Back in the 1970s and 80s it was quite common to observe a strong commitment to social movements and political causes in educational settings. The socio-political issues of our current time, however, receive much less attention. In a Norwegian context, this lack is notable with respect to education for sustainable development (ESD) as promoted by UNESCO – although Norway tends to hold a high profile internationally in these matters. In this article I compare the respective approaches of Norway and Sweden to United Nations’ initiatives such as Agenda 21 and the Decade for Education for Sustainable Development, and discuss possible explanations for the weak implementation of these processes in Norway. One possible explanation, pointed out by several researchers, is the close connection between Norwegian politics and the extraction of oil and gas. Indeed, increased attention to the relationship between ecological and economic factors would disturb the narrative of the miraculous, Norwegian «oil adventure», leading to disturbing questions that might become difficult to handle in a school setting. Even so, the article builds on the premise that there is a great, unused potential in the educational tradition to elucidate and work on this type of questions.