The beginning of the semester saw us struggling with a difficult question: What change is needed in the world that only I can make. I was frustrated as many of us were because there are so many inherent assumptions in that question that conflict with truths we hold about the world. For example, there is the assumption that there is something unique about me as a person, but many of us are aware of our overwhelming insignificance in the grand scheme of things. In dealing with that we watched a short documentary about a man who was changing his world, one tree at a time. We received encouragement for the start of our writing from Pipher who assures us that change can come through the written word. In class we talked about many examples where this is the case. Such as the book that started awareness for environmental problems and ultimately political ecology/environmental anthropology.
We learned about political ecology and how everything is inherently social and political. There is nothing “natural” about nature separate from man. We are intertwined and dependent, becoming ever more entangled the harder we try to pull away. We contemplated whether the activities of humans should constitute an entirely new geological epoch and ultimately agreed that yes, it is real. At the very least it is an extremely helpful analytical tool to help frame the environmental events that we are witnessing today.
Engaging with and wrestling with ideology and ideological changes we did. Even looking at how keeping to tradition can mean incorporating new technological advances into daily life, such as the rancher who wanted wind turbines. We challenged common sense about various energy sources, that maybe wind isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be. There are downsides for people even if the environmental damages may not be so great. We looked at transnational movements that are the product of globalization. People worlds away banding together for common issues, defending their rights to live their lives as they have been for generations.
We touched on issues that are unique to American thought control methods with Merchants of Doubt making it seem as if climate doesn’t exist. As long as an expert says it, it doesn’t matter what they are an expert in. But then we also saw hopeful resistance with Katherine Hayhoe who makes these issues relate on a different level, connecting with people on a more religious rather than political basis. She depoliticizes (in the polar republican vs. democrat sense) climate change and makes it real.
However, we also engaged with the politicization of individual choice and buying “free trade coffee.” How to assuage our guilt living in a first world country at the expense of others quality of life. How our emotions help or hinder us in tackling environmental issues. How our very countries are founded on exploitation and that’s why it’s so hard to stop. How the control of natural resources is ultimately political, marginalizing those who cannot fight and win within the system. But we also saw transnational movements in Damocracy, where those people living on opposite sides of the world facing the same problems can come together thanks to globalization, the same force that allows the poor to be exploited exponentially.
Philosophy was dabbled in, importantly so because in order to change the future we have to see differently, and part of that is mind exercise. Thinking about geoengineering, thinking about the relationship between man and nature, thinking about the reality and different forms of conservation, and even our relationship to our technologies. All of this was driven home in exploring slow violence. The consequences of choices made by individuals who didn’t consider their impact because it didn’t fit into the cost benefit analysis. Part of what allows Walmart to sell shirts for $3.00 without adding in the suffering of their workers into the price tag. Part of what allowed a company to pay Bhopal a paltry sum while toxic materials still fester in the city. Part of what allows the average American to not be aware of the fact that nuclear radiation from Fukushima is still leaking and is contaminating the food we eat from across the ocean. It is unseen, insidious and far reaching, and sometimes it takes decades to manifest in full fury; just look at Baltimore.
But that note is not where we ended. We each worked on our own individual projects that for some us hit hard. It made us think and connect with ourselves and each other on a level that wasn’t expected. We have learned so much throughout this semester engaging with the course material on issues that we personally care about, and engaging with each other by reading and commenting and learning from our peers’ posts. We have hope and we can make change, even if it’s just a little bit at a time. Doing something is better than nothing. Right?
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