katec29Comments Off on Will we survive the Anthropocene?
Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it’s a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from. — Al Franken As humans, we are bound to mess up. Luckily, most of these mistakes help us to grow and learn. As… Read more »
SashaComments Off on Learning to Accept Interdependence
I came into this course with a very self-centric point of view. I wanted to know what I could do in my life so that I would make a difference and do something good for the world. While my search stemmed from wanting to help others, along the way I somehow forgot about the fundamental interconnectedness of life. I shied… Read more »
A drizzly day came in early December when eight people rose to do something different. “Solar Powered” aimed to generate sweat—perspiration as lubrication for social advocacy. It was a yoga & dance party aimed to empower people in light of dismal climate change facts; we wanted to discuss agency in a positive setting. I worked on the basic logistics of… Read more »
Alex, Willa, Simone, John, and I assembled an informative and interactive website for our action project on the topic of climate refugees. The topic seeks to draws awareness to the interdependent nature of our global system. Climatic crises, caused by Western overconsumption, will displace millions of people in historically exploited areas, to flood countries that enabled their displacement. Ultimately, our responsibility to… Read more »
Throughout the discussion, creation, and implementation of this project, I have learned that taking the things we learn in the classroom and bringing them to the larger community is easier than I thought. I have been worried for a long time about finding the “right” organizations to support and the best career that will not only interest me but… Read more »
While reading the assigned parts of Jeremy Rifkin’s Emphatic Civilization, I was struck by how his idea of humanity’s use of a “theatrical self” is applicable to the divide within America’s stance on climate change. Rifkin describes the theatrical self as a set of skills each person uses to adapt to a social situation. Each of us also possess a… Read more »
Sacrifice stands at the center of the Anthropocene. The process of approaching this issue will require wealthy nations, such as the United States, to sacrifice various cultural norms to vastly improve sustainability. Although this act of sacrificing luxuries and excess seems reasonable, it also appears implausible. Such doubt in the nation’s ability to make such adjustments stems from the nation’s… Read more »
SashaComments Off on ‘The Myth of Apathy’ and the Importance of Trust
While the distinctions between ‘apathy’ and ‘an overwhelming sensation of caring too much and having your mind shut down’ create different views of how humanity reacts, it still leaves us paralyzed. Emotions and action are still not happening whether it’s because they never existed or they were shut off or ignored. Either way, there’s no way to definitively prove the… Read more »
Through my learnings so far about the Anthropocene the things aspect that stands out the most is that we know nothing, and when I say nothing I mean what fools we are to put ourselves in a predicament like this without a plan. In my time on this planet, in this epoch I’ve learned a few important things such as… Read more »
The point of this class is to care enough to learn and then spread awareness about the impact of our actions. I came in not knowing what the word ‘Anthropocene’ meant. I now know it means humans are a geological force. We are glaciers and meteors and our change is affecting the entire world. However, with the dawning realization of… Read more »