The first thing I did before writing this was reflect on my original ecotypes survey and see how this course has changed me. At the beginning, I had a more apocalyptic view of the future, believing that if we did not act soon, a global catastrophe was sure to happen. Since then, I have realized that we should be optimistic about our ecological future, as society has become more and more aware of climate change’s effects on the world around us. My background knowledge of history, political science, and international affairs had definitely influenced my views going into ENVS, especially when it comes to the idea of individual vs institutional action. My background and my views as a globalist allowed me to realize that effective change can be made only through institutional change, as one person doing things is not an effective way to create change. By the end of this class, I questioned my notion, realizing that it was not strong enough. I came away from this class realizing that while institutional change is the only way to create effective change, individual actions are a part of it, as you need many people acting at many different levels to create lasting changes to society.
One thing that has always guided me throughout the class is my belief in modernity in respect to choosing views before fully grasping the arguments. I have never questioned actions, even when bad, rather I look into the reason for the actions, as that provides support for why the action was done. This has allowed me to become as objective as possible, which is beneficial as I question all my sources, and never make brash assumptions about the argument. This belief of mine materialized itself in an ecological sense the second we picked up the first book, Why We Disagree About Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity by Mike Hulme. Before reading this book, I could not comprehend why and how people could disagree about commonly held motions among the scientific community. One of the most important things Hulme teaches is the importance of understanding context, as the context is the reason for the why the actions are made. By showing us the cultural differences through society, as well as the political and historical differences, he outlines how and why people disagree not only about whether or not climate change is real, but also how to deal with climate change. His book also outlines that because of different cultures have diverse ways of defining nature and because of this, words like nature and environment become “big words” that are too ambiguous for scholarly text (Hulme 2005).
The last book we read, Who Rules the Earth: How Social Rules Shape Our Planet and Our Lives by Paul Steinberg, creates a melting pot of the major ideas of the prior books. The ideas of why we disagree about climate change and the consumption of resources by humans are talked about throughout the book, while another level (social rules) is added to the equation to solve how to implement change in our society. He outlines that these rules account for some of the causes that allow for bad policy, as the effects of the rules on the outside world was not calculated when the rules were made. This book also cemented my view that institutional change is the only way to make lasting change as “these isolated individual actions…are simply inadequate given the size of the challenge” (Steinberg 2015, 219).
So, What is my Plan?
To conclude, this course has made me materialize my plan to create change. Since a kid, my one true dream was to create change in our society. Growing up, I was faced with the negative aspects of being raised on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum, seeing the opportunities others were allotted, and the opportunities that were closed to me. This greatly influenced my view on the world and has opened my eyes to consciously see the wrongs committed to others that are underrepresented in our society. My belief of doing what is right has guided my life, and my views on most subjects represents my ideology of what is moral and what is immoral. I have found it immoral to neglect aspects of our society that have been neglected by our society whether this be women, the LGBTQ+ community, or things like our environment. I plan to materialize my dream by achieving my goals of becoming a lawyer and political activist. This will allow me, an individual, to try and create lasting institutional change (I think Steinberg would be proud).
Hulme, Mike. 2009. Why We Disagree About Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity. Cambridge U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
Steinberg, Paul F. 2015. Who Rules the Earth?: How Social Rules Shape Our Planet and Our Lives. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.