ENVS 160 has been a whirlwind of new experiences, learning opportunities, and real life applications. It may seem like another environmental science class from the outside, but remember, never judge a book by its cover. ENVS 160 adds so many more aspects of environmental theory and ideas to the class. Over the course of the class, we focused on four major sections: Why We Disagree About Climate Change by Mike Hulme, Making The Modern World by Vaclav Smil, Classic vs. Contemporary Thought, and Who Rules The Earth by Paul F. Steinberg. Some of these ideas and books were easier to grasp than others. In my personal experience, Making The Modern World was a very dense book with lots of numbers and economic ideas. However, once I figured out how to pull the main concepts and important ideas from the text, it became much more manageable and attainable. Some of the books might seem intense, but all things considered, if you take the time to find the right way to read them for you, it will be rewarding and you will come across ideas you have never understood before.
The first text, Why We Disagree About Climate Change (Hulme 2009) brings many different ideas to attention. We completed a project inspired by this book called Climate Change Public Opinion. In this project, we actually went out into the “real” world, or inner Portland. We gathered random people’s opinions on climate change, actions, and other such things. We recorded their ideas and put it all together as a class of complete gathered information. We looked at trends and tried to piece it all together, what did it all mean? We tried to decide, the question of the book, why do we disagree? How do we disagree? It was all tied into the book we read.
The second section, Making The Modern World (Smil 2013) brought about a project called Situating Minerals.This project was based on minerals, where they are located, how they impact the local community, and what they are used for. We literally got to think about what the modern world is made up of in this project. My group chose graphite. It was somewhat disturbing what we found out, graphite is mined in bad conditions for workers, and has many more uses than simply pencil lead. This was a very enlightening, harsh truth kind of project that helped address the denseness of the book itself. It connected many of the confusing things that Smil talks about.
The third section had to do with Classic vs. Contemporary thought and how they interact with environmental thoughts. The project dealing with this was Interrogating isms. We looked at “isms” like neoliberalism, ecoterrorism, and other types of “isms”. This weaved both contemporary and classic thought together into things with names or “isms”. This was a very new and interesting perspective for me as I learned a lot about people’s personal opinions and ways of thinking, especially dealing with environmentalism. I would call myself a classic thinker when I first came into ENVS 160 but now I have been introduced to new ideas that combine theories and other ideas into the way we, as a modern world, should deal with the environment.
Our final section had been my favorite so far. We have been reading Who Rules The Earth? (Steinberg 2015). This book has brought us to our final posts, which have all been individual reflections. Our first post was about three lessons we learned in ENVS thus far and how the course has changed us. This was the first post we did alone which was interesting to pull together my own decisions and thoughts. Our second post was to describe connections we made to the four sections of ENVS. This one was the trickiest for me as it made me think deliberately and really deduce what it was that we were learning and discussing. The third post was about the text Who Rules The Earth? This one was the most fluid for me as I felt I understood this text the best. It was powerful to think about a single text and draw conclusions. The final post was a reflection and synthesis of a cumulation of all the ideas we have learned. I think these assignments were educational for me in many ways, not just because of the texts we read.
This class teaches you so many things that aren’t just classic science. It teaches you how to bring together a plethora of different ideas and make arguments about them, real life arguments you can use when in scholarly discussions. The class isn’t just about the environment but the workings of the government, people in our world, and the things that create our everyday life. It draws on ideas, not just facts. It also taught such valuable online posting skills. The internet is such a useful tool in our day to get out voices into the world and be heard. Learning how to make scholarly internet posts was hugely important to making a change in our world for me. My hope for any future ENVS 160 student is that they come into the class with an open mind and learn so many new things that were completely unexpected. Good Luck!
Works Cited:
Hulme, Mike. 2009. Why We Disagree about Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction, and Opportunity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Smil, Vaclav. 2013. Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization. Wiley Publishing.
Steinberg, Paul. 2015. Who Rules the Earth?: How Social Rules Shape Our Planet and Our Lives. Oxford: Oxford University Press