Coming into Environmental Studies 160 I had no idea what to expect in terms of content for the class, but I was excited hoping that this class would predict my major for the next four years. I assumed that we would be covering similar topics to the AP environmental science class that I had taken in high school, but I could not have been more wrong. Throughout this class we have not covered much related to the hard science, but we have addressed different ways of thinking and approaches of governing and viewing the environment. The class was divided into four sections looking into and analyzing different approaches and ways we interact with the environment.
In the first section of this course we looked at the wide range to thought and opinion on climate change. The text Why We Disagree About Climate Change by Mike Hulme made me question everything that I felt I had known before regarding climate change. The text really delves into the idea behind climate and how humans perceive something that we appear to take for granted. The idea that “as history gets rewritten and geography gets reshaped, so also our ideas of climate. Climate can change physically, but climates can also change ideologically” (Hulme 2009, 4). I had never before viewed climate change in such an abstract way, I was baffled when I came to the realization that there were so many opinions on what a climate even was, and this made me begin to understand how complex the issue of solving climate change really is.
The complexity of the issue of climate change and the large amount of diversity of opinion that surrounds it made for a very interesting group project on the public opinion of climate change. In the surrounding areas of Portland as a group we surveyed the public about their opinion on climate change and how they compare it to other current events issues of today. I found the responses to be intriguing and helped me to better understand how divided people still are on this issue, overall tying up the section on climate change opinion very nicely.
After reading Why We Disagree, I was shocked and confused by the work of Vaclav Smil. The text Making the Modern World took a very scientific approach to the addressing the problem of how we as humans are consuming stuff. I found it to be a nice change from the very conceptual work of Hulme and was interested how it gave a very detailed analysis of how humans are consuming things. The text also discussed the best way to go about distributing the resources that we have left and how they might possibly be allocated, looking into the future of our planet (Smil 2014).
The group assignment that we did to go along with this text, felt to me to be one of the most applicable to finding answers about how we are truly affecting the world at this moment. I looked into depth about graphite mining in China and the repercussions that it is having on the surrounding communities. This was interesting because it gave me a chance see how an environmental issue was affecting a community on a relatively small scale.
The third section of this course was all based on comparison in thought. We looked at comparing classic and contemporary environmental thought through different works from many authors. We started out by reading works from well known classic environmentalists, such as Meadows who wrote Limits to Growth which discussed the problems with continual growth and humankind reaching its carrying capacity and going beyond the worlds limits (Meadows 1974). This is the style of thought that I had grown up with, and so it was nice to read something comfortable for a change, but also remembering that this way of thinking was not quite current anymore. Contemporary environmentalism addressed environmental issues in a more free form way. White, a contemporary environmentalist discussed in his work The Problem with Purity how the world is a mix between nature and culture and so we should approach solving environmental and social issues together (White 2000). Comparing these two types of thought was very interesting, and we were even able to compare our own diversity of thought through a survey that took our opinions on the environment and compared them to classic and contemporary viewpoints.
Another interesting piece from this section of the class was the issue of technology and modernity. The book Austerity Ecology & the Collapse-Porn Addicts addressed these issues, the author Leigh Phillips hoped that his work would inspire people to have a pro-industrial, pro-growth left where modernity was used in a way that was good for the environment (Phillips 2015). Our group assignment for this unit looked into the movement of ecocriticism, and discussed the pros, cons and history of the movement that addresses the connections and opinions between nature and literature. Overall I found this unit to be every interesting and it really taught me that in order to make change it is necessary to think big.
The last section in this class focused solely on the text Who Rules the Earth by Paul Steinberg. After looking at many issues with our current environment and the large amount of thought around how to view these problems this text appeared to give more concrete answers. Steinberg focuses on concrete action and asks the reader to look at the institutions that control the way we live and demand change from them. Although it may seem at first that Steinberg disregards individual action he does at the end state that “you should not stop doing the little things like recycling…it is a matter of balance”(Steinberg 2015, 278). Steinberg believes that finding a balance should involve challenging corporations and the government looking to create a new set of rules. Who Rules the Earth was a great text to finish with because it really tied together many of the other ideas we had discussed previously and gave the reader some purpose and methods for taking action.
The last set of assignments that we did in this class consisted of four individual posts (1, 2, 3, 4) which tied together all of the concepts and ideas we had covered throughout the semester. These posts were a great opportunity to connect the texts from different units and synthesize all of the ideas we had gone over as well as being able to give our own opinion on the texts.
Looking back, I would say that this class has really taught me how to think critically about the way that I have always viewed the natural world, learning to take into account the social, political and economic issues as well. Attempting to look at the big picture and realizing that most often there is not a simple or clear answer. The best mindset to come into this class with, is understanding that almost all of your preconceived notions and values will at some point be put into question, so get ready!
Citations:
Hulme, Mike. 2009. Why We Disagree about Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity. Cambridge U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
Meadows, Donella H., Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens. 1974. The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind. New York: Universe Books.
Phillips, Leigh. 2015. Austerity Ecology & the Collapse-Porn Addicts: A Defence of Growth, Progress, Industry and Stuff. Winchester, UK: Zero Books.
Smil, Vaclav. 2014. Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization. Chichester, West Sussex, U.K.: Wiley.
Steinberg, Paul F. 2015. Who Rules the Earth?: How Social Rules Shape Our Planet and Our Lives. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
White, R. 2000. “The Problem with Purity.” Tanner Lectures on Human Values 21: 211–228.