How will you practice, in your scholarly and personal life, what you have learned in ENVS 160?
ENVS 16o has definitely been a turning point for me in my college education. Taking the class in conjunction with Psychology 100 has allowed me to discover why pursuing an Environmental Studies would not be right for me. However, I do believe that there are some aspects of what I have learned that I can apply in the rest of my college career and my life.
The environmental frameworks we learned about in the waning hour of this semester (ENVS 160 lecture, “Environmental Frameworks,” 4/12/2017) are what really reflect my evolution in comprehension of the many complicated layers that make up environmental studies. When I began the course I definitely fit the category of someone who believed in the beneficial properties of Kombucha and the good work of the Sierra Club. There were simple solutions to manageable problems. As we read Why We Disagree About Climate Change by Mike Hulme (2009) I was enthusiastic about meticulously reading every chapter. I thought that simple answers could be found by doing due diligence in my research. What I came to realize in the second part of the semester was that this was unrealistic. My perspective had transitioned to one of ambivalence. As it seemed no matter how much I read of Making The Modern World by Vaclav Smil (2013) I could not get over how entrenched society is in material production. It left with a more pessimistic framework of doom and gloom about the state of the environment.
As the semester continued I was given the tool of understanding environmental studies as a variety of different issues with a multitude of perspectives to provide context. I believe that this has been more useful for me than seeing environmental studies as an arena for facts and action to spar against the the perils of issues including Global Warming.
The framework of utilizing multiple perspectives can also be very dangerous such as the phenomenon of fake news that has emerged in this last political election. I want to use the skills I have learned in Environmental Studies this semester to detect such falsehoods and inform the public with effective and complete explanations. However because I have taken this course I do understand that these are more complex than they seem. After college I want to become a journalist in Washington D.C. Whatever specific major I choose to pursue in order to reach that goal will be because of the knowledge I now possess. Informing the people is the action I believe I can fully pursue. I believe my personality would not be conducive to completely unweaving the complex social, economic, and environmental boundaries. I believe that is why I could not major in Environmental Studies, but why I can utilize the lessons I learned in the text in the context of investigative journalism.
Works Cited:
Hulme, Mike. 2009. Why We Disagree about Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity. Cambridge U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
Vaclav Smil, Making the Modern World (Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2014).