Reflection: Weeks 3 & 4

Readings
In week three of class, we read two separate articles from our textbook, Outlooks: Readings for Environmental Literacy, and discussed them in class. The first article was a little gloomy in that it briefly covered many current world problems such as lack of food and clean water and extinction of species. It made me realize how blessed - and how wasteful - our society is. The second reading was very enlightening and gave me a whole new take on environmental films: it was disappointing to face reality and think about how issues and settings can be skewed to get the filmmaker's point across, but I learned that I should just further analyze such media when I watch it.

An Inconvenient Truth
We also spent time in class watching the Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth. I had seen this movie a few times before so I was initially expecting to be bored, but then I realized it was good to watch it again. Now that I've gained a little more background knowledge, I got a lot more out of the film. During the viewing, my two main emotions were fear and guilt. Fear, because I just got really scared when all the pictures were shown about the melting glaciers and all the changing landscapes such as in Glacier National Park. It makes me sad that these gorgeous places may soon be eliminated - or at least permanently altered. I am wary of what may become of the earth and how it will be changed for coming generations. Also, Gore spoke quite bluntly about the problems of overpopulation. This is where my feelings of guilt came in. I come from a large family so I feel like I have directly contributed to this problem! Thankfully, the documentary ended on a positive, hopeful note, stressing that we already have the technology to combat climate change; we just need to work together and do our part.

Ecological Footprint
The Eye Opener assignment to find our individual ecological footprint was a huge shock for me! It made me very aware of my impact on the environment. The quizzes I took showed me that there is much room for improvement and gave me good suggestions on ways I can adjust my lifestyle to lessen my footprint. Also, I was reminded that some of my habits are very beneficial to the environment - things I do all the time without even thinking about it. Now that I'm aware these seemingly small things - such as buying food products without a lot of packaging - make a difference, I will try to do them even more often!

Blogging
I never thought I'd say this, but I'm actually getting hooked on this whole blogging thing. In fact, I'll even say it's fun! I feel way more comfortable with it now, although it's still very time consuming. It seems like everyone is getting the hang of it, and it's been fun to see all the cool things people have added to their blogs. Also, there have been a lot of great Share and Voice posts. Good work everyone!

Overall, it was great to delve into some actual environment-related subject matter these last two weeks! I feel that I already have learned a ton, and even though there were many occasions where I just felt like an awful steward of our earth, I think it was the right thing to get me motivated to improve my habits. Interestingly enough, in my Aspects of Chemistry class here at UMD , we are currently talking about the destruction of ozone, and will be going in depth about global warming in upcoming class periods. I always enjoy when class topics overlap because it's fun to see the same topic approached from different angles. One final thought I took away from this week was how people are resistant to change because they are afraid. This seems silly to me, but I guess it is true. I think it's up to my generation to show people that we CAN make a difference by changing our lifestyles, and we should start by setting a good example now. We don't have to completely revamp our habits in one day, because I realize that's quite impractical, but by gradually incorporating changes into our lives and encouraging others to do the same, I think a lot of progress can be made.

(The picture is one I took last winter in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.)