It's great to hear that you had an enjoyable experience in ENVR 430 Matin! There is much to be hopeful of and individual action can have a great impact on the state of our world. I especially think teaching high school students about sustainability is a super important step in making the world a better place.

I agree Natalie, the course structure made ENVR 430 super engaging and the Netflix documentaries made homework enjoyable! I wish you luck on your journey to reduce your consumption and water usage.

Great post Navkiran! This course definitely covered some topics of sustainability that many haven't heard about before, making it an enjoyable experience to connect the dots between our actions and their ramifications on the environment. Love your intervention to have more hard conversations!

Great reflection Meagan! Learning about the problems facing the health of our planet can be very discouraging, but I agree with you that this course encouraged us to be optimistic of the impact that individual actions (through the expression of our values) can have on our future. Societal norms can change if enough of us express our core values!

Hi Sharon, thank you for your reflection! I echo your sentiment that this course created a judgement-free zone and I think that is a key aspect of why this course was so enjoyable for a lot of people. I love your commitment to being more mindful of your consumption habits -- I'll be trying this as well. Goodluck!

Great post! Re-wilding can have two motives: 1) restoring ecosystems so humans can benefit from them, or 2) restoring ecosystems in a way that best serves species but not necessarily humans. I agree that it's important to realize that the environment will be okay under changes like increasing global temperature, but humans will not necessarily be able to withstand these conditions.

It would be great to target lawmakers in campaigns surrounding issues like deforestation. There has been a substantial movement in BC advocating for the ban of old growth logging, but it unfortunately seems to have been unsuccessful thus far. As you mentioned, education about the importance of rainforests is a very important factor in creating a base of concerned citizens. I think this education, at least in schools, should take place in forests in order for people to draw deeper connections to the importance of preserving forests.

I share your sentiment about the word rewilding. It's sad that humans have altered much of the land surface on earth in a way that has shrunk wildlife ranges and behaviours. I like your vision of the future, where humans have a smaller negative impact on animals and we learn to live with animals in a harmonious way.

Definitely! Unfortunately, many people fear larger animals due to a lack of understanding. I have experienced this on hikes where other hikers try to scare off black bears when these bears are actually at a safe distance from the trail. In reality, black bears are not interested in attacking humans. We need to do a better job educating others about animal behaviours so less harmful human-wildlife interactions take place.

Using human bodies for conservation projects like improving the nutrient composition of soils is a very intriguing idea. Thank you for highlighting that "green deaths" are not legal in BC. If more people knew about this, perhaps the BC government would follow in the footsteps of other provinces in Canada, and make green deaths legal.

I think the first bullet point solution you presented is absolutely critical. Businesses have profited by infiltrating plastics into all our daily activities, so it should be these businesses who must take full responsibility for managing these products/packaging at the end of their lifecycles. Consumers should not feel burdened by decisions to use plastic or not because plastic is inescapable without responsibility from businesses.

Great post! I think banning many single-use items is a great idea because humans adapt to the world around them fairly easily. Grocery stores who ban plastic grocery bags don't see declines in their customer base because these customers quickly catch on that they need to be bringing their own bags. The same goes for coffee shops -- banning single-use cups will just encourage customers to bring their own travel mugs. These behaviours to bring reusable items will become solidified quickly if we just take the leap of faith and ban many single-use items.

Great post Sophia, sounds like an interesting app! I worry though, that even if this sort of system was implemented well, the government would still not be inclined to remove the harmful products from the shelves because of strong business lobbies. However, it would allow individuals to make more informed decisions regarding which products they should buy for their health and the health of the environment.

Great post Bita! The waste generated from celebrations/holidays is an example of businesses monopolizing on traditions. It's hard to imagine a version of Halloween that doesn't generate millions of little plastic wrappers because waste has become an accepted by-product of Halloween. It would be amazing if all Halloween candy could be wrapped in paper products like Smarties!

It's great to hear that you're learning so much about plastics because I find that many people know that plastic is generally bad but don't take the time to do a deep dive on the topic. Luckily micro-beads have been banned in Canada and some other countries, but it makes me wonder why they were even allowed in the first place. It should have been obvious that micro-beads are damaging to the marine ecosystems because they are too small to be filtered out of the environment.

Consumers definitely do have a lot of power to shift the in-humane and environmentally damaging practices of big businesses, but I think it takes a lot of energy and luck for a campaign against a business to be successful. A coalition of NGOs, citizens, and sustainable businesses would be a great idea because efforts don't have to be duplicated and smarter plans of "attack" can be made against unsustainable businesses where more voices are involved.

Great post Helen! Creating a system where people cannot accumulate such insane amounts of wealth is definitely necessary because as we've seen in this week's material, the ultra-rich cannot be trusted to make meaningful donations. When people get extremely rich, it means they did so by taking away from other people. For example, a CEO of a fast fashion brand can get rich by paying workers next to nothing and polluting the environment in the process. It would be great if a "tax the rich" system could be implemented where some of this extra money collected by governments could go towards cleaning up the environment in nations where billionaires have negatively impacted through their business operations.

I like the title and the ideas you presented here! I also feel that the "choices" we have actually impede on our freedom especially when we look more closely at who's presenting us with these "choices". Many of the big brand names are owned by even bigger companies, and most of the time, the products they sell under different brand names are only very slightly different aside from their packaging and marketing. It is quite concerning to see the role that big business (i.e., multinational corporations) play in global politics, and it would be interesting to see how our world would change if they were removed from the picture.

Great post Megan! I was unaware of this amendment. I especially like the last bullet point about whether there's a need for the project or not. This last assessment criteria will help reduce the number of meaningless projects and save resources in the process. I'm interested to look into the IAA2019 in more detail!

I agree! Governments should be making more of a push towards more sustainable tech, like the EU adopting a universal charging cable. I would love to also see governments pushing tech businesses to offer repairable technology rather than technology that intentionally gets old and unusable after a few years.