In ENVS 160 the texts we read and projects we’ve done not only served to teach us the base of environmental thought but also gave us ways to approach our personal and scholarly life. Many of the works we have read have both implicitly and explicitly have given ways to live one’s life and change the world. After doing all the readings for this class I have thought about how each could relate to my life and make my a productive member of society. There are some habits I do that have been validated and other practices I want to do more in my life.
One thing that this class emphasized is thinking critically of texts. Many of the works we read approached subjects from opposite directions. In this class with so many texts from varying viewpoint one of the things we were able to practice was really considering the authors biases and the lenses that they thought through. The goal wasn’t to believe everything we read but question the authors we read. While reading critically thinking was also important in forming our own opinions on subjects like climate change and dematerialization. The works we read allowed me to come to my own conclusions instead of being force fed information without hearing multiple sides of the argument. In my scholarly life I would like to investigate multiple side of the situation before making a decision. This is something I haven’t always done before. I plan to be an ENVS major I haven’t quite figured out what direction I would like to go with my concentration. After reading Who Rules the Earth?, I want to try to combine activism and scholarship. I’m not exactly sure what that will look like that yet however I do know that I would like to be a “rule changer” and I don’t want to wait until I’m done with college to do so (Steinburg 2015). Another thing that I will be careful to do in my own writing is staying away from Big Words. Over the course I’ve seen how little value words like nature, sustainable, and the environment without them being explained in context of a certain text. Overall the works that we have read have made me a more conscious reader and writer in my scholarly life.
The texts we read not only gave ways to better our scholarly life but also our personal ones. Many things we read dealt with institutional and individual action. I’ve realized the institutional action is needed to create lasting change. We need to think big and globally to make the largest amount of difference. This doesn’t mean people should stop all individual action however. These text did not make me want to stop doing small things like turning off the lights when I leave a room or water when I brush my teeth. They did make me want to try to action more intuitionally in my life. I’m not completely sure how I’m going to be able to do that yet. When looking at things I want to change in the world I want to be able to think vertically (Steinberg 2015). I want my actions to not only affect a local place but farther. When talking to people in my personal life I would also like to be more open to hearing viewpoints that differ from me. It is so easy for people to shut down anyone who doesn’t believe the same things. This isn’t an effective way to communicate and no progress will come from it. How can I expect people to listen to my opinions when I don’t listen to theirs? In the beginning on ENVS 160 I didn’t realize that there would be things to learn about my personal life but over the semester I’ve seen that my personal life and scholarly life are more intertwined than I imagined.
ENVS 160 was full of information that as students we had to find connections and important reoccurring themes. I learned more than just information in this class and want to bring those things into how I life my life. I hope that I will be able to do good not only for myself but also for the benefit of others. For more of my thoughts on lessons learned in ENVS 160 and they affected my personal and scholarly life see here and here.
Steinberg, Paul F. 2015. Who Rules the Earth?: How Social Rules Shape Our Planet and Our Lives. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.