By: Rebecca Theodore
May 23, 2023
Ecological citizenship encourages individuals, communities and organizations as citizens of the world, to consider environmental rights and responsibilities.
Ecological citizenship practices on the other hand, involve a heterogenous range of actions, tools, consumer behaviour, goods, and services, which are assumed to have a positive, or negative impact on the environment.
Despite the fact, that, the United Nations sustainable development goals agenda addresses systemic barriers to sustainable development such as inequality, unsustainable consumption patterns, weak institutional capacity and environmental degradation; ecological citizenship is also a contributing factor to environmental progress.
More significantly, the public policy discourses and programs on eco- citizenship of the United Nations sustainability development agenda should not only be associated with institutional actions and material contexts—
Because ecological citizenship is also a sense of belonging.
In Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the sense of ‘belongingness’ is part of one of the major needs that motivate human behavior.
Belonging is a fundamental right and a linking to place, power, and purpose. “The experience of belonging is about connectedness through community, as well as rootedness in a place, a feeling of ownership in shared outcomes, and a sense of mission with others.”
Thus, the need to belong is universal and central.
Still, political scientist Benedict Anderson contends, that nation and citizenship are an “imagined community.” This means that nation and citizenship are powerful tools and categories for feelings of belonging and dis-belonging in the ecological citizenship sustainability narrative.
Following from this, it must be seen, that, this ‘imagined community’ of the nation is becoming more pronounced and apparent since its days at the portals of the Industrial Revolution. Therefore, a bridge to greater empathy and inclusion of marginalized groups must be built in the understanding to ecological citizenship and sustainability.
At the same time, the sovereignty of indigenous and African people should not be erased for the purposes of furthering the anthems of this new imagined community. Ecological citizenship and sustainability should not be further used as tools of indigenous genocide, dispossession, and mental and psychological enslavement to justify this ‘imagined community’ in a new post covid world.
Instead, this new imagined community should give all citizens the knowledge and skills needed to promote ecological citizenship and sustainable development.
Comparatively, historical records dictate, that, when social conditions change, some aspects of citizenship issues change with them.
Hence, the United Nations sustainable development goals agenda must become embedded in the social, political, environmental, and economic actions of globally minded individuals and communities. The United Nations Sustainable Development goals agenda must begin to shape strategies towards understanding ecological citizenship and sustainability, and to allow individuals to embrace their social responsibility to act for the benefit of all societies. The question of what “belonging” means in the ecological citizenship and sustainable chronicle, must now force the United Nations sustainability development goals agenda to address our shared humanity together.
Even as the liberalist thought is titled on human rights, and the right to a healthy environment, civic-republicans continue to maintain, that, the environment is a collective good. Simultaneously, the global environmental problems of climate change demands attention. The hostile effects of rising sea levels, changing weather patterns and life-threatening weather events, clearly show, that, countries must reduce their level of greenhouse gas emissions, and use carbon taxes to raise revenue, as a means to environmental protection and sustainability.
If ecological citizenship in sustainable development is also an incorporation of the private sphere into the political realm, then, the political space of ecological citizenship is also the behaviour of citizens, and the way in which it affects others negatively.
Hereto, the main reason for ecological citizenship is a responsibility to minimise negative ecological impact on others.
The affluent in the developed world, must begin to ensure social justice for those in the developing world, who are affected by their living standards and lifestyles, actions and behaviors. The conspicuous consumption and socio-economic behaviors practiced by rich people, are giving rise to a consumer society, and the increase in the types of goods and services that are necessary to, and for the lives of the poor and working class, to execute their environmental responsibilities effectively.
Subsequently, eradicating poverty by the United Nations sustainability agenda in all its forms and proportions is a requisite requirement for eco-citizenship and sustainable development. However, social inclusion generates greater opportunities for all. Reduction of inequalities and environmental protection and responsibility must also be interconnected for the well-being of individuals and societies.
Rebecca Theodore is an international journalist based in NYC. She writes on the platform of national security, politics, human rights and climate change. She can be reached at rebethd@aol.com
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