The Millennium Children and their 2030 Future
On this website, the term "Millennium Children" refers specifically to those born in the year 1982. This representative cohort was the first to reach the age of adult majority (18 years) in the year 2000, the beginning of the new millennium. They have already faced economic difficulties but as a result of environmental degradation these are likely to get worse, not better, as they approach the age of retirement. The future for their own children is frighteningly uncertain but values reorientation determined by economic realities will dominate it.
Global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security is the title of the UK governments consequent national security assessment.
As of 2023, six boundaries have been crossed: (1) biosphere integrity (including biodiversity loss); (2) climate change; (3) land use change; (4) freshwater change; (5) nutrient flows (nitrogen and phosphorus); and (6) novel entities (chemical and plastic pollution)". (UK Government National Security Assessment, P7)
"There is a realistic possibility that coral reefs in SE Asia and boreal forests will start to collapse from 2030 . . .Restoration of some ecosystems (tropical forests) is more feasible than others (coral reefs, Himalayas)". (UK Government National Security Assessment, P7)
What else does it say? Click for short summary
So, are we "on a highway to hell with our foot on the accelerator"?
António Guterres Secretary General of the United Nations.
​
Is Guterres right? Read Time and the Anthropocentrism Trap and decide for yourself.
​
Then reflect upon this:
​​
-
How will we know we have got there?
 |
|---|
 |
 |
 |
​
-
The project built an Earthkeepers' Training Site and a Sustainability Laboratory.
-
It ran FutureWorld energy courses where pupils set a "fair price" electricity through generating it by small scale renewables. They learned that boiling a kettle used energy equivalent to lifting their own weight a height of 50m. (Kilve Court, 1995-2000).
-
It received the Worldwide Fund for Nature Curriculum Management Award.
-
Pupils marooned on Flat Holm were found hording water under their beds in genuine panic because they had to pay for everything in island currency and water is expensive. A real eye opener!
Flat Holm Island in the Bristol Channel was an ideal location to teach children principles of sustainability base upon value.
Marooning groups of ten twelve-year-olds there for five days at a time was probably the highlight of the project.
Why did the Sustainable Millennium Project fail?
Many reasons might be given, but the most concise answer comes from page 208 of my thesis.
​
-
Children are socialised into an anthropocentric culture in which resources are committed to to environmental protection or sustainability only when demands for high levels of service in areas such as health and education have first been satisfied.
-
Children have, in general, acquired the values of this culture by the age of eleven.
​
Click the journal on the left to see an article that demonstrates the truth of this conclusion.​​
Key Publications
​
​2026. Speeding Down the Highway to Hell: Could it have been different? Evaluating the potential contribution of Rudolf Steiner’s teachings for a sustainable millennium. Bloomsbury Handbook of Steiner Waldorf Education, forthcoming 2026.
​
2010. Behaviour Change and Environmental Citizenship: A case for spiritual development? International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, 5(2), 131–145. https://doi.org/10.1080/713670914
​
(2008) Here's what you must think about nuclear power: Grappling with the spiritual ground of children's judgement inside and outside Steiner Waldorf education, International Journal of Children's Spirituality, 13 (1), 65 – 74.
​
(2006) Finding the right kind of awe and wonder: the metaphysical potential of religion to ground an environmental ethic, Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 11, 88 – 99.
​
(2005) Tensions between indoctrination and the development of judgement: The case against early closure, Environmental Education Research, 11 (2), 187 - 197.
​
(2000) Science: an unreliable friend to environmental education?, Environmental Education Research, 6 (3), 265 - 276.
​
(1999) Sustainability and the humanities. In. M. Ashley (ed) Improving Teaching and Learning in the Humanities. London: Falmer. 184 -203.
​
(1998) Economics, environment and the loss of innocence. In N. Clough and C. Holden Children as Citizens, London: Jessica Kingsley, 176 – 182.
​
(1998) Value as a Reason for Action in Environmental Education. Unpublished PhD thesis, Bristol: University of the West of England.
​
​