John Foran is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a member of EJ/CJ, the Environmental and Climate Justice Studies Research Hub at UCSB’s Orfalea Center for Global & International Studies.
Introduction
T eaching about the climate crisis can be devastating to students if we focus only on the grim facts. What if, in every course, we could teach ways to confront the climate crisis as well?
In a way, that is what the NXTerra project is all about, as are our individual Topics.
I follow along these lines in my Topic page on Climate Justice Movements, which shows students that there are others around the world who are confronting the crisis in fresh and exciting ways, and that our students can not only learn about these movements, they can join in and create new ones as well.
A second and for me crucial approach is to show students that there are attractive alternatives to the way things are at present—holistic blueprints and actual, real-life case studies, exciting theoretical systems, and powerful political strategies for social transformation. Among them are such paradigms and practices as:
- Degrowth
- Commoning and the Peer to Peer process
- Buen Vivir and the Rights of Mother Earth
- Ecovillages
- Transition Towns
- Ecosocialism and ecofeminism
- The Green New Deal
Some of the questions that can be discussed with students and others include:
- Is capitalism the root cause of the climate crisis?
- Are there different forms of economy or ways of living that might be better than how we live at present? If so, what do they look and feel like, how do they work? What are their strengths and weaknesses?
- What might be some of the strategies for achieving these systemic alternatives? Is it possible to do so in time to fully face the crisis?
- What sorts of alternatives have non-scholars, journalists, creative writers, and others fashioned, and how might they be of value to our actions in the “real” world? Some of this is introduced under the Topic of “Climate Fiction” elsewhere on this site.
Another space for systematic alternatives is comprised by the many areas and sectors where new ideas are being tried, such as permaculture and regenerative agro-ecology, renewable energy and reduced consumption of all forms of energy, deeper and more participatory democracy, and circular local economies, among others.
Both of the above approaches and all of these critical questions (and many others!) make up, for me, the Topic of “Systemic Alternatives,” and this part of the website will show you how I (and eventually other teachers) have been working in this broad, almost limitless area.
Ways to get started
I have prepared a short overview of most of the topics involved as a class handout: Systemic Alternatives: Notes on Transition Towns, Degrowth, Buen Vivir, Ecosocialism and How to Get There.
For good overviews of the topic, you can consult my undergraduate syllabus for Sociology 130SD: The World in 2050: Systemic Alternatives, or my graduate course of the same name, Sociology 265.
For superb book-length introductions to the topic, there is the aptly named compilation Systemic Alternatives, which you can read here, and Pluriverse: A Post-development Dictionary, both of which I use in my classes.
There are fascinating websites to explore, and to get a sense of the creativity and vision that exists around these issues, and some these can be found below.
I also include a number of bibliographies with readings on particular systemic alternatives which can both help teachers grasp the topic better, and serve as readings for students. Where possible, these are annotated by myself.
In addition to syllabi, teaching ideas, websites, videos, and readings, the last section of this Topic is devoted to an actual systemic alternative which my students and I engage in both inside and outside the classroom, a project we call Eco Vista. We hope that this might inspire other teachers and learning communities to create their own real-world systemic alternatives.
Please contact me at foran@soc.ucsb.edu if you have any feedback, if you want to contribute to this Topic, or if you’d like to be part of a network of educators involved in this kind of work with their students.
Let’s have fun trying to change the world with our students and communities!
— Updated March 5, 2021
