This was my first time enrolling in any ENVR course at UBC. It felt a little bit like an adventure; not only did I venture outside of my major but the course was also taught in a completely non-traditional manner. The lectures and learning goals were curiosity driven, thought-provoking and engaging, and I thought that by wrapping it up with a term project we had a great chance to test our learning in the form of applications. One of the valuable practices I'll be taking away from this course would be fact-checking my sources. The media and T/F technique we saw in class was really enlightening, especially when I had been proven wrong about many facts I thought were true throughout my time as a student. Dissecting and debating topics delivered from media, which nowadays are a major source of our stream of knowledge is going to be a very important habit to adopt and I am grateful for the experience I was able to derive from taking this class. Thank you to the teaching team for having us and for entertaining all of our future visions and solutions. :)

I envision a future where parents allow their children (in a reasonable and knowingly safe manner) to get 'dirty' from time to time and embrace the more 'wild' style of living as opposed to having to strictly monitor and control exposure to natural elements. Knowing that the latter lifestyle would result in weaker immunity, more allergies as discussed in class; there is the additional factor that there are more interventions/ waste production from humans harmful to the environment (i.e., packaging bananas in individual wrappers for the purpose of preventing contamination, using an excessive amount of pesticides in agriculture to meet the expectation of what cleanliness has become in the last few decades, or throwing away excessive/ wasteful amounts of a produce on sight of a bruise marking). The main interventions of this topic would revolve around changing existing perceptions or practices. For example parents that ban pets in their household with the logic that they are dirty, or throw away whole plates of untouched food for the fact that a harmless insect/ morsel of dirt landed on it, or throwing away foods based on ‘best before dates’ could maybe benefit from having conversations and guidance from doctors or public health officiators to change the way of living for the mutual benefit of living and our environment. In the same vein, it would be helpful for doctors to have a protocol to have this flora/ microbiome conversation with new parents such that decisions made later in life are educated ( keeping in mind that there is still the freedom to decide personal preferences).

I strongly believe that a future with reduced plastic via our circular economy's original vision/intention of recycling waste can be corrected if it is made enough of a priority by influential figures. The corruption of power, organized crime and sustained production of virgin plastics can be attributed to the deceitful behaviour posed by conglomerates that greenwash their consumers and this needs to be changed. Interventions could be along the lines of implementing sizeable punishment for deceitful actors and behaviours aforementioned, along with the abolishment/banning of non-recyclable plastic and for companies to phase out non-compostable plastics from packaging. #unleashvalues #cosphereproject

We discussed in class that leaders are often seen as targets. This reminded me of brand names hopping on the bandwagon in support of pressing current issues (I.e., BLM, Pride campaigns, ecofriendly awareness), and a lot of them seeming notably hypocritical and performative- just so they were‘t potentially losing any customers. I envision a future where companies take the time to voluntarily support causes such as ones that motivate sustainability; not because its trending to do so, but because they actively engage in and care for their consumers and the environment. An intervention could be to have departments within the company (not dissimilar to quality assurance) reaching out to their consumers with surveys in what they could do better for the environment (i.e., ditching plastic, compostable containers, minimal plastic packaging) and figuring out ways to balance income/profit/revenue and also being more conscious of the environment. #unleashvalues

'Veganism' has become a buzzword in the last decade or so, and both media and real-life examples I've been exposed to have highlighted the highly controversial perceptions of the lifestyle. I envision a future where individuals are free to decide what they wish include/exclude in their diet, regardless of whether they are vegan or not, and for the term to not spur on as much divisive behaviour as it currently does (when the focus should be more on the production and sustainability of the food). I fully support and respect personal dietary choices that people may have- however I would love to further the discussion of treating 'vegan' or 'non-vegan' foods not so much as items that factor into one's identity/eating/ preference practice (although the moral/ethical code of different lifestyles are still very wonderful), but more as food choices that are driven by mitigating socio-ecological practices as a whole. I find that especially in the sphere of social media, influential figures that openly advertise themselves as vegan are easily 'cancelled' for not abiding by the strict boundaries that define vegan diets, yet the fine line for vegan diets is so hard to distinguish anyway by laypersons it almost seems (unintentionally) hypocritical. After learning about agriculture and farming in class today, I came to realize that a lot of products i.e., produce are fertilized by manure (which is the environmentally supported method as opposed to chemicals), which makes me wonder if the products would still be viewed as vegan by those who live by vegan lifestyles. I touched on some things that would really be hard to state interventions for as this is mainly about personal choices, so for the purpose of the assignment I may not have approached this in the best way. I think education/knowledge and intention has a lot to do with my discussion, so perhaps the government could focus some of their time and funds towards providing resources on the benefits (focused on socio-ecological contexts) of vegan food practices, such that those who choose the lifestyle can share the resources with those that are interested. In addition, the resources could focus on shifting ecologically beneficial food practices, and less towards consumer identities or performative intentions.

Water is crucial to survival in terms of diet, health, hygiene and beyond. Yet while resources are gradually dwindling, solutions to ensure water sustainability are not being implemented as fervently as an environmentally aware member of society would like ideally. I envision a future where water is not taken for granted then depleted, leading to a drought/panic where societies do not know how to respond appropriately; measures should be taken proactively and in the present to help mitigate repercussions of large scale water crises. An example of an intervention could be pushing for ‘rationing’ water with the Bill C-219 Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights in mind. The goal would be to incentivize cherishing, and reducing waste of our communally owned and limited resource. The bill could utilize rebates as discussed in class (that we would have to first better educate ourselves with), or offering limited amounts of free volumes of water before price-tags are attached. #unleashvalues 🙂