If you really start to think about the amount of intersections in a single person it begins to get dizzying. Class, race, gender, ethnicity, religion, personal passions, birthplace, family history, strange hobbies, the list is infinite. We are all intensely unique individuals. Even within a small niche of Environmental Studies students at this small liberal arts college, Rebecca talks about the vast diversity of interests that exists between her senior classmates. Just looking at all our posts about passions, there are so many different takes about passion even stemming from our common love of environmentalism. When thinking of this, a spoken word poem/rap song by Watsky comes to mind. He sings, “all of us, all of us are a galaxy of tiny little storms”. And yet we continue to treat people, and perhaps even more important (or at least more relevant) issues, as if they are one dimensional. We deal with what we can see first-hand, take things at face value. Perhaps it is to save time, perhaps it is to save the emotional and mental work it takes to unpack everything down to its bare bones. Whatever it is, we have an issue here, and it’s not a small one.
Reductionism, as we learned in class impacts everything we do, from our personal interactions to our environmental work. It is far too easy to look at environmental issues and find the most straight-forward solutions, never stopping to think about the intricate and interwoven connections that this one issue has with the social, political, economic, (etc) aspects of our world. It can be overwhelming to think of all of the intersections even in seemingly simple issues, but the work is integral to effective and just solutions . In my high school, for example, I was trying to improve our waste management system so that more waste could be diverted to recycling and compost, and away from the landfill. It seemed like a straight-forward issue of education and infrastructure, but I soon came to realize the overlap with social issues, when I realized that my solution was actually a burden for custodians, an integral actor I hadn’t even thought to consult. My issue was a local one, imagine this on a global scale.
I look back with embarrassment at my naiveté, but I know I must continue to neglect important intersections when considering environmental issues, simply because I am human and I have biases, we all do. We all have different intersections in our life that lend themselves to proclivities at how we approach issues and what aspect we focus on. The trick is not running away from these intersections but embracing them head on, surrounding yourself with people that think radically differently than you do and celebrating that. Our intersections make us complicated and difficult and unmanageable, but they also give us strength.