2 . 2 . 5 T he A bsence o f Collec ti ve Ac tion
Though some team members did discuss
capitalism, corporate power, and/or economic
growth, attention to these structural forces
seemed to slip away during their considerations
for what needs to be done. With mentor
encouragement, the writing team in Edmonton
did begin to move beyond small-scale individual
solutions to focus on the interconnections
between citizens, education systems, and
structures of government in their White Paper.
They called for schools, governments, and
youth to teach about the severity and reality of
climate change, in hopes that this will instigate a
majority of the population to care, and eventually,
to radically change government policy. Yet, they
never quite identify how the majority might go
about inducing governments to act. To us, this
absence suggested a limited understanding of
collective citizen action and organizing, indicating
an important gap in climate change education,
and the prevalence of neoliberal, individualized
understandings of climate change responsibility
in multiple cultural contexts.
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