The Ethical and Ecological Limits of Sustainability: A Decolonial Approach to Climate Change in Higher Education

Abstract

In this article, I offer a decolonial critique of the ethical and ecological limits of mainstream sustainability efforts in higher education. In doing so, I identify colonialism as the primary cause of climate change, and the primary condition of possibility for modern higher education. I further suggest that the abiding failure to address the centrality of colonialism in both climate change and higher education is not a problem of ignorance that can be solved with more information, but rather a problem of denial that is rooted in enduring investments in the continuity of existing institutions and a modern-colonial ‘habit-of-being’ (Shotwell, 2016). I argue that in order to face the ethical and ecological impossibilities of making higher education institutions sustainable, we will need to set our horizons of hope beyond the promises that they offer.