Initial considerations

The socio-environmental problems, faced by contemporary society, are not limited to issues relating exclusively to the environment, since that it is not only a cultural or behavioral difficulty but a crisis in the civilization model associated with the logic of capitalist production.

The expansion of capitalist production is linked to unlimited economic growth which burdens the use of natural resources and the capacity to support life on the planet. In this context, nature is transformed by human beings⁴ through their activities and these, at the moment they do not have a rational organization, exploit natural resources until their exhaustion, triggering, from the latter, several catastrophes.

Thus, the current system makes humans ignore the ecological links, not realizing, yet, the need to reformulate the relations between socioeconomic dynamics and natural phenomena. Regarding this discussion, ^{Leff (2000}) reflects that the crisis in the civilization model "[...] not only manifests itself in the destruction of the physical and biological environment, but also in the degradation of the quality of life, both in rural and urban areas" (^{LEFF, 2000}, p. 41).

However, it is believed that it is not enough to review only the links between human beings and nature, but it is necessary to constitute a new look at the relations between subjects, relations that are impaired at the moment they reflect irrational attitudes and behaviors, for destructive domination becomes the basis of these, having its origin in historically constituted power bonds.

Approaching the field of environmental education, the intentionality of the text here presented, based on qualitative research of bibliographic ground, is problematizing from the assumptions of Paulo Freire and Enrique Dussel the categories dialogue, alterity, dialectic, and limit-situation, in which mediate and generate transformative actions in and with the world, reflecting on the practices of these actions.

The text is described as follows: Respect for life - is reflected, despite the context of critical environmental education, on the exercise of a wander in which human beings move dialectically, driven by the word of the Other, towards a new life project; The role of education in the face of the socio-environmental crisis - there is a discussion about the presence in the education of social praxis as a process of reflection on life and nature, in what implies the contribution of how to transform reality; Socio-cultural inequalities and environmental education - reflections are made on how, through critical environmental education, it is possible to confront the manipulation and effects produced by the civilization model in progress. After dealing with these aspects, the final considerations follow.

Respect for life

In the work of Paulo Freire, by the dialogical relationship, subjectivity is converted into human subjectivity, at the moment when it denotes the importance to the human being and dialogue is not based on pure reason, but on the possibility of hearing the Other. The same author reflects on the creation of spaces for the exercise of the action of approaching and knowing the subjects, providing an atmosphere of intimacy between them, such that in this relationship the whole human being is constituted with the Other, with identity, and not as unknown.

Therefore, we reflect on the importance of compliance and respect concerning the Other, as founding principles of a relationship. ^{Freire (2014}), in the book Pedagogy of indignation, adds that in addition to reverence human life one must also revere life "[...] vegetable and animal, care for things, the taste of beauty, feelings" (^{FREIRE, 2014}, p. 77). Thus, he sums up the need for human beings to fight for fundamental ethical principles such as respect for human life, animals, and the environment, calling on everyone to develop the capacity to love the world⁵.

From this perspective, Freire reflects that ecology⁶ is of fundamental importance and that it should be present in critical and liberating educational practices, because this refers to the action of problematizing the relations between living beings and, still, those with the environment. Such a conception of studying the relations of beings with and in the world implies analyzing the social, cultural, political, and economic aspects.

Likewise, the concern for life is also present in the work of Enrique Dussel. For this author, if there is a history of the world there is also a history of nature, and this for European modernity, together with work and capital were the constituents of the origin of civilizing progress. With this, nature remains economically exploited since the Industrial Revolution, and "[...] politically interpreted; is hermeneutically visualized from the center or the periphery, from the various social classes, from the political systems mainly as a matter of a mode of production in a socially determined formation" (^{DUSSEL, 1977}, p. 114-115).

In line with colonial expansion, when power was divided between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, which gradually imposed itself by the force of capital, it has become clear that the promise of modernity was directed to the subjects of Western Europe, representatives of these two classes.

The colonization of the new continents by the Europeans was drenched by this hierarchical conception, in which the colonized peoples were treated as if they were inferior beings, contributing to the structuring of a social order of inequalities and injustices that are perpetuated to the present day. This situation spreads in the same way to the environmental field, producing the situation that the environmental crisis takes on different dimensions for the different social classes, affecting, more drastically, the poorest countries and the disadvantaged classes.

Respect for the life of the disadvantaged classes makes it necessary to think of radical changes which form the basis of the construction of another corporate model to eliminate the mechanisms responsible for inequalities and injustices, such as economic exploitation, the concentration of income among many other factors that accompany the processes of private appropriation of material goods.

For ^{Layrargues (2006}), it is necessary to build an ecologically judicious and responsible society and, still, socially just, having dialectics as a strategy of mediation between social change and cultural change. However, the author emphasizes that change is only possible at the moment when one takes into account the society of which one is part because the values are "[...] defined from specific historical conditions, inserted in a dialectical world of mutual constitution between objectivity and subjectivity" (^{LAYRARGUES, 2006}, p. 13).

Another point that deserves to be highlighted is the exercise of reflecting on the environmental problem in an articulated way with the totality of the dimensions of society, because the lack of articulation results in a dualistic view of the world, in which "[...] the struggle for the protection of nature stands out as something hierarchically priority over the struggle for justice and social equality, rather than being perceived as intrinsically linked" (^{LAYRARGUES, 2006}, p. 14).

The understanding of the relations between objectivity and subjectivity for ^{Freire (1980}, 2011, 2014) is dialectical, not mechanical, in the sense of constituting thinking and acting in reality so that it can be transformed. Under these conditions, the author cannot accept subjectivity in an idealistic way, in which the force of consciousness would be a condition to modify the world, nor even from a mechanistic point of view, in which subjectivity would represent the reflection of material conditions, such that by transforming objectivity subjectivity would have changed.

From this perspective, it is understood that environmental education cannot be restricted to the contradictions of reality, but considering its ethical dimension politics must be at the service of contributing to the solution of the problems generated by the civilization model underway, at a time when the capitalist system threatens the survival of all.

Thus, critical environmental education should be in favor of understanding the relationships between consciousness and the world, inserted in a context where education represents a process of "[...] denouncing the perverse reality as the announcement of the different reality to be born from the transformation of the denounced reality" (^{FREIRE, 2014}, p. 102).

When considering a dialectical perspective, the world and consciousness are simultaneously given, because the consciousness of the world constitutes the consciousness of the Self and the Others in the world, mediatized by it. Thus, it is in the insertion into the world as conditioned beings and not in the adaptation that the subjects become historical and ethical beings, with the ability to decide and break with reality, creating processes of transformation in daily life.

^{Freire (2004}) assumes his option to the term conditioned because he believes that the subject immersed in a situation of oppression will be required to act since he possesses the capacity of reflection and awareness. The Freirian proposal is not aligned with a determined being, because, as such, it does not envisage alternatives of social, economic, and, still, political transformation.

^{Dussel (1974}, 1977), likewise, defends a movement beyond mechanism and idealism, at a time when he is criticizing Latin American philosophy, which should be focused on the possibility of thinking about the dialectical movement of liberation, how to free the human being on all cultural levels, that is, to free his being denied.

For the author, the dialectical method encompasses the moments: negative⁷ and positive⁸, in a totalizing unity and always untouched, in a movement that tends to exteriority without including it. Thus, the method is a moment of dialectical reality in a constant process of mediation. Mediation implies an existential commitment, through liberating praxis, to make the world of the Other its own, an instant in which it is possible to achieve the interpretation, conceptualization, and verification of its revelation.

In this stage of mediation, ^{Dussel (1977}) determines as an analetic moment of the dialectical method that the human being walks towards the liberation of the Other reaching his freedom. In the analysis based on the ethical acceptability of the interpretation of the oppressed, mediated by praxis, human beings constitute the condition of possibility of understanding and enlightenment, as a result of having ascended to exteriority, "[...] only adequate scope for the exercise of critical consciousness" (^{DUSSEL, 1977}, p. 164).

In these conditions, problematizing a transformative environmental education requires starting from a concrete situation, and by the critical attitude, in the exercise of the self-consciousness of alienation, of oppression, recognizing, still, to suffer the domination, think and act upon that oppression and upon that liberation. The act of thinking, finally, refers to building a walk-in in which human beings move dialectically towards a new project, always led by the word of the Other. To reflect on the construction of this new project, the next discussion aims to present the role of education in the face of the socio-environmental crisis.

The role of education in the face of the socio-environmental crisis

To reflect on overcoming the socio-environmental crisis is to promote thinking beyond changes of only conjectural character because these do not shake the mechanisms of social reproduction keeping unchanged the power relations. Starting from this premise it is believed that the role of critical environmental education, which should be based on a concrete situation, that is, the exhaustion of the material conditions of the planet and its consequences, based on ontological and gnosiological, historical, and dialectical materialism, is to propose the understanding of "[...] education not as the only means for transformation, but as one of the means without which there is no change" (^{LOUREIRO, 2006}, p. 58).

Understanding critical environmental education in its breadth and complexity makes it possible to make its defining assumptions the construction of an education and, above all, a pedagogical practice that is in tune with the aspirations to contribute to the counter-hegemonic process.

In this context, the educational relations proposed by Freire are approaching, which assumes that education is a way for human beings to form a critical awareness of the problems of reality and to act to transform them. In this case, the role of the educator is to promote the apprehension of reality in sharing with the students, being open to a permanent, learning and teaching.

For ^{Freire (2004}), in the work Pedagogy of the oppressed, a dialogue begins to exist in the relationship of the educator with the learners, a moment in which the sharing of world views is constituted, for it is by the present, concrete situation, in the reflection of the aspirations of human beings, that the program content can be organized. Thus, the problematization of the theme generated from the constitution of the thematic minimum universe is born.

This minimal universe is composed of themes which, in general, contradict each other and, sometimes, maintain existing structures, in which a relationship of correspondence is established between the generating themes and the reality of which the subjects are part, making it possible to perceive the inclusion of those involved in the subject.

^{Freire (2004}) argues that the generating themes, not infrequently, are covered up by what he understands as limit-situations, which present themselves as historical determinants, causing subjects to adapt to the reality in which they find themselves. For the author, at the moment when, in action, critical perception is established will "[...] develop a climate of hope and trust that leads men to engage in overcoming limit-situations" (^{FREIRE, 2004}, p. 91, the emphasis of the author).

Thus, the freirian proposal indicates that the perception of the generating themes eventually happens when the subjects, at the same time, realize that the themes are involved and, still, involve the limit-situations, establishing a critical dimension. Thinking about the freedom of the human being refers to the conditions of place and time in which the limit-situations are linked to the creation of new possibilities of transformation, and not to their enclosure.

It is understood that human beings, faced with limit-situations, build a project of overcoming and, for this reason, Freire signals the alert that these subjects are involved and involve limit-situations, so that only in this way the overcoming project is executed by the boundary acts. For ^{Pinto (1960}, v.2), the limit acts aim to produce the breaking of the limits, because "[...] promote the future, projecting and projecting on it, in the objective denial of the 'limit-situation' (^{PINTO, 1960}, v.2, p. 285, emphasis added by the author).

To unveil the social reality, Freire emphasizes the need to propose to the subjects the significant dimensions⁹ of their the reality, "[...] whose critical analysis enables them to recognize the interaction of their parts" (^{FREIRE, 2004}, p. 96).

The capture and the understanding of the perceived reality remake, and human beings begin to understand that the reason of reality is not outside it, is not dichotomized. The process of perception of social reality will allow the overcoming of abstract knowledge isolated from the parts and, also, the overcoming of deductive knowledge of this same reality.

The investigation of the generating theme understands that the subjects assume active, sharing in the difference, in which the investigation, as critical radicality, means the action of human beings on the reality. Thus, the concrete and the abstract move, enabling a new concrete. "This does not mean reducing concrete to the abstract, but having them as opposites that are dialectical in the act of thinking" (^{FREIRE, 2004}, p. 97).

The freirian educational process causes human beings to move between the concrete and the abstract returning to the concrete conceived by thought, characterizing a movement between abstract and concrete in which the abstraction is overcome by the critical perception of the concrete.

The educational process, addressed by ^{Dussel (1986}) is centered at the moment when the author refers to the Other as distinct, as a free pole, not as the Same. Thus, while distinct, the human being, as educating, has a new project of being such a historical subject that the educator must teach the already acquired from the existential situation of the subject making the "[...] creative revolution comes to confuse itself with the problematizing invention of the educating" (^{DUSSEL, 1986}, p. 133). It also reflects that the educator learns, concomitantly, the project of the educator, that is, the same of the Other, the new one that the educator ignored.

Thus, the educator learns the authentic word of the educator by launching his world, his project, in a movement that means his realization, but at the same time requires him to open himself to the Other, who was revealed by the educator. The educator learns from the novelty of the project of the Other, because this project originated in a given historical moment and, consequently, the educator learns from the exercise of otherness by the educator.

Alterity is a fundamental category in the Dusselian context such that it is characterized as the "[...] "diachronic passage, from hearing the word of the other to the proper interpretation" (^{DUSSEL, 1986}, p.208) of the same, according to an ethic assumed in the human being. Dussel asserts himself in the exercise of listening to the Other by existential commitment.

For Freire and Dussel, the recognition of alterity, of difference, is a constituent condition of the Self and of the Other, which are constituted in relation, in intersubjectivity, such that the Self exists only from the Other.

In aligning the discussion of the authors, still resuming ^{Loureiro (2006}), one understands the need for the presence in critical and popular environmental education of social praxis as a process of reflection on life and nature, in what implies the contribution of how to transform the way human beings exist and are in the world. Under these conditions, critical environmental education becomes a theoretical-practical category of education.

Inserted in this context, the next discussion aims to present a reflection on socio-cultural inequalities, having as origin the contradictions of the civilization model.

Socio-cultural inequalities and environmental education

The logic of the capitalist production process, in which the high levels of consumption and the great environmental impacts do not homogeneously permeate the different social strata, is configured by asymmetric power relations. Consequently, the access, appropriation, and use of environmental resources associated with a logic of self-regulation of the market, based on competitive and individualistic values, determine the organization of the society that has in profitability its logic.

The social inequalities arising from the development of the civilizing model spread to the environmental dimension, establishing, in the view of ^{Layrargues (2006}), materiality to a new inequality. According to the author, this materiality is expressed in the concept of environmental vulnerability that affects social groups in conditions of social, economic, and political vulnerability, with their living or working conditions threatened by environmental degradation, caused by the improper exploitation of natural resources.

For ^{Herculano (2002}), the growing existence of this inequality is called environmental injustice, defined as the "[...] mechanism by which unequal societies target the greatest burden of environmental damage of development to social groups of workers, low-income population, racial groups discriminated against, marginalized populations and more vulnerable" (^{HERCULANO, 2002}, p. 19).

The authors defend, in this way, the existence of a relationship between "[...] low socioeconomic condition and high exposure to environmental risks, [...] causing environmental injustice to some and environmental comfort or safety to others" (^{LAYRARGUES, 2006}, p. 19). Thus, it becomes evident the connection between the environmental crisis and a broad context involving the economic, political, and social dimensions that are part of the civilizing model.

The civilizing model establishes a relationship between human beings and nature that is not innate to them, but the result of social bonds imposed by capital. Such a relationship is mediated by labor, which becomes alienating practice when the worker dissociates from his production, by the sale of the labor force, transforming it into a simple commodity. The mercantile relationship compromises the uniqueness between human beings and nature, generating exploitation until the exhaustion of both nature and subjects as a labor force.

Under these conditions, human pressure on ecosystems occurs very unevenly, that is, a small minority of human beings consumes much of the raw materials and energies produced. Thus, it is possible to conclude that for the guarantee of this high standard of living of the minority it is necessary to make use of high levels of material resources, which compromise the sustainability of the lives of others who do not enjoy the benefits of a life of wealth.

Associated with these signs, ^{Layrargues (2018}) states that at present environmental education was crossed by the sign of anti-ecology¹⁰, a period in which a pedagogical conservatism was consolidated, making this education hegemonically reproductive, generally implied as to the sociable values of capital, omitting, in turn, the historical-critical framework that contributes to the clarification of the contradictions of capitalist society.

Thus, environmental education has been modified to contribute to the process of establishing a normal standard to be met, in favor of a peaceful and controlled identity, a desirable, moderate, disqualifying, ecologist mode of behavior, in the end, critical thinking.

For the same author, this reproductive environmental education became disguised as the one that possesses a persuasive and domesticating intentionality of the subjects, starting to disseminate ideas convenient to capital and, still, presenting the environmental problem according to the vision of market environmentalism. Therefore, it began to offer solutions to the environmental challenges that favor the market, presenting a model of ecological subject identified as the moderate environmentalist, that is, the one who cares to do his part in society, willing, individually, to change their habits of consumption and disposal.

The problems discussed so far represent what could be called limit-situations of the socio-environmental dimension, at a time when there is a need to question to what extent it is possible to create new referrals for human beings. What does their relationship in and with the world entail? It should be taken into account that environmental education goes through a moment in which is present the dichotomy between the action of preserving put in an education that announces good individual practices and the action of transforming the inserted reality in an education that denounces the unsustainability.

To reaffirm the discussion, the categories listed are resumed, starting with dialectics, such that there is a need to overcome this dichotomy between an education in defense of alternative paths of sustainability and, at the same time, another that deals with the fight against the hegemonic path of unsustainability.

Announcement and denunciation involve reading the reality and the educational practice will be more effective, not reproductive, in that it allows human beings access to founding categories such as dialogue and alterity in the field of critical environmental education and, still, at the moment that these same subjects are challenged to build a critical understanding of the world. This historical and cultural educational practice, involved with the concrete conditions of reality, constitutes an education as a path in the course of social transformations.

It is not possible to avoid reflecting that human beings are taken over by fragments imposed by current production and consumption models. These fragments generate diverse cultural minorities, such that at this moment conceptual pairs as universal and fragment, identity and difference, are put in irreconcilable opposition. In this wake, it is urgent that the human beings involved in the educational relationship can identify and discern the similarities and differences present in the context lived. Under these conditions, the freirian dialogue, from its ontological dimension, allows the sharing among the subjects to gain centrality, redefining the framework of power among those involved.

Freire, with a focus on popular education, takes as his starting point the anthropological-cultural framework, which is closely linked to the lives of those who participate in the educational relationship. Under these conditions, the thematic universe, the world of culture of the subjects involved, allows the construction of the vocabulary universe.

From these ideas, in the dialogical relationship, the understanding of the world for its transformation gains centrality, but at the same time, we identify the alert of the freirian proposal as to the existence of a perverse framework of power, instituted in the class struggle, making it necessary to base educational relations always on the world of people’s lives.

Despite the world of life, for Dussel the recognition of otherness, of difference, is a constituent condition of the self and of the Other, which are constituted in relation, in intersubjectivity, such that the self exists only from the Other, making the educational relationship, in this context, become an existential commitment.

Dussel asserts the need to consider the word of the Other as similar while retaining the metaphysical distinction that relies on it as Other, not as identical or unambiguous, but respecting the analogy of revelation. Thus, the history of human liberation is based on relative results, never-ending in such a way that for the author the way is to listen to the voice of the poor, the voice of the people, committing to the "[...] humility and meekness in the pedagogical learning of the path of which the word of the other, as a teacher, goes tracing every day" (^{DUSSEL, 1986}, p. 209).

The human being as Another is the one who represents the center of his world and even as dominated or oppressed can say the unheard, the unheard, the word that represents the personal-collective experience in his world. While Another is a free being, while part of a system becomes functional with a structure.

Freire refers to the context of accepting the word of the Other understanding that as a premise is an action of knowing how to listen, the act of listening, as permanent availability of the subject who hears the other's speech. The act of listening, in the freirian context, is associated with the exercise of humility, which likewise reveals the limits of knowledge and ignorance of the I. In considering educational relations, Freire (2003) emphasizes the need for respect and humility concerning the "[...] identity of the educator, to his person, to his right to be" (^{FREIRE, 2003}, p. 67).

Such a situation will ensure that differences coexist with the law, without excluding the debate, that is, the dialogue on differences. Approaching what Dussel said, the differences are, precisely, in the contexts lived by human beings, in their culture, such that the dialogic experience becomes both an individual and collective experience.

The dialogue on the differences opens ways to the report of different perspectives, providing the fragments related to the culture of these subjects, thus promoting the sharing which will exercise the reflection.

It is through this sharing that historical determinants become perceived so that the human beings involved and involving the limit-situations begin to establish authentic responses to the challenges raised. This reflection on the limit-situations, which cannot be restricted to individuals, but a collective, makes the perception of socio-cultural reality advance in overcoming both the abstract knowledge isolated from the parts and the deductive knowledge of this same reality.

Thus, the educational relationship, in favor of critical environmental education, should provide the "[...] de-mythologization of reality" (^{FREIRE, 2011}, p. 77), in which the subject can take distance from the reality in which he is, to constitute the movement of critical insertion in it, resulting in action on this reality constituted. As well as resulting in a form of language, the process seeks to unveil the relations of human beings with and in the world, as a mode of political action, through self-awareness.

The problematization of limit-situations promotes the exercise of thinking different existential, enabling the subjects to approach their new construction, singularizing the process from which they extract the problem. It is by the constitution of this singularity that human beings will recognize themselves as historical subjects, with the possibility of action in reality.

Final considerations

The assumptions defined in the works of Paulo Freire and Enrique Dussel refer to the reflection on the need to value the cultural identity of human beings, and the identity that announces the world reading exercised by these subjects often subsumed to the modes of production and consumption imposed by the civil model.

The discussion elaborated in the text, with the focus on the field of environmental education, emphasizes the need for respect and understanding regarding the subjects' knowledge, such that this critical and popular education assumes its role at the moment it moves towards the constitution of a new reality and, at the same time, denounces the dehumanizing structures. For this to happen, the educational process must start from the reality of human beings, maintaining the constant dialectization between objectivity and subjectivity.

In summary, we reflected on the following force ideas:

Dialogue - requires listening to the practice, in such a way that the dialogic relationship can prioritize the ontological vocation of the human being, vocation to be subject, promoting the understanding of the context and knowledge of those involved in the relationship;

Alterity - defines as a premise the need to listen to the Other, because the dialogue should promote the subject to let himself be taken for the reasons of the Other, before elaborating the contraposition of ideas, that is, to leave something in itself that was said by the Other, the exercise of alterity;

Dialectics - assumes the importance of history, as well as the role of objectivity and human subjectivity in the construction of the socio-culturally structured world, based on the categories totality and exteriority; and

Limit-situation - arises in the dialogical relation the debate of challenging themes, such that human beings, by critical dialogue, must involve and be involved by the limit-situations, thus recovering the ontological vocation of being more, as a fundamental condition for respect and sharing among subjects.

Finally, based on the assumptions made here, it is reflected that the works of Paulo Freire and Enrique Dussel, approximated to the field of critical environmental education, represent conceptual milestones capable of supporting the formation of human beings, a formation that imbricated the social transformation so that the apprehension of historical determinants is the focus of this formation.