All our futures 2008 has now taken place please click here to view details for All Our Futures 2 due to take place in 2009.

      Education Waking to Threat, Hope and Possibility

           The University of Plymouth, United Kingdom

                          9 - 11 September 2008

The aim of the conference is to explore, in the context of threat to our planet, how to shape and deliver an education for sustainable futures that brings hope, possibility and transformation. All aspects and levels of education are on the conference agenda; but there is particular emphasis on the contribution to be made by the universities and other institutions of higher education.

Themes: Threat, Hope, Possibility

Threat

The threat to our planet is the overriding challenge. There is increasingly abundant and converging evidence from climate change scientists that human-induced global heating is irreversible in the foreseeable future and that, at best, a narrowing window of opportunity remains for warding off the most cataclysmic impacts on the planetary and human condition. The details cannot be predicted; but there is no longer serious doubt that the planet is facing a human-induced crisis on a scale hitherto unknown.

Hope

Responses to this threat appear in new or rekindled thinking, ideas, values and perceptions of the self and self-in-nature; also in new technologies and patterns of institutional change. This theme looks at innovations and initiatives that contribute to a safer and more sustainable future.

Possibility

Beyond threat and hope is action. This theme concentrates on ideas and case studies offering new directions towards transformation - personal, inter-personal, local, regional, national, global - analysing and celebrating achievements, critically evaluating setbacks, drawing together what we have learnt that is transferable and offers the best prospects for the future.