Here I am in the library on the second to last day of ENVS 160. As I evaluated the course, I began to frame my mind towards the question: What have I taken from this class. What do I value now, that I didn’t value at the beginning of the year? Moreover, how will this knowledge affect my life from here on out? This is an exciting paper to write, as it is defining the impact that this course has had on me. I hope to convey my personal experiences with ENVS 160, as well as an evaluation of what each section meant to me as an academic.
Opening the first book, Why We Disagree About Climate Change by Mike Hulme, was an exciting experience. “Here I go,” I thought, “I finally get to learn how to change the world!” boy was I wrong. My yearning for an answer to how we can finally change the detrimental habits of our species was unfortunately not answered until the last few weeks of school. I actually felt as though we were getting further and further away from the topic the more that we dove into readings about disagreeing, materials, and classic thought. However, this book took me on a ride through culture, history, and policy to describe why environmental issues are approached in many ways. I learned that cultures view nature as entirely different entities causing universal conversation about the topic to be ambiguous and difficult. I learned that informing the public in a completely honest way is difficult due to the way data and results can be interpreted too simply by the public. I also learned that before we solve a crisis that involves the entire world, we must first view that world as a unit of one people: borders don’t belong in an open minded and constructive environment that is to tackle a wide issue (Hulme 2009).
Next I found myself constructing idea’s of how these differences affect the actual issues that exist towards environmental resource depletion and habitat depletion. Making the Modern World, by Vaclav Smil challenged the way I thought about environmental issues. I always pictured seagulls covered in oil, or massive factories pumping out sludge into the sky and ocean. I pictured big cars consuming gas, and drills pumping out resources of a nice farmer’s back yard. I realised through reading this book, that I had always been thinking too broadly. The issues exist in resource consumption. That factory pumping out sludge is using resources on every step of the process of creating and distributing a product. Extraction of resources uses energy and fuel. Transportation of that resource to the factory uses fuel. The process of combining that resource with others uses energy, fuel, water, money, and time. Each product that I use on a day to day basis is composed of materials that have come from all across the world, but i merely think of them as what they are to my purpose; A backpack, a water bottle, a computer, a staircase. Smil challenged my ability to perceive environmental issues as broad topics and to focus on more realistic solutions framed by resource depletion. The true issue resides in consumption and mindfulness of how much of this world we exploit to fulfill our day to day purposes (Smil 2013).
My final challenge was to combine all of the lessons and readings from the entire course and apply them while reading about who controls the world. The book Who Rules The Earth, by Paul Steinberg, finally combined by curiosity with implementation. This book crossed the reality of disagreement, consumption, and traditions to illustrate how implementation of environmental policy would actually take place. I learned that it is imperative to inform the public honestly and properly about environmental issues, because the voice up the public is much more influential than we allow it to be through traditions. Steinberg also pushes the point that the reason we have so many detrimental habits to the environment is because they’ve existed in tradition for years, and we have not considered their impact during the formation of these habits. Some examples of these habits would be mandatory green lawns in california, or using styrofoam boxes at restaurants as takeout containers. Once policy is in place allowing these traditions to take place, new policy has to be introduced on an institutional level to make change. Individual action can raise awareness, but will never change these policies. If you chose to stop taking your food home in styrofoam, those that find it convenient will still implement this habit in their lives. But challenging the institution’s use of this material can cause them to openly accept the habit as detrimental and make change (Steinberg 2015 Chapter 11).
These building blocks of environmental thought offer the most important elements of the course. In reflecting on the value I hold in the course, I realize that I have been equipped with the told necessarily to understand environmental concerns and how to properly communicate, implement, and recognize change. Without this course, I may still think nothing of the materials it takes to live a materialistic life. I may still be investing my concern in the distracting elements of media with the oil covered seagulls, or polar bears stranded on a small ice block. (not to say that there’s aren’t true concerns). I feel comfortable talking about environmentalism with educated individuals, and I feel comfortable sharing this knowledge, which may be the most important takeaway – to share this knowledge is to share the ability to understand change.
Hulme, Mike. 2009. Why We Disagree about Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Steinberg, Paul. 2015. Who Rules the Earth?: How Social Rules Shape Our Planet and Our Lives. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Smil, Vaclav 2013. Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization. Wiley Publishing.