On Friday, the ENVS 400 students, the thesis-writing seniors came and visited our class. We discussed Love Your Monsters kind of, but mostly we just talked about “the environment” and “environmentalism” and the Environmental Studies program at Lewis & Clark. Their comments and advice was both very interesting and informative, as well as very hopeful. I think there is a kind of fear attached to a big, interdisciplinary major like ENVS, like ‘ oh man, that is a lot of credit requirements… can I fit it all in? Do I want to?’ Seeing real life people who are really not that much older than us definitely alleviated some of those doubts because I saw that indeed, its is certainly possible to get to senior year as an ENVS major. Also, because I am strongly considering double majoring ENVS with English, it was exciting to see that double majoring with a humanities field is also, indeed possible and truly does broaden the learning. The study abroad stories also made me excited for the research possibilities and opportunities that I can and will pursue during my time here.
We finished our “difficult” reading section of the class, allegedly. I wish we could spend an entire semester reading and analyzing environmental literature, from the classics to more contemporary, Shellenberger and Nordhaus- esque, environmental essays. While I think that knowing basically the evolution of the environmental movement is important for solving problems today, I really don’t know if knowing all the nuances and changed overtime is truly useful for solving the concrete problems we face. I think that learning the history of the environmental movement is fascinating and important, but I’m not sure if our energies would be well-placed looking backwards as much as that would entail. Looking forward definitely requires a great deal of looking back, but much more energy should be used looking ahead instead of behind. And if this program is designed to train young problem solvers instead of environmental historians, our brief adventure through the fundamental texts of environmentalism is indeed appropriately brief.