The morning that I first started my ENVS 160 course, I woke up and took a 45 second shower. I ate my breakfast of yogurt, then washed and recycled the container. I got ready quickly, and turned off all my lights before leaving my room. On my way out the door, I passed the bike rack where my bike was residing, thinking that I should bike downtown that weekend instead of using the bus or a lyft. I walked into class feeling proud of myself because I already knew that climate change existed, and I was doing things about it! I was saving energy and reducing my water use, which is all I could possibly be doing as a college student, right? I was ready for my professor to tell me that I was doing great, and I thought this course would be a breeze because I already knew everything I needed to know about the environment. Boy was I wrong.
Now it’s monday on the last week of classes, and I know that I really knew nothing about climate change or how to make a difference in the fight against it on that first morning. Instead, I am taking out of this class a series of new ideas about climate change, the environment, and how to save the world. From each big text we read over the semester, I developed a new idea that I am going to use to my advantage in my environmental endeavors in the future.
From Why We Disagree About Climate Change, I learned that understanding climate change does not mean understanding just one thing with one solution (Hulme 2009). Instead, it means that I have to recognize climate change as a series of large and small-scale issues stemming from human action, and that it has a series of large and small-scale solutions along a series of perspectives. This means that in my scholarly life, I need to be reading environmental texts across a spectrum of environmental thought, and in my personal life, I need to be open to listening to and trying to understand varieties of opinions about the environment. Whether this means trying to talk about a new way to combat climate change that I have never thought of before with a peer, or reading a text written by a climate change denier and trying to understand where their thoughts are stemming from, I will be putting in more effort from now on to listen to all perspectives.
From Making the Modern World, I have learned that I need to incorporate humans and their development into my environmental thought and engagement (Vaclav 2013). The materials that humans have been creating and consuming throughout history have been a major contributor to the current climate change epidemic. Whenever I had previously thought about climate change, I had pictured it in the light of nature separate from humans. I always imagined a sad polar bear trapped on a patch of ice in the middle of the ocean, and humans were never involved in that climate change image. However, discussing and learning more about the human impact on climate change and the human issues surrounding climate change will allow me to engage in environmental issues more effectively. Therefore, in my personal and scholarly life, I am going to consider the anthropocene. It is important to think about how humans affect the environment, and if I am going to work on solving climate change, I will need to focus on solutions that combat the human impact on the environment.
From Who Rules the Earth? I have more fully realized the power of institutions over individual action (Steinberg 2015). This brings us back to my first day of ENVS, when I thought that because I was recycling my yogurt and riding my bike, I was doing enough for the environment. This text emphasizes that this is not true in the slightest, and that working with organizations, governments, and corporations to change environmental rules and regulations will make a difference in the effort against global climate change. In the future, I would like to take part in more organizations at Lewis and Clark or elsewhere that are trying to create or change environmental policies to have a positive influence on ecosystems across the country.
Who Rules the Earth also noted the power that individual citizens have to influence policy if they band together in organizations or just as citizens to put pressure on policymakers (Steinberg 2015). This again is emphasizing the power of institutions, but while also explaining how much an individual contributes to institutional change. This is the most important thing I think that I will be taking from ENVS and applying to my personal life. I finally can acknowledge and understand my power as an individual to inspire change. Now, that does not mean the whole act locally and think globally ideal that I held before I took this class, but it does mean that if I have an idea that I want to be put in policy, I can find like minded peers or people to join together with me and put pressure on my local government to inspire change on a larger scale. Recognizing my own power as a global citizen is the most powerful thing I have taken away from this class, and the thing I now will hold most dear to me in my environmental endeavors.
References
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.