There is always a great deal of overlap when discussing environmental issues. In ENVS 160 we read many different books that offered differing solutions and sources of climate change. In fact, a key message that was conveyed in all the texts was the complexity of the issue and the fundamental changes we need to make […]
Post 2 (Due Apr 10)
Student posts below addressed the following: "Identify and briefly describe three key connections between the main sections of the course as defined by our readings."
Key insights into the environmental movement
Connection One: Trying to change individual people’s minds or lifestyles is not an effective course of action. Differences in opinions regarding the role and legitimacy of science, religious and political beliefs, cultural conditions etc. contribute to deeply internalized biases and habits. “Depending on who one is and where one stands — the idea of climate change carries […]
A Web of Ideas
So far this semester, we have mainly focused on four books: Why We Disagree About Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity by Mike Hulme, Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization by Vaclav Smil, Austerity Ecology & the Collapse-Porn Addicts: a Defense of Growth, Progress, Industry, and Stuff by Leigh Phillips, and Paul Steinberg’s […]
Pieces of the Puzzle
ENVS-160 has been full of readings, of which required us as students to examine and explore them from multiple angles and think outside the box. While exploring each of these readings there are many possible connections between different authors and their opinions/views despite different scholarly backgrounds. I came to the conclusion that in order to […]
Seen that, heard that, know that.
ENVS-160 has required to us to examine different texts throughout the semester. There has been a significant and distinct thread of common concepts that have been apparent in many of the texts. It is possible to make visible and clear connections between many of the author’s ideas and views, despite the differences in their scholarly […]
Amalgamating Upwards
Multi-national politics often result in countries not cooperating with one another. One would expect that concerns such as the implementation of environmental policies in governments would especially be overlooked in the means of capitalism or socialism. However, such is not the case for Europe, as Who Rules the Earth? presents (Steinberg, 2015). Because of the […]
Drawing together important connections in environmental science
I have learned a lot from the Environmental Science 160 class and it has opened me up to ways of thinking about the environment that I had once never considered. Although all our readings focuses on different aspects of the environment there were many ways in which they had connecting themes and lessons to think […]
Creating an Individual Spiderweb of Ideas
In reading responses from my peers in the first individual post, I was surprised to see so many common themes between my peers and myself: namely the influence the course had on student’s ideas of what climate change was and meant to citizens all over the world. This thread has spanned across all of the […]
Drawing Lines, Circles, and Squares
In ‘Who Rules the Earth’, Paul F. Steinberg (2015) discusses how markets need rules and regulations to function properly. He argues in favor of cap and trade and regulation. “Market-based regulation can provide landowners with incentives to keep trees on the land, rather than clearing them for crops and pasture” (Steinberg 2015, 122). His point […]
Common Threads Weaving Together
There are many common themes that have revealed themselves throughout the span of our course. Of the many, I have chosen to focus on three that serve critical roles in environmentalism: institutionalism, spirituality, and the hybridity of the natural world and humans. -Hybridity- As we enter into the Anthropocene, or the modern age of humans […]
Wait… Haven’t I Heard this Before?
Institutional over Individual! I would like to begin by expanding on a “lesson” that I included in my previous post, which I titled, “Individual Action isn’t nearly Enough…. But, HEY, it’s a Start!” While I mentioned the idea that sometimes it takes an individual to spark an institutional change, I would like to further emphasize […]
Delve into the Deep
Post 1 was simply a poke at the vast ocean of connections and ideas that can come up in ENVS 160 and was a portrayal of how important those key topics can be. In this post, a synthesis can be made about those key topics learned and can be linked to texts used to create […]
Combining Complexities for a Cohesive Analysis
This semester in ENVS 160 we read four main texts pertaining to the general ideas of ENVS. The works we read are as follows, 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). Of these texts some proved […]
The Underlying Themes of ENVS 160
By Max Lorenze The various sources we have examined when looking at how the world interacts with the environment. To this point in the year the two sources that have held the largest impact for me have been “Why We Disagree About Climate Change” by Mike Hulme and “Making the Modern World” by Vaclav Smil. […]
Its All Connected
As much as they seem separate, two things such as Making the Modern World, which is about physical materials and the usage of said materials, and the comparisons of contemporary and classic environmental thought, which is, as the name suggests, focuses on the ideas, are actually connected. How? you may ask. Well, there is […]
Connections, Connections, Connections.
By Jack Kamysz There have been four main readings in ENVS 160 that we as a class have read, these include Why We Disagree About Climate Change by Mike Hulme, Making the Modern World by Vaclav Smil, classic vs. contemporary environmental thought readings, and most recently Who Rules the Earth? By Paul F. Steinberg. Authors […]
Connecting Concepts
Through reading the texts presented in environmental studies certain patterns and connections emerge. These connections reinforce the points made by the different authors by building upon one another. As our class reads more literature, our arsenal of common themes and connections of environmental thought grows deeper. My first connection is the method of situating oneself […]
The Inherent Interconnectedness
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 […]
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 […]