I have to admit that sadly I am one of those people who is conscious of the damage being done to our environment and largely lives life ignoring that fact. I make some small concessions in every day life: I bring a reusable water bottle to school so I want have to waste plastic, I recycle and generally I try not to waste energy, but on a more macroscopic scale I do very little. The environmental crisis and the sustainability movement has always been an initiative I supported but from perhaps too far a distance, and I believe this course me making me re-examine my level of involvement. To hear that humans have released 34 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere or killed off 80% of the world’s coral reefs makes it harder to sit back and simply watch the world burn. To realize that the environment is struggling to support us in nearly every way is both terrifying and essential to understand, for it brings the plight of environmentalists into your own head rather than just seeing it in the heads of others from a distance.
I was slightly skeptical at the concept of a Macaulay seminar on the environment and sustainability, but the more I experience of it the more I find it essential. I think that having the issue brought more into my life would be a change only for the better and that goes for everyone. If humans are to truly combat the damage we have been doing to the Earth, it will need to be a true team effort, not one taken on by only a small faction and educating the masses is the essential first step. I now really appreciate Macaulay giving us this seminar because over the arts or a study of people, this is the most important to the continuation of the human race as we know it.
Going beyond informative side of the class, it is also proving to be very philosophical and intellectually enriching. The idea of environmental ethics, a concept with which I was not familiar with before this class, poses a great philosophical question in determining the value of the world around us. In a basic, survival of the fittest sense, anthropocentrism is perfectly logical: we are the top of the food chain so we can use and abuse everything below us as we like. This way of life has created the world around us and even created our brilliant species of Homo sapiens, the only creatures that can even delve into such pursuits as environmentalism; yet also the only species who can do the type of damage we have and can. After realizing the later part, the deep ecology movement begins to seem relevant: if we are the only species capable of doing something to change this dangerous course of events, perhaps it is our obligation as a type of overlord to this great planet to care for it and not allow our species to destroy the remaining life force it has left.
In this day and age from either viewpoint, something must be done to combat climate change. Whether for the sake of preserving the intrinsic value we see in all things or whether it simply in an act of self preservation, we are condemning ourselves by allowing the world’s population to continue on this destructive path. Will we really think that the shift in quality of life in eating less fish and meat was too high a cost when we have entirely killed off the species of fish today and destroyed all the worlds forests for grazing grounds? Will all the productivity of our industry be for nothing when entire portions of the world are dead zones because of our undisciplined disposal of chemicals? We as a species must take action and as I said earlier the most important first step is to educate those who can bring change. I look forward to being educated.
