ENVS 160 is a challenging course, though it is a course, I would argue, that will provide students with useful skills and knowledge that can be applied outside of the classroom. ENVS 160 is all about challenging perceptions and developing new ones; what you think you know can and will change, just don’t be afraid to explore the possibilities! Furthermore, it is a course that will identify where you are situated in the context of global environmental issues, such as climate change, and other challenges facing humanity, which could be anything from deciding whether markets should act unfettered from government regulation or asking how we can unite institutional-scale action with individual-scale action. I would recommend vigilance with the workload and course material, and to always ask for help whenever issues arise; your professors are there to support you on your journey! Below, I will outline my journey through the course using all the texts and projects I have come across.
The first text I will explore is ‘Why We Disagree About Climate Change,’ by Mike Hulme. Hulme explores a range of different frameworks, such as religion and economics, and discusses the limitations and the benefits of using these frameworks to address the issue of climate change.
My first discovery pertains to Cultural Theory. Cultural Theory, as defined by Hulme, is a “four-fold classification into which individuals, social groups or entire societies may be placed.” (Hulme 2009, 186). Cultural Theory consists of a high and low group (the y-axis) and a high and low grid (x-axis). There are four principal actors who are classified in the grid, which include fatalists, hierarchists, individualists, and egalitarians. From my experience, this was the fundamental framework from which to observe who supported what environmental solutions and for what reason. For example, I have identified that egalitarians tend to prefer individual-scale action, such as individual and community recycling efforts, versus hierarchists, who mostly advocate for government-scale reformation.
From cultural theory, Hulme has meticulously crafted four varying ways we can engage with climate change. In the foreground, he addresses the actor most likely to perpetuate and support the ‘myth,’ as he calls it. However, in the backdrop of these myths, Hulme has cleverly incorporated Christian religious motifs, which are symbolic of his religious perspectives on climate change addressed in Chapter 5 of his book.
Each myth has a biblical reference, and a brief summary shall give you, the reader, some perspective on how he perceives the future of climate change discourse. The first myth he discusses is something he coins “Lamenting Eden.” (Hulme 2009, 342) Hulme relates this biblical story to the loss of the Garden of Eden once Adam and Eve betrayed his trust they were banished. The similarity that can be drawn between this creation story and the current world climate is the belief that nature is “pure and pristine.” (Hulme 2009, 342). Hulme suggests that there is a nostalgia for the former climate systems before human interference and is something that is irreversible. The Egalitarians may believe this to be the worst nightmare, they envisage the likely scenario that human intervention will cause irreversible damage to the climate system and they will, therefore, mourn the loss of what could have been.
The next myth discussed in the text is “Presaging the Apocalypse.” (Hulme 2009, 343) The ‘Presaging the Apocalypse’ approach is essentially using fear to convey an urgency of climate change catastrophe. An apocalyptic outlook is very much aligned with the views expressed in the ‘Catastrophe frame,’ discussed in chapter 7, and “may engage those who see Nature as ephemeral (egalitarians).” (Hulme 2009, 229). Next, Hulme discusses the concept, “Constructing Babel.” (Hulme 2009, 348). Here, Hulme relates the unstable and unregulated technological advances of climate change technologies to the creation story that ultimately led to the intervention of God when humans created a marvel that surpassed their human abilities. The story told here, therefore, is one of warning and Hulme foreshadows nature resisting the attempt of humans to create artificial climate. The last story and one that Hulme seems to favor most is “Celebrating Jubilee.” (Hulme 2009, 353). Celebrating Jubilee, Hulme argues, is the promotion of social and ethical justice outside of climate change discourse.
I think that it is incredibly important to acknowledge where you would stand in the midst of climate change discourse, and I hope I have given you, the reader, some idea of where you may situate yourself among the Earth’s population when it comes to evaluating the effectiveness of solutions to global environmental issues.
In our first group project, titled ‘Climate Change in Portland: Voices from the Streets,’ The objective of our team, along with the other teams of the ENVS 160 class, was to assess Portlanders’ views on climate change. In comparison to the US in general, our results indicate that on average, Portlanders express a lower degree of concern about climate change. In retrospect, we could have improved the project by conducting a similar survey that would instead allow the interviewees to categorically place climate change amongst other variables. An example of this technique would be to give them a list of a few (or all) of the sustainable development goals, such as eradicating poverty, eradicating world hunger, and providing affordable and clean energy, etc., and then give them the opportunity to sort through the options from the most important to the least
In, ‘Making The Modern World,’ Vaclav Smil describes, using data, how much of Earth’s resources we consume and the impact of our material consumption on the planet.
I have learnt that interstate highways in the US alone required 730Mt of concrete, which is not counting “shoulders, medians, approaches, and overpasses. (Smil 2014, 54). In 2010, China produced a whopping 1.88Gt of cement, accounting for “55% of global output.” (Smil 2014, 55). As a consequence of the intense consumption of cement, it has contributed to about 5% of global CO2 emissions (Smil 2014, 55), a substantial amount of production from a single industry. I believe that it is incredibly important to assess the global demand and CO2 emission from industries such as the cement industry, especially when concrete is “now by far the most important manmade material both regarding global annual production and cumulatively emplaced mass.” (Smil 2014, 55). Armed with this information, any an individual with a vested interest in global environmental solutions can spread awareness of the issue and find popular support to institutionalize future rulings against such devastating forms of production.
Smil has taught me how to distinguish the differences between relative dematerialization versus absolute dematerialization, and what both mean in a global context. Relative dematerialization occurs when costs decrease while performance improves, (Smil 2014) whereas absolute dematerialization occurs when the economy (global or national) grows, and resource use remains at least stable or decreases. (Smil 2014) Relative dematerialization has been occurring throughout the mid 20th century to the current day and is achieved through research and development and innovation. For example, regarding passenger cars, there was an improved in the power/mass ratio of American gasoline engines and, therefore, slowed down the growth of demand for materials needed to make prime movers. (Smil 2014). However, car ownership increased and began to negate the higher average power of the dematerialized engines. (Smil 2014). I have learned about Jevon’s paradox, which discusses how there has been an efficiency in consumption of goods; however, because of increased consumption, the overall benefits are void. When applied to dematerialization discourse, Jevon’s paradox is similar if not the same concept as relative dematerialization, which can trick people into believing that substantial gains are being made in decreasing material consumption, when in fact, it has only fueled the market for these same materials. What the world needs is absolute dematerialization to make a difference in our material consumption, which will then positively impact our global environment.
In my situating mineral assignment, titled ‘Feeding the Mountain that Eats Men,’ we have explored the mineral extraction of tin and its relation to ‘place.’ In ENVS 160, we perceive place as the center of interaction between processes and perspectives in one location, which includes nature, social relations, and meaning. (Proctor 2017). In Malaysia, for example, the tin mines near Sungai Lembing, in the state of Pahang, have been converted into a heritage site but had served as a place where all three Malaysian ethnicities had worked alongside one another and to create one of the deepest tin mines in South East Asia. However, the local hardscapes have been adversely affected by the dumping of organic tin compounds into water systems, which has killed off certain species of fish residing in the area.
An improvement we would make to the project is to explore our respective places with an objective lens, versus a subjective one. We had begun to evaluate tin mining practices in our places, and as a consequence, the project evolved from a describe and explain the assignment to a critique of tin mining and tin mining practices, which was not in the project description.
The classic and contemporary environmentalism readings were used to illustrate the contention between ideas of environmentalism.
In the classic and contemporary environmental readings, I have chosen the important lessons preached by Michael Maniates, who stresses that lifestyle changes and green consumer choices will not act as monumental solutions to global environmental issues. Maniates states, In the end, individualising responsibility does not work—you can’t plant a tree to save the world.” (Maniates 2001, 44). I think it is incredibly important to be aware of the situation we put ourselves in when we decide to emphasize individual-scale and refuse to engage with institutional-scale action. Referring to the Cultural Theory Grid, it can be assumed that individual-scale action is a preferable source of solutions for egalitarian-centric persons. From the statistics collected from the 2017 ecotypes survey, the results reveal that egalitarians contribute to the majority of people who have taken the survey, as they stress individual-scale action more so than institutional-scale action. Even though there are differences between these two approaches, individual-scale action vis-a-vis institutional-scale action, I have identified that we should not be trying to polarize these modes of action, instead, reconcile them through joint solutions, which will be discussed in the ‘Who Rules The Earth’ section later on in the roadmap.
The ‘interrogating isms’ assignment, titled ‘Beware the Elves,’ explores and questions the legitimacy of ecoterrorism. We, as a group, have discovered that they have caused a substantial amount of monetary damage to private and public property in the United States, amounting to an approximate $42.8 million (Chad et al. 2002). We had selected the Earth Liberation Front as our case study into ecoterrorism and found that they are trying to preserve pure nature, which is closely aligned to the pursuit of essentialism. We found the aims of eco-terrorist groups, such as Earth Liberation Front (who do claim they are eco-terrorist organizations) very interesting because they come into direct contention with many scholars who have “modified, challenged, or rejected this pure view of nature, claiming that the reality of our biophysical world is entangled with human actions” (Proctor 2017). A modification of our project would be to explore organizations who do not claim they are eco-terrorist groups, though who are labelled by world governing bodies, such as the UN, as groups that are eco-terrorist.
The next and last text that will be explored in this roadmap post is ‘Who Rules the Earth,’ by Paul F. Steinberg. A summary of the text, in Steinberg’s own words, is “All forms of social organization, from the European Court of Justice to your favorite restaurant, operate through that other mode of human connectedness: social rules.” (Steinberg 2015, 266). Steinberg how we should engage with social rules to make major differences in environmentalism, considering that they dictate many aspects of our daily lives.
Much like Maniates, Steinberg asserts that the individual act of recycling is not enough and that it is more a “matter of balance, complementing these everyday acts of individual conscience with larger actions to promote social change.” (Steinberg 2015, 278). Steinberg offers a variety of ways in which we can reconcile these differences between the individual and the institution, and the one way that resonated with me the most was to “think vertically.” (Steinberg 2015, 276). I have learnt from Steinberg that, depending on the situation, it is entirely possible to walk in with a suit and jacket and head to the nation’s capital to make social changes: we just need to be aware of how to scale this form of action up. The egalitarians and hierarchists can come together through “successful demonstration programmes at local levels, to convince national policymakers that the proposed change is feasible and needs scaling up.” (Steinberg 2015, 277). The think vertical approach can act from the top down as well.
The next important lesson that was explored is bridging academia with activism. Steinberg states, “we need more routine opportunities for meaningful collaboration between researchers and agents of change.” (Steinberg 2015, 270). As a high school student, I was recommended that we engage with research in a normative manner, meaning that I would make recommendations on how the world should be rather than fighting for what it must. However, when I arrived in college, I found this to be a much different scenario. Here, we are recommended, much to be committed to a social cause and efforts at public advocacy. These modes of activism, which Steinberg believes “represent no threat to intellectual integrity,” (Steinberg 2015, 17) provides a voice for matters that we as individuals are passionate about, which can be applied to global concerns, such as climate change.
My four individual posts are a summary reflection of my journey through ENVS 160. Here are the links to post 1, post 2, post 3, and post 4. Post 3 pertains directly to the ‘Who Rules The Earth,’ and in that post, I have highlighted and reiterated a few of the main sources of knowledge I have inherited from the text. The main takeaway from this post is that social rules matter, whether you like it or not, and we should engage with them in the correct manner to make a difference on a global scale.
In conclusion, each of the three texts, and the readings on contemporary and classical environmentalism has given me a lot to think about for the future. I hope to incorporate as many elements of what I have learned into my daily life and to inform people of what I have learnt in ENVS 160. As Steinberg mentions, awareness is the first thing we as environmental studies students would blurt out when jolted awake in the middle of the night, but it took ENVS 160 to show me that awareness would require institutionalization to make it last in the global system.
Works Cited
Hulme, Mike. 2009. Why We Disagree about Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity. Cambridge University Press.
Smil, Vaclav. 2014. Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization. Chichester, West Sussex, United Kingdom: Wiley.
Steinberg, Paul F. 2015. Who Rules the Earth?: How Social Rules Shape Our Planet and Our Lives. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.