A common theme that I have found myself writing about in the reflection and synthesis posts is that ENVS 160 was a much needed wake-up call. My practices in both my scholarly life and my personal life were not at the level at which I could begin to start addressing issues within the field of environmental studies. Like I mentioned in the first individual post, what we are studying is much more of a complex issue than I ever originally could have realized.
The most important and applicable lesson I have learned is that I need to question everything. My first reaction to this takeaway was a sense of annoyance as many of the cornerstones I based the views and actions in both my scholarly and personal life seemed to be ineffective or misinformed. I felt a sense of what I can best describe as despair as everything around me was questioned. Not only did I realize how extensive disagreement within the field was, even among people who “agree” with one another about environmental issues (Hulme 2009), but that even extremely prevalent works and ideas like Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons aren’t standards I should necessarily take as fact (Ostrom 2008). However, I did quickly come to appreciate why questioning everything is necessary. The point of questioning situations is not meant to prove something is invalid or not, but rather to get a better understanding in order to be productive. One example is in Making the Modern World with material substitution. The assumption that a CAD system replacing paper blueprints did reduce material use is incorrect. Without questioning this assumption one cannot gain more understanding about the situation or take steps to actually reduce the materials used instead of appearing to reduce the amount of materials used (Smil 2014).
By questioning in my scholarly life I am able to arrive at, not only to better understandings of ideas, situations, and problems, but I am also able to find potential solutions to problematic areas that might not be viewed as being problematic. A great example of this can be found in Who Rules the Earth when Steinberg discusses why we need to think past just “acting locally” if we want to make a difference (Steinberg 2015). By questioning the world around us we are setting ourselves up to be more productive. In order to meet the complex demands of current environmental issues we need to have complex well thought out and prepared solutions, which can only be achieved though the deconstruction of the issues we’re trying to address through questioning.
The way I have viewed this lesson of questioning things is, in a way, a model of my thought process throughout the course. At first I was uncertain as I was bombarded with information that revealed extremely complex issues. Later I had a sort of sense of hopelessness that the issues we discussed were too complex to be solved. The last and current position is moving past this sense of hopelessness and examining ways that I can act and take action in order to improve or begin to address the situation.
Works Cited
- Hulme, Mike. 2009. Why we disagree about climate change: understanding controversy, inaction and opportunity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Smil, Vaclav. 2014. Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons.
- Steinberg, Paul. 2015. Who Rules the Earth. New York: Oxford University Press.
- 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.