Perception of Options to Improve the World

In “Four Directions for the Environmental Humanities”, Sergio Gomez discusses problems that “frame our relation to the environment” and then goes on to propose shifts in environmental humanities that could address these problems. One interesting problem that Gomez mentions is the “Dominant Technocratic Approach”, which frames environmental issues as something that can simply be solved by science and technological innovations. Science and “careful management” can solve all issues under this approach. The technocratic approach can greatly affect our perceptions of options available for improving the world. Under the technocratic approach it is only the “administrators” or “experts” that are “qualified” to improve the world. This leads to the perception that is not within “our power” to improve the world or that it is not our place. Ideas can’t improve the world unless they come from a qualified expert. And even those ideas aren’t said to make much improvement unless there are “material results”.

Options available to improve the world under the technocratic approach also become “simple” and “efficient”. Any option to improve the world that is deemed “too complex” will either be ignored or reduced to simple terms that will lead to ineffective and damaging solutions. The technocratic approach can also go hand in hand with negative framing. It becomes very easy to frame things in a negative light or deny that there are even options available to improve the world when the only options are deemed as “management” or “scientific innovations”. When only “management” or “scientific innovations” are said to be options, it is easy to say there are not enough narrowly defined “resources” to improve the world. Instead, when innovative thinking is thought of as a way to improve the world, there are of course much more “options” and negative framing is not quite as easy. Scientific innovations can be rare but innovated thinking happens every day.

Developing citizen humanities is just one solution to address the problem of the dominant technocratic approach. Citizen humanities “reengages publics” as producers of knowledge, and in turn “reengages publics” in improving the world. It is more than just the “experts” that have the option to improve the world. When “publics” cultivate new ideas and discussions, they are not only coming up with new options to improve the world, but they allow for others to see just how important “non-experts” are for improving the world. These diverse “environmental imaginaries” that bring in human experience and different worldviews show that there are not always “efficient” solutions. Options to improve the world will not always be a linear progression and they may be messy and difficult. This complexity is not a sign to “give up” or “simplify the option”, but instead is often just a part of diverse collaboration. Improving the world will not always be neat and tidy, and acknowledging this will help prevent options/solutions that are in the end only more damaging.

Why is Social Science needed for tackling Climate Change?

Keri Norgaard says Climate Change is a social issue. She’s right! Climate Change may be an ecologically-premised trend of ominous long-term natural phenomena, but it is a social issue because it affects social stuff - like how we eat, how we breathe, where we build, who/how we fight and what we’re fighting each other for. Norgaard makes another great point - there’s not enough social science going on in climate change action. I think this is true because I see that those not involved in environmental disciplines still regard climate change  as “just another” fad of the noise-machine-media. It’s not their fault either - climate change comes to many Americans most often by media headlines where they are beside celebrities and candidate drama. Contrast the emotional response you receive when asking an average American about their views on U.S. involvement in the Middle East and the response you get when asking someone about their position on climate change.
Its absolutely necessary to have boat-loads of natural scientists in the field of climate change science. This is important because climate change is super duper complex and we would never come to understand the full breadth of its’ impacts without them. However, if there were a greater amount of sociologists and other humanitarian social scientists at the forefront of climate change science, there'd be a lot more reputable material on how climate change affects society, not just how climate change affects mother nature.
If that were the case, I think it’d be a lot easier for people to relate with the pernicious threat Climate Change poses. We talk a lot about risk perception and alienation - how problems that are super long term or exceedingly complex or from an indirect source are difficult for the human psyche to wrap itself around. So it seems like a clear connection to me that a growing body of work detailing the social impact of climate change, and even the social sources of climate change, would contribute to the trend of people taking climate change seriously. If there was this hypothetical body of social science, then people would care more. People might vote more. They’ll surely change their consumer habits and daily behavior if they had some “scientifically proven” connection between an aspect of their lives and this big hairy scary problem of climate change. And that, my friends, is a critical hope we need to foster. While taking shorter showers may not make the military spend consume less oil or emit less fossil fuels, changing the hearts and minds of the american people is the only sure way to establish a substantial paradigm shift. We need a paradigm shift as big as Climate Change itself to tackle Climate Change, and it won't happen without the consilience of every discipline.

True and False Hope

Jeffrey Duncan-Andrade wrote a powerful piece on hope;  a powerful feeling that motivates us to pursue things in life and to be optimistic for the future. Duncan-Andrade discusses how hope has been assaulted in urban communities. The assault on hope can be seen in the disinvestments in schools and overinvestment in the prison industrial complex. This claim by Duncan-Andrade is not only true but it stings when i acknowledge the extent of it. As a student I am constantly reminded that education is not only my key to success but it is essential to my future. I do believe this statement is true but I also acknowledge that only a few will actually reap the true benefits of this claim. Education has the potential to break many barriers that prevent us to reach our true potential but many students face trauma that make it nearly impossible to excel in school. Many urban youth are also given false hope on access to education granted that more prisons are build than schools and schools are underfunded. Duncan-Andrade identifies reactionary distortion as a process that promotes false hope and takes away true hope

Duncan-Andrade identifies three forms of false hope, the first is Hokey hope. Hokey hope affirms the american belief of pulling yourself by your bootstraps. This false hope suggests that one can simply pull themselves out of poverty or bad situations if they “work hard, play attention, and play by the rules”, critical analyses of this statement recognizes that there are inequalities and systematic oppression urban youth and people of color face that make it unattainable to reach. As Duncan-Andrade states Hokey hope, “delegitimizes the pain that urban youth experience as a result of a persistently unequal society” (p.3). The second false hope identified by Duncan-Andrade is mythical hope. Mythical hope proposes that everyone has equal opportunity. As we all know we do not have equal opportunity, urban youth are more disadvantaged in regards to opportunity (academic, economic, and socially) than wealthy suburban youth. This false hope also perpetuates the false notion of a color blind society and does not acknowledge political and historical events that cannot validate mythical hope. Mythical hope in my opinion is like a disney film, it’s suggests that life is a fairytale and that all is well and fine but neglects to recognize that processes that casts certain characters a certain way. The third false hope is hope deferred, this false hope, as stated by Duncan-Andrade “hides misinterpretations of research that connect the material conditions of poverty to the constraints placed on schools” (p.4). It's the inability to efficiently create a transformative pedagogical project that focuses on aiding students rather than focusing energy on the errors of the system. This false hope also mandates that students go on a route that teachers are reluctant to take.

Duncan-Andrade gives his readers solutions to false hope; material, socratic and audacious hope. These three true hopes are mutually ingrained and as advocated by Duncan-Andrade they must work holistically. Material hopes helps us acknowledge that the road is not smooth and will have potholes that we encounter. Socratic hope ables us to push through difficult paths that we cannot escape. Audacious hope encourages us to sacrifice pieces of ourselves so that others may rise thus we can collectively aid each other on the pursuit to our definition of success. When I finished reading this article I acknowledged that I have been at both ends of hope. I have been fed lies and at the same time I have been given so many helpful resources that have aided me to achieve my goals and dreams. As a person of color who attends a institutionalized public university I have come to understand that my peers and I face the same struggles, some harsher than others but nevertheless we all face struggles. The extent in which we receive aid greatly differs, I have been very fortunate to have professors who truly care about me and want to see me succeed. Unfortunately this has not been the same experience for some of my peers. This article opened my eyes to value true hope, hope that acknowledges that the road will not be smooth and easy and that everyone will endure different challenges but we should all preserver