We talked a lot about responsibility in this course. We talked about how businesses and NGOs offload responsibility for the climate crisis. We looked at the "weasel words" companies employ to weaken their project commitments. Our posts called for businesses, governments, or other organizations to take more responsibility for their actions.
But are we willing to do the same? I can't help but feel that our weekly posts have also been an exercise in offloading responsibility. Yes, we are raising awareness about these issues. Yes, we are presenting possible solutions. But are we really looking at these issues in depth? Are we content to suggest interventions but let other people implement them?
The main value I leave this course with is perspective. It is easy to criticize governments and business leaders for their actions. We should criticize them. But we also need to understand where they are coming from. I envision a world where our suggestions for leaders are well-informed, respectful, and take the leader's perspective into account.
Ultimately, I am glad I took this course. While I expected to learn more about theories of change and the process of devising solutions to environmental problems, the experiences I had while working on the final project with my group members were invaluable.
My final intervention is for myself. In future discussion-based courses, I will try to sit with different groups of students every two-three classes. I gained a lot from this course by interacting with many different students, both through in-class discussions and engaging with their posts on CoSphere. Adopting the same approach in future courses will help me hear from a wider range of perspectives.