Environmental Field Experience Analysis

Introduction

It can be difficult at times to consider the large ripple effect that can stem from a small, seemingly unimportant action. Right now there is a life and death struggle going on the Pacific Ocean because sperm whales cannot visually tell the difference between squid and plastic grocery bags. The offending plastic bags have ended up in the ocean and sperm whales are eating them and eventually dying—all because someone made the wrong choice when asked “paper or plastic.” 

Similar is the issue with the plastic connectors for six-packs of canned beverages. When not cut to ensure all the circles are broken, these pieces of plastic can strangle, trap, or even amputate limbs from various animals in the ocean, as well as in other natural environments. Of course, the grocery bag issue and the six-pack connector issue are negative effects. 

Positive effects can be just as underrated in regards to their effects on the natural environment. Telling someone about how lovely a place it could create a chain ripple effect that ends up saving that place from development or toxic business practice—simply because the public sentiment had reached a great enough crescendo to make offenses against that place un-invisible. 

It is important to be as aware of nature as possible, and also as aware of mankind’s effect on the natural environment as possible. If people come together and really think about the long term effects of current events and actions, harmful practices that people don’t even notice today, or that people think cannot be changed due to the inherent qualities of the societal system, can be replaced with solutions that yield equal benefit, in terms of societal ease and abundance or business practice conveniences, but also provide for better results as the world progresses into the future. 

Experience

The Ellwood Beach Bluffs in Goleta, California holds special significance for me because it is a place where I like to unwind, interact with nature and run with my dog. My first experience with the Ellwood Beach Bluffs left me awestruck by the beauty of the tall eucalyptus grove with the tall dappled branches and layers of paper-thin bark and leaves aromatically scenting the entire place. The monarch reserve with the thousands, if not millions of translucent orange wings fluttering in the sun while there were more still clinging to the branches of the trees like jewel-colored stalactites. And all of this right next to rugged cliffs and the beautiful beach. Whenever I go I feel a sense of peace and a sort of happy-relaxed positivity that everything is going to be ok.

One time I was running along the edge of the cliffs when my dog stopped and became obsessed with an area of the cliff, circling and barking. I reprimanded him to stay away from the cliff and to continue on but he would not listen. So I stopped and walked over there to check things out and peer over the cliff, and to my surprise, an injured hiker was stuck midway up the steep cliff and needed help. The hiker decided he did not want to walk back to the trailhead which led back to the bluff top but instead decided to climb the steep cliff from the beach thinking it would e quicker. Luckily my dog heard his cries because he had injured his ankle and hadn’t been able to alert anyone for about an hour. I was able to call for help and it made me gain a greater respect for nature and the dangers associated with it. 

When I am out at the Ellwood Bluffs, I feel a stronger connection with the environment and nature. I grew up on a farm and have always loved the outdoors—spending about as much time outside as I could with camping, hiking, horseback riding, snowboarding, and other similar activities. I also have worked on conservation projects (wetland restoration, water quality monitoring), stream/beach restoration projects, beach clean-ups, and marine protected area (MPAs) monitoring/

I feel the environment needs to be preserved/conserved and respected; our natural resources need to be managed in sustainable ways. The times I have spent at the Ellwood Bluffs have helped me develop a better understanding of how nature impacts humans and how humans impact nature, and that there must be a delicate balance. 

I have also, through my time spent at these bluffs as well as on conservation and restoration projects, learned the purpose and importance of clean beaches and marine protected areas. A couple of them are located just off the Ellwood Bluffs and water quality is a serious issue in preserving the beauty and healthfulness of the natural habitats that they contain. 

The natural environment of the world has a lot to offer, and it is in constant threat of being poisoned by practices and attitudes that support short-term gains without a concept of preserving the world and its oceans. These people with short term attitudes seem to lose sight of the idea that they are removing their own gains by following such attitudes. The world should be preserved and respected so that we can all keep enjoying it and gaining benefit from its inherent recyclable nature for centuries and millennia to come. 

Theoretical Analysis

Since its conception as an actual thing, and even before then, there have been many different ways to describe the environment. In Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere, Robert Cox discusses the “contested meaning of environment” in the second chapter which bears that same moniker. Cox explains that the environment has a lot to do with one's own personal perception of themselves and the world—it is an entirely subjective experience dependent upon a societally taught and personalized world view. For instance, the early settlers of Plymouth wrote negatively about the new American landscape which began and encouraged a “tradition of repugnance” of what is essentially the bashing of nature which can have long-reaching and unintended harmful effects (Cox, 2013). 

Preservation is ignored for the sake of human “need.” This may even negatively affect human health, but that is ignored for the sake of business interests. There is a psychological effect that occurs where people consider “nature” to be something away from themselves and their areas. This enables them to manipulate and exploit nature in unsustainable ways that will ultimately collapse. These negative actions are known as environmental “antagonisms.” And it has been the quest of environmentalists to attempt to slow, stop, and reverse the tide of these antagonisms for centuries (Cox, 2013). 

Thankfully there have been individuals who have dedicated themselves to this purpose. John Muir evoked the divinity of nature in its pure form, and he inspired a nation to his cause by doing so. National Parks were reserved for the appreciation and enjoyment of all through the work of Muir and other dedicated individuals—Laura White, Audubon, et al (Cox, 2013). 

Shifts in dealing with the environment have been slow but they are there. Gifford Pinchot (Theodore Roosevelt’s Chief of Forestry) worked to inspire conservation, i.e. the wise use of natural resources, in legislators minds as they created the nation’s public policy. And in the 1960s, biologist Rachel Carson made the dangers of DDT and other polluting pesticides widely known, inspiring an entire healthful foods movement (Cox, 2013). 

Just as some environmentalist iconoclasts worked to stop the invasive and abusive practices that were already known about, new iconoclast activists rose up in the 1970s and 1980s to redefine the entire concept of environment. It was not “out there” but right here. Here where the industrial slaughterhouses and garbage incinerators stink up tree-barren streets of the poorer neighborhoods or those that contained the families of people of color. Here is where we covered up the ground with toxic tars and pavements and air pollution. This new view of the environment and what was being done to it, and how those actions were being done to people of color and the lower classes as a form of discrimination was called “Environmental Justice” (Cox, 2013). 

Implications and Conclusions

In Light’s essay “What is an Ecological Identity?” (2000), he explores the concept of environmentalism with respect to identity politics. There are several scholars quoted with differing views, but I feel that the main point being made by Light is that people come into politics with their own identities every time. So really one must deal with the myriad identity politic views individually while trying to sway or bridge the populace to adapting a new identity politics that is a hybrid of their own with yours—or whoever’s is being forwarded. 

Light is bolstering my point here that in order to change the world view, you must connect individually with each world view and bridge it with one’s own. Much more outspoken voiced must be heard on this topic in order to effect the changes required to ensure a positive future outcome for the environment.

In addition to allowing that this connection must be made with society before it can change itself.

Thus an accurate picture of modern environmental issues is displayed in Light’s words. Many environmentalists are painted as unyielding crazies who would rather see a child starve than see a deer shot for its meat. Light emphasizes, and I am of the same mind, that only with a conjoining of the ideas of nature and human habitat can there be a viable balance achieved that is respected by both sides of all environmental issues.

References

Cox, R. (2013). Environmental communication and the public sphere (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. 

Light, A. (2000). What is an ecological identity? Environmental Politics, 9(4), 59-81.