This weeks reading, “The Emergence of Environmental Humanities”, adds to and further expands on topics we discussed last week. The book traces the emergence of environmental humanities, tracings it back from when the field first originated in the 1970s and 80s, through not just the field of science, but also through fields of literature, philosophy, history, geography, gender studies, and anthropology. The author argues that in order to find a solution to climate change, “It is imperative to abandon narrow disciplinary traditions in order to grasp these interconnections” (4). Meaning, the solution is not singular, science, math, literature, art, etc. are not separate, but connected. Touching on our class last week, “Human beings are not independent of the natural world, but are part of it” (9). Similarly, we cannot separate disciplines and then expect to find the solution. To understand the environment, all things must be taken into account: environmental humanities.

The global environmental crisis we are facing requires new ways of thinking, “the crisis cannot be addressed solely by finding technological solutions”, but rather an, “interdisciplinary approach to environmental change that includes the humanities, the arts, and the sciences” (7). We must bridge the academic barriers between humanities and sciences. This interdisciplinary approach applies to ideas we have known since we were young. For example, the acronym STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), is being proposed to be expanded to STEAM to “recognize how the arts contribute to inventiveness in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics”. Storytelling, visual, and various kinds of art media through historians, writers, photographers, artists have constantly been used to “communicate the complex relationships of societies and their environment” throughout history (7).

The book also discusses the cultural/ethical implications of environmental humanities and our history with nature. Environmental humanities did not evolve from only early Western thinkers, but rather the “field has been shaped by postcolonial and feminist studies and by scholars working outside of Europe and the United States” (4). Westerners often hold an implicitly racialized ideas of the natural world: white, male, European. In policy discussions of climate change, unequal social relations and exploitation of resources often go undiscussed, revealing the importance of including the humanities in these discussions.

The book comes back to last weeks topic of untouched, pristine, and almost virginal ideas of wilderness. Yet, this pristine wilderness never existed, in order to get there, Native Americans had to be removed, “the notion of a pure, untouched wilderness implied that no human beings had ever lived there…when creating American national parks in the nineteenth century, to remove Native Americans from sites such as Yosemite and Yellowstone” (18). Again, the inclusion of all disciplines is imperative to such issues.