As we delve into the second half of our text and begin to think about how deceivingly simple objects are connected to much of the theory that we learned about in previous weeks, I find myself uncontrollably excited about our individual situated projects. I am researching Grand Coulee Dam and situating it in a historical […]
Introduction to Environmental Studies (Spring 2014)
ENVS 160 is the introductory course for the Environmental Studies major at Lewis & Clark College. I took ENVS 160 in the spring of 2014. In this course, we examined literature from classic environmentalism and contemporary environmentalism, delved into an independent situated project, and tied it all together with a final synthesis post. ENVS 160 created a foundation for academic exploration in the interdisciplinary world of environmental studies for future courses, projects, and travels.
“Natural” Explanations
People have told me that I need to take economics because it is so applicable to the “real world.” It explains the movement of resources and labor and money and thus, it explains our world. Of all the sciences out there, I can think of no other that is as socially constructed as economics. And […]
Ethical Dilemmas
This week we tackled some broad ethical perspectives in the history environmentalism. For instance, consequentialism is where the ends justify the means and the goal to maximize the “good” for the greatest number. This approach is concerned with outcomes. For an extreme example, if the goal was to slow population growth, then very gruesome means […]
Environment AND Society
Our textbook is called Environment and Society almost as if the environment and society are different things to be studied. I’m not sure if the environment can be separated from this thing we call “society.” Society is our environment– we are surrounded and interconnected with society and in many ways, we as people, as individuals […]
A Glimpse of the FUTURE
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. […]