ABSTRACT
For the past decade, I have annually taught GEO 103 Environment and Society, my university’s introductory environmental studies course. It is a large class of 75 to 150 students with graduate teaching assistants leading weekly smaller discussion groups. The bulk of students in the course are not geography majors or even humanities or social science majors. Rather, they are visitors from other fields and far-flung parts of campus: engineering, computer science, elementary education, finance and entrepreneurship, broadcast journalism, sports management, and fashion design. In short, they are neither budding environmentalists nor would-be environmental studies majors-not by a long shot. This course is likely the first, and last, environmental studies class they will ever take. But since they are enrolled in this course to fulfill a liberal arts distribution requirement, they enter my class somewhat under duress, and most likely, the course is the lowest priority among the four to six classes they are taking that semester. Sparking interest in environmental policy and the Environmental Humanities in such an audience is challenging, both for myself and the teaching assistants who work with me. By and large, many of the students approach this course, and perhaps their other
classes, with a very instrumental outlook. Given this situation, it is not surprising that they lack enthusiasm taking courses outside their major. What many want from this course, is the highest possible grade with the minimum amount of effort. The instrumental outlook of contemporary college students is a familiar lament among academics (Nathan; Arum and Roksa), but it seems quite troubling in a course such as this given that it focuses so much on climate change-and climate change, to put it mildly, is something students will have to contend with for the rest of their lives, regardless of their major or chosen career. While the course focuses on the cultural, political, and economic dimensions of a number of environmental issues, climate change is a major topic in the class, and it has become even more so throughout the past ten years. While it is not a natural science course per se, I do devote a week to the science and consequences of climate change. Whether it is the rise of atmospheric temperature, the loss of sea ice in the Arctic, or the growth of wildfires in the western United States, the findings about climate
change published in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports or National Climate Assessment have grown more dire and worrisome with each passing year (Mann and Lee; U.S. Global Change Research Program). Despite my best efforts to contain this section of the course, my discussion of climate change now takes up more and more of the class. Confronted with the dire predictions of climatologists, the students by and large
have one reaction: indifference. The cavalier attitude of students toward their future and that of fellow people around the world was brought home to me a few years ago in an email by one of my teaching assistants leading a discussion section about climate change. “My soul is crushed,” she began. “I thought we were going to have this fabulous conversation about framing arguments, the role of science, finding allies and figuring out how to effectively communicate [climate science to the public]. The class-and I don’t just mean two or three vocal people-basically came up with this: all of Bangladesh could die, the temperature could increase six degrees, tons of species could die, and people in other places could suffer from drinking water and crop shortages, and we wouldn’t care at all.” She went on: “On one hand, it’s sort of confusing-they’re super cynical and at times seem morally bankrupt, but they also sort of want something to happen … They won’t care about species loss (even polar bears!) until they believe it will economically hurt them. They don’t care about people in any other place. They will only care about drought when they don’t have enough drinking water or when food is really expensive … And if NYC becomes like Houston? Whatever. That’s what air conditioning is for. And if poor people can’t afford it? Go to the mall” (Green). Dealing with such a reaction posed challenges for my teaching assistant and me,
and I would argue, raises important questions for those of us in the environmental humanities. A generation of scholarship in the Environmental Humanities and allied fields such as political ecology, environmental history, and environmental sociology have urged scholars to highlight the injustice of climate change for poor and marginal communities, both within the United States and in the Global South, and how a warming world could deepen inequality (Nixon; Robbins; Perrualt, Bridge, and McCarthy). Imparting this knowledge about climate justice is a core intellectual, political, and ethical pillar of teaching climate change in the Environmental Humanities. Yet how should we react when students respond to the science and ethics of climate change with a shrug and a “meh”? My initial response to my dispirited teaching assistant was to remind her that as
much as we would like students to share our concern about climate change and the consequences for people around the world, we cannot make them care. Our role is to teach them the fundamentals of environment-society geography and pose the policy and ethical questions raised by climate change, but ultimately, what lessons they draw from that are their own. I also wanted to meet with the students in the discussion section, and fortunately, this is something they suggested themselves. We had a productive conversation about climate change-which, truth be told, some still doubted was even happening. Most seemed unconvinced it was much of a problem or that we owed much to those most affected by the rising seas, fiercer storms, and searing droughts that come with it.
