Environmental Background
Growing up in Phoenix, AZ, most of the people around me were climate change deniers. Living in a red state did have a drastic effect on my overall ideologies, mostly in strong rebellion. By the end of high school, my economic and social views had been solidified, but one thing I was lacking was a solid ideology on environmental issues. I blame this in part to a lackluster biology department and in part to my disinterest in science classes. ENVS 160 has finally allowed me to formulate environmental opinions on my own, providing large amounts of resources from different viewpoints to find what resonates with me the most. Over this semester, I have been able to formulate my ideology when it comes to dealing with the world around us.
Back home, I never really thought about the big picture, rather I took the small individualistic steps of recycling, carpooling with friends to school, and taking my bike out whenever possible. At the time, I thought what I was doing made change, but rather I have come to realize that these individualistic actions do little to nothing to help deal with our environmental issues because it is done on such a small scale. As a leftist, I have always thought institutional action was best, but for some reason the thought of institutional action in regards to climate change never occurred to me. Over the course of this class, my view has shifted heavily from individual action to institutional action. At this point, I have concluded the individual actions I took were NOT a massive waste of time, rather they were based on my sense of what is right. Though there are massive advantages to recycling and carpooling, I feel like my time would have meant more if I had focused on more institutional actions, anything from giving money to causes I back to calling my representatives to push for environmental actions I support.
How ENVS Has Changed Me
My opposition of individualization was influenced heavily by “Individualization: Plant a Tree, Buy a Bike, Save the World,” an article that laments the negatives of individual action. The major reason he writes, is that: “When responsibility for environmental problems is individualized, there is little room to ponder institutions, the nature and exercise of political power, or ways of collectively changing the distribution of power and influence in society—to, in other words, “think institutionally” (Maniates 2001, 33). By not allowing us to think collectively, individual actions will never fix our societal problems which keep us from solving our environmental problems. My leftist ideology of anti-capitalism is also echoed throughout Maniates work as well as Leigh Phillips’ book Austerity Ecology. While reading through Phillips’ book, it cemented my thoughts that capitalism has a negative effect on the environment. He outlines that the main goal of capitalism is to maximize profits, which by default, is against nature.
Another thing I have learned is to avoid the use of big words like nature and environment because of the ambiguity that occurs when using such terms. In Mike Hulme’s book Why We Disagree About Climate Change, he shows that one of the reasons we disagree is because of the ambiguity. He writes that climate change is multifaceted because it takes the form of the physical world and ideologies. By having different environmental ideologies, people will disagree on what the definition of words like nature and environment are. While one might say that nature is separate from the human world, others say that it is combined. This one differentiation in views, creates two completely different definitions of “nature,” and by doing so, it shows one of the reasons we disagree about climate change. In this post, I used the terms nature and environment, but in my opinion, the use of the two terms can be used if they are defined by the author.
Conclusion
In this post, I used the terms nature and environment, but in my opinion, the use of the two terms can be used if they are defined by the author. In my post, I use nature and environment as being defined as a setting outside of human-made property. To conclude, I think this class and my new location have made a dramatic effect on my overall ideology regarding climate change and other problems we face in regards to our class’s study
References
Hulme, Mike. 2010. Why We Disagree About Climate Change. NY: Cambridge University Press.
Maniates, Michael F. 2001. “Individualization: Plant a Tree, Buy a Bike, Save the World?” 2001.
Phillips, Leigh. 2014. Austerity Ecology & The Collapse-Porn Addicts. United Kingdom: Zero Books.