After going through all the readings in ENVS 160, a clear web of connection emerged in my head, presenting in itself the various perspectives behind the race to “save the environment”. First, we have Hulme who presents all the different agencies that are in play in the conversation on “climate change”, explores and challenges behind the motivation behind each agency and draws the most critical conclusion- that solving climate change requires understanding, compromising, and collaborative efforts from all of these different agencies (Hulme, 2009). Hulme’s thorough overview picture of the debate of environmentalism are consistent throughout the other readings in the course. Most evidently, Hulme’s anecdotes on the “Four Myths of Climate Change” and the relationship between human belief system and nature (Hulme, 2009) are closely related to the readings on classical environmental thoughts such as The Problem with Purity (White, 1999) and Old Growth and a New Nature (Proctor, 2009). Furthermore, the history between nature and development is also a common theme between Smil’s Making the Modern World (Smil, 2013) and the chapter on “The Challenges of Development” (Hulme, 2009). Last but not least, Hulme also discusses extensively about individual and international efforts in the chapter “The Way We Govern” (Hulme, 2009), which is also the main focus in Steinberg’s Who Rules the Earth (Steinberg, 2015).
At the beginning of ENVS 160, a lot of the focus was on understanding classical and contemporary thoughts in environmentalism and one key difference between these two streams of thoughts was the perception of nature itself as either sacred or hybrid. Classical environmentalism mostly pertains the idea of “purity” of nature, as Hulme also coins as “Lamenting Eden” (Hulme, 2009), where environmentalists set out to preserve nature in its original state with as little human interference as possible. On the other hand, contemporary thinkers propose a picture of hybridity, mixing up the new ways and the old ways of regarding nature in order to compromise with the cultural and modernization aspects of humanity (White, 1999). Similarly, Proctor’s anecdote of the relationship between religion, science and nature, and the conclusion of an “ambivalent” nature ushers in a a new era of understanding nature and environmentalism (Proctor, 2009).
Along with the thought of a hybrid nature in the times of modernization comes the narrative of human development and the exploitation of natural resources, which is the second major theme I found in the course. Making the Modern World accounts in details how human’s use of natural resources has evolved through time, and addresses the myths behind “absolute dematerialization” in the modern world (Smil, 2013). Although Smil seems to advocate reduce consumption of materials at the individual level such as “voluntary simplicity” (Smil, 2013), a problem arises as to ensuring equal developing opportunity for under-developed countries, as Hulme also asks “Are we doing as much for today’s poor billions as we are seeking to do for tommorrow’s vulnerable billions?” (Hulme, 2009). Truly, any effort in creating a sustainable development scheme becomes a mind-game between the fate of the environment and the fate of billions of people that still need to catch up to the developed world, having now extra responsibility, and environmental burden on their shoulders left by the developed world.
Last but not least, a clear focus on the latter part of the ENVS 160 course was the shifting from individual environmental efforts to institutional efforts. In his book, Hulme addresses individual responsibility, but the majority of his book is spent on discussing the various institutional and international efforts and assessing their success. An example of a international treaty discussed by Hulme and many other environmental authors is the Kyoto Protocol. The treaty’s inability to enforce its regulations on its members shows the detrimental weakness behind any international non-governmental treaty, which is also pointed out by Steinberg in Who Rules the Earth (Steinberg, 2015). Instead, both authors seem to advocate institutionalized regulations, both citing heavily the example of the EU as the prime leader of environmentalism.
Smil, Vaclav. 2014. Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization. Chichester, West Sussex, United Kingdom: Wiley.