Slowly catching up to the millennia old customs of many indigenous societies, the dominant cultures within the industrialized world are seemingly on a path towards more sustainability. Despite the green movement’s imperfection, its many flaws, setbacks, and confusing interpretations about what this transition to sustainability really entails as well as where it ultimately will take us, we can all see signs of this process. Particularly, when we look at education, it is quite noticeable that many of the classic majors are now paired with terms such as sustainable, eco and green in an attempt to reflect a more interdisciplinary approach to teaching considering environmental and social components in its curriculum.
In the GDD’s vision, the time will come when this labeling won’t be necessary anymore. One day, it will be considered universal common sense that accounting for the impacts of our actions on a finite global environment as well as on our brothers and sisters is the prerequisite to a higher standard of living for everyone. The earth is one big complex system in which everything is connected, one way or another. Below is a chart that will help demonstrate this new and interconnected approach to meet 21st Century challenges.
Majors for the Future: |
Majors of the Past: |
 Permaculture:
Permaculture is sustainable land use design.
This is based on ecological and biological principles, often using patterns that occur in nature to maximize effect while minimizing wasted energy.
Permaculture aims to create stable, productive systems that provide for human needs, harmoniously integrating the land with its inhabitants. |
Agriculture:
Agriculture is the [conventional] cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. “Conventional (as well as industrialized) agriculture is human centered, focused primarily on yields, thus neglects the relationship between people and natural systems. It therefore does not offer answers to our current challenges.” |
| Green Building:
Green Building (also known as green construction or sustainable building) refers to a structure and using process that is environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building’s life-cycle: from siting to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation, and demolition.
This practice expands and complements the classical building design concerns of economy, utility, durability, and comfort. |
Architecture:
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art. Historical civilizations are often identified with their surviving architectural achievements. “Classic Architecture is far too often disconnected from the long-term needs of social and environmental systems.” |
| Climate Change:
Climate Change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years.
It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average (e.g., more or fewer extreme weather events).
Climate change may be limited to a specific region or may occur across the whole Earth. |
Climatology:
Climatology is the study of climate, scientifically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of time, and is a branch of the atmospheric sciences. […] Climate models are used for a variety of purposes from study of the dynamics of the weather and climate system to projections of future climate. “Classic Climatology may not be suitable to consider the practical implications of 21st Century climate challenges.” |
| Conservation Biology:
Conservation Biology is the scientific study of the nature and status of Earth’s biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction.
It is an interdisciplinary subject drawing on sciences, economics, and the practice of natural resource management. |
Biology:
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy.
“Classic Biology is basic knowledge for many disciplines. However, it may not be suitable to provide answers to today’s issues.” |
| Sustainable Management:
Sustainable Management takes the concepts from sustainability and synthesizes them with the concepts of management. Sustainability has three branches: the environment, the needs of present and future generations, and the economy.
Using these branches, it creates the ability to keep a system running indefinitely without depleting resources, maintaining economic viability, and also nourishing the needs of the present and future generations. |
Business Management:
Management in all business and organizational activities is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively.
“The short-falls of the classic Business Management major have contributed to the many global challenges we are facing today. It remains ignorant to the fact that a business operation is an organic entity connected and dependent upon social and natural systems within a finite world.” |
| Green Chemistry:
Green Chemistry, also called sustainable chemistry, is a philosophy of chemical research and engineering that encourages the design of products and processes that minimize the use and generation of hazardous substances.
Whereas environmental chemistry is the chemistry of the natural environment, and of pollutant chemicals in nature, green chemistry seeks to reduce and prevent pollution at its source |
Chemistry:
Chemistry is […] concerned with the composition, behavior (or reaction), structure, and properties of matter, as well as the changes it undergoes during chemical reactions. “While again this major is essential for a wide array of professions, this planet is in dire need for chemists who consider the systemic impacts of their creations as well as are capable of identifying non-hazardous alternatives.” |
| Ecological Economics:
Ecological Economics is a transdisciplinary field of academic research that aims to address the interdependence and coevolution of human economies and natural ecosystems over time and space.
It is distinguished from environmental economics, which is the mainstream economic analysis of the environment, by its treatment of the economy as a subsystem of the ecosystem and its emphasis upon preserving natural capital. |
Economics:
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Current economic models emerged from the broader field of political economy in the late 19th century. “The neoclassical economic model is about as wrong about the world as the ancient and disproved assumption that the Earth is flat. The world needs people who understand that all human made systems are subsystems of natural systems.” |
| Renewable Energy:
Renewable Energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable (naturally replenished). “…renewable within a human time frame.” |
Energy Management:
Energy Management is the control of energy [to benefit human made systems]. “In a classic sense EM is focused on systems using oil, gas, nuclear and hydropower. Dwindling resources and the global climate need regenerative solutions.” |
| Ecological Engineering:
Ecological Engineering is an emerging study of integrating ecology and engineering, concerned with the design, monitoring and construction of ecosystems.
According to Mitsch (1996) “the design of sustainable ecosystems intends to integrate human society with its natural environment for the benefit of both.” |
Engineering:
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of people. “Its application has failed this mission…” |
| Environmental Geology:
Environmental Geology, like hydrogeology, is an applied science concerned with the practical application of the principles of geology in the solving of environmental problems. |
Geology:
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth and the processes by which it evolves. “Be part of the solution. All science majors will have to become more practical. The environment needs help now.” |
| Environmental Health:
Environmental Health is the branch of public health that is concerned with all aspects of the natural and built environment that may affect human health. “You are what you eat and (environmental) design defines your (life-) style.” |
Health Care:
Health Care […] is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in humans. “Consider the impacts living and working in unhealthy environments…” |
| Green IT:
Green computing or Green IT, refers to environmentally sustainable computing or IT.
San Murugesan defines the field of green computing as “the study and practice of designing, manufacturing, using, and disposing of computers, servers, and associated subsystems […] efficiently and effectively with minimal or no impact on the environment”. |
Information Technology:
Information Technology (IT) is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications. “By its classic definition, this view ignores the fact that any technological solution depends on a functioning natural system…” |
| Environmental Justice:
Environmental justice (EJ) is “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, sex, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. |
Law:
Law is a system of rules and guidelines, usually enforced through a set of institutions. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. “Only the environment is above the law…” |
| Ecopsychology:
Ecopsychology connects psychology and ecology. The political and practical implications are to show humans ways of healing alienation and to build a sane society and a sustainable culture. “…a more holistic approach to behavior.” |
Psychology:
Psychology is the science of behavior and mental processes. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. “Isn’t it rather crazy to NOT think green?” |
| Ecotourism:
Ecotourism is responsible travel to fragile, pristine, and usually protected areas that strive to be low impact and (often) small scale (as an alternative to mass tourism).
“In this context Ecotourism is considering ecological conservation, economic development and human rights of local communities.” |
Tourism:
Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. “With the increased understanding of the interdependency of social, economic and environmental systems conscious traveling has become an opportunity to create positive change.” |
| Ecohydrology:
Ecohydrology s an interdisciplinary field studying the interactions between water and ecosystems. “Water is essential to life as we know it. Thus, understanding it’s relationship to life on earth is paramount to our survival.” |
Hydrology:
Hydrology is the study of the movement, distribution, and quality of water on Earth […]. “It is time to bring this discipline into a larger context.” |
