Bare with me, I'm coming off a weekend of almost 10,000+ words written for final research papers; so once I start here, I'm not quite sure where it will go.
When I walked into my first International Environmental Politics class, I felt fairly informed about the environment, even if only by osmosis. When you live on a campus that is on track to be carbon neutral in the coming years (and more importantly, when you spend perhaps days in collective hours writing papers in Gold Star LEED certified building) you must just sort of absorb environment stuff. Right?
When I walked into my first International Environmental Politics class, I felt fairly informed about the environment, even if only by osmosis. When you live on a campus that is on track to be carbon neutral in the coming years (and more importantly, when you spend perhaps days in collective hours writing papers in Gold Star LEED certified building) you must just sort of absorb environment stuff. Right?
Wrong. I'd have to say that I felt a bit like Neo in the Matrix in those first few weeks - inundated by information and feeling a bit like I was in fact 'living in a dream world'. It wasn't as if I simply took the readings and lectures in class on faith, either. I began to read on my own about environmental dangers, made my own observations as I continued through my last fall semester as an undergrad with a new and increasing sensitivity to the effects human civilization has had on the planet. My ideas about society and culture's constructed nature were planted in philosophy classes at American in my freshmen and sophomore years, but now - perhaps culminating in being in my hometown on Black Friday - those ideas have bloomed. We do live in an artificially created consumer-centric, industrialized world in the United States. It doesn't have to be this way - nor is it the natural order of things. The prolific advertisements that cajole us every day - telling us that if we just buy this one product, then we'll be the person we really want to be - are founded on the ideal of growth at the expense of everything else - and growth by profit. Not growth of happiness, or spirituality, or community, but growth of money. Artificial growth.
The interaction of this International Environmental Politics class with my others this semester have left me feeling that the United States is on a precipice. Many things have come to a head in the past; new challenges have sprung up across the board that our founders certainly could never have conceived of. The environment is one of those. In fifteen years, according to Bill McKibben and others, we will have produced enough carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses to meet, and then exceed the two degrees of average warming deemed acceptable by the international community.
Fifteen years.
That's not very much time.
If anything, this class propels and inspires me to take a more active stance in changing the frameworks we think are forever. I'll (hopefully) be joining the workforce sometime this summer or early fall, and as a contributing member of society, I want to bring awareness to these environmental issues that are rarely seen in the daily news in any constructive or educational sort of way. I'm not the activist type. But I will continue to do what I can to inform my friends, family, and random strangers about the issues that will challenge our nation and society in the years to come. Over the course of this class, I've learned that knowledge is power - moreover - knowledge in the hands of the people in the right positions is power. If I inform all the people I know, maybe one of them will be in that right position, at the right time in the right place, to make a difference in the coming decade. Heck, maybe that person will even be me.
If anything, this class propels and inspires me to take a more active stance in changing the frameworks we think are forever. I'll (hopefully) be joining the workforce sometime this summer or early fall, and as a contributing member of society, I want to bring awareness to these environmental issues that are rarely seen in the daily news in any constructive or educational sort of way. I'm not the activist type. But I will continue to do what I can to inform my friends, family, and random strangers about the issues that will challenge our nation and society in the years to come. Over the course of this class, I've learned that knowledge is power - moreover - knowledge in the hands of the people in the right positions is power. If I inform all the people I know, maybe one of them will be in that right position, at the right time in the right place, to make a difference in the coming decade. Heck, maybe that person will even be me.
But people have to be willing to listen. Partisan views need to give way to scientific fact. The population does not want to hear bad news until after the fact then wants immediate action. We live in the "must have now" generation. Look at the turnaround the mayor of New York City had after Sandy it. It's only after disaster does our society seem to take action. Problem is this may be one case that once Pandora's box is open, it may be too late.
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