By Max Lorenze
The various sources we have examined when looking at how the world interacts with the environment. To this point in the year the two sources that have held the largest impact for me have been “Why We Disagree About Climate Change” by Mike Hulme and “Making the Modern World” by Vaclav Smil. In this synthesis about core concepts of Intro to Environmental Studies Spring of 2017 I will be focusing more so on the two previously mentioned works.
Through those two works do not come close to examining the full breath of knowledge that had been examined in the class. Those two works, along with “Who Rules the Earth?” by Paul Steinberg both expressly depict the use of institutions and the role they have. Second will be an examination of the mix of holistic and reductionist style of examining the topic of climate change. Lastly examine the underlying debate between sacred vs. secular.
Institutions hold a constant and extremely influential role in our society. In Hulme’s work “Why We Disagree About Climate Change” he examines the role institutions in the way we think about climate change in his ninth chapter, “The Way We Govern.” Right from the beginning he examines a very important aspect of how government look at climate change. Specifically looking at it from a military and national security perspective. British Foreign Minister at the time of the book being written argued for intervention, “…[O]n the grounds that climate change was a security issue not in the narrow sense of national security, but in the sense that it was about ‘our collective security in a fragile and increasingly interdependent world’”(Hulme 2009, 285). Hulme examines the role of national institution in framing climate change as an issue of nation security. The way in which the Pentagon holds climate change as the number one issue to nation security. Though neither Smil nor Steinberg examine the role of national security institutions in the discussion of climate change. Both Smil and especially Steinberg examine the role of the institution with how it relates to the role of the individual. Steinberg argues on page 34 and 35 that society has conditioned people to believe that their small changes will not effect the larger issue as a whole (Steinberg 2015). Then examining the even larger role of the institution in a way that is similar to Smil. Smile through the large expanse of his entire work examines the role of the institution in regards to the ebb and flow of materials across the world (Smil 2014).
Hulme and Smil take similar approaches to examining their topics. They look at the topic whether it is about material flow or people’s beliefs surrounding climate change from a vast array of angles. They look at the whole topic in a way that is seemingly holistic. At the same time breaking all the areas of the topic down through the chapters in a way that is slightly reductionist. Holistic being looking at the topic as one thing well reductionism examines an issue through one aspect of the broader issue. Beginning with Hulme he examines the various views surrounding why we have so much trouble coming to an agreement about climate change. He looks at as many view point all together in a way that is holistic. At the same time in each chapter breaks the larger topic into a specific area of focus. One of the main ways Hulme does this is through the consistent observation and examination of what categories people fall throughThe four ‘ways of life’ (Hulme 2009, 186). This specific honing of an area of the larger topic helped make the work more manageable. Smil organized his work in a similar way by examining the concept of material distribution holistically in the first chapter, ”These hidden flows are dominated by overburden materials that have to be removed during the exploitation of mineral deposits” (Smil 2014, 1). These broad portion of a sentence on the first page is a overview of a major aspect of the work. Which he breaks down later into specific uses and materials. Both Hulme and Smil exemplify why a work must be a mixture of holism and reductionism.
Lastly a major underlying theme in these works is the secular vs spiritual. All of the works in the class have examined their specific issue through the lens of secularity and spirituality. Where Smil may leave out aspect of the spatiality focusing on the cold hard numbers Hulme delves deeper into the spiritual view of climate change. Largely Smil’s focus on secularity is unsurprising considering that is and has been the status quo in environmentalism (Smil 2014), “The prevalent story of environmentalism is that it is grounded in the facts of environmental degradation as revealed by science. But there is a different way to understand environmental concerns, as arising more from religious and spiritual sentiment than from scientific fact (Proctor 2009a; 2009b). This examination of the rarity of the spiritual aspect is very interesting considering that Hulme spends whole chapters discussing the role of religion in environmentalism. He brings up the point that most leaders of global religions hold a moral responsibility as caretakers to the world (Hulme 2009). The discussion of sacred vs secular has been an underlying theme in a vast amount of the work that has been discussed in class.
References
Hulme, Mike. Why we disagree about climate change: understanding controversy, inaction and opportunity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Proctor, James. “Spirituality.” Ecotypes. N.d.
Smil, Vaclav. Making the modern world: materials and dematerialization. Chichester, West Sussex, United Kingdom: Wiley, 2014.