By Juliana Prendergast
Since early in my high school career I knew I wanted to major in Environmental Studies. It seemed like the perfect way for me to learn how to make a difference in the world. I didn’t know exactly everything that ENVS would entail but after taking biology, ecology, and environmental sciences courses I thought I might know a little- at least some of the basics. ENVS 160 wasn’t exactly what I was expecting but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. This class has given me so many different concepts to wrap my head around and is giving me a chance to form my own opinions. There have been many lessons from ENVS 160. Three of the most important being understanding why people have different opinions of environmental problems like climate change, that there isn’t as much consensus in environmental thought as popular belief tends to think, and how Big Word detract from intellectual thought.
We started the class discussing the book Why We Disagree About Climate Change. Most people don’t take the time to think deeper to why others don’t agree. Arguments arise and no true understanding or learning happens. This book discussed many reasons for disagreements that go farther than the common reasons that we disagree. Each chapter discusses a different reason for disagreement. Many of these I had never thought about before like how climate change is a concept created by humans or how we perceive and respond to risk differently. The part of the book that showed a clear example of differing opinions was Cultural Theory (grid Group Theory). The theory showed how people fit on two axis one dealing with authority and the other dealing with the importance of society. These four groups had different ways in which they view nature which can lead to conflict between people. After reading this book it helped me look beyond people’s opinions and look at what exactly caused them to have those opinions (Hulme, 2009)
Before taking ENVS 160 I, like most people, thought there was consensus between most people in the field. I had never heard of the difference between classic and contemporary thought. Through studying classical and contemporary thought new and different ideas were introduced that wouldn’t have been if we only studied the classics. Many ideas between classic and contemporary thinkers were in opposition with each other. The classic works we read tended to have apocalyptic feel (e. g. Meadows et al. 1974) while contemporary works tended to be more hopeful in tone and praised technology (e g Shellenberger and Nordhaus, 2011). One might think that within contemporary thought there might be more understanding but even then there is disagreement as more people but their ideas out there. With varying information it is up to the reader who they want to trust in more. Instead of being handed information to memorize or one side of the conversation we were given both sides and told to think hard about each work. This allowed us to not just take the information at face value but to question why people leaned towards believing different ideas. Learning that there wasn’t consensus also allowed us to explore why we ourselves tend to want to believe certain sides of the conversation. I am still figuring out which ideas line up with my own beliefs.
Throughout the semester one concept that has been in the focus on everything we’ve learned was Big Word. These are words that people use but tend to be vague and have a deeper meaning than what is often used colloquially. Using this Big Words in ENVS is like just using the word chemicals when explaining a certain one. Although the main idea is communicated there is still a lot of unknowns. There is no way of knowing these uncertainties without farther explanation of the term. Through the ism project each group was able to go more in depth into one of these broad terms. These isms can be split into three categories. The first is descriptive isms which are used to describe or understand other terms. The next category is evaluative which evaluate or critique other isms. Lastly movement isms are about scholarly or popular movements. My group focused on the Big Word of environmental justice which is a movement ism used often today. By looking at every part of the ism and seeing how it was connected with history and policies it made me realize how important avoiding big words, without explaining them really is. I’ve learned that Big Words detract from scholarly writing and specific words to explain concepts are always best.
References
Hulme, Mike. 2009. Why We Disagree about Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Meadows, Donella H., Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens. The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind. New York: Universe Books, 1974.
Shellenberger, Michael, and Ted Nordhaus, eds. Love Your Monsters: Postenvironmentalism and the Anthropocene. Breakthrough Institute, 2011. http://www.amazon.com/Love-Your-Monsters-Postenvironmentalism-ebook/dp/B006FKUJY6