My dad is an environmental lawyer so I have lived in an environmentally-minded household all my life. Environmental conservation has always been something near and dear to my heart and something I thought I knew a lot about. I have always held very strong and unwavering opinions regarding many environmental issues, such as fracking, mining, and hunting. However, I had never taken any environmental science or studies classes, so taking ENVS 160 led me to question my reasoning behind these opinions.
After reflecting on my viewpoints in contrast to what I’ve learned in ENVS 160, I now realize that I had taken a very classic approach to environmental thought, believing in the concept of pure nature and nature as ephemeral, where “the slightest perturbance by humanity can trigger a collapse in the system” (Hulme 2009, 190). I always thought of human interference in nature as detrimental, believing that the environment would be better off if humans never touched it. I had never really considered more contemporary environmental viewpoints. Upon being exposed to this way of thinking, I realized that some of my opinions needed to be rethought.
I am planning to major in International Affairs and hope to focus on global environmental conservation, so having a well-founded and well-thought out understanding of different ways of dealing with the environment will be crucial. Despite the fact that I do not plan to major in Environmental Studies, this class has greatly shifted the way I will think about the environment from this point on, and therefore the way in which I will navigate the environmental topics I come to face.
In dealing with international affairs, I will be confronted with a wide variety of people with backgrounds from all corners of the globe. In order to be tolerant and effective in policy-making and dealing with these people, I will need to understand how their backgrounds and cultures will have impacted the ways in which they deal with the environment. Thus, Mike Hulme’s discussion in Why We Disagree About Climate Change will be especially relevant to me, as he describes the ways in which different religious backgrounds, exposure to the natural world, and other factors in the way people are socialized impact their views on the environment. I had previously believed more in the deficit model, stating that people disagree due to inadequate understanding of an issue, but this book opened me up to realizing there are many more factors at play in forming an opinion (Hulme 2009, 218).
Finally, the discussion by Paul Steinberg in Who Rules the Earth in regards to the importance of institutions in making effective change is very pertinent information to me. Because there is no international government, implementing change on a global scale is very reliant on international institutions. Understanding the fact that “isolated individual actions are fine and well, but are simply inadequate given the size of the challenge” has helped me see the importance of my future involvement in institutional-level change (Steinberg 2015, 219).
Thus, especially due to my lack of previous exposure to contemporary environmental thought, this course has been very transformative of the way in which I view the environment and environmental policy.
Bibliography
Hulme, Mike. 2009. Why We Disagree about Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity. Cambridge University Press.
Steinberg, Paul F. 2015. Who Rules the Earth?: How Social Rules Shape Our Planet and Our Lives. Oxford University Press.