A Follow-Up

Now that it's been six months since I finished EMC, I've had lots of time to reflect on the concepts I researched. I've grown a lot since my time in high school and I understand both myself and the work I tried to do in EMC better now. Never in my life have I wanted to do work for a class after it was over, but I felt like a reflection on the philosophical ball that EMC got rolling for me was due. These ideas could be separate journals all on their own, but here's a brief run-down of the things I've been thinking about.

One of the best things about the past few months has been all the opportunities surrounding sustainability available to me at college. I joined JWU's on-campus environmental club, Student Activists Supporting Sustainability. Just recently, I became their events coordinator. Since I've been in the club, we've done multiple things to improve our community such as going into the fields of a local farm and collecting unpicked, perfectly good produce for food banks. Not only does that cut down on food waste, but it effectively allocates resources to people who need them. It kind of solidified this idea for me that the human-environment relationship is much more intricate than what I thought beforehand. We rely on the planet to provide for us and the planet relies on us to not hinder its ability to do so. The experience of collecting 400 pounds of vegetables for people in my own community felt like putting everything I tried to articulate during EMC into action. When we do good for the planet, we do good for people.

Another opportunity that I had since going to college was going to the Students for Zero Waste Conference in Philadelphia. I think I had hinted at the idea that sustainable policies should be economically viable for everyone, but I was only scratching the surface of how deep environmental racism runs. Hearing the voices of people doing things in sustainability everywhere from Detroit to Brazil helped me understand the problem so much deeper than I did in high school. The conference was a huge eye-opener about a simple concept: system, not self. The group of us reached a consensus that individual actions like using reusable straws or being vegan are a nice way to limit your own environmental impact, but the problem lies in the policies and not the people. If corporations are allowed to pollute to no end, people can't save the world by themselves by not using plastic.

Although this sounds like a simple realization to come to, we tend to blame one another before we blame the system. It's easy to judge someone for creating what we deem to be an unnecessary amount of trash. It's hard to dismantle oppressive policies and practices that strategically place incinerators in low-income communities. Rather, it's hard to that alone. The real power doesn't lie in everyone doing meatless Monday and driving a smart car. The power lies in the ability to protest pollution-heavy entities much larger than ourselves.

Like any college student, I have more of an issue with capitalism now than I did before move-in day. (It's a rite of passage after taking your first social science course.) I've come to realize that capitalist societies make a perfect breeding ground for systems designed to reinforce the linear economy. For example, planned obsolescence ensures that our technology becomes unusable. When an iPhone is new, it works perfectly. Two years later, automatic system updates and intentionally short-lived batteries make that same phone non-functioning, and into the landfill it goes. A waste of money and resources in a world where most lifestyles are somewhat dependent on tech. The idea that profit must be ever-growing and resources must be used to their maximum potential is no friend to the environment, nor is it a friend to the consumer. Is socialism the answer? That's a whole other journal waiting to happen.

Aside from my actual EMC project, I've had a lot of time to reflect on my individual experience in EMC. I feel like my fear of being perceived as pedantic and the occasional times I was were deeply limiting to me as a student. This was no one's fault but my own. I spent more time worrying that I wasn't as smart as my peers than I did trying to complete the depth of work that my peers were doing. If I could re-do it all, I would be more mindful of the fact that everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. There is beauty in being a clean slate when it comes to synthesizing and theorizing based off of research. Maybe I didn't create anything amazing or reach a breakthrough discovery about climate change, but I was successful in understanding the core values of independent research. The entire point of EMC is to jump start your utilization of the 5 C's: Curiosity, Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, and Critical Thinking. I think my own breakthrough happened in learning the importance and application of them.

I'd like to think I'll write more journals, and maybe I will, but I wanted to get these thoughts out in case I don't have the time to later. All in all I'm deeply grateful for the time I spent in EMC and what it's done for me as a learner and thinker. As for the future of what I'm doing in sustainability, I'm transferring to a college where I can be trained in GIS and study environmental science. Of course my top choice school is the one you design your own major at...and so it begins again.

P.S.— I know we're not supposed to use pictures in journals, but spot the EMC student...