For this weeks’ blog I wanted to focus on the key point made in The Emergence of the Environmental Humanities: that humans are the cause and answer to environmental issues that plague the world. Humans are, and have always been, and invasive species to the planet; we drive cars that produce lots of CO2 emissions, we overfish the sea, we destroy land to create homes, and so on. The article, early on, states how, “—[the] current consumption of the earth’s resources is not sustainable” (MIT, 1) and that this issue is not fixable by scientists alone. The writers of this essay essentially say that in order to fix this issue we need to convince humans to go along with a solution by catering to them and highlighting the profitability. This leads me to my underlying point that in a capitalistic world, one where you will not show up to your next shift if you receive nothing but knowing you are contributing to the betterment of society, the globally impacting environmental issues will never be resolved in a world full of narrow minded individuals. For example, as an average citizen it is hard to grasp the idea that I alone can do anything about the carbon emissions cars produce every day because even with the invention of new electrically powered cars, it doesn’t mean that me or the next person will have the money to buy one. Therefore the writers then touch on the idea that in order for an environmentally forward shift in any aspect of every day life to have an effect, the new shift must take note of “— adequate insight into the historical and cultural context of a proposed solution” (MIT, 2). This problem is a human made problem that will take everyone’s opinions, outlooks, and ideas to be contributed if we ever want to make any sort of real, positive, change in our environment. Humans are very emotionally wired beings, so if we can get people to care about this issue AND make it make the most practical sense, only then will change have the potential to occur; without those two qualities, humans cannot be bothered and we will ride the Earth until it’s’ wheels fall off.