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How We Think About Our Environment, images, web_photo_pico_Tommy-Pico…

- - - - Our nature is no longer real, it is simply an idea or a memory of what once existed. By interacting with the world we have fundamentally altered the course of nature, to the point that it is no longer accessible to the masses.
      - Our focus around cities and urban settings (for example, LA) also forces us to have a warped perception of what constitutes nature, such as concrete rivers and fenced in parks. The urban approximation of the natural world not only does not hold a candle to the real thing, but is actively detrimental to our health and wellness.
    - - there is nothing that is untouched about nature anymore, our way of existing and polluting has fundamentally altered the majority of our natural formations and systems even if they were not touched directly.
      - Calling a place home means using it for survival, and the only people who claim land as pure nature are those who do not have to work off it to survive
      - There is no such thing as "wilderness" as we are all still natural and thus wild, the difference is merely social construction and influenced by our own hubris.
    - - all of the fundamental social issues are grounded in the ontological divide between human and animal, making a connectivity with nature and more "natural" beings crucial to an understand of the world outside of these social structures
      - By allowing ourselves to center the human in the universe, we open ourselves up to the idea that there are higher and lower beings, and this is essentially detrimental to our way of life and interactions with nature and each other
    - - Sherrell also utilizes the direct address by optimistically referring to the audience as his future child, despite not even necessarily wanting children, which allows him to be more inspiring and feel more personal when he is telling his lived experience and relationship with the world.
        
        Everyone has an individual relationship with nature in some way or another, and it is simply the prioritization of that interest that determines the intensity of your connection with environmental activism and how these concerns permeate your life. These actions don't even need to be necessarily political in nature, there is just a level of care we need to reach as a society in order to survive.
    - - Feminist thought is also dangerous in terms of the environment, because it can prevent us from considering nature as a universal issue, as it hinges so much on the societal performance of gender and thus focuses on that binary instead of us as a species interacting with the world.
        
        Since we are connected with these systems, we should have far more concern with how we are effecting them, and subsequently how they are effecting us. By poisoning the environment we are poisoning ourselves, resulting in an expiration date for all of us.
        
        The body is material, but is also a result of systems in our natural world, since everything is connected, we stumble upon "trans-corporeality", a way of thinking about the physical body outside of biological binary, but still inside of natural systems
        
        A heavy focus on the way civilization has removed us from nature in a way that is seemingly impossible to remedy without complete alteration of the current ideologies of separation between genders, races, classes, and nature by and large.
  - - - Who Speaks for the Trees?
        Astra Taylor
        
        The reconciliation of "natural rights" and the economic world is impossible without the consideration of the rights of all beings. While plants and animals may not be able to defend themselves legally or speak out against the slaughter and imprisonment they are facing, that doesn't change the fact that the are living beings and we should not be able to make claim over them without some sort of consent.
        
        We have experienced revolutions of thought beyond anything we could have imagined already, so is it truly so absurd to conceive of giving respect or autonomy to the living world? If we are willing to spend millions of dollars to conquer it, and lay down lives to protect it, why not also perceive its value in the sense that life is a precious and finite thing.
      - A meditation on the legal complications of claiming and defending nature. How, from a legal standpoint there is no autonomy to the world, and like a child, it must be spoken on behalf of by another "able" being
        
        Also believes we have passed the point in which a mindset shift will actually succeed in enacting positive change. Adapting is the only way forward, so how can we evolve existing systems to allow us to reach a place of higher harmony and sustainability with nature and in the defense of it?
    - - The quickest answer to the question of genre in that it does need to be factual, but the responsibility also rests largely on the shoulders of the consumer to read and understand more than just what the story is "about". As a generation, we are less concerned with any underlying meaning or further ramifications that these works of fiction may have, so they lose a lot of their power by being perceived only on the base level
        
        Furthermore, we are by-and-large slightly too dumb for the representations of our world that are on either end of the spectrum of too abstract or too logically dense, so we need to find a way to respond to the needs of a changing world with understanding through a different mode of communication, one with new words and aesthetics.
    - - Deeply connected to the work seen this semester by Jill Pelto, in which the scientist took data directly from her experiences or the experiments of others and incorporated declining population trends into the environment of a salmon, or rising temperatures into the ridges of a mountain. Presenting the data inside of the actual image of the endangered species gives us the connective pathos that we cannot access by simply tracing a line graph.
        
        The presentation of data and information is crucial to our understanding and care for it, especially in context. By presenting data outside of just charts and numbers we can access more people and change their perspective on an issue, whereas the numbers alone cannot always speak for themselves to the vast majority of any given audience.
    - - With the fluidity of our definition of nations already, it is also impossible to fully subscribe to any one ideology, as we must even be taught competing ones to truly understand the difference. Thus, defining the rights and humanity of a human by how well they fit in to the categories of their homeland is neigh impossible, and those without any homeland to return to could still fit perfectly into a society, but are judged on the grounds of birthright and physical appearance.
        
        There is a huge problem of "statelessness as a result of war and other tragedies, and this has lead to a population of refugees without an rights. Despite them being hypothetically innate "human" rights, you are only human insofar as you can claim a nation as home, and they specifically give you verification of your identity and existence. Thus, refugees are stateless and rightless, forced to force themselves into completely incompatible categories and accept any treatment because they are displaced from the origin of their validity as civilized human beings
    - - We have set perspectives on nature that fundamentally alter all our interactions with it. In order to break free of this cycle, we need to engage in an economic and pollical revolution to redefine our perception of the natural world. Change cannot be made without the decentering of ourselves as the only historically important beings.
  - - - Singer considers the merits of having children, of the responsibility we are placing on them and ourselves to discontinue this unproductive obsession with progress for progress sake, and focus instead on making our world hospitable. Since having children is one of the worst things we can do for the environment, he thinks through the concept of not not having children, of being the last generation to exist on the world.
        
        He uses this as a wake-up call to the fact that if we don't do something to change the current trajectory of our planet, there might not be one for our children, or any children ever again, which also furthers the absurdity of causing all this damage for the society currency of economic gain, when the cost is the future of everyone ever.
    - - A huge pull toward the continual production of climate change agents is the allure of capitalism and the prevalence of consumerism in our social climate. We must be able to remove ourselves from this if we hope to enact any positive change.
        
        America in particualr is ignorant to the plights of other countries, and actively causes a large chunk of the issues they experience through envionrmental damages by demanding things of our earth that are no sustainable or even possible.
        
        The environment is available to Americans for the aesthetics, and while it is not even "true" nature, and this nature is only accessible to the upper class who have the time and money to "visit" it.
    - - The aforementioned issue disproportionately effect the poorer communities, or simply populations that are not the root cause of these issues. The impacts are also intense, often either deadly or otherwise life-altering.
        
        Since the poor and "third-world" countries are the most effected, they also have to set aside the most time and effort into conservation in order to survive. This is its own struggle, since spending time attempting to make up for the mistakes and carelessness of corporations cuts into time spent actually working for pay and simply surviving.
        
        A lot of the issues we "discover" in our world are caused directly by pollution and other contributors to climate change, but they happen slowly overtime (hence, "Slow Violence")
    - - There is a focus on the westernized world that makes change globally almost impossible, as the west does no even consider their impact on the world as they are fundamentally altering it. Additionally, there is little regard or care for the tragedies experienced outside of their bubble, and as they are not the most at risk for the earlier impacts of climate change, nothing will be done until it is too late.
        
        How we talk about this issue and the genres we use to write about it are crucial in our understanding of them and of their presentation to the public. Both facts and stories are important, but at the end of the day they have to reach the right people in order to be effective.
        
        Writing is a form of preservation and history, and in order to garner an accurate idea of how we have arrived at our current moment. Colonialism plays a Huge role in this, but is largely excluded from western narratives.
    - - Crisis is now just a state of mind and we perceive stability as not in active peril, which is not stability at all. Overcorrecting should not be our only method of survival, and this is clearly a sign that we have done irreparable damage to our planet.
        
        Colonialism focuses on the land as opposed to the people or beings inhabiting it. It is a domination of space without concern, and this is the bigger impact of colonialism; since it does not respect the land outside of it being a resource, the resources it contains are destroyed and then abandoned
    - - Again, colonialism has a huge impact on our relationship with the land as it is today, and of course the rapid effects of climate change were intensified by the industrial revolution, so the problem becomes, why are we not learning from history and making the world better to live in instead of piloting this sinking ship into the ground, and taking everything with us.
        
        Capitalism is changing the environment primarily and disproportionately, not just humans, but what we create in our search for expansion and survival.
- - - - Similar to Alaimo's conceptual trans-corporeality, the poems often discuss a relationship with nature that is formless and continual regardless of existence in a specific space. Such a transcendence of being is also more commonly artistically seen in my experience in those ostracized from higher society in some way, such as POC, mentally ill, queer, women (you get the general idea), as they are forced to consider their simple existence far more often and in depth in an attempt to survive or conform
        
        Further this is an essential text in the preservation of individual thought as history, for it covers 400 years of unique experiences and connections with the natural world
        
        Provides an essential perspective on nature from a whole host of voices that are not often uplifted and that have a different relationship with the world than other Americans do as a result of our shared history. Black writers experience our land completely differently, and this is crucial to an understanding and in recording a history of our nation that considers the thoughts and lives of all of its citizens
    - - Trees are an essential metaphor because they are so prevalent and intertwined with the lifespan of a human, we interact with them often and use them in almost every conceivable way as a resource. Thus, the book being told in "tree time" is essential to skewing our understanding of the world: our lives are so brief and pointless in comparison to the centuries of tree lifespans, so why should it be more powerful when the human characters are killed off in the story as opposed to the scripted massacre of the trees, or the real-life daily slaughter?
        
        The titular subject, the overstory, is defined as the topmost layer of the tree canopy, where all the branches and leaves and sunlight is. By naming the book for the overt instantiation of life for trees, Powers makes a strong pull for us to do more than just scrape the surface of an issue.
        
        The power of activism to change the world can only accomplish so much, and is often at the complete loss of life within members of the effort itself. Further, if no change is made, this loss of life is senseless, and those in power still do not care. Further, this is a critique of ecoterrorism, as it provides
  - - - "Nature Poetry" is inherently wrong because it is based on our own perception and usage of nature, primarily to romanticize it for our own aesthetic gain, so there is no value gained from creating it
        
        It is difficult to establish an identity for yourself when you are not the cookie-cutter human in our society: as an indigenous and queer man, Pico has a lot of trouble feeling and being accepted by our society, and the pull to nature is also a complicated relationship on the grounds of its "stereotypical" nature for a Native American.
        
        The intersection between the constructed and natural world has already crumbled, there is no true difference between anything we have created and the things we cannot touch, in the end they all blend into one reality of the biotic experience, and it is just going to keep devolving without an extreme intervention
        
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvbKChfVsBE
    - - Additionally, this contributes to the surplus mindset that motivated westward expansion, as though every individual American has a space of land open to them and that is specifically for them to capitalize upon, as opposed to the unity and systematic usage of nature seen by all the other living beings we coinhabit this earth with.
      - This is what we're not going to do! Such a manifestation of the world as prim and pretty and romanticized for the human to encounter and be changed by has directly contributed to the colonial mindset, and is not productive or inventive in any way.
  - - - The inherent issue of western society colonizing and capitalizing on an area without regard or care for the actual land or its inhabitants, and the power of that carelessness to ruin not just the natural area and population, but also the social and political stability of the nation
      - The genre of realistic fiction allows for the story to be just as impactful as if it were true, without opening the details up for debate or relying on the real events to be powerful enough narratively. Addressing Ghosh's contemplation of genre bending, this book discusses a real disaster through a cast of fictional characters in a powerful and informative way--but it is definitely not a best seller.
      - Ties to Nixon's Slow violence through the main character, Animal, as he struggles to be accepted in society after the deformation of his body through chemical exposure. This is an incident that they were never compensated for, and the fatal factory was never even removed, so the diffusion of these toxins continues to seep into their dna to this day
      - Provides us with the internal struggles reflections of someone living outside the binary of human and animal, and illuminating the stark contrast we draw between "our" world and "theirs". Out of a strictly environmental context, this concept can also be found in Franz Kafka's "The Hunger Artist", and Andrew Marvell's "The Garden"
        
        A Hunger Artist
        
        The Garden
  - - - Not only is magical realism a popular tool in climate fiction, but he use of it here specifically in the case of doors as the magical object; there is extensive symbolism for the opening and closing f doors in human history, and even the simple literal definition of them as providing simultaneous opportunity and protection in and from the outside world. In Hamid's world, these doors help remove your expectations and replace them with hope and curiosity, by making it so that any old interior door could transport you to an entirely new way of life, and if it is that simple, and we are all so closely connected, why do we harbor so much hate for the "other"?
      - Such a deep and fantastical look into the issues with the western narcissism and the ongoing dilemma of how to properly handle refugees in our own countries. Some of the options are completely infeasible to us in our present version of the world, but the story thinks through the hypothetical way in which we would handle a migration of displaced people, and what needs (food, shelter, work, space) they would need fulfilled by a different government.
- - - - The effects are irreversible in a lot of ways at this point, and we have known this for a while but no change has been made. In order to avoid absolute environmental failure, we need to make a lot of fundamental changes, and fast, but governments are not listening close enough.
        
        The data does not lie and it is showing a lot of horrible endings if we do not alter our course immediately. There are also suggestions of ways to cool off our planet and bring it to a place that will at least minimize the losses to primarily those we have already experienced, but again, it must be quick.