:

Del Bello, L. (2018, August 10). UN gives 12-year deadline to crush climate change [News]. Retrieved October 14, 2018, from http://www.scidev.net/index.cfm?originalUrl=/global/climate-change/news/un-gives-12-year-deadline-to-crush-climate-change.html&

Mainlay, J., & Tan, S. F. (2012). Mainstreaming gender and climate change in Nepal, 24. Source: http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/10033IIED.pdf

Authors

• Jing Lin, University of Maryland

• Ayush Pokharel, University of Maryland