Looking back, my past environmental education was very straightforward, possibly the most clear cut the subject could potentially be. Small moments of uncertainty, confusion and frustration were outweighed by fact and concrete answers that rarely gave insight into divergent ways of thinking about environmental issues, solutions, and concepts. In ENVS 160 this framework, was immediately shot down and a new platform was built to make for a deeper understanding of these ideas. Among this platform, three key distinctions regarding climate change, dematerialization and consumption, and environmentalism stand out as the most paramount, frustrating, and motivating.
Until this January, I believed climate change to be a concrete idea of scientific evidence. I used to overlook the social, cultural, and historical implications of the phrase. However, through reading Why We Disagree About Climate Change by Mike Hulme I came to understand the concept of Climate change as its multidimensional self, as he defines it as a “constructed idea”(Hulme 2009, 3). Hulme’s characterization of the concepts brought me to recognize Climate change as an idea that appreciates the relationships between human society, culture, individuals, institutions, media and physical environment. This new concept, while initially daunting due to its scope, has become paramount in our discussions. Climate change with a big “C” represents an interdisciplinary concept, as opposed to its more one dimensional counterpart, climate change, that fails to address social implications of scientific evidence. Hulme explains that the concept of Climate he discusses “has both physical and cultural connotations”, which he builds on as he continues to discuss the different bases of Climate in his first chapter (Hulme 2009, 4). Understanding this has allowed me to discover the way in which communities will accept or reject the idea of Climate change and the social frameworks that have led to certain views of the concept.
While the idea of Climate change was immediately broadened by ENVS 160’s lessons, the environmental issues we discussed that relate to Climate change and Environmental Studies in general reoccured from the past. The issue of consumption particularly comes in mind, as it is often at the forefront of issues regarding populations and their relationship with ecosystems. In reading Vaclav Smil’s Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization I became increasingly frustrated in the future consumption, as it became apparent that the general use of materials is not likely to decrease, or as Smil phrases it, “absolute dematerialization”, is very unlikely; for instance Smil uses the example of an attempt to dematerialize through transferring to computer-assisted design (CAD) from paper blueprint. He explains that though the substitution seemed to be a sound method of dematerialization, it in fact only accomplished “relative dematerialization”, “a substantial reduction of material used”, but not true “absolute dematerialization”, as more of the new materials associated with the CADs were now consumed (Smil 2014, 120-121). Smil makes this important distinction between “relative” and “absolute dematerialization to clarify how the reduction in consumption of one material rarely indicates dematerialization as a whole. To illustrate this dilemma Smil explains how the one of the few examples of absolute dematerialization, global desulfurization, occurred “because of an effective technical fix” and would not have been achieved through substitution or other common methods of dematerialization (Smil 2014, 155). Smil accompanies this distinction with the citing of Jevon’s paradox that claims “It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuels is equivalent to a diminishing consumption”. He continues to explain that absolute dematerialization is rarely plausible, because “there can be no doubt that relative dematerialization has been a key (and not infrequently the dominant) factor promoting often massive expansion of total material consumption”, an important lesson when considering the future of our population’s consumption (Smil 2014, 130).
The term “green liberalism”, coined by Leigh Phillips on page 78 his work, Love Your Monsters, is used to dissect some unstable arguments of environmentalism. Before reading these assessments I rarely second guessed organizations like greenpeace, an organization that clearly represents “green liberalism” (Phillips, 78). However, Phillips makes it clear that some of their arguments, specifically the anti-genetically modified organism (GMO) stance is rocky and based in conservative views of environmentalism, that represent “green liberalism’s turn away from technology and modernity beginning” (Phillips 2011, 76). To understand the “green liberalism” approach and the anti-GMO movement it has been key to understand Philip’s distinction between classic and contemporary environmentalism. On one hand we have the organizations against GMOs, those aligned with classic environmentalism. This model is the voice against technology and altering our pure physical environment, or as Philip states it, those who “rejected technology and modernization” (Phillips 2011, 76). On the other we have GMO advocates, those that represent contemporary environmentalism. Contemporary environmentalism is comprised of supporters of new technology and the understanding of nature as a hybrid entity. Philips asserts that the contemporary side of the argument chooses to place value in “how humans interact with ecosystems, as well as with most historical and archeological evidence”, a contrast to the classic environmentalist framework of pure nature being made up of solely physical elements (Phillips 2011, 675). This distinction has proven to be one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in the past three months, as it urges me to look deeper into environmental arguments and determine who to align with. This realization may now prevent me from blindly agreeing with all arguments that claim to benefit the big word, environment, as it is clear that not all define it the same or deem the same actions beneficial.
Thus far, three simple distinctions have become central to my understanding of Climate change, consumption, and arguments of environmentalism. First, the expansion of the concept of Climate change brought up new challenges that involved the intersection of human society, culture, science, and the physical environment. Then, frustration came from the realization that one of distinguished ideas, “absolute dematerialization”, is, in many cases, nearly unattainable (Smil 2014, 120-121). Finally, I began to rethink what environmentalist arguments I support and which may be too traditional to survive today with the help of Phillip’s explanation of classic and contemporary environmentalism. Each distinction, though separate, accrued into the ambiguity I associate with Environmental Studies, uncertainty that serves as motivation to learn more.
Works Cited
Phillips, Leigh, Love Your Monsters: Postenvironmentalism and the Anthropocene (Kindle Location 1440), Breakthrough Institute. Kindle Edition. 2011.
Vaclav Smil, Making the Modern World (Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2014).
Mike Hulme, Why We Disagree About Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction, and Opportunity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)