Environmental Studies is one of the fastest growing fields in the United States today. This suggests to me that the whole “vote with your dollar” or “plant a tree, save the world” approach has not been satisfying young people’s conception of the urgency of our environmental crisis today. People are interested in learning more and pursuing constructive solutions instead of passively succumbing to the American consumerist culture.
As I discussed in one of my previous posts, the “environment” is a very ambiguous term in the United States these days, and the definition of “nature” is similarly clouded. We are so removed from “nature” these days that whenever we can hop into our Priuses and drive somewhere removed from the cities we are used to, we romanticize our experiences and paint a picture of nature as an untouched, pristine landscape. As Christine Walley discusses in her book, Rough Waters: Nature and Development in an East African Marine Park, Americans have a very different idea of what nature is when compared to local Chole residents who live and work on the land. Walley states that the environment “offered them the means by which they could live, yet also continuously threatened them with disaster by withholding its fruits and through storms, droughts, and dangerous pests” (144). Since we live in cities so reliant on technology to mitigate the negative effects of “nature,” we have a skewed view on what is natural, and consequently what it is we need to protect.
Since people are so removed from what they need to protect, it’s harder to come up with ways to take direct action. In his article “Individualization: Plant a Tree, Buy a Bike, Save the World,” Michael Maniates states how today, the average consumer “is encouraged to purchase a vast array of ‘green’ or ‘eco-friendly’ products on the promise that the more such products are purchased and consumed, the healthier the planet’s ecological processes will become” (34). People have lost faith in the government to facilitate collective action (as with the local and organic food movement) so they have moved towards taking individual action that is, unfortunately, not very effective.
With so many more Environmental Studies majors entering the field, we need to pay attention to viable solutions. DeFries et al discusses the need for solutions that fit the size problem. Scientific research of a certain scale can only be applied to governmental action of a certain scale; we need to make sure we are taking the appropriate action towards sustainable development.
I thought this week was really interesting; it made me question the power of the small steps we are taking towards fixing a giant problem. I am now more focused on pursuing more collective action that will make a difference, whatever that action may be.