#395: Hansard Debate

Thanks to Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett via the GCSE Natural History twitter feed for sending a link to this Hansard debate.

Questions were asked about the GCSE Natural History and what progress was being made towards it. Search under Natural History / Geography to find some interesting statements and quotes:

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

We have inherited a disastrous set of values and attitudes towards the environment, with thinking that goes back a long way and which we have adopted into our intellectual tradition. It includes the great chain of
being, which is the concept that human beings are some kind of pinnacle of life, and the idea that the whole complexity of life on earth—the living system that James Lovelock identified as Gaia, which has evolved over billions of years—is there for us as a species, under our control and for our exploitation.

The 21st century has exposed that for the dangerous fallacy it is, with the climate emergency, the nature crisis and the poisoning of our planet with novel entities; six of the nine planetary boundaries have been exceeded. We know that there are other intellectual traditions and other ways of looking at the world, which are attracting attention from our scientists and researchers. For example, I note that, across many African religions, there is the concept of ukama, which states that animals are part of a community with humans; it emphasises mutual dependence, a sense of unity and, at least sometimes, a moral imperative of respect.

Shared via OGL (Open Government License)

#38: Thought for the Day

These will be added intermittently.

It's also worth using these as provocations for discussions. 

One would hope that as students take part in the course, they will be collecting information such as this as part of their wider reading.

"Biodiversity loss is as catastrophic as climate change and our own research has shown the UK to be one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world.

Combatting biodiversity loss by supporting children and young people in England to transform their education space for wildlife will be a significant step in addressing the planetary emergency as well as empowering young people to take action, connect with nature and become Advocates for the Planet."

Dr Doug Gurr, Director of the Natural History Museum