Mine, all mine!

So, I have my blog back, as my professor put it. Am I going to use it? I don't know yet. However, there are some other things that I do know:

I know that I have a week and a half left in this semester before I return to Boston. I'll be living with my brother Michael again at his place in Medford and interning at EnerNOC where I worked last year.

I know that by nightfall on June 19th, I will have a sister-in-law, as the aforementioned brother Michael marries his fiancee of three years. I know I'm looking forward to that weekend.

I know that later in the summer (though I do not know exactly when yet), Michael will move to the west coast to get ready to attend grad school at Berkeley in the field of sustainable energy. This means me being happy for him, and it also means a slight change in my living arrangements from that point in the summer onward.

I know that this fall, I will be taking courses that I'm very excited for. All of my classes follow a "I liked it the first time, so I'll probably like more of it too" pattern:

• Seminar in Human Motivation: Intrinsic Motivation. I took the 200-level version of this course last year and loved it; now I'm back for more with the same professor and a similar topic at the 300-level.
• Topics in Peace Studies: Conflict Resolution Skills. There's been a lot of discussion in the Peace Studies department lately about how students feel like we talk a lot about building consensus and using mediation techniques, but we never actually learn these skills. Some of these discussions later turned into informal skills workshops run by faculty and students, which have been great. Perhaps part of that discussion lead to one of the professors offering this course next semester.
• U.S. Environmental Policy. My current enviro class has been great (the one that I've done these posts for) so I'm taking another enviro course with the same professor.
• Internship with United Workers. Working with that particular non-profit has been incredibly educational for me, especially this past semester, and I believe by spending more hours a week with them, I'll be able to learn more about community organizing and running or being part of a campaign.
• African Drum and Dance. I'm coming back for round 3. I still don't even really think of this as a class; it's just a fun thing to do that they happen to give me credit for.

I know that this fall, on October 10th (10/10/10) there will be a massive global work party organized by 350.org. Baltimore will be the site of just one of the thousands of events happening worldwide that day. As it stands right now, we're trying to get as many local groups involved as we can. We're still early in the planning stage, but I know it's going to be awesome.

Of course, I use "know" loosely. I say "know," but I really mean, "These are my current plans, but all things are still possible." I don't know where the universe is going to lead me, but I'm excited about it. Yay life!

Response #8: Nature vs. Nature

I appreciate Berry's willingness to break down the typical environmental discourses. Basically, he points out that we see nature either as a pool of natural resources from which we can and rightfully should take everything we can, or we see it as a beautiful thing to be protected because we are really just part of nature and when we hurt nature we are only hurting ourselves. These have natural parallels in Dryzek, namely Promethian and Survivalist, though the survivalist parallel is more tenuous. Then he points out that, although the survivalist mentality is closer to accurate, viewing ourselves as "part of the natural world" doesn't really tell the whole story.

Berry states very well a point that I've tried to make before, though never done as him. Our definition of "progress" is leading to our own destruction, and that's no progress at all. Once again, it's not about saving polar bears because they're cute, and it's not about planting flowers because they smell nice (although Berry isn't inherently against those things). It's about a recognition that helping nature thrive helps us thrive, as the survivalists say, with the caveat that it only works if we know exactly what we're doing. We don't need to leave nature alone, as some would say. We can help nature. But we also need to be aware of the difference between helping nature and spraying nitrates which double crop production. There are short-term and long-term effects, and the long-term has been ignored.

Last, and most importantly, I'm going to restate the point I made two posts ago, because Berry says the exact same thing. Nature conservation areas were a good idea to get us started on the environmentalist path, but really, it's an illusion. Everywhere needs to be a conservation area, in a sense. Farms, forests, cities, etc. Of course, they'll look different than what we think of as a "conservation area" today, but they will all be operated under the same principles.

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Side note: I've had some experiences with the "so-called nature lover" phenomenon this week worth sharing. A friend posted on his Facebook status how annoyed he gets when people shake cherry blossom trees so that they can get a picture of them swirling around in the wind. I said early on that there is a difference between a pet owner and an animal lover (though they sometimes line up), and similarly, there is a difference between a person who thinks cherry blossoms are pretty and a nature lover (though they sometimes line up). Many people I know aren't willing to make the leap and say that every living thing is worthy of care. Unfortunately (or fortunately, really) we can't just protect the pandas and butterflies; we also have to protect the snakes and algae and spiders.