When I start a new semester of teaching, I don a t-shirt that has one word on the front: “unlearn.” The word is printed from right to left, so that it only becomes clear when you look in the mirror. On the back of the shirt it says (also in reverse), “This may be difficult to grasp but reversing our thought processes might just be the key to happiness.” The message I want to convey to my students is that to move sustainbility forward, it is necessary to question some of the values, beliefs and social norms we take for granted.
