To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known (Carl Sagan, 1997).

How might Health and Physical Education respond? There is a growing awareness that Health and Physical Education (H/PE) needs to consider new directions, ideas and possibilities to prepare both educators and learners to respond to the growing consequences of social, environmental and health issues in an increasingly uncertain future (Chambers, 2023). We recognise that society is engaging with a ‘collision of pandemics’ - climate change, sedentary behaviour and Covid19 (Hall et al., 2020; Neveux, 2020; Chambers et al., 2021). This maelstrom of pandemics, or ‘syndemic’ (Sharifi et al., 2022), further includes economic turbulence, war, geo-political strife, social injustice, migration and climate crisis (Faerron-Guzmán, 2024; Chambers, 2023). In terms of the latter, Gabric (2023) uses the term ‘climate crisis’ or climate emergency to emphasise a grave and catastrophic situation. He further asserts ‘the impacts of ACC [anthropogenic climate change]  are becoming evident sooner than expected, and projections for the future of the planet’s ecosystems and the human population which depends on them are dire’ (p.1081). 

Welch et al., (2021) have highlighted “the shape-shifting social, economic and ecological conditions…such as the widespread bushfires in Australia, and the COVID-19 pandemic”, which draws attention to “the immediacy of human needs and connection to others and the environments we are able to inhabit” (p.357). Given this imperative, Redvers et al. (2023) push for a radical shift in educational praxis for the Anthropocene.

In this paper, we consider H/PE’s role in addressing what has been termed ‘planet-centric health’, concerned with ‘understanding the dynamic interlinkages between anthropogenic variations to the Earth's natural systems and human health at various scales and using these emerging understandings to find solutions that integrate the wellbeing of our biosphere’ (Faerron-Guzmán & Potter, 2023, p.47). This is no longer merely a conceptual issue but requires urgent action from policy through to practice in H/PE.

To do this, the experiences we craft in H/PE must empower our students to not only collectively respond to the consequences of the climate crisis (Welch et al., 2021; Schneider et al. 2022; Wiklander et al., 2023), as engaged citizens of the planet, but to critically and skilfully navigate the idea or representations of climate crisis which are churned out through social media and other platforms. A key enabler of this propagation is Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI). As recognised elsewhere, GenAI is a double-edged sword bringing significant opportunities when tackling the climate crisis, but also producing new problems. One such problem relates to the enormous energy demands of the systems behind GenAI, creating new environmental impacts. Another significant problem is the deluge of knowledge in the era of 'fake news' proliferated through AI-driven social media platforms (de Beer and Matthee, 2020; United Nations Environment Program, 2024). This has led to an information crisis obscuring effective messaging to address the ‘maelstrom of pandemics’ or crises, as accurate information gets lost in a flood of misleading or false news, all of which compounds eco-anxiety. This digital age compels us to situate H/PE within the broader concept of what former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe described as Society 5.0 in the Hannover Declaration delivered at the CeBIT 2017, Germany (Abe, 2017). Thereafter, in 2015, Society 5.0 was developed in Japan’s 5th Science and Technology Basic Plan by the Council for Science, Technology and Innovation and proposed as a future society to which Japan should aspire. Since then, it has been embraced globally, with the World Economic Forum describing Society 5.0 as a viable way of life in the digital era. The preceding “Information Age”, centred on humanity navigating and striving to comprehend the intricacies of technology usage. Society 5.0 reverses this and pushes for technology in the service of humanity. It is a vision of a sustainable society where humans, nature and technology find a circular economy of balance in super-intelligent digital transformation.

H/PE educators have a unique role to play in supporting young people to overcome eco-anxiety by teaching them how to navigate multiple interconnected crises in a digital age. In short, to educate students to be digitally well (Chambers et al, 2018). According to Beetham (2016), digital wellbeing is concerned with personal health, safety, relationships and work-life balance in digital settings. This includes acting safely and responsibly in digital environments, managing digital stress, workload and distraction and using digital media to participate in political and community actions. Many people already use personal digital data for wellbeing benefits but could extend this to act with concern for the human and natural environment when using digital tools. There is a need to balance digital with real-world interactions appropriately in relationships (Beetham, 2016). The preceding “Information Age”, centred on humanity navigating and striving to comprehend the intricacies of technology usage. Society 6.0 reverses this and pushes for technology in the service of humanity. It is a vision of a sustainable society where humans, nature and technology find a circular economy of balance in super-intelligent digital transformation. In embracing this wider focus, we build a case for a new, future-focused praxis in H/PE for the Anthropocene planet-centric H/PE. To do this, we introduce a radical pedagogical model called Planet-centric Innovation which can be used at a macro level in curriculum, pedagogy and assessment development (and at a micro level in the classroom), outlining the ‘hope’ for a planet centric H/PE.

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