Today I am here to discuss the different directions taken when defining “sustainability”. Sustainability, a multifaceted concept, has gained many interpretations across various areas, reflecting the complex crossover between environmental, social, and economic dimensions. Within environmental science, sustainability often refers to the capacity of natural systems to endure and regenerate over time, encompassing principles of ecologically, preservation, and conservation. Things like the damage clothing manufacturing is taking on the planet and allowing laws and regulations to be put in place to keep companies mindful of the amount of chemical dyes we are putting into different bodies of water and the ecosystems that are disrupted by these chemicals. In contrast, in the realm of economics, sustainability is often viewed through the management of resources to meet present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own. The biggest idea that comes to mind here is advocating for consumers to participate in recycling and composting practices. This helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions we as consumers produce and helps society. From a social perspective, sustainability embodies notions of equity, justice, and community well-being, emphasizing inclusive development that fosters social cohesion. An idea that supports social sustainability would be creating a community gardening group. With the correct resources for the area, a garden will support the local biodiversity and also create a deeper relationship within the community that benefits human emotions rather than an Earth/ plant benefit. We have to be able to replenish or support the things we take from the Earth to “sustain life”. While, despite these different perspectives, a common thread underlying all definitions is the importance of achieving a harmonious balance between human activities and the capacities of the planet, ensuring the continued flourishing of both human societies and the natural world.   

You read the title correctly. Greta Thunberg hates poor people. To explain why, first let me explain the current state of industrialized society. Greta herself said, “We have industrialized life on earth,” (Thunberg). Over the past couple of hundreds of years, nations went through the Industrial Revolution, and innovation rose to a level never before seen. With this, came increased materials usage and greenhouse gas emissions. While the Industrial Revolution increased the well-being of people, it harmed the environment.

These facts lead to a simple solution to environmentalists; stop innovating so that the environment is not harmed. I’m not sure if they would rather we had never gone through the industrial revolution in the first place, but I would guess that Greta would not want us to go through another with the same outcome. The problem with this line of thinking is that not everyone went through the industrial revolution. There are still 3rd world countries. Not everyone has gone through their industrial revolution, yet. As society advances, it is clear that at some point, everyone will go through their industrial revolution in the same way that China went through theirs more recently than the United States. If climate change is such a pressing issue, shouldn’t we prevent 3rd world countries from industrializing? It only makes sense that we cannot allow them to pollute the way that we did for the sake of the environment. This is the line of thinking that environmentalists like Greta must have. So, perhaps saying she hates poor people is too extreme, but my point stands that dealing with future industrial revolutions is complicated.

Greta gets a lot of online hate for her activism. I admire Greta for her work at such a young age. She is not always right, but she tries her best, and that is more than most people. One area where she is completely right is in how to handle environmental inequality. She says two things that ring true. First, inequality is a symptom of how we treat nature. Second, “Those with the most power have the most responsibility,” (Thunberg). Let’s focus on the second point first. It does make sense that those who benefited already from harming the environment should be responsible for fixing the problem they caused. Additionally, the extra resources make the developed countries more capable of solving the problem. Henry Shue argues that equity, instead of equality, should be used because of the unequal environmental situation we are in (Shue). We can’t ignore history and expect undeveloped countries to take the burden of our mistakes.

Greta’s first point aligns with this idea as well. Her stance aligns with ecofeminism. Karren Warren, an ecofeminist, claims that any attempt to fight feminism or environmental inequality must address both (Warren). This is because of the way that people view nature. Society, especially developed society, sees nature as something we can dominate. This is the same way we view each other. Men think they can dominate women. Races think they can enslave other races. Nations think they can take resources through war from other nations by domination. The idea of ecofeminism is that we should stop trying to dominate everything around us. This is important because as a developed country, we cannot demand that an undeveloped country not industrialize. They are autonomous, and we have no power over them. Even if we could morally ask them to refrain from industrializing, we cannot demand it. 

In conclusion, developed countries have the responsibility of fixing climate change because we caused it and benefited from it. From an equity perspective, we shouldn’t ask undeveloped countries to not try to get the benefits we receive every day. We definitely cannot force them to stay a 3rd world country in the name of climate change because we do not dominate them. Recognize the privilege that you have, and understand that your privilege comes with a responsibility.

Henry Shue, Global Environment and International Inequality, International Affairs, Volume 75, Issue 3, July 1999, Pages 531–545, https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2346.00092

UNDESA DISD. (May 22, 2021). #ForNature by Greta Thunberg. [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdSJTvvWNzk

Warren, Karen J. (1990). The Power and the Promise of Ecological Feminism. Environmental Ethics 12 (2):125-146.

I’ve heard many times before from good-intentioned people that our planet is doomed. We have pushed climate change past its limit. I’ve thought this was the truth myself at one point. However, not everyone agrees with this sediment. Demar Degroot says that thinking this is wrong and dangerous. Greenhouse gas emissions have plateaued and should start declining soon. Still, he emphasizes the severity of the situation. If we do nothing the Earth will warm to dangerous levels. (Degroot).

I’m not here today to discuss the specifics of what we need to do. Those are debated. Instead, I will focus on a more pressing issue: motivation. It is fairly accepted that to change the course of climate change, significant sacrifices in material use need to occur. The alternative is a lucky scientific breakthrough just in time. I do not want to bet on that. I’d rather only drive one car per family or use paper straws, and nobody hates paper straws more than I do. However, it is also fairly accepted that people are unwilling to change at the individual level because they don’t want to sacrifice their pleasure while other people may make their efforts useless by over-consuming anyway. So, the big question is how do we motivate people to care enough about the environment to make significant negative lifestyle changes.

Well, it isn’t my fault. I’m motivated. I’m not harming the environment. I believe that most people would say these things about themselves. Everyone wants to look across the aisle to blame others. The truth is that it is everybody’s fault. However, some get blamed more than others. So, let’s explore the opinion of those who have been blamed for our climate crisis: conservatives

Conservatives have been blamed for climate change in large part due to their support for free enterprise. Additionally, as indicated in the name, conservatives are resistant to change. So, how could a group of people who are naturally resistant to change and support capitalism possibly have the solution to motivating people to take care of the environment? Well, Roger Scruton, a conservative, thinks that localism, a conservative idea, is the solution to our motivation problem. It is indeed hard to motivate people at the international level. Why would I sacrifice my pleasure if those living across the world won’t? Scruton says this is the wrong way to think about it. Instead, we should be focusing on our local communities. If we focus locally, we will develop oikophilia, a love of one’s home (Scruton). If we love our immediate surroundings, which is easy to do, we will be motivated to take care of the environment in our immediate surroundings because we will care about it. If this idea is scaled up, then everyone will be taking care of their section of the environment and making the necessary sacrifices. Then, we have a chance to fight climate change.

To be clear, I am not a conservative. I am not advocating for Scruton’s ideas. That is not the goal of this paper. The goal of this paper is to bridge the political divide. Liberals reading this post will likely be disgusted by my detailing of the conservative argument. They may not even have read this far. Also, it is likely that up until this point, conservatives reading this paper were nodding in agreement mindlessly because it fell under their label. What if I told you that Scruton is actually a liberal and that is his liberal idea? He’s not, but how did it feel for that split second you thought I tricked you? Did you try to justify his argument now that he’s on your side? Did you try to poke holes in it now that he’s against you? My point is that fighting climate change truly takes everyone. People think it is impossible to unite in a way where everyone contributes and everyone sacrifices. I do not. It was not that long ago since World War Two. America upended all of its industries, and every single American contributed to the war effort in some way or another. A common enemy, climate change, can motivate people to sacrifice pleasure. However, we cannot do it if we are not united. We can’t hate each other due to our political beliefs. We can’t blame each other for our collective actions. If we are going to win our war against climate change, everyone must contribute how they can.

Degroot, Demar. “Our Planet Is Not Doomed. That Means We Can, and Must, Act.” The Washington Post, 7 Oct. 2021, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/10/07/our-planet-is-not-doomed-that-means-we-can-must-act/. 

Scruton, Roger. How to Think Seriously about the Planet: The Case for an Environmental Conservatism. Oxford University Press, 2015.

In the course of my research, I came across a really good source that didn’t actually pertain to an of my questions, but interested me nonetheless. It comes from a textbook called Handbook of Public Pedagogy: Education and Learning Beyond Schooling, which covers how pedagogy can come in all sorts of forms and examines how the public engages in it’s own sort of pedagogy. There was a really cool article called Earthships as Public Pedagogy and Agents of Change, written by Mischa Hewitt, an architect who focuses on sustainable building practices, and Kevin Telfer, a journalist.

Architecture as Pedagogy

Something I naturally picked up while researching Earthships was that they are less scientific advancement and more political statement. Michael Reynolds, the creator of the entire concept, was attempting to put his green-anarchist principles into action. In that way, Earthships act as a attempt to signal where their builders stand in relation to society. In many ways, researching Earthships is a strong way of dipping your toes in to the bigger picture of sustainability philosophy. The Earthship Foundation runs actual weeks long programs to educate prospective builders/owners in the methods and reasons behind Earthship designs. They also tend to be very adaptable, meaning that every new builder can bring in their own perspectives, education, and philosophies and add them to the greater knowledge bank of the Earthship.

Another interesting tidbit about Earthships as pedagogy is many Earthship projects are extremely open about their practices and communities. Most of the ones I’ve come across attempt to do public outreach as a public activism, while also their existence standing as a passive activism. I am always interested in different methods of education, and I can’t think of many other projects that choose to quite literally build their curriculum or philosophy into the very stones (Or in this case, Tires) of their foundation.

Pedagogy in sustainability

Coming out of that, an interesting avenue to turn down is how we look at our pedagogy for the cause of sustainability. In my previous posts, I’ve criticized the sort of nationalized and top-down approach to sustainability activism. Too much of it is based on reaching as many people as possible, and I would say that a good amount of it seems to be focused less on education and more on politicization of the issues; less about teaching the opposition, more about rallying the base to get on the train we want them on. While this is important, I think we really have to look at how we use activism to educate the public. This Earthships example is a great idea of a very low level, grass roots approach. I am of the firm belief that good pedagogy requires the human touch; the communal relationships are just as important as the information being transferred in the process of education. When the educator is abstracted out of the human level (Say, a story on the news or a petition in a tweet) there’s a natural force exerted against people that don’t already have some engagement and agreement in the topic. It’s a much safer and productive learning environment among friends than amongst strangers.

There are some issues here, of course. Direct on the ground action is often a thankless job. This sort of grass-roots educational movement also generally can’t be enacted from the top-down; I don’t know why, but it seems like most of the time top-down organization of the local level often aren’t very productive. It’s also just a lot harder to foster local community in the modern world, where community is no longer locked by geography in the same way it was even fifty years ago. The best approach I can offer is that it requires people to feel empowered to reach out into their own local environments and give activist outreach a shot.

Where do the politics come in?

There is simultaneously a strange and popular idea that education is either inherently non-political or supposed to erase the bias of its context (Authors, times, etc). This is untrue in probably every single context imaginable. The very act of education is the imprint of your own biased experiences into the mind of others. We can’t escape the politics, but at the very least we should make them either readily apparent or easily digestible. Education, or at least the education I believe in, is built on a framework of compassion. It’s just as important to understand the student and meet their needs as it is to be correct.

     In this blog post I am going to be writing about the fruit industry and how the fruit industry has shaped agriculture and the environment. Specifically looking at monocultures, even more exactly, the banana, and how monocultures impact the environment in a negative way. Bananas have a very consistent look and taste. This consistency is because bananas are clones of one another. Farmers plant banana plants, which is a gigantic herb that visually resembles a tree (Britannica). The banana plant further needs to be grown in a tropical climate that allows for enough water to keep the plant alive but also a significant amount of sunlight. Because of the specific criteria that bananas need to grow, the southern hemisphere, specifically South America, is where a significant amount of banana production is seen. Not only does this mean that bananas are decreasing the biodiversity in these areas from their crops, but also the bananas are genetically the same, which makes large areas susceptible to diseases. The diseases then can take out and destroy entire farms and possibly extinct the crop entirely.

     The Panama disease was a fungal disease that led to a form of Fusarian wilt of the Gros Michel banana, a popular banana in the 1950s (Britannica). Further, pesticides that were being used to help and prevent the spread of the Panama disease are also harmful to the environment. A more environmentally friendly way to stop the spread of diseases such as the Panama disease is by planting bananas at high altitudes where the banana crop is still able to grow but the fungus is not able to survive. This type of farming is known as organic farming and although it has a lower environmental impact than the environmental impact of using pesticides to slow the growth of fungus, there are some drawbacks. One of the drawbacks is that there is not enough land at the high altitudes to meet the demand of the banana industry. Further, although these high altitudes do not allow for the Panama disease to grow, another disease could be able to grow in these high altitudes, which would then take banana growers back to square one.

     In contrast to the banana, apples are a crop that are very biodiverse. In the Oligies with Alie Ward podcast, the host, Alie Ward meets with Dr. Susan K. Brown. Dr. Brown is a professor at Cornell University and she teaches in the AgriTech divisions, specifically in the apple division. Pomology is the study of apples. Apples have a large variety. Throughout the podcast episode, Dr. Brown discusses the wide variety that apples come in. Further, pomologists cross-breed apples, creating more variations to apple and increasing their genetic diversity. Apples can be viewed as a complete opposite to bananas because of their biodiversity.     

     Fruit production as a whole can lead to negative impacts both on the environment and the fruit industry can raise ethical concerns. In both banana and apple production, along with many other fruits, the labor is often not ethically practiced, leading to exploitation and violence. In the reading discussed earlier in class, “We Are Field Workers” from the novel Fresh Fruit Broken Bodies, we learned more about these injustices that were occurring. Specifically learning about the violence towards migrant workers who often work in the fruit industry. There are different types violence that individuals experience. Symbolic violence, which is a concept that looks at the dynamics of social structures of inequalities and structures, and structural violence, which is the configurations of social inequalities (Holmes 43-44). To help make the fruit industry more sustainable, we as consumers need to be aware of how our fruits come to be along with the farming practices and treatment of those who get our fruit to our table.

https://www.britannica.com/plant/banana-plant
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2ovrV7IMSnl6hxYLrXECvB?si=zViiJb2dS-aEYIEe5r9KyA
Download Fresh Fruit Broken Bodies – Holmes (2023).pdf

When I walk around Ohio State’s campus, I often see posters that read “veganism is a moral issue” posted all over the place. Every time I see these posters, I question what exactly they’re trying to convey. I can understand that the practice of raising animals solely food is in many respects immoral, yet I sense there’s a broader message in this slogan.

For starters, this slogan could be interpreted negatively. The media often presents the stereotype of the judgy vegan. This stereotype implies that vegans may be self-righteous and quick to judge or lecture others about their eating habits, which can create tension in conversations about veganism. For this reason, it’s important to acknowledge that perspectives on morality can vary widely among different people and cultures. While some may see veganism as a moral imperative, others may not share those same ethical beliefs and may prioritize different values. When people are overly defensive or combative in conversations, it can be difficult for any significant progress to be made. This is certainly not helpful in the era of the climate crisis.

Conversations about veganism can become even more controversial when the cultural nuances surrounding food are explored. Food is deeply intertwined with cultural identity, tradition, and social practices. Many traditional cuisines around the world are not vegan, and individual food preferences often come from a person’s familial and/or cultural background. Asking individuals to adopt a vegan diet without considering these cultural nuances can be perceived as dismissive or disrespectful of their culture. It’s important to approach conversations about veganism with cultural sensitivity, acknowledging the diversity of food traditions and potentially finding new ways to incorporate plant-based options into existing traditional cuisines.

It is also necessary to recognize the role that privilege may play in the ability of a person to go vegan. Food deserts are areas in which access to affordable and nutritious food is limited, often due to the absence of grocery stores or farmers’ markets. In these areas, people often depend on fast food and convenience stores, which usually don’t have many healthy, plant-based choices. Simply telling the people who live in these areas that “veganism is a moral issue” overlooks the larger socioeconomic problems that they face in gaining access to a diverse group of foods. Addressing food deserts requires solutions that prioritize community empowerment and access to nutritious foods for all.

This dilemma has reminded me of Tom Mustill’s video starring Greta Thunberg titled “Our Relationship with Nature is Broken“. In this video Greta explains the ways in which humans are actively destroying the environment and how this disconnect can begin with the very food we eat. In the farming process, many animals are raised in dirty, crowded factories to be killed after their already short lives. The ways in which we farm animals for food not only impact their welfare as sentient beings, but they also contribute directly to the destruction of natural habitats. This, in turn, intensifies the pressures of human activity on animals and biodiversity overall. While Thunberg does not explicitly frame switching to a plant-based diet as a moral issue, she is in some way making a moral argument. She appeals to the people watching the video by persuading them to have empathy and not to exploit our ecosystems or other living beings any further.

I think Greta’s approach works better than the slogan in that her approach does not come off as super judgmental. Rather than be divisive, Thunberg makes a call for the masses to come together while still being firm in her message. Overall, it’s important to keep in mind that individuals’ dietary choices are personal and influenced by various factors, and that adopting a non-judgmental approach can promote empathy and understanding in discussions about veganism. For substantial change to occur, we must all come together and be willing to listen rather than tear down or villainize the other side.

Last week, metaphorically speaking, I wrote a post about Using Martin Buber’s I and Thou to better understand how we engage with both the environment and other people. There, I described the “I-it” relationship, where the I’s primary relation to the it is in terms of outcomes and experiences, taking from the it what it can without necessarily giving anything back. It is the very objectification of nature itself. The I-it relation, I argued, is unable to push the average person to giving up things that give their lives meaning and comfort for a more sustainable world.

What, then, is the I-Thou relationship? In it’s most extreme, impossible. The I-Thou is non-describable at it’s very heart, the relation in which I and Thou engage with each other, ignoring any contexts and knowledge from the outside and ignoring categorization of the Thou. In it’s very essence, it is a transcendental experience. The best way to sort of get close to the picture of what Buber is describing here is the flow state, in which thought itself erodes away in moments of great focus.

So, how does any of this make sense for us in the context of sustainability? It seems as though I’m grasping at straws. This is correct, but also, If Martin Luther King can invoke Buber in regards to segregation, I might as well try for sustainability.

The piece we read on Watershed as Common-place by Caroline Druschke is the one I think that highlights what I’m thinking of here. There, she describes the ambiguity of the watershed as a thing that can hold many symbolic meanings. This quote displays it excellently:

  As I suggest here, the watershed’s slipperiness (its ability to slip between
abstract community and particular place) marks it with the capacity to change rhetorics, selves, and, ultimately, landscapes

She spends the paper describing how the identification of farmers with the watershed improved the sense of community and interest in sustainable practices. The watershed, a nebulous concept that defines itself differently within each persons relation to it, becomes our Thou. The farmers are engaged with their environment at a direct level, unable to easily categorize their relation to it.

I think this is the approach needed more in our outreach. Last post, I complained about the outcome-based approach most mainstream sustainabilty projects aim to meet: Look, they say, and see what the future looks like. We objectify nature as a tool for human proliferation, categorizing it as a thing that must be protected only in relation to it’s ability to keep our society afloat. Boiled down to this admittedly over-simplified terms, there’s no difference between sustainability campaigns and oil company propaganda about human innovation.

How should we speak about nature then? I’ve already admitted that the I-Thou relation is functionally indescribable, broken with even the slightest hint of classification or experience. I really think that we need to break away from an outcomes based approach and enter an approach of co-relationship. To get the masses to see that nature is a thing worth changing their lives for, we need to get them engaged with nature on a more even level. There is a feeling when being in the woods for long enough that one gets whence their brain becomes tired of thoughts, when the knowledge of what the woods are is overshadowed by the feeling of what they are. I think that is the state of mind that will make people choose sustainability over comfort.

How do we do it?

I have no good answers here. The best idea I can come up with is to copy what the government agencies Druschke wrote about did; create a communal relation between one’s local surroundings and oneself. This most likely requires grass-root advocacy and engagement, rather than top-down approaches. It can’t be done on twitter or at the Whitehouse; the engagement requires personally reaching each and every person willing to engage. Creating community around local parks or gardens might be a great way to accomplish this. Unlikely, but perhaps restructuring political boundaries to reflect the natural world might get people thinking in that sort of way. The fundamental idea remains roughly the same, either way: People care about things they are engaged with on a deep and personal level. They must connect with nature as the thou, a partner who stands in relation, rather than the it which is only to be experienced and used.

Last week, Ohio State University’s campus was abuzz with a series of sustainability-centered events as part of Time 4 Change’s “Time 4 Change Week,” an annual student-led, week-long initiative, beginning on a Monday and ending on a Friday, during which various sustainable organizations orchestrated a diverse array of events, all with the goal of spreading awareness and promoting action about sustainability.

Last Friday, to end the week of festivities, the Ohio State’s Students for Sustainable Fashion (SFSF) and the Ohio State branch of the American Conservation Coalition (ACC), a national organization whose mission is to build and mobilize the conservative environmental movement, joined to host an inaugural sustainable fashion show, the Green Fashion Show. 

The event, which was held in meeting rooms two and three of Ohio State’s Recreation and Physical Activity Center (RPAC) from 7 to 9 p.m., promised an evening of style, substance and sustainability, featuring student designers and models. 

Molly Hoskin, a third-year in environment, economy, development and sustainability and the president of SFSF, said the heart of the fashion show consisted of four distinct collections themed around the elements earth, fire, air and water. 

“We wanted to dive a little bit deeper into the environmental aspect and look at a way to catch people’s attention,” Hoskin said. 

Hoskin said SFSF drew inspiration from Mother Earth to focus on the environmental aspect of sustainable fashion, highlighting the fact that sustainability is a mix of both environmental and social aspects. 

The goal of the event, Hoskin said, was to allow students from all majors to model, design and style looks, encouraging non-fashion majors to participate in the show too. 

“We wanted to let people have creative freedom to pick out clothes from their closets and create an outfit that represents them and the element of their selection,” Hoskin said. 

Sydney Endsley, a first year in environmental science and geology and one of the designers for this year’s show, said she decided to participate in this event because she wanted the opportunity to meet new people through SFSF and share her love for sustainable fashion with others.

“A lot of times fashion, especially sustainable fashion, can feel unattainable or hard to make look like a Pinterest board, Endsley said. “I wanted to curate outfits that I could wear on a regular day and could be found at Goodwill or similar second-hand stores.”

Endsley created looks for both a fire-themed and an earth-themed outfit in the show and said she was willing to design looks for any of the elements that still needed designers for the show as long as she was able to share the important message of sustainability with audiences. 

“My thought process was to make an outfit that someone would see and think ‘Oh, I could totally wear that, make that or find something that looks like that,” Endsley said. 

So the question is why should Ohio State host sustainable events like this? 

“Sustainability is kind of like a gateway,” Hoskin said. “Sustainability, and particularly fashion, is something that is really big right now and I think just starting off small and looking at just the clothes that you wear can lead people to purchasing and developing a more sustainable overall lifestyle.” 

But for many, Hoskin said, implementing these sustainable practices can seem overwhelming. 

“Sustainability scares a lot of people off because it can feel expensive and like a big lifestyle change,” Endsley said. “I think events like the Green Fashion Show and all the events in sustainability week in general can show a larger population of people that it doesn’t have to be drastic changes to make a difference.”

Both Hoskin and Endsley said that it is important to understand that a sustainable lifestyle can be achieved if others take small steps to educate and expose themselves to environmentally friendly alternatives. 

Our class has been using “They Say, I Say” by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein. This is an educational text meant to provide writers with tips to improve their research skills and academic writing. In a recent class, we were asked to discuss Chapter 13 of this book and highlight things that we as students related to or found interesting. Chapter 13 is titled Don’t Make Them Scroll Up: Entering Online Conversations. It begins this discussion of how the internet has influenced the way we have conversations and how we respond to different questions. Most of the time the internet is full of people’s anonymous opinions, which can be beneficial or extremely detrimental. This chapter focuses on having beneficial and constructive conversations rather than reading an immature comment section. In this blog post, I want to apply different tools from Graff and Birkenstein to real-life scenarios we could encounter on the internet. 

I do not think people would argue with the fact that the internet in combination with social media can be a very harmful place, but if we were able to teach children how to effectively communicate on these forums, it makes you wonder how beneficial that could be. The first suggestion Chapter 13 of They Say, I Say makes is that “not all online writers make it clear who or what prompted them to write.” Th.” This could be applied to social media interactions in that a person responds to a thread of comments without specifying who or what they are addressing. This leads to other commenters mistaking their words or assuming their perspective which could lead to hostility. The solution here would be for the commenter to address the exact person they want to address or begin a new thread explaining where and what inspired this idea.  

Another idea discussed in Chapter 13 of They Say, I Say is “Linking to what They Say”. Writers should be supplying articles and links within their texts to help readers understand the point they are making. This could also be very applicable when conversing on social media when someone may seem to be posting “fake news” or making a false claim. Submitting links to different articles and studies can not only help the original comment fix their understanding but also help other readers know the truth. This topic could be related to Donald Trump and his postings about the 2020 election being rigged. This was clearly “fake news” after he had lost this election and people began flooding social media and his comment sections with research and article links about why the information he was stating was false.  

The last section of this chapter is called “Juxtaposing Your “They Say” with Your “I Say”’. This simply means, allowing other readers to comment and respond to your idea. The way the conversation builds itself allows readers to see a “They Say” and your “I Say”. Different social media channels allow for different types of commenting whether it is just a thread or it is a way of “quoting” the original post. Quoting the post allows your “They Say” and your “I Say” to be present to all readers. A great example of this would be making a post about how much you love your teacher at school, but then having someone “quote” the post with the opposing side. This allows social media users to see where the “They Say” and the “I Say” originated from so they can informatively participate in the conversation.  

Graff and Birkenstein have a great way of presenting this information in an easy yet sophisticated way. I believe the suggestions in Chapter 13 could be easily taught to more social media users so we can have positive and beneficial conversations online. Do you think social media is a toxic or welcoming environment?  

This semester, we have covered a variety of sustainability-related works in our class touching on a range of topics from a watershed in Iowa to the ice deposits on the moon. Although each piece served its purpose for our class, there were two specific works we covered that particularly caught my attention when it came to the question of, where the fate of the world stands. In enrolling in this class, this was the question that I was most interested in getting to the bottom of. 

In the reading, “Our planet is not doomed. That means we can and must act” by Dagomar Degroot, the author speaks on the dangers of climate “doomism” as it has become the default perspective of most people when they think of the Earth’s future. He goes on to share that doomism only stifles progress in the movement toward a stable climate because people have already given up hope. The primary argument he is making here is that because change is still possible and we have not passed the point of no return, the fight is still worth fighting. 

Conversely, in Greta Thunberg’s short film, “Our Relationship with Nature is Broken”  she presents her argument differently.  Just by comparing the titles of the works, Thunberg introduces her case in a much more negative and urgent manner by saying “Our relationship with nature is broken”, which allows the viewer to assume one question before even watching the film: can it even be repaired? Furthermore, when looking at Degroot’s title we can see that the argument is presented in a more optimistic light by saying “Our planet is not doomed”. 

Although Greta ultimately makes a very similar case to Degroot in the overall message of her film, the way she delivers it, not only in the title, may deter people from joining her in her efforts to counteract the damage made to the planet. As Degroot says in his article, when addressing the fate of the planet coming from a doomism perspective only discourages people because they believe the fight has already been lost, which I believe is what Thunberg did in her short film. There was an eeriness to the message she presented which brought on a feeling of guilt and panic for me as a viewer. In my opinion, invoking an audience to feel this way will not make them want to move forward with any cause you are trying to promote. 

As I analyzed the delivery and presentation of each work, I asked myself, which was more effective at prompting me to make a change? I think the answer to that is quite clear by now. Degroot’s optimistic outlook on the future of the planet and reassurance that we still have time to repair the damages done made me feel positively about the future of our planet. Knowing there is a brighter future ahead makes me want to be a part of building that future and continuing the fight for sustainability. In contrast, I could certainly see how Thunberg’s delivery may be more effective in prompting change in others because it creates a sense of urgency that may encourage people to act as soon as possible. Although this may be productive for some, I would much rather be motivated by positive reinforcements for building a renewed and replenished future for our planet than by negative ones that are fueled by the fear and distress of the public.