Intro to Environmental Studies 23

  A specific myth I chose to explore to fully determine its ecological implications and how it orients is the Big Bang Theory. I am not actually referring to the great television show in this analysis, but rather the concept or myth surrounding the theme. The Big Bang Theory is a theory that a big bang is what sparked the beginning of the universe's time. This myth suggests that the universe was created from a single point in the universe, but many researchers from the Nature Scientific Journal believe that, “there does not seem to have been enough time since the birth of the cosmos for it to have reached temperature equilibrium.” Most cosmologists insist that this myth simply makes no sense. An additional research finding to support this theory is from a few astrophysicists from the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada. These researchers worked to release their findings behind the big bang theory. They honed in to a previous theory that “posited that the...

I attended the presentation that Dr. Shauna Gillooly gave on Columbia's current and recent history with its political and environmental struggle.  The presentation went over the constant fighting among the country and how private military and guerilla groups were forming in Columbia for about the last 70 years.  Dr. Gillooly talked about how the paramilitary groups and other private arms for higher would not pay attention to the political law of reservations and other environmental protected areas due to the lack of official government involvement.  The government can't get as involved due to its constant struggle to stay official.  The paramilitary and private arms have been at war with the government and vise versa.  With the governments struggle to take control of the country many company's and private arms will take over different areas of land for profit and personal agendas they have despite the environmental protection laws.     Dr. Gillool...

I attended the last night of the Art(S)cience Festival that focused on theater, climate change, and activism. The panel discussion with playwright Chantal Bilodeau, Dr. Linda Manning, and Dr. Andria Timmer touched on motivations for environmental activism and stewardship. Chantal Bilodeau uses storytelling in her plays that encourage climate action. As someone who is keenly focused on the hard-science behind climate change, it was refreshing to watch and hear how artists convey the climate change story and make it impactful for everyone in the audience. One skill Chantal suggested was to skip any mention of climate change in the first place and go directly to the effects that resonate with people, such as reduced crop yields.  I wonder if Chantal would agree that another approach could be focusing on the aesthetic value that may be lost with destructive anthropogenic activities. At a minimum, this would require the individual to hold some value for the aesthetics of nature. If this...

Sam Ziemba 29 January 2023     Chapter 2 of Humans in the Landscape talks about transcendentalism and Intelligent Design, both of which connect the idea of God to nature. I think that such ideas are interesting in the way that they can prompt a deep spirituality, as well as a longing for the preservation of nature.  I was reminded of this poem we read in high school English when going over transcendentalism:  “As silver rays of moonlight, glisten off the lake, A purple haze is all around, that nature decides to make. Such beauty in a barren scene, God’s wondrous hand provides, Appreciate the Earth we have, the wind, the rain, the tides. Cold crisp air and frosty ground, with rocks as old as time,  Are scattered with perfection, such beauty is sublime.  Celestial light from the moon, and all the stars above, Shine so silently without fuss, as God’s eternal love” - Bill Hoeneveld      Although this poet is not one of the traditional names in th...

I really enjoyed Brooke McDonough’s film and discussion about honey bees and native bees. I knew that bees were on the decline, but I had not heard much discourse about honey bees competing with native bees. Once I thought about it, the importance of native bees hardly ever comes up in conversation. I was fascinated by Brooke’s knowledge of bees’ social networks and dances. This information makes me reconsider how little we know about nature and how little we appreciate the micro-complexities. Humans can hardly detect differences in bee behavior, but to the individuals and the colony, these minute behavioral indications can mean life or death.  In connection to our discussion of aesthetics of nature, I have always marveled at the beautiful diversity of flowers that evolved to be the most attractive to pollinators. In that sense, nature has external motivations to be beautiful, even before humans came along to appreciate it. Beauty has more functions than just to satisfy the human e...

 As I was reading the "Humans in the Landscape" pages 45-76 for week 3, I made a funny connection to the theory of the "Tragedy of the Commons". The textbook explains that a commons is an area or thing (such as a pasture or clean air) with open access, meaning there are no rules to govern the use of that ecosystem by members of the community. The tragedy of the commons says that because of this lack of rules, people will utilize and exploit these commons as much as they can for their own economic gain. It is the conflict between the common good and individual self interest. It is also a somewhat hopeless situation, because m utual coercion that is mutually agreed to says that individuals will keep exploiting commons for their own gain even when it is obvious that all the users together are overexploiting the commons and greater shared benefits could be achieved through collective restraint. Furthermore, if one person does recognize that the collective group is ruini...

In my Writing Intensive, Writing about the Environment, we had a guest speaker who is the creator of the documentary, Buzz Kill. Her name is Brooke McDonough. She graduated from CNU 5 years ago and now shares powerful conservative and histories stories through journals, videos, and pictures. She came in to speak about her documentary which talks about the tension between non- native honey bees vs native honey bees. It mentioned how conversation efforts have been stagnant in retrospective of the native bees. Brooke said that the general population can help the native bees by planting more flowers that are native to the region, having flowers that bloom in the early fall and spring, voting for representatives that care about these important topics, along with many other things.  One thing that I was not aware of before her talk is that honey bees are not native to the United States. I did not know that if someone wanted them, they needed to be shipped. I have always known that bees w...

  Merleau-Ponty is most famous and known for his conversation about our bodies in relation to philosophy which certainly relates to an intro to enviornmental studies course. Through his exploration of issues he explains both the pre-reflexive character that our original linkage with the world has, as well as the kind of understanding that our body develops with the world. A defining quote that represents this is, “my body is the fabric in which the objects are woven”. This quote explores a connection between our bodies and other creatures in the world. He also ties in his beliefs about our relationship with the natural world and the environment. Merleau-Ponty believes that our embodiment in the world means that we must be entangled with eating and drinking even on the most basic level. Additionally, we cannot relate to other creatures in the world unless we come to terms with our own embodiment and what it entails. According to Merleau-Ponty, there is no hard separation between bod...

 This week I was able to attend a leadership conference at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. I learned a lot about the struggles and triumphs of many military leaders throughout recent international conflicts, including Navy airmen who were the first POWs in the Vietnam War and a Paralympic swimming gold-medalist who lost 100% of his vision in combat in Afghanistan.  You may be wondering what any of these stories have to do with the environmental topics of our class, but it was more about the theme of the conference that connects everything. The theme was trials to triumph and ways in which these leaders used optimism, honor, and strength to overcome some of the worst days of their lives. When I was listening to their speeches I started to think about how optimism and honor can be related to some of the concepts in the reading, such as how people's optimism for the capabilities of the future could advance society, and how neglecting to honor the environment for all ...

I attended Dr. Shauna Gillooly’s presentation entitled, “The Nexus of Political and Environmental Conflict in Colombia”, as I am an environmental studies major and also interested in politics. Dr. Gillooly is a postdoctoral researcher at the Teaching, Research, and International Policy Project at the Global Research Institute at William and Mary. She conducts fieldwork in Colombia as well as PhD research, and she studies the intersection of political and environmental violence. Dr. Gillooly began the presentation by first explaining the political history and situation in Colombia to give the context for the environmental violence. She related the civil-war like divide between the leftists and right-wing groups, and how they developed into paramilitary groups and guerilla war groups. She explained how Uraba in Colombia became one of the most dangerous places in the country, and that the laws do not protect citizens there. Furthermore, because the area is predominantly black, it became a...

I believe that Religion and Ecology tie into our course based on the environment.  I enjoyed learning about the land ethics and economy of exchange ideas we discussed in the Religion and Ecology class with Dr. Redick. I particularly enjoyed the lecture depicting the relationship between how some read the sacred text of their religion and are spiritually nourished while some read the text of the environment and understand how to live and survive with it. This portrays the unique dynamics of beliefs, thoughts, etc prevalent in society. This is similar to what farmers do when they pick up, look at, smell and even taste the soil to know how they are going to best live in that specific environment. We as a society should want to learn from scientists, but we can also learn many different kinds of wisdom from art and religion. In this instance, the flora and fauna become the spirit of the place, and to know this place's spirit is to know you’re a part of a whole that is made up of many w...

 I am a Freshman at CNU, and very excited to be taking my first Environmental Studies college class! My first semester here I joined the Student Sustainability Commission (SSC). There are actually many people in our class who are also apart of the club. The club aims to transform CNU into a leader in sustainability, and join different groups of people together who are passionate about conservation and making environmental change on an individual level and school-wide. The commission is broken into smaller groups/teams of people who work on different projects together. My team is the Student Sustainability Network, and we collaborate with other clubs and organizations on campus to create events. Our big event in the first semester was a PLP Disco entitled "How to Lead a Sustainable Life". We created a presentation filled with facts, videos, images, and tips on changes students can make here at CNU to be more sustainable. We discussed the green to-go boxes students can take ins...

 I am still working on reading the assigned Chapter 2: Aesthetic Tourism, but I am finding it so interesting so far! I am going to have a lot of papers myself to write this semester, so I wanted to gather some ideas together to help put my thoughts in one place.  For our first paper, we will be giving the pros and cons of the aestheticism of nature. I am only about halfway through the assigned reading, but so far, I really like the comparison of the painting spectacles to the AT hiker and the difference between tourism and journeying. The good is beautiful indeed and to alter the state of nature or objectify this beauty is to not full heartedly appreciate and love the object for the object, only the joy that the object brings. I also loved the conversations with the does and babies. They remind me of the truth of nature, to accept it as it is and not yearn for change and beautiful things will show themselves to you as a proclamation. Everything and everyone becomes beautiful....

  I recently read Huckleberries by Thoreau. He makes a beautiful analogy that connects learning from experience in nature and book learning. He uses huckleberries picked straight from the field as an analogy of knowledge gained from experience in nature. The berry or piece of knowledge that is gained straight from nature is of the highest quality and is the most satisfying and pure. Thoreau believes that one’s love for nature leads to reading books and that the two ways of learning should not be separated. Thoreau also discusses the intrinsic beauty of nature that goes overlooked and how instead nature is treated as a material commodity to be exploited and profited upon. Thoreau expresses his desire for preservation of forests, rivers, and other natural landscapes. Reading this left me feeling sad that not everyone understands the beauty of nature. Although we have put aside land for national parks and preservation, many lots of natural landscapes were destroyed for human “ progre...

  This week in class we explored a supplement to the big idea of sustainability. Certainly it is important to acknowledge that the environment is deeply influenced by the natural sciences of both biology and geology. It is also important to point out that the standards for environmental sustainability vary greatly, based on local economic, social and environmental conditions. The authors of Humans in the Landscape focus their book around two big ideas: environment and sustainability. The authors support this by acknowledging that, “sustainability holds that humans can and should make use of nature to meet their needs, but that we should do so only in ways that respect the needs of future generations” (Lee, Freudenburg, Howarth, p. 11). Dr. Redick enunciated this point that we need to be responsible for the environment and not just so humans can use it for a longer time, but so that all beings can flourish as they should. From researching sustainability, I have learned that the expo...

 I want to start by saying that I was so confused why a philosophy professor would be qualified to teach an environmental studies class, but in just the first few classes I've come to understand. I didn't realize how much of this class I would be able to connect to ancient political philosophy concepts that I learned in a 100-level class last semester, but it's fascinating how even the most complex worlds of politics and nature can connect to each other. I first realized the connection when we were discussing the difference between humans and animals, and what separates us from mediate versus immediate lifestyles; living versus survival. John Locke describes our separation from animals as just that: beings who always strive for more than what we have, who use the potential of their speech and complex reasoning to creatively make life easier and more enjoyable. While I agree that it's a gift that humans are able to have those mediate relationships with other people and t...

      As someone who has never really stepped foot into a college philosophy, humanities, or religion class and listened to countless hours of biology and chemistry lectures, it was so refreshing to hear yesterday's lecture and read the first chapter of our book. I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do with my time here on Earth, but I'm glad I am here now to open my eyes. I don't know if it was hearing someone finally talk about humans in such a critical way rather than "work, work, work", or not being used to hearing professors say they love their students, but I teared up, even just reading our textbook. Yes, I need to read more. By the way, we love you too, we are just awkward!      I still feel stuck in a way, like a cliffhanger, waiting to see our fate. On one hand, humans have a disastrous footprint and there are people who don't even believe in climate change. On the other, there are some good things that set us apart from other animals. W...

This week we began exploring and reading about humans in the landscape in relation to environmental studies and environmentalism in general. In the first chapter we meet humans in the landscape and we see as we live and interact with the environment. I believe it is important to acknowledge how human societies have always existed within natural systems and human beings also have this large footprint to affect the entirety of the world. For example, the melting of glaciers and many argue it is the result of human induced behavior. In our highly urbanized world, many people have lost sight of the entanglement of culture, localities, symbols, houses, style, and beliefs. This chapter has an overarching theme that our actions affect people and ecosystems ‘near and far, now and in the future’ (Lee, 4). To put into perspective, think about the produce that you purchase from the grocery store, do you think about the pesticides and chemicals that are on those products? Although society has been...

Recently I decided to give the renowned masterpiece by Jon Krakauer known as Into the Wild  another read. Needless to say I was just as heartbroken as the first time I read this novel/watched the 2007 film. I felt the need to discuss the work here simply because I feel it relates to a lot of discussions we have been having in class. I mean think about it, a young man sets out across the country to explore creation as it was intended to be experienced. As the story progresses, I remember being left with a sense of wonder, even thinking things along the lines of "I wonder would what happen if I just decided to do this one day?" I feel it's common knowledge how this story ends by now, with the main protagonist passing away alone in the wilderness, no one around for miles due to accidentally ingesting a poisonous plant. Although I have previously discussed how nature is God's most pure creation and should be treated as such, I feel I need to address a different concern th...

To post, click “new post” to start your entry, you will then be able to write your blog. Make sure to start the blog with your name and the subject of the entry. Blog entries will be considered informal writing assignments and as such will be graded more in relation to content than style. Blog entries will contain questions and answers to questions, as well as reflections which relate to daily classroom discussions, completion of exercises, and reading assignments. Any questions the student has when reading or completing assignments should be written in their blog. Reflections may relate to connections the student makes between discussions in this class and those in other classes, between arguments raised in the readings in this class and those raised in other classes or in informal conversations. Students are encouraged to apply the ideas learned in this class to activities that take place outside of the class. These applications make great reflections. The student should bring ...

Here is an example which would be a free choice entry. Since last semester, I have been on e-board for the Green Team at CNU. I am the sustainability and research chair and my role is to make campus more green and sustainability which is challenging because CNU tends to be stubborn and not want to change. Although I have been struggling to do my job and change things, I have gotten so much insight from the other Green Team members because we come from different customs and view points. We have bonded over our love for the environment and our need to change. We have our own rituals were we try to connect with nature through meditation, yoga, and reciting poems and sharing ideas. We have a big/little system called Oaks and Acorns in order for new members to know how the group works and become close to each other. Green Team is not dominated by one class, one religion, or one race. That is why I love this organization so much. We are all accepted and brought together by nature.