Greener Future

Ultimately, this course has been a great learning experience for me. If anything, I am disappointed that I have waited until my senior year to take an environmental course. I am an International Development major with minors in Spanish and economics, and I feel that environmental policy is very related to what I have been studying. In all of my international development courses, whether they pertain to human rights or simply the basics of development, it is impossible to deny that the environment plays an important role within it. Especially the idea of sustainable development. I have heard the term tossed around before, but it was not until after this course that I really felt like I understood it. The quote that sustainable development is development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” has struck a cord within me and I think of it often. Anyone can talk about how important it is to help the impoverished and aid the developing world, but if we ignore the environment, our actions and the actions of developing nations with have dire consequences. Following that same train of thought, I will take away a lot of concepts discussed in the course and apply them to my study of economics. I saw the connection between the environment and the economy most clearly when I wrote the first paper for this class on Rio+20. After reading all about the Rio+20 themes and agenda I paid close attention to the concept of a green economy. There are ways that we can influence how developing nations grow and methods of encouraging them to take a greener route than nations like China and the US. Two of the methods that stood out most to me were green subsidies and facilitating green practices such as organic farming. There is so much more we can do to help developing nations than throwing food and money at them. For example, if we give them the tools to farm organically and efficiently we will we aiding their sustainable development as well as helping the environment as a whole. Another important concept I will take with me is the idea of practice what you preach. How is the US in a position to tell other nations how to be green when we ourselves are one of the largest, if not the largest, contributor to pollution and environmental harm. I also need to start taking actions to become greener instead of talking about them as well. This course has been invaluable for me and has opened my eyes to just how interrelated all of the SIS disciplines are and I hope to remember that as I continue my studies and enter the “real world” in May.

Finals Thoughts

I am not even sure I can count the number of things that I will take away from this class. First of I learn more than I had anticipated and second of all I learned that this was a subject that I deeply care about and want to make a career from. I also got a unique perspective about West Coast environmental views and East Coast views. I think the one thing that has really changed since I began the class is my eating habits. Right before school began I decided to become a pescatarian. I was a very nutritious person before but ever since learning more about our food system I've become more and more obsessed with what I eat. I read all food labels and if anything with corn is in the first five ingredients I don't eat it. I have also given up fish since watching The Cove and discovering that by 2040 humans might not be eating fish. I think the other topic I connected with was discussing biodiversity. I never knew much about species but the book End of the Wild I found frightening and fascinating. So overall, I will take many things away form this class. Most important I will go on to be self-aware of the environment.

Final Thoughts

There are many things I will take away from this class. The first is the idea that recycling and buying reusable bags is not enough to save the environment. This idea has really impacted the way I look at environmental intitiatives and basically every aspect of our lives. I have started to think about many of my daily activities such a eating in a new light. Also, I have learned that the environmental crisis is very serious but there are positive ideas like the ones from McDonough's Cradle to Cradle systems for design. Finally, I have realized that climate change and other environmental factors will negatively impact the lives of the impoverished the most. These changes will make the lives of the citizens of the under developed nations harder than they already are. These problems are definitely issues for concern and must be considered when making policies.

New Perspectives and Solutions

This was my first time taking an environmental course, and I have learned a lot from it. Before taking the course, I thought I had some base knowledge like the environment issues that are still currently controversial (climate change), but through out the semester, I’ve learned it was just partial of what environmental politics covers; rather today the issues about environmental is all surrounding us.

The fact, I’ve learned it’s not one individual who can change and save the world, but it was more complex where without any cooperation from everyone, the success level cannot be never reach. If we want to really change the environment and take care of it, it needed every part of the government, community, individual, etc. to be one.

I believe that the most important thing I have taken from this course is the possibility and more bright future views of it is not yet to say our environment is unsolvable and reach the end. Also the fact that climate change is really impacting every aspect of our life and it will be in our future and this changes would be make no one to be happy. Today, we live in a globalized world, we tend to observe new things very quick, which may lead us to think adapting new policy and new output for future would not harm us too much. The earth would not go back to where it was as green, blue and white, but if we can at least sustain our earth as what it is today; I think it’s better than nothing. In the end, I did really enjoyed our class and it was good experience that I can now use this new knowledge to spread the word about the environment issues and become more active on environmental issues in our community.

Not as simple as 1, 2, 3

Damian Carrington identifies three factors that stand in the way: Politics and Economics, Low-Carbon Energy, and Fossil Fuels. Before diving in and noting everything that he left out, I decided to do a little background investigation of him. Carrington is the head of the environment at The Guardian and has a blog about various environmental issues, this article being one of them. I will cut him a little slack because this was a blog post and not exactly meant to be an in-depth investigation of the challengers faced by those wanting to stop climate change. However, he should have at least noted that these factors are not all encompassing. Other factors include skepticism and those that refuse to believe the science of climate change. Another one of the most important factors that he neglects to discuss under the heading of “Politics and Economics” (which I think should be separate factors to begin with) is the role of developing nations. He does say “Renewables, especially solar power, are also the best and cheapest way to bring electricity to the 1.3 billion people who are without power,“ but he doesn’t discuss how developing nations play into the mix. For example, China is growing at an unprecedented rate of and average of 10% per year. As the West tells the world that they need to develop green and factor in the environment to their decisions, countries such as china are not convinced because to get where we are today the environment suffered greatly at the hands of the west. Combating climate change today will have a lot to do with promoting and facilitating green technologies in the developing world through incentives such as green subsidies. Also, he does not mention cultural norms as a factor. It would be unwise to not acknowledge our consumer culture and the challenge changing it would be. Ultimately, this article aims to simplify a much too complex issue. The debate over climate change cannot be summed up into 3 factors and except to be comprehensive and address all obstacles.

It all comes back to culture

I thought The Guardian did a good outline of the basics behind climate change. But it really only touched on a few issues and most of them are already well known by the mass public. He isn't addressing major concerns like our food or our consumer habits. As we saw in class last week agriculture is a huge contributor to global warming. I also thought the article could talk about transportation costs. How many times does a bushel or corn or a pair of jeans travels around the world before they arrive at their final destination? What is the carbon footprint there? And how do we go about changing that process? I woke up this morning feeling incredibly environmentally pessimistic. I just thought about Americans and thought to myself "they are never going to change. No one cares enough to change." I think the biggest reason why it is so hard to stop climate change is because of culture. Politics, industry, economic- those things are all controlled by culture and we live in a world where the environment has never going to be a priority and people can never seem to think in the long term. But if we don't think about the future now and start preventing natural destruction it will be too late. 

It is hard to stop climate change

The article seems to concentrate deeply on energy issues rather he could also point out other factors that could help to stop climate change, because it’s not only energy that do impact the climate change. And his brief example of energy uses by humans are too broad, instead I think he must pick specific reasons of which energy do impact the climate change, and how this could really impact like daily life and our future, instead of just putting information that using fuel, coal or oil is bad. Moreover, his explanation was written such a short paragraph; it is hard to persuade other people who could have different point of view. Climate issues gives such a broad controversial, I think the author must pay attention on how to attract others to believe this point is right. Also when the author pointed out on how U.S and China must put into action, but in my belief, U.S words has so much of “let’s change the world” but they never put this into action. What change have U.S made to impact other country? I think it’s not U.S and China must act first, rather every nation must make a way to work cooperatively on this climate change issue. Plus, action plays louder than words, U.S should not just wait other to work cooperatively, if U.S may act first this could lead other nations to follow this actions.