Coming into ENVS 160, I did not know what to expect. I had always found issues of the environment to be fascinating because of their provocative and widespread effects, yet I had no idea what to do about these issues. After this class, I still don’t know what to do, these issues are bigger than I […]
The Problem of Awareness Lacking Action
A recent, concerning trend that was prevalent in our discussion of lawns last week and bottled water and french fries this week is that people choose to engage in these risky and generally undesirable activities even when completely aware of the risks they possess to the environment or the individual. We discussed how, in studies, […]
French Fries – Resouces
There are 19 ingredients in McDonalds French Fries – The Washington Post This article examines McDonalds marketing strategy to advertise the ingredients found in their french fries. Ferdman suggests that most people going to McDonalds are not concerned with their health when eating there and that McDonalds taking the enjoyment out of fast food by providing […]
The Importance of a Political Economy Perspective
Something that stands out to me is that all of the objects of concern this week and two of the three from last week have discussed the object from a political economy perspective. I did not expect this just from reading the perspectives in the previous section, and political economy seemed more interested in pointing […]
Rhetoric, Rights, and Constructions
This week’s discussions of objects of concern presented several, difficult, multifaceted problems. Everyone could find something of interest to relate to and talk about resulting in some interesting conversations. We began this week with Carbon Dioxide, and one idea that stuck out for me was the use of green rhetoric. Deliberately calling CO2 a type of […]
Evaluating Environmental Perspectives
This past Friday we discussed environmental problems in situated, close-to-home contexts to see how the concepts discussed in Chapters 2-8 relate in real life scenarios and if there are environmental perspectives that are more important than others. Perhaps the perspective that stood out the most to me and in our posts was Institutions. This is because […]
Preservation of Saint Edwards State Park
I grew up in Kenmore, WA, a small city outside of Seattle that borders the northern end of Lake Washington. A few minutes from my house lies Saint Edwards State Park, a park with dozens of miles of running, hiking, and biking trails that go down to Lake Washington and back through dense forested areas. […]
Grid-Group Theory Ethics
One thing I found particularly interesting this week was our discussion of Grid-Group cultural theory and the four different personalities and myths of nature of differing grid and group. It is easy to see this manifested in American culture especially with many examples of individualists and fatalists acting with respect to nature robust and nature […]
A Contemporary Look on Classic Ideas
Starting off our textbook with Oostvaardersplassen and rewilding immediately puts this book in a contemporary environmentalist viewpoint. As Jim showed, this is a unique standpoint for a modern environmental studies or science textbook and sets our book apart. Exploring this concept of rewilding is an interesting way to show how our preconceived notions of nature […]
Adapting to ENVS: A Retrospective Look
So far we have explored a wide array of new and old ideas dealing with the concept of the environment through scientific, political, value-based, classic, and contemporary mindsets. Covering so much in such a little amount of time resulted not with getting a good grasp on modern issues, but rather an expanded toolkit in which to […]