As far as I can tell from reading what we have thus far in ENVS 160, each environmental scholar has their own very strong opinion about what should be done about the issues of climate change and materialization. Of course, it’s great to gather as much information and as many opinions as possible, but that is not much of an option when the whole world is full of opinions. As much as we can do in terms of finding our own individual opinions as students is to look at as much information as we can, and decide what our own opinions on the matters are. While us students have encountered many different opinions in ENVS 160, there are a few things in which all of the books we’ve read in which the author’s stances overlap.
Climate Change does not have a simple solution.
While this may seem like an absurdly obvious statement, I think that this assertion is one of the most important things to note while studying climate change. Mike Hulme wrote his book Why We Disagree About Climate Change about just that. The simple wording that “we” disagree implies the lack of a solution just because the world cannot seem to come to an agreement about what to do. Hulme illustrates chapter by chapter the reasons why we can’t seem to come to a solution and why we disagree.
The correct way to be an environmentalist is always changing and subjective
To mention Hulme once more, Why We Disagree About Climate Change does a great job of illustrating the way people from different backgrounds have very different ideas of what it means to care about the environment. Those on the extreme side could believe that even existing within the capitalist system itself means that one could not consider themselves an environmentalist, while others, from say India or any impoverished country are faced with problems that are directly affecting their lives and therefore don’t feel the need to care about climate change. In the classic vs. contemporary reading Limits to growth revisited: A review essay, Smil pointed out that the future is completely unpredictable. Just six years after the communist victory in China, it begin to become the “workshop of the world”. China’s growth had huge effects on globalization but no one could have predicted this. This changes the whole way the world works and changes what it really means to be environmentally friendly.
Individual Action is not enough.
Austerity Ecology and The Collapse Porn Addicts points out that while recycling and buying locally grown produce can make an individual feel as though they’re making an impact, in reality, what they’re doing is making no real impact on the effects of global climate change. Who Rules The Earth bases its whole argument on the fact that institutions matter. The book’s main goal, as pointed out by the author, is to educate readers as to what they can do beyond the little things in everyday life, because in Steinberg’s opinion, ““To bring about lasting change requires modifying the very rules that societies live by” (Steinberg, 11). While we all want to help the world in our own lives, this class has taught me that if I personally want to make an impact, I need to change things on an institutional level.
Citations
Hulme, Mike. 2015. Why we disagree about climate change: understanding controversy, inaction and opportunity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Phillips, Leigh. 2015. Austerity ecology & the collapse-Porn addicts: a defence of growth, progress, industry and stuff. Winchester, UK: Zero Books.
Smil, Vaclav. 2005. “Limits to Growth Revisited: A Review Essay.” Population & Development Review 31 (1): 157–64.
Steinberg, Paul F. 2015. Who rules the earth?: how social rules shape our planet and our lives. New York, NY: Oxford Univ. Press.