Conversations related to environmental ideas will never be the same after I complete my first year of Environmental Studies at Lewis & Clark. My conversations will be different not only because I have learned new approaches to consider environmental thought, but also because I have become more knowledgable in general and will be able to fortify and backup my arguments with new, refreshing ideas. The point of noting that my conversations are going to change is that using my new ideas to improve the mindsets of my friends and family will be effective in potentially improving their conversations and so on. My goal is to spread knowledge, specifically what I have learned from the four sections of ENVS 160 in conversation with my friends and family and also with the green non-for-profit I work for.
As I have previously mentioned before, I used to struggle with using my knowledge related to the environment for the better because it was all related to individual decisions (see here). I was a stereotypical kid who cared about the environment but I was not stereotypical in the way that I felt as if I was festering because of the small individual decisions that I was told would make a difference would do nothing. However, I have since learned , at least from Paul F. Steinberg’s opinion, for example that “what we need most is to toss in the compost pile an old rule that may have made perfect sense in its time” (Steinberg 2015, 268), and make an “impact in your immediate surroundings by advocating for greater transparency in your local government, workplace policies and practices, or college campus administration”(Steinberg 2015, 259). There is a plethora of ideas in Steinberg’s Who Rules the Earth that could be quoted to , and I have studied it closely to address the pitfalls of my previous inability to formulate a confidence that is intertwined with my knowledge to make an impact.
The ideas of what can be done to make an impact on a bigger stage than just individual are able to be articulated by me in conversation, however there is always an opportunity to dig deeper. The biggest impact I will make after this class is bringing my knowledge and increase in environmental thought to the non-for-profit I work for and have worked for 2 years now, Keep Indianapolis Beautiful. Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, which I will refer to as KIB, is a non-for-profit which plants trees around Indianapolis, Indiana and empowers people to engage in place-making activities in their community environments, however, I have since become aware that the reach of the organization could be more broad if they could effect the politics of Indianapolis more so their impacts could be seen on a larger scale. In Steinberg’s final chapter, specifically in his section titled Think Vertically, he states that “you need to work for change at the city level, right? Wrong” (Steinberg 2015, 276), however, in my opinion and from my experience in a stubborn political scene, the verticality of thought especially in Indianapolis starts from the very bottom and rises slowly to the city level then the state. I plan to talk to more people who work at KIB to see what they have done to change the local politics of Indianapolis, and if I find a flaw or fault, I can apply my knowledge and potentially make a difference at a city level and eventually a state level.
My thoughts relating to the environment this semester are rooted in the festering of my want to make a difference. I have been doing so with my efforts at a green non-for-profit for several years now, but I plan on making bigger steps this summer by challenging the company and asking them what can be done to make a bigger difference and to dig past the holes dug to plant trees.