Being exposed to environmental literature for the first time in a scholarly context has created a new pathway in my mind about the environment, diverging my previous paths and connections to create a more analytical way of situating environmental issues. The texts that have most catalyzed the creation a new path of thought for me are Mike Hulme’s Why We Disagree about Climate Change : Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity and Paul F. Steinberg’s Who Rules the Earth? : How Social Rules Shape Our Planet and Our Lives. These texts provided real world, modern environmental viewpoints that not only cleared fog from the lenses of classic environmental thought but also situated common opinions and realistic viewpoints in a way that challenges ideas and previously held beliefs, in my case at least.
There were many connections between these two texts, some of which revolve around the idea of contemporary and others which contextualize environmental problems in ways in which we can visually imagine them. Most significant is the way in which these texts identify the way humans responds to environmental change in the form of policy and reaction; two things which have the greatest impact on the progression of the environmental movement.
The beginning of Who Rules the Earth? reveals something that has always been something I have thought about in my mind: the way the world is physically and metaphorically shaped has been influenced by society and a set of rules. Specifically, Paul F. Steinberg’s Who Rules the Earth? opens with an array of sights and feelings that common people see and feel, such as driving on the highway and arriving at a wilderness area, both of which have been made tangible things through policy and social rule (Steinberg 24). This potential realization, at least a realization for me, was able to help me consider what has made the current world we live in less disorderly and also consider how things have been made possible through policy and society. Moreover, a connection that can be made between the influence of humans to implement things such as the highway or a government controlled wilderness area is the acceptance of ignorance of scientific aspects of climate change. Mike Hulme’s Why We Disagree about Climate Change considers this idea when science is accepted or rejected which has an impact on when things such as the implementation of a highway is accepted or a proposition to protect a wilderness area is denied. Ultimately, science is the reason behind new climate change policies is because of an agreement or disagreement on what is true or what is not (Hulme 74), which influences how the physical and figurative world is.
Second is the real world way in which Why We Disagree about Climate Change and Who Rules the Earth situate problems so that people who are beginning to learn about the environment in a more sophisticated way can understand. In Who Rules the Earth, the way in which bird migration patterns are shaped, mostly by human influence in the form of deforestation and urbanization, is linked to be a problem that is very easy for anyone of any background to comprehend. Steinberg;s example of these birds, and how you can catch sight of these birds from an area of America, is a way in which to influence readers to care because they can contextualize the problem in a way that anyone can comprehend. Similarly, in Why We Disagree about Climate Change, the vast problem of climate change is laid of in the beginning as something that this text does to allow readers to comprehend it in a logical way. When Hulme discusses how climate effects the moods and activities of people, such as his description of the aftermath of katrina and how it affected citizens (Hulme 12).
Ultimately, there are many connections that can provide insight on environmental change and connections can be made across the board to open up new pathways to increase the intensity of environmental thought.
Hulme, Mike. 2009. Why We Disagree about Climate Change : Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press.
Steinberg, Paul F. 2015. Who Rules the Earth? : How Social Rules Shape Our Planet and Our Lives. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.