Introduction
My favorite class my senior year of high school was AP Environmental Science. I’m not sure if it was because of the friends I made or the amount of information I learned about global warming. However, this had little impact on my decision to take the class. I had a fantasy in my head that taking Introduction to Environmental Science would be fun. And for some parts of the class this is true. It has been nice to learn environmental knowledge that I can relate to other fields in understanding how the world works.
Essentially, the overarching lessons I have learned in this class are:
There are always consequences to actions.
I really enjoyed starting the semester reading “Why We Disagree about Climate Change,” Mike Hulme is able to effectively summarize the challenges that are presented when trying to solve climate change through cost-benefit analysis. The first challenge that he discusses is that changes in climate are felt across the world, the costs and benefits have to be worked out on a global scale (Hulme 2009). Another factor of discussion is the uncertainty of the extent of the climate change risks and how to properly address them whether it be nuclear power or market policies. As well as if we could even represent all these different environmental consequences on a monetary scale. However the most important point he brings up is that climate change is a long lived phenomenon, how we value the distant future becomes an essential (Hulme 2009). In reflecting on what I learned from this text this is what stuck out most to me is the human instinct for instant gratification instead of taking the long view, especially with climate change. The consequences appear to be invisible to the global population.
How people view the world affects how the seek to solve climate change.
The concept of Cultural Theory that Mike Hulme introduces in “Why We Disagree About Climate Change was something I had never encountered before. It felt fascinating to discuss and apply to how people view climate change. No longer could I just see people as unreasonable for having certain opinions.They were either a fatalist, a hierarchist, an individualist, or an egalitarian (Mike Hulme 2009). These categorizations enabled me to examine my personal position which turned out to be an egalitarian. Cultural Theory also known as Grid Group Theory placed people in different quarters depending on whether they believed in autonomy or group solidarity as well as whether they followed rules willingly or turned their nose up at a higher power. For example, a fatalist would be someone who has no connection to other people and believed that life would go on with or without them. Whereas a hierarchist would believe in group solidarity and rule following. They would be more inclined to try and solve issues of climate change through government policy and institutional change.
The definition of place is complex.
In our discussion of place I learned of the deeper meaning that is held by the word. Place is not just a location it is more than that. Place is a convergence, gathering, a collision of things coming together, real things happening on this earth. Applying this to a full project on Minerals allowed me to learn more about the social, economic, and historical implications a place can have on a person’s whole life. Fore me this was the Strataca Kansas Underground Salt Museum. Understanding something I had never previously known was there and how the geographical place impacted so many other features of peoples lives was extremely exciting. I would not have gotten that experience in any other class.
Hulme, Mike. 2009. Why We Disagree about Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.