As I have worked through the assigned readings in this ENVS course, one of the biggest overarching themes I continuously return to is the interconnectedness of nearly everything. It pervades all aspects of environmental studies from nature spirituality in deep ecology, to the earth ecosystems, and to the entire discipline as a whole. This is […]
Individual Posts
A Fourth Connection Would Be “Hope”
Technophilia Situation at the technophilia end of this spectrum is reflected in contemporary environmental thought. This perspective is evident in Making the Modern World by Vaclav Smil and Love Your Monsters by Bruno Latour. These texts both comment on how must follow through with our commitments to that we produce, and honor our abilities to create solutions. According to […]
More In Common Than We Thought
When thinking about environmental studies and the plethora of topics that fall under this interdisciplinary subject, it is all too easy to assume that there is a right and wrong answer, polar opposite opinions, and striking differences in how people choose to approach some of the discussions. This is sometimes the case, but it is […]
Connections Leading to New Pathways
Being exposed to environmental literature for the first time in a scholarly context has created a new pathway in my mind about the environment, diverging my previous paths and connections to create a more analytical way of situating environmental issues. The texts that have most catalyzed the creation a new path of thought for me […]
Candidly Clear Connections
As I reflected on the main readings thus far, I realized that that some concepts were repeatedly brought up, and those are the connections between readings that stand out to me the most. In addition, some of the concepts were pretty new to me, so the connections in the texts between some of those concepts […]
Connections Between Classic Environmental Thought and WWD
Throughout the course of the semester we’ve made connections between several discussions and works we’ve read, this to me has been the most exciting aspect of ENVS 160. I enjoy being able to see how different ideas, even opposing ones, can come together to improve each other and develop new ideas. After reading Why […]
Weaving Together the Threads: An Exploration into Connections
The text, ‘Why We Disagree About Climate Change,’ and the article, ‘The Shallow and the Deep, Long Range Ecology Movements,’ explore spirituality as a way of combatting global environmental issues. Both Mark Hulme and Arne Naess argue that spiritual consciousness can result in significant environmental action. In, ‘Why We Disagree About Climate Change,’ Professor Hulme […]
Reading Between the Lines to Draw Lines
One of the powerful things about ENVS 160 this semester was the intricate way the readings tied together that both overlapped, but also introduced new ideas, such that I never felt redundancies between texts. Below I describe my three key connections between the big ideas of each text. Images for the Future: Why We Disagree […]
Building on a Classic: How Contemporary Thought Has Grown
Mike Hulme’s sympathetic tone in Why We Disagree About Climate Change is fitting; with so many ideas built upon each other in environmental scholarship, being open-minded is important. Just as Hulme shows how personal climate ideologies warp our perceptions of climate change, environmentalism as a study and practice is equally contentious and variable among scholars. By […]
Connections Which Allow Us To Make Corrections
There are many different connections between the readings we have done thus far in our ENVS160 course. These Connections allow for us as individuals to form our own opinions on the pressing issue of climate change and eventually make our own impact on the future of our world. Learning different opinions of possible solutions and […]
The Web of Environmentalism
After going through all the readings in ENVS 160, a clear web of connection emerged in my head, presenting in itself the various perspectives behind the race to “save the environment”. First, we have Hulme who presents all the different agencies that are in play in the conversation on “climate change”, explores and challenges behind […]
Reaching institutional, complex, and governmental solutions
ENVS 160 has been full of readings that weave topics together and explore them from many different angles. There are many big ideas that are common among most or all of them, but I think three stood out in particular: the complexity of environmental issues, the idea of institutional action, and the governance of climate. […]
Excavating Value in ENVS 160: Key Connections
The absorption of novel information presented throughout the short semester of ENVS 160 in the form of books, articles, essays, and other scholarly publications can easily send an ENVS student into a whirlwind of confusion. Often I have asked myself: how is this new reading relevant to other scholarship we have studied? What conclusions, if […]
Complexities of Impossible Solutions
Throughout the course of this semester, it has become apparent to me that each reading contributes to our understanding of complex connections between environmental dilemmas and their respective solutions (or lack there of). Below I will explain the connections I have found and discuss the sources from which they arose. My first connection falls between […]
Lights, Camera, Action: Spirituality, Communication to the Public, and Thinking Globally or Locally for Environmental Issues.
This course has many interconnected concepts that tie throughout the different texts and units we have studied and observed. Each different idea is demonstrated from multiple different points of view, from different authors. The three connections I chose were mentioned in the above title of the post: Lights, Camera, and Action, Lights regarding religion […]
Environmental Connection
I have found that information learned in distinct separation can only lead so far into complete education of a topic. I think a person could reach application at most on Bloom’s taxonomy of education pyramid. Without finding connections throughout different sections of in a course and being able to compare and differentiate these topics, one […]
From Existential Crises and Unfair Biases to Hope and Understanding: Lessons from Introduction to Environmental Studies
Lesson 1: There is not one single solution to our current environmental problems, but there is hope for the future. In order to transition into a more environmentally conscious and less destructive culture, there will need to be significant (arguably radical) social/cultural, economic, scientific, and technological changes. It will not be sufficient for these spheres to […]
The Ecotypes Lens: Analyzing Human Impact
Introduction The Ecotypes survey can provide reasonable groundwork for the synthesis of a wide range of material in Environmental Studies. Various sections of the course can be easily grouped under the broad headings of Nature, Spirituality, and Time. As defined by Jim Proctor these terms can be used to analyze the political and scientific beliefs […]
Connecting the Concepts
In my ENVS 160 class, we read multiple texts that discussed climate change and other modern environmental problems affecting the our world. These texts include Why We Disagree About Climate Change by Mike Hulme (2015), Austerity Ecology & The Collapse-Porn Addicts by Leigh Phillips (2015), Who Rules the Earth? by Paul Steinberg (2015), and other […]
What Goes Around Comes Back Around (or Does It?)
The Significance of the EU (comparing WRE and MMW) Vaclav Smil, the author of Making the Modern World, and Paul F. Steinberg, the author of Who Rules the Earth, have similar views of what Europe is doing right environmentally and how their actions compare to the environmental actions of other countries. On page 88, Smil […]
The Web That Saved Me from the Information Whirlwind
Environmental studies includes many disciplines. Being in this class, I was bombarded with many readings, many platforms, and many documents. However there is an interconnectedness to this whirlwind of information, all of which I can relate to. The documents all have an influence on others and current, as well as past, beliefs. So how do […]
Clumsy Solutions and Complex Connections
Many times in Intro to Environmental Studies 160, I feel pulled apart by contrasting opinions, each new piece of literature seeming to make its own claim on how to approach environmental thought and solutions. Although at times authors can be venomously disagreeing with each other, at other times they also seem to agree on […]
The Interconnectedness of Varying Perspectives
Though ENVS 160 has expanded my knowledge regarding numerous perspectives, mindsets, and teachings of environmentalism using a variety of readings, I quickly discovered that each author and each idea was connected in some way to another. After careful consideration, I settled on just three. Break away from individuality to make a difference (AE-WRE) We are […]
Reflecting Through Synthesis
While studying and discussing our readings for this course, three key connections came to the forefront in my mind: an emphasis on the relationship of environmental action and religion, the need for institutional change in place of incrementalism, and the tragedy of the commons. 1. Religion: Both Mike Hulme and Lynn White agree that religion, […]
The Very Fabric of Environmental Studies
While it’s often easy to look at what we learn in ENVS 160 under the lens of a microscope, it is also easily as important to pull away and view specific argument and beliefs in conjunction with each other. This allows for a greater understanding of the texts as a whole, and can often create […]