As this school year quickly draws to an end, I can’t help but think about the future; and not only my future, but the future of this world.
Even though ENVS 160 challenged me beyond belief, from getting to class by 8am (which I often failed to do) to truly understanding the selected readings (especially Smils’ Making the Modern World), I will leave the class with a strong sense of nostalgia and hope.
I finally feel as though I can answer the nagging question that I always tried to push to the back of my mind: What should I do next?
With the abundance of useful information offered in ENVS 160, the only direction I can go from here is forward. I think that the key is to begin applying everything I’ve been so privileged to learn to both my everyday life and scholarly life alike. Moving forward, I will bring many of these lessons with me with the goal of working towards a better tomorrow. I think that I will first focus on promoting individual and institutional action in my own life as well as the lives of others. This then leads us to my second area of focus, which will be to educate the masses.
Individual AND Institutional
As I explained in my first individual post, I came into ENVS 160 with a very pessimistic attitude because of what I had learned while taking an environmental science class in high school. I was convinced that this planet was doomed because of human greed, so I questioned if there was any point in trying to save something that I was sure was a lost cause. I was constantly told that my individual action would never be enough to “save the world.” However, in both my intro to sociology class and ENVS 160, I learned that change is, indeed, possible. It just takes a little bit of time and a LOT of reform. I don’t need to give up on my individual action, I just need to add institutional thinking to the equation. As Steinberg explains in his book Who Rules the Earth?, we must begin thinking institutionally instead of just individually if we want to make long-lasting and impactful changes. In my third individual post, I explained that institutional action will create a better future, but only if the right people are looking to make the change. Steinberg shares this opinion, as he demonstrates in the line, “The question before us is not whether change is possible. Change is ubiquitous. The question, rather, is who is participating in the process” (Steinberg 2015, 59). Because of this, I will not only think institutionally (ie. sign petitions, take part in protests, attend community discussions, etc.), but I will also continue my individual actions while urging others to do the same. I will continue to be conscious of my consumption, since there are many hidden costs (that are often detrimental to the health of this planet) that aren’t included in an item’s retail price. Keeping in mind the high amount of fossil fuels used to ship goods across the world, I will personally try to buy local in terms of food and clothing, while also cutting back on the amount of unnecessary materials that I buy. As Smil pointed out in his book Making the Modern World, consumption can be quite the addiction and America is too heavily invested in “stuff” (Smil 2014, 176). You know, materials don’t even lead to happiness, as I learned in my sociology class. Buying something new only offers a brief moment of satisfaction, before the urge to buy something else sets in and the endless cycle continues. As Smil also pointed out, “voluntary simplicity can only appeal to those who have enough to choose to live with less” (Smil 2014, 179). Because of this, I think that it is largely America’s responsibility to cut back on useless consumption, since so many Americans are able to. So, instead of advertising unnecessary goods every chance we get, we should move towards educating people on the falsehoods and manipulation included in these advertisements, which nicely brings me to my next point of focus: educating the masses.
Educating the Masses
In addition to thinking institutionally, I will also try to educate others with the useful ideas that I have learned. When I say others, I mean that I will first focus on friends, family, and peers before moving onto the masses. I will promote both individual and institutional action at a small scale while working my way up to a much larger scale, perhaps through majoring in RHMS. Media today often skews information with the intention of increasing views, which then increases profits. Right now, the media completely revolves around making money off of its viewers. I agree with Steinberg when he says, “we need more routine opportunities for meaningful collaboration between researchers and agents of change.” (Steinberg 2015, 270). Since the media is such a dominant presence in American culture, I think that a large part of educating the masses should be focusing on what people are exposed to on a daily basis. The media is, perhaps, the largest agent of change there is, since most Americans tune in to either a news network or their social media feeds every single day. In my future attempts to educate the masses, I hope to not only focus on this institutional-scale action but also promote a (not-so) new way of seeing the world. In my third team assignment, my group focused on the concept of “Deep Ecology,” which is basically the idea that humans and “nature” are one in the same and entirely connected to each other. I think that it would be incredibly beneficial for humans to stop differentiating themselves from the rest of the natural world. I’ve heard people admit that they feel more connected to technology than they do to other animals, which I find to be a problem. If humans are more exposed to the idea of “deep ecology,” through the media, I suspect they will stop trying to “save the planet” for selfish, anthropocentric reasons and instead save it because it deserves to live, in the same way that humans do. With that being said, I’d like to officially change my views of technology. I now realize that it can be used for good and is not just a destructive force, as I had originally believed, which errs on the contemporary side of the spectrum. As I learned in my social justice class last semester, it is important to realize that there isn’t really a true “state of nature” anymore. Since, by taking such a strong anthropocentric stance, humans have completely altered the structure of this planet and most all of its ecosystems, I think it’s only fair that humans step up as the benevolent regulators of the environment (and by environment, I mean ‘the natural world, as a whole or in a particular geographical area, especially as affected by human activity,’ as Oxford dictionary defined it). Instead of “letting nature take its course,” as many people believe to be the best approach when tackling issues such as invasive species, I think that humans should use their intellectual advancements, such as technology, to their/the planet’s advantage. If we educate enough people, making sure they want to bring about change for the right reasons, I think that we will have a much brighter future. Because of this, I can remain optimistic and I hope that you can too.
References:
Steinberg, Paul F. 2015. Who Rules the Earth?: How Social Rules Shape Our Planet and Our Lives. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Smil, Vaclav. 2014. Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization. Chichester, West Sussex, United Kingdom: Wiley.