Environmental Studies 160
Welcome to Environmental Studies 160 and may the odds be ever in your favor. Just kidding, it would be an over statement to parallel this course to the Hunger Games. So, don’t worry our professors are more kind than their quizzes. If you are worried, I aim to shed some light on the unknown and to ease any apprehension you may have. I won’t lie, the material you are about to cover is difficult and the values you have held steadfast to will be challenged, but that is the difference between environmental scholarship and being an outdoor enthusiast. I’m gonna provide some hints as to what may help you get started.
First, don’t be afraid to ask for help
Do not be afraid to ask your peers for help, but most of all, never hesitate to visit your professors office hours when you have questions. The resources at every students disposal are endless. The real question is how you will use them.
Second, it’s not worth loosing points because of citation errors
Learn it now and save yourself the headache later. Environmental Studies 160 uses the Chicago Author-Date style citation. The format is quite simple. When evidence is taken from a text, including occasions when evidence is paraphrased, a complete list of references must be placed at the bottom of your text. In your text, at the end of the sentence that provides evidence a parenthetical citation must be included before the period. If the sentence is either long, complex or the cited sentence is not obvious, the reference may instead be inserted immediately after the section where the information was used. It’s important to include page numbers whenever possible. Also, some of the readings for class can be found on Zotero, which in short is a place to systematically store and sort texts with tags. It can also be a useful resource for citing evidence. Bibliographies are available for the texts we read, you just need to know how to find them I’ll tell you below.
Parenthetical Citation (Last Name Year of Publication, Page #)
Example: (Smith 1992, 142)
References list Author Last, First. Year of Pub. (Pages) Title. Location of Publisher: Publisher.
- Include the URL when possible.
Example: Welch, Kathleen E. 1999. Electric Rhetoric: Classical Rhetoric, Oralism, and a New Literacy. Cambridge: MIT Press. http://www.netlibrary.com.
Zotero
- click on the reading you are citing
- then edit
- go down to “copy bibliography” (not copy citation, that won’t work correctly)
- Copy and paste as needed.
- I have found that Zotero doesn’t give the correct citation style of Chicago-Author date. It’s a simple fix.
Zotero will give you: Callenbach, Ernest. Ecotopia: The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston. Berkeley, CA: Banyan Tree Books, 1975.
You actually need: Callenbach, Ernest. 1975. (50-75) Ecotopia: the notebooks and reports of William Weston. Berkeley, Calif: Banyan Tree Books.
Third, always do the reading; you’ll thank me later
The texts studied in ENVS 160 are all very different, yet they all contain integrated beliefs, evidence and proposals of action comparable to each other. I recommend students create mind maps that integrate ideas between texts. It’s helped me keep track of complex ideas. Most importantly, it makes writing DS posts and exams much easier.
Each text is complex and often dense in it’s own respective way, especially Vaclav Smil, but we will get to that later. Luckily for us, a reading guide is provided for each text so as to help us navigate the complexities we face. The reading guides are paramount to a students success on quizzes, but not an end all be all. That’s why I recommend skimming the entirety of an assigned reading, while following the reading guide to read focus on key points. This allows deeper learning and synthesis of the material.
What are we Reading? Some guidance and what I learned
Making the Modern World; Materials and Dematerialization
by Vaclav Smil
Smil guides us through the more technical side of material usage in Environmental studies. Specifically, through the delineation of material consumption, regulation, modern materialization and the blame game. I found it important to realize the ways in which evidence and ideas interlock, so as to create perspective and relativity in the modern age.
Much of the information that Smil relays is backed by NUMBERS! This can be daunting, but connecting big ideas from the other texts allows Smil’s examination of material consumption such as steel and concrete to hold more resonance in the long run. Smil accounts for the entire life span of a product, right down to the community that it’s materials are extracted from. I have learned that by examining how “stuff” is produced, distributed, and recycled we may address the interlocking complexities of global materialization.
Smil’s work can be a bit discouraging. For example, Smil informs us of what modernization means for total material consumption by explaining a theory called Jevon’s Paradox. Jevon’s Paradox outlines the theory that despite efforts to raise production efficiencies and maximize recycling methods absolute dematerialization is impossible for developing and developed countries alike.
Jevon’s Paradox: Efficiency improvements characterized by mainly material substitution methods and reductions in energy used producing and transporting goods means less consumption of material, but also lower costs. When costs are lower consumers have more money to spend. The end result tends to be a higher consumption rates as consumers have more money to spend buying products.
Smil helped us position the complicated web of global materialization by situating consumption and production of material. This brings us to the second team assignment; situating minerals. My group focused on the social and economic impacts of three “places” where lithium is extracted. This assignment allowed me to consider how we value destruction of land and habitat now, for the potential greater good later. Lithium is extracted mainly to produce rechargeable batteries. The mines themselves however, are aggressively invasive and result in high acidification of local water supplies by accidental chemical leakage.
Why We Disagree About Climate Change
by Mike Hulme
Where we come from in many ways defines us. Mike Hulme illuminates this as he recounts the diverse ways in which the perceived value of environmental action is constructed; it’s no simple matter. It’s creation is complex and the modalities it’s created with, are as Hulme argues due to circumstance. Circumstance is created through endless stimuli around us, generally pertaining to “place”. Place, in short is constructed through time, by interactions, weather, people, personal or public events and culture. Moreover, he also states “that climate change, far from being simply an ‘issue’ or a ‘threat’, can act as a catalyst to revise our perception of our place in the world”(Hulme 2015, preface). Hulme defines how circumstance impacts perceptions and value of climate action in seven ways. I won’t explain every one, but a general synopsis will sufic.
Factors such as religion, international or domestic relations, market economies, and social class impact circumstance, but they are only some of the more simple factors. Here are a few examples; a publics’ perception of environmental catastrophe is shaped by where they live and culture. A catastrophe means more environmental awareness(Hulme 2015, chapter 6). This maybe why island nations are more aware of climate change.
Also consider a publics’ view of welfare as development progresses (Hulme 2015, chapter 8), how they view technological advancement(Hulme 2015, chapter 3), maybe the economic value placed on materials and space(Hulme 2015, chapter 4). Hulme has us consider how there are many different ways in which individuals and societies ascribe value to activities, people, assets and resources (Hulme 2015, chapter 4). Hulme also delineates that “the public and policy discourses of climate change are heavily influenced by the way that scientific knowledge is framed, by the language of climate change risks, and by the vested interests of communication actors”(Hulme 2015, Preface). I also found it intriguing that pathological histories stimulate a culture awareness to be changed (Hulme 2015, 22). Hulme, in closing sheds light how modalities of communication are instituted world wide (The IPCC for example) or how they are instituted locally, we explored local perception of value that climate change holds. Allowing us to bring Hulme’s words to reality and become more astute of the diverse opinions.
Classic and Contemporary Environmental Thought
Here is where we tackle environmental theory. I felt it handy to realize that most subjects based in theory are unquantifiable, so we refer to a spectrum. Classic and Contemporary thought describe either pole of a spectrum or axis. We explore these poles with texts such as Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons, the most cited environmental work published to date. Hardin considers human tendency to over exploit public commons, while drawing comparative parallels to global resource codependence and the tied partnership that every nation has while residing in the same biosphere. One of our main readings Austerity ecology & the collapse-porn addicts: a defense of growth, progress, industry and stuff by Leigh Phillips, illustrates a contemporary environmentalist view. Be warned Phillips contradicts many of the beliefs students have entering the class, while offending others with a harsh critique of the far left liberal environmentalists.
The third team assignment was to examine specific theories on the environmentalism spectrum. Classic environmentalists rationalize action in a certain way as they generally wish to preserve nature and restrict any contamination possibilities. While, contemporary environmentalists rationalize action differently. They believe in hybrid nature, which integrates nature with modern technology. Ism’s represent differing lens’s or perspectives; they serve as categories under the spectrum that I mentioned earlier. For example my team studied Romanticism. Romanticists are the some the most classic thinkers to date, defying most of what Contemporary environmentalist value.
Who Rules the Earth?
by Paul F. Steinberg
I found that reflecting on Who Rules the Earth marked a turning point for myself. Paul Steinberg states that “this book is born of the idea that the environmental problems we face today, from dwindling water supplies to disappearing coral reefs, from urban squalor to toxic waste dumps, are so large, and the social processes driving them are so powerful, that we need to think big— and soon”(13). With this in mind we must enter Steinberg’s mindset openly. Many students found what he had to say deeply moving and unfortunately mind bogglingly different from pervious beliefs.
What’s more, Steinberg belives that we tend to not notice the social norms that rule us, such as not yelling profanity in public. Steinberg considers norms; “these are the social rules that pattern this physical reality” (Steinberg 2015, 19). Therefore, “the transition to sustainability requires transforming the rules we live by” (Steinberg 2015, 15). This is a complex problem to solve but, Steinberg phrases it as such, “during the “up” phase of popular interest, if the public’s concerns are institutionalized— if they are embedded in laws, regulations, and associated implementing agencies— then it is possible to address these large-scale, long-term problems in a sustained fashion” (Steinberg 2015, 30). Steinberg recognizes how complex environmental stewardship is, but argues that by manifesting social rules in the “most powerful” forms, such as “laws, building codes, design standards, voting rules, property rights, or constitutional guarantees” (Steinberg 2015, 20), lasting change can be propelled into the future. Moreover, these social rules warrant unwritten and widely accepted ethics of what is right and wrong, therefore conscious and subliminal governance exist from institutionalizing social rules, conveying even deeper future societal patterns.
For example lets consider how the Coastal Zone Management Act came to fruition. The act protects and implements coastal planning , so Americans everywhere can enjoy the “simple pleasure we take for granted today” (Steinberg 2015, 21); taking a walk on the beach. Most importantly though, is this simple pleasure is only possible because “others before us scrutinized the existing order of things, found it wanting, and changed the rules”(Steinberg 2015, 21). Changing the rules meant partaking in the political fore. Steinberg recounts that the act was not emplaced lightly, but rather that “it was the product of public protests stretching from Oregon to New Jersey, where citizens voiced concerns about the rapid development of coastal areas and declining public access” (Steinberg 2015, 21), conveying Steinberg’s argument that popular interest in the “up” phase if institutionalized creates lasting effect for future generations.
For me taking away the two mantras below encapsulates what I will take away from the book;
It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness
(Marx, 1904, Preface)
public’s concerns are institutionalized— if they are embedded in laws
(Steinberg 2015, 30).
The individual posts I completed are below. Take a look at Rules That Can’t be Black and White or Written Linearly for a deeper look into Who Rules the Earth?
Best of luck and don’t forget to cite your evidence. I’m sorry this post is so long but, there is a lot to learn in a semester of ENVS. Manage your time wisely and consult with your professor whenever possible it will always help!
Works cited
Hardin, Garrett. “The Tragedy of the Commons.” Science 162, no. 3859 (1968): 1243-248.
Hulme, Mike. 2015. Why we disagree about climate change: understanding controversy, inaction and opportunity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Smil, Vaclav. Making the Modern World : Materials and Dematerialization. Chichester, West Sussex, United Kingdom: Wiley, 2014.
Steinberg, Paul F. 2015. Who Rules the Earth?: How Social Rules Shape Our Planet and Our Lives. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Marx, Karl. 1904. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. New York: The International Library PubCo.
Phillips, Leigh. 2015. Austerity Ecology & The Collapse-Porn Addicts: A Defense of Growth, Progress, Industry and Stuff. Winchester, UK ; Washington, USA: Zero Books.