In the last portion of the ENVS 160 course, we discussed Paul F Steinberg’s “Who Rules the Earth.” One of the main focuses of this text is change on the institutional level rather than the individual (Steinberg 2015). Steinberg tells us that this old adage of “think globally, act locally” is not a plausible goal, and that the large changes needed for actually making a difference in response to climate change will not be achieved through this plan. This struck me the most from the points he has made in his text so far. While this seems reasonable, and I understand this in theory, his blatant disregard for the idea of “think globally, act locally” altered the way I think about climate change policy, and the ways in which we should be focusing on change. He focuses more on the idea of “thinking vertically” and attempting to control the entire process, rather than working on solely the individual things we can do, such as recycling or buying organic products, as demonstrated in the blurb on the back flap of this text. His focus of the text lies in the different ways we can work to change our environmental practices, but on a larger scale. It was slightly disconcerting to hear that the things I was focusing on, on an individual scale, were not actually going to change anything. I think a lot of people knew this, but it is easier to believe that these slight alterations in our daily routine could change the world, and could help us crawl out from the deep hole of climate change we dug ourselves in to. In chapter 9, Steinberg goes as far as to describe individual action as one of the “four ideas that will not change the world” (215). He discusses larger scale solutions such as cap and trade as a proposed solution for pollution. However, like cap and trade, any major change that is applied at the national or global level is much more complicated than simply implementing a single law or idea. It must incorporate both the destruction of an old policy or “rut,” as well as the quick execution of a better one (223). He also discusses the “super rules,” the rules that govern the way we enact rules, and how these, even more than just policy, are the things we truly need to change (246). This brings the solution further vertically, to even a higher point than the national policy scale.
As I have mentioned in my previous posts, this is one of the most complex issues we have discussed in this course. The tangled nature of environmentalism and therefore the solutions that we choose to implement to help solve the problem of climate change make these changes much more complicated. Personally, this has definitely changed the way I think about the solutions we choose to enact, and how we do so, in terms of an institutional solution rather than an individual one. This changes not only the way I think about environmentalism and climate change policy in my academic life and in further ENVS courses at LC, but in my personal life as well, it motivates me to attempt to work towards larger goals than simply recycling in my home.
In response to the title of my post, “how do we change?”, it would seem that Steinberg would make it clear that we will not change by simply altering the ways we recycle or eat. Instead we should focus our efforts on the large-scale changes, national policy, and going as far as the “super rules” that not only alter the ways we work as a nation, but the ways we create and implement these rules. This text took away much of the hope I had for making a difference in terms of environmental change, leaving me only with hope that institutions and governments will step forward to take responsibility and to create change and reform.
Bibliography
Steinberg, Paul F. 2015. Who Rules the Earth?: How Social Rules Shape Our Planet and Our Lives. 1 edition. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.