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 […]
Technology is Not the Problem
Factories with tall black towers and billowing smoke, six lane highways jam packed with cars, fishing boats reeling in thousands of fish, and huge tractors over-tilling soil have become the iconic images of our current environmental crisis. According to these pictures, the technology we are using is one of the main factors in the degradation […]
Ecology and Economy: The Missing Link
On first thought, you might not think that “sustainability” and “ecospirituality” were related. After reading about both topics this week, I realized that not only are they related, but ecospirituality might be one of the solutions to more sustainable living. Our Common Future by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) says that “Ecology and […]
Where does the Environment Begin and End?
I was taken aback by this seemingly innocent question. For a word that is thrown around like a rag doll, its meaning is eerily ambiguous. As a perspective Environmental Studies major and after taking a college level Environmental Science class in high school, I felt like I should have a brilliant, one-sentence definition that perfectly […]
A Plethora of People: Overpopulation as a Priority Problem
In the past 250 years since the Industrial Revolution, the world population has increased by 6 billion people, with a 400 percent increase in population during the 20th century alone. This population explosion aggravates all the other pressing environmental problems: more people means more waste, energy usage, deforestation, resource wars, habitat fragmentation, and pollution, to name […]