In this final post we sit here and ask ourselves, what the heck can we do with all of this information on environmental change and sustainability that we have learned throughout ENVS 160? How can we as individuals have a local, regional, and global impact? How can we teach others to think about the environment as we have? As I have mentioned in a previous post, it is more than just about doing things on an individual level such as recycling and composting in our own homes. It takes a collective unit to slowly build up to a local, regional, then global scale working one step at a time so that are goals can be feasible and achievable. It is worth taking the time to sit down and have a conversation with someone who doesn’t believe that climate change is happening; really listen and figure out why they don’t believe in climate change and have a productive conversation that will further both people’s knowledge rather than sticking to one opinion. Really pay attention to what resources we are using and think about the negative space that comes with each thing we consume, that is think about all the resources and work that went into creating this thing we are using and ask is it worth it? As Smil pointed out in his book, there are different materials that consume and give off different amounts of energy so we need to think about which materials we choose to use in order to conserve that energy (Smil, 2014). This is why academically, it is necessary that people are educated in things like chemistry, biology, ecology, geology, etc. so people can have backgrounds and ideas on the things we are using and the impacts it has on the world from different perspectives.
Things like politics, culture, and social change have just as much impact on us as they do the environment. It is important that we as individuals see how these things are impacting us and how that in turn could impact the way we choose to treat the environment. I personally would like to take economics into more consideration as a lens in which I think about the environment and would like to look into the materials I consume more carefully and how they come to be. Even though I am not a major/minor in environmental studies, I still think it is extremely important to stay up to date with things and discoveries that are being made in the natural science world and how those are impacting the way we live, since the Earth has a direct effect on all our lives. I think it is about being optimistic and encouraging others to be optimistic as well while maintaining feasible goals for change. I will still continue to recycle and compost where I can and will gladly educate any one else that doesn’t know how to compost or recycle. I may not be making a large enough impact for global change but the potential for encouragement is there and if enough people follow along, maybe there will be a change large enough to have a global impact in the future.
Sources
Smil, Vaclav. 2014. Making the Modern world: Materials and Dematerialization. Chichester, West Sussex, United Kingdom: Wiley.