Eco-Literacy 2014

When reading Chapter 4 of Urban Wildscapes, I kept reflecting on my own childhood and how I was socialized in an environment that mostly restricted play in the industrial ruins. Even when reading about the industrial ruins, I was thinking about the picture I had of what that looked like and how for much of my life, playing or even spending time in that type of space did not seem appealing as they "allow wide scope for activities prohibited or frowned upon in other urban public spaces" (66). However, as I was thinking more deeply about this, I recalled how as children, my brother and I played in a construction site behind our back yard that was composed of many mounds of dirt, some foundations, loose nails--it was certainly an unregulated space and could be charactierized as an industrial ruin. David and I created a make believe town which we invited our other neighbors to play in. We claimed this space as our own and together all of us played games and took on roles and characters of townspeople in this place. While this construction site was not as clean, colorful, regulated, and supervised as the park a few blocks from our house, it did allow us to put more of our own stamp on how we navigated and managed the space, as well as how we were able to use our imaginations. 

What is striking about Katy Mugford’s chapter, “Nature, nurture; danger, adventure; junkyard paradise” is the four photos of children all in front of different landscapes. And they all have very grim expressions and the same awkward, unenthusiastic, reluctant postures.

This reminds of me of parents taking photographs of their children when on trips to various places, with the classic reluctant child pose. Why do we like taking family photos when we travel to new places, monuments, historic sites, etc.?

There are already countless of photographs and documentations — both professional and amateur — of the Eiffel Tower or the Capitol building or the Rocky Mountains, and yet we still take our own because they are not as meaningful as when they include a familiar, non-stranger person. When we know the subject, or we are ourselves the subject, of a photograph in any landscape, we are capturing ourselves inserted in that landscape. Printed out on a flat surface, that photo physically levels out the degrees to which we may be separated from the landscape. We become part of the landscape.

My family has countless photographs as well, of our own trips. I owe so much to my parents for giving me the lifestyle and platform that allow me to create a relationship with the many environments I’ve experienced. However, I don’t know if I’ve consciously gone about relating the books I read in my childhood with the way I learned about my ‘setting,’ my environment in the close world around me.

When I was little I loved climbing. I frequently put on a rather perfect impression of a mountain goat and, at the rocky outcroppings of the lake near my dentist's office, would jump from boulder to boulder, summiting each in turn to spend a brief moment standing on top and surveying the land around that to my three-year-old eyes possessed a sense of majesty.

At ten I still played at the park, running throughout aluminum and plastic playground structures sunk in to sandboxes. However I never let myself be limited by the parts of the play equipment and their "suggested use." I would climb on top of the monkey bars and crawl across them like a bridge. I would sit on top of the tunnel instead of crawling through it and slide down the seven or eight foot drop to the sandbox below. I would climb on top of railings and roofs and climb backwards up the slide.

One memory that really sticks with me, though, is from a trip to Yosemite at age thirteen. I was a teenager and of course thought I knew everything, and was very sure of my own limits. I wanted to climb Half Dome. It had been a dream of mine for years, since that three-year-old hopped between rocks and that ten-year-old abused the jungle gym at the neighborhood park. Unfortunately, my mom did not agree. I hiked and climbed whatever I could, but Half Dome is still a far off dream for me, something I'll have to do in adulthood (given I manage the funds to travel to California on my own).

ECON 136:  Week 4 Tasks

Monday:  Choice & Opportunity Cost

Preparing for class:

In Sapling Learning, read Taylor, Ch. 2, pp. 15-18 and 26-33 

If so inclined, you might think about how to draw a budget line or a production possibility frontier in your word processor, spreadsheet or drawing program.

Before you retire Sunday night (or by 3am  Monday)

            Complete the Choice and Opportunity Cost problem set in Sapling Learning

Wednesday:  On the Gains from Voluntary Exchange

            Preparing for Class

            In Sapling Learning, read

                        Taylor Ch. 3, pp. 39-52; and

Taylor Chapter 8 Appendix, pp. 689-696 (It appears as A8 toward the very end of all the Taylor Chapters)

Think about how you might use indifference curves and PPF diagrams to illustrate an explanation of the gains from trade

I begin this paper with with a brief walk-through of my places of origin. The where-I-am-from’s. They are like stepping stones. Or building blocks. By contemplating this list I am browsing through my memories to find the right ‘slice’ about which to write this essay. I find that thought process is worth paying attention to in order to observe what triggers your mind to go in what direction, especially when searching through past experiences and emotions.

Gliwice, Poland
Houston, Texas, USA
Richmond, Virginia, USA
Georgetown, Washington DC, USA
Dupont Circle, Washington DC, USA
Nairobi, Kenya
Istanbul, Turkey
Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, USA

I like and agree with much of what Timothy Morton wrote in the excerpt of "The Ecological Thought" that we read, but I can't completely agree with his statement that "Fixation on place impedes a truly ecological view."  I can easily agree with one possible meaning of his argument, that we need to stop focusing just on the areas that we consider home, that we must be concerned with the world beyond ourselves.  However, when Morton writes that ecology has to do "with race, class, and gender... with sexuality...", acknowledging both the importance of people in ecological thought and the importance of acknowledging systems of oppression, I don't think that place can be separated from that.  Place plays an integral role in affecting privilege and marginalization, in determining who experiences the effects of environmental degredation and who doesn't (as Eli Clare and bell hooks made quite clear in their writings).  Growing up in a surburban, white, upper middle class neighborhood, I have been continually privileged and shielded from the effects of global climate change and other ecological threats.  For me, because of the place I come from, environmental justice has always been abstract- not a matter of life or death.  Therefore, when Morton lists the identities and marginalizations that matter to ecology, when he says that ecology has to do with "ideas of self", I don't know how he cannot include place in that list.

As much as I loved bell hooks' way of thinking about home and culture of belonging, it was somewhat comforting to see that people like Morton do not necessarily agree with that view of home/place - and it was also very confusing. For while I haven't experienced a culture of belonging first-hand, I want to believe such a thing is possible, and attainable for me. And at the same time, I am conscious of the very legitimate points made by Martin and Mohanty, who (from what I could gather from their complex language and sentence structures) argue that any community of sameness and comfort inherently shuts out others and makes oppression possible. Which sucks (to put it more bluntly). I can only assume that more oppression (akin to the Ku Klux Klan) is the last thing bell hooks would want, so how can I reconcile both of these ideas? And how does Morton's fit in, his criticism of "fixation on a place"? Maybe all that matters (to me) is how each of these arguments fits into my own understanding of home, place, and community as these things relate to environmentalism/social justice. For example, a community that is actively working to fight oppression might, on the way, exclude some voices, but if they are working hard to be anti-opressive (which, honestly many enviro-justice communities aren't, or think they are but get criticized for not doing enough) and simultaneously trying to end oppression of certain groups of people and/or the environment, maybe that's ok.

Like Morton, I too think that the ecological thought is more than just taking the scientific stand and that it's more than just global warming, recycling, and solar power. To be environmentally aware is to take everything in our sorroundings into effect. Not only the ecosytem and our connection with the living and non living aspects of it, but also the relationships we build, the art, and awareness. I don't think an environmentalist should take offense or feel at all like we're degrading the meaning or importance of the term "environment". If anything, they should agree with what Timothy says, "Ecology includes all the ways we imagine how we live together." Nature exists in all different types of ways and humans are not going anywhere for a long time. Rather than creating boundaries and making everything seem like it belongs in a certain category, we should push for coexistence.