ABSTRACT
What does English have to do with environmental debates? From being an emergent and ‘alternative’ discourse associated with hippy culture in the 1970s, environmentalism has shifted to become a mainstream, dominant discourse in the twenty-first century. If English is to be a topical subject then it needs to be informed and responsive in relation to the discourse and debates of the environment. However, there is clearly no point in English teachers repeating the work of colleagues in geography and science who will be dealing with environment as subject content. Work in English needs an English flavour and is likely to focus on strategies of rhetoric and on how debates are represented in literature, non-fiction and media.
