Reflections

Like every start to a new academic year, I was hopeful, motivated and keen to learn. I voluntarily opted to choose the ‘Writing and the Environmental Crisis’ module. The first seminar involved trying to define the term ‘environmental crisis’ and according to my notes there was a jargon of words and other phrases such as ‘your voice’, ‘interconnectedness’ and ‘its not all about recycling’. To say the very least, I was very confused, and really wanted a structured definition.

                  As a requirement of the course, we were told to read Timothy Morton’s ‘The Ecological Thought’, to help us understand the wider purpose of this course and to further avoid narrowing it down to ‘polar bears are going to be extinct’. Morton argues that to understand the ecological thought we must realise that we are all interconnected. This idea was introduced in conjunction in with the term ‘mesh’ and my understanding developed from all the texts we have read so far in the course. They are so different to each other from style, format or even language, but one thing they hold in common is how we are interconnected with each other. The authors have all brought this idea of ‘interconnectedness’ whereby the more we know about our environment the more we have to lose. Morton succinctly says  ‘the scope of our problem becomes clearer and clearer and more and more open and outrageous’[1]. The whole concept for me has developed to become a sinister feeling and I felt Jean Sprackland has helped me understand this idea more broadly.

                  Strands by Jean Sprackland, neatly puts how we neglect objects that once served a purpose in our life; from the very moment it is produced till the object is washed into the sea and contains no relevance to the owner anymore.  Everything is worth something and Sprackland extends this notion of how to incorporate the idea that we are all interdependent is a crucial fact to understanding the ecological thought. Morton argues how the word ‘world’ is now just a location, we can no longer pin things down to a certain meaning because we are all connected to each other and have relevance to each other whether we want the responsibility or not.

                  Personally, I think I understand the meaning of ‘ecological thought’ a little bit better and understand how the texts have imparted a new wider significant meaning to our knowledge and perhaps ask crucial questions relevant to our future sustainability.

---

[1] Morton, Timothy The Ecological Thought. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2010, p. 33.