Coming out of ENVS 160, I have learned quite a great deal about environmental theory and many of the intricacies that form its ideas in conjunction with some environmental and social phenomena as a whole. Through these and other lessons which I have described within my last three reflection posts, I have developed scholarly tools and practices essential to my future work within Environmental Studies as well as my own personal approach for interpreting the world around me.
The first major tool I have developed is centered on recognizing the inherent structure and meaning of questions, a topic I wrote about within my first personal reflection post. Questions can be categorized into four types: descriptive, explanatory, evaluative, and instrumental. But this is not merely a bullet list; in fact, it is a process. Each type builds upon the last with descriptive questions acting as the main foundation. The idea is neither radical nor a problematic; rather, it is rooted in common sense. One cannot ask “why” before asking “what.” One also cannot informatively ask whether something is good or bad and for whom without understanding the knowledge gained from asking “what” and “why.” Finally, after answering the three previous question types, one can start pondering what action needs to be done.
With this approach in mind, I can better analyze and critique scholarly information by discerning which area of investigation resonates most clearly within the text. I am also more confident to write in an informed manner when conducting my own future research on a topic. Within ENVS 160, we have performed a tremendous amount of practice of this sort by analyzing and identifying question types through incremental readings and team projects. Within the last team assignment, the isms project, we had to address all the question types before proposing an instrumental solution as to whether a certain environmental ism should still be practiced within environmental scholarship. I no doubt will practice the same technique for future instrumental-oriented projects, and I am eager to improve with more experience.
The second tool is one that I am still developing, an environmental framework of thought. This concept is centered around a key lecture Professor Proctor gave in class on April 12, 2017 titled “Environmental Frameworks.” The lecture focused on a few common pre-frameworks and larger frameworks in association with environmental thought. First and foremost, the term framework is referred to as “ways to understand how you relate to the world” and must be created on one’s own rather than choosen from a list. The two pre-frameworks were titled “Shiny Objects” and “Chaos.” Each encompass a random collection of environmental news, technology, or other development with the former focusing on solely positive information and the latter concentrating on the purely negative material. Two common frameworks of environmental thought are classic and anti-classic. The former dictates a simple two-way interaction between an individual and the world: the world informs the individual via facts, and the individual will hence act unto the world. The anti-classical approach, on the other hand, doesn’t see facts as absolute, but through the lens of multiple perspectives.
I have come to recognize that the anti-classical framework incorporates both pre-frameworks within its ideology. Looking back at our coursework over the semester, the ability to recognize an issue from multiple perspectives with regard to both positive and negative perceptions is a rather important framework-based tool I have developed. A prime example of this anti-classical approach would be cultural theory discussed in Mike Hulme’s Why We Disagree About Climate Change. The theory focuses on four perspectives: the fatalist, the hierarchist, the individualist, and the egalitarian. Each is defined by his placement on an axis based on the degree of rule-based orientation (grid) and social alignment (group). With this structure in place, multiple perceptions are accounted for in relation to one another, from understanding climate’s relation to humanity to evaluating reformist approaches of sustainable development (Hulme 2009). Hulme further explores other perspectives such as models of how science relates to public decisions, different theologies of blame for climate change, expanding scales of climate solutions, and varying models in risk perception and communication (Hulme 2009).
Additional focus on the anti-classical framework was explored in our situating minerals team assignment. By focusing on several specific production sites, we were able to construct a global anti-classical framework for a specific mineral. By informing ourselves of the positive and negative effects a mineral can have for differing communities, we became more informed of the complexity of mineral production rather than falling back on oversimplified assumptions. However, despite its scholarly benefits, understanding and utilizing the anti-classical approach is simply not enough.
Proctor’s “Environmental Frameworks” lecture, after discussing the common classical and anti-classical frameworks, offers a novel and more dynamic approach: the contemporary model. It considers the previous frameworks’ ideas but then takes on a more practical approach to environmental thought, viewing the world “as it is” through “hybrid”, “connected”, and “constructed” methodologies. Things are not orderly, things are linked to other things, and in order to understand the world, one must engage with it. These frameworks are heavily emphasized in course material such as Why We Disagree About Climate Change. Hulme proposes the idea that climate change is a “wicked problem” because it has no definitive source, it is the product of symptoms of yet other issues, and solutions are difficult to recognize due to the interdependent nature of the problem (Hulme 2009, 334). Recognizing climate change’s hybrid and connected nature, Hulme requests we look at it in a constructive way through “clumsy solutions”, which utilizes an assortment of strategies (Hume 2009, 337).
Perceiving the world through this contemporary perspective also means we must critique popular classical scholarship, some of which can be found in my second reflection post. Two main examples would be Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons (Hardin 1968) and Meadow et al.’s Limits to Growth (Meadows 1974). Contemporary scholars critiqued both theories for being oversimplified and failing to take in consideration other key factors and actors. Ostrom noted how Hardin failed to consider jointly owned common pool resources in contrast to open-access resources. He saw all communal ownership as hazardous where in fact jointly-owned resources can actually serve as a productive method to protect resources from overuse (Ostrom 2008). The Limits to Growth argument was similarity critiqued by Mike Hulme using the example of the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement in which industrialized nations agreed to lower their collective greenhouse emissions by 2012. Given the hybrid and connected nature of the causes, consequences, and actors involved in climate change, the agreement could never be successfully implemented (Hulme 2009).
Additional emphasis on the constructive characteristic of the contemporary frameworks is found in Paul Steinberg’s Who Rules the Earth? (Steinberg 2015). I wrote quite a great deal of the intricacies of his argument in my third reflection post, but his main point remains clear: social rules (i.e. institutions) are the most critical actors of environmental change and need to be acknowledged and utilized to their fullest extent to achieve successful environmental policy. The very nature of social rules is hybrid and connected by definition. They specify a number of roles, spell out the rights of each role, and attach responsibilities to anyone who occupies these roles. Steinberg pushes for the constructivist notion of democratic participation and argues for the importance of governance and the need to “think vertically” (Steinberg 2015, 163). Instead of seeing ourselves first as consumers then as citizens in the context of environmental activism, we need to prioritize our democratic responsibilities as citizens before worrying about buying environmentally aware products (Steinberg 2015). The latter prioritization is more crucial, but more importantly, it is more complex. It reflects the reality of seeing the world “as it is” within contemporary frameworks and the need to engage with it via social rules.
While harnessing the main ideas and concepts of contemporary frameworks, I still need to supplement my own existing—and changing—perceptions. Then I can construct a viable personal framework in which I can “understand how (I) relate to the world” as stated in Proctor’s April 12th lecture. There is much work to be done in this regard, but now that I am armed with question strategies and the perspective of anti-classical and contemporary frameworks, I am moving in the right direction.
References
Hardin, Garrett. 1968. “The Tragedy of the Commons.” Science 162 (3859): 1243–48. doi:10.1126/science.162.3859.1243.
Hulme, Mike. 2009. Why We Disagree about Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity. Cambridge University Press.
Meadows, Donella H., Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens. 1974. The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind. New York: Universe Books.
Ostrom, Elinor. 2008. “The Challenge of Common-Pool Resources.” Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development 50 (4): 8–21. doi:10.3200/ENVT.50.4.8-21.
Steinberg, Paul F. 2015. Who Rules the Earth?: How Social Rules Shape Our Planet and Our Lives. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.