ENVS-160 is not what you would expect in a typical science class, in fact I think in ways it’s a lot better than most science courses. It really challenges you to be open to new Ideas. ENVS-160 will challenge all your knowledge you think you knew about environmental action and that’s not a bad thing at all. Most students came into the course thinking they know all about climate change but leave with totally different views. The course consists of four major sections, “Why We Disagree About Climate Change”, “Making the Modern World”, “Classic and Contemporary Environmental Thought”, and “Who Rules The Earth?.” There will be three group posts and at the end of the course four individual posts that will challenge you to think about what you have learned and gained from the course.
At the beginning of the course we read the book “Why We Disagree About Climate Change” by Mike Hulme. This book really allows us as students to tackle climate change and helps explain why we need educate more people about the subject. This section of the class displays the different views as to whether people believe in climate change or not and what to do about climate change. This book was sort of like a map for the rest of the course because in posts and in class discussion we would support our views with evidence from the text. In the book Hulme says if better education is offered more widely, then there will be a better chance that actions toward fighting against climate change will be successful because more people will be on board (Hulme 2009).
In the second section of the course we read the book, “Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization by Vaclav Smil. This book looked at the consumption of materials all around the world and show how they are causing environmental issues. (Smil 2013) Does this by looking at materials back to where they come from. This book then led to a group post called “Situating Materials.” For this project groups chose a mineral and studied where it was located, the impact it had on the local environment, and what it was used for. By doing this post we learned what the Modern World consists of.
The third section was all about Classic vs. Contemporary thought and how they interact with environmental ideas. This part of the course was by far one of the most interesting sections for me. People who have respect for classic environmental thought generally have a conservative view on time and an idealistic view towards the purity of nature. Contemporary environmental thinkers embrace what’s to come in the future and hold a hybrid view towards nature. They also look up to technology as a tool to work towards environmental solutions. The project dealing with this section was ‘Interrogating Isms.’ Groups chose a certain ism and researched that ism and learned all about it. By doing this project it taught me the different types of views and opinions of other people.
Finally the last section of the course is “Who Rules the Earth?” by Paul F Steinberg. In this book Steinberg explains that social rules influence our understanding on what we believe the truth is. Steinberg believes that to solve the climate change problem, the social rules need to be changed (Steinberg 2015). This book then lead us to our final four posts. The first post was about how taking ENVS-160 has changed us so far. The second post was about identifying three key connections and briefly explain how they relate and why they are the three main sections of the course. The third post was about summarizing the main argument of “Who Rules the Earth?”. The last post was all about take aways and how we can use what we learned and apply that to real life situations.
This year was definitely like a roller coaster. There were a lot of ups in ENVS-160 where I knew and understood the criteria but there were definitely a lot of downs as well. You will be challenged to think outside of the box and throw away everything you thought you knew about Environmental Studies. With that being said I hope you take this course next semester!
Works Cited:
Hulme, Mike. 2009. Why we disagree about climate change: understanding controversy, inaction and opportunity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Smil, Vaclav. 2014. Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization. Chichester, West Sussex, United Kingdom: Wiley.
Steinberg, Paul F. 2015. Who Rules the Earth: How Social Rules Shape Our Planet and Our Lives. New York, NY: Oxford Univ. Press.