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L&CS 122: Environmental Responsibility in a Global Community
Self-Assessment
Spring 2011
Professor Monica Fitzgerald
Name: Kathryn Lau
L&CS Advisor: Nancy Dulberg
Year in school: Sophomore
Minor: Psychology
Courses taken this semester: Math 101, Psychology 2, L&CS 122, and Seminar 122
Service-Learning Activities: St. Mary’s Legacy Garden
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After looking back onto my L&CS 121 self-assessment, I realized I still have the same
worldview. Much of what I wrote in my L&CS 121 assessment was about being educated on a
subject that I wasn't fully knowledgeable about and how I learned I can make a difference. We
learned about impoverished schools and how race and income affected the quality of a child's
education. L&CS 121 helped me realize the reality of the education system and how important
good education really is. This is similar to what L&CS 122 did for me. I am now much more
educated on the truth behind environmental problems and realize the reality of the consequences.
However, I was also encouraged that if we work together we can make a positive change on the
environment. It will take some environmental responsibility and working together to make a
difference. That is the attitude that I am leaving L&CS 122 with, is that now that I'm educated, I
can educate others and try to protect this environment.
My worldview continued to be shaped and formed rather than changed. It was confirmed
with everything that we learned in class. I think the idea that we have such a huge impact on the
physical earth shaped my view the most. I knew that our actions affected the earth, but I never
realized how seriously. We discussed a lot about the topic of environmental responsibility. In the
Environmental Responsibility Reader it defines it as “involving two complementary actions
summed up in terms of (a) caring for an environment comprising the natural world of life and
life support in which humans are an integral part, and (b) ensuring guidance and accountability
for any harm or wrong done to the environment” (EER Reynolds 3). I feel many people would
agree that this is a very good definition. It says environmental responsibility is taking care of the
environment in which we live, and taking responsibility and action for any harm that has already
been done to the environment.
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While reading Collapse by Jared Diamond, I realized how important it actually is to take
care of our environment. His book discussed many other areas that eventually collapsed because
of environmental problems. He discussed places like Montana, past societies like the Mayans
and the Norse, Rwanda, and Haiti. He discussed the political problems they were having and
how they ultimately resulted in the fall of their society. He compared the ancient world with the
modern world and showed how we have evolved into what we are today. He said that “today’s
larger population and more potent destructive technology, and today’s interconnectedness” pose
a “risk of a global rather than a local collapse” (Diamond 521). I enjoyed the book because it
opened my eyes to the bigger problems. If we don’t start protecting our land now and taking
responsibility for the harm done, eventually we will collapse like all the other examples he
presented in his book. However, after reading this book I realize it isn’t too late. Diamond said,
“Actually, while it won’t be easier to reduce our impact, it won’t be impossible either” (Diamond
524). I think this is the biggest thing I took from reading this book, that we only need to be
educated and work together in order to make a change. We just need to choose to make that
difference. The hard part, however, is getting everyone to work together. There are many people
living in this world and every one of them has their own worldview and ethic.
We also learned about many different ethics this semester. Many of the different ethics
were explained in the environmental reader. The ethics we discussed included the land ethic,
obligation/sentience ethic, consequentialist ethic, biocentric equality ethic, anthropocentric ethic
and a few more. This was an interesting topic because we could learn so much about a person
just by learning of their environmental ethic. For example, one of the more popular ethics was
the land ethic, which was when a person has the attitude of citizen of the land rather than
conqueror of the land. I agree with this ethic because we should be stewards to our land because
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we should love nature, therefore we should want to take care of it. The anthropocentric ethic is
the opposite. People who hold the anthropocentric view believe they are the center and most
important thing in the world. They believe they come first, before nature or anything else. This is
very interesting because there are people out there who hold this belief too.
While reading the Environmental Responsibility Reader, there were different approaches
explained in order to get every person to care about the environment, no matter their
environmental ethic. It’s easier for the people with the land ethic to help the environment
because they already believe that they should be taking care of the land. However, the people
who have the anthropocentric view can be encouraged to be environmentally responsible by
convincing them that harm done to the environment is harm done to themselves. While in class
we discussed our own personal ethics and I learned of what other people in the class believed.
The thing that interested me was to learn of people’s different backgrounds. Some people had a
lot of experience with nature and some people had little to no experience with nature. I haven’t
had that much experience with nature myself, other than the couple camping trips and hikes I
went on with my family as a child. I thought this was interesting because people’s different
ethics really stemmed from how they were raised. This is why there are different ethics and
different approaches to helping the environment.
All the readings we did in class greatly helped my understanding of particular
environmental and social issues. A huge topic of the class was food and knowing where it comes
from. We read The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan and this reading was the one that
made me the most aware of where our food comes from. It was incredible to me how much of
our food contains corn. In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, we read about how Michael Pollan traced
his food to where is came from. It was interesting to read the book and watch the video on
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polyface farms. We also watched Food Inc. in class and learned about farms and farmers and
how they treat their chickens and cows. The movie also discussed the topic of diseases that come
from food like E. Coli. It also discussed the topic of how healthy food is not necessarily available
to everyone because healthy food is expensive. There are so many things to consider when
discussing food. There is the question if it is healthy, or if it is organic, if it was grown locally, if
it is in season, and how much it costs. We learned about all these different aspects of our food
this semester.
I thoroughly enjoyed the class this semester and learned so much. I enjoyed everyone’s
student presentations as well at the end of the semester. All the readings and videos really helped
with my knowledge of the subject and made me more engaged and interested. I can’t wait to take
the next Liberal and Civic Studies courses to learn more about the world in which we live, and
how I can make a difference.
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Works Cited
Reynolds, Martin. Introduction to environmental responsibility. The Environmental
Responsibility Reader. US: Zed Books Ltd., 2009. Print.
Diamond, Jared. Collapse: How Societies Chose to Fail or Succeed. New York: Penguin, 2005.
Print.
Food Inc. movie.