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5.3: Revisiting Sustainable World Building

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    350728
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    What would you change with your Sustainable World now? After learning about several environmental issues in depth, researching for your Take Apart Project, and analyzing some solutions, please go back to your own World Building Activity answers and the work you did with your group. You don't have to re-watch the video below, but it is below if it is helpful.

    Consider the following questions:

    • What answers would you change and why?
    • Do you see more issues than you did at the beginning of this text?
    • Do you see more solutions?
    • What stands out to you personally as the biggest environmental issue, and how hopeful do you feel about approaches to solve it (perhaps revisit your Personal Narrative, as well)?

    After considering all of this, please write a Response to share with the class.


    What we have covered is how narrative impacts environmental issues. Not only does being able to articulate a world we want help us create it, but the scientific questions we ask and research we prioritize change the policies we build out of that science. After the work in this chapter and after defining your own relationship to other species and to the natural world, please take time to watch the video below, "Imagining Climate Change Futures" to inform the Sustainable World Building Activity to complete in groups in class. Please also keep all of your solo and shared work below so that we can revisit it at the end of this book.

    Sustainable World Building Activity: Solo Work

    Imagining and articulating ideal futures helps not only reveal what needs to change in our current environment but also helps us dream of what is possible. We often imagine catastrophic environmental futures, but as we will study, opening our minds to possibilities and working for those creates positive change.

    To put this into practice, try this Investing in Futures World Building Exercise, adapted from the Investing in Futures card game.

    • Work through the bullets below on your own first

    Environmental Studies is inherently interdisciplinary. Food and Agriculture impact governmental policies and Economy. Schools and Living Conditions impact Food and Healthcare, and so on. On your own, write down some things in the categories that would build your ideal world. Dream big. Do not hold yourself back with what is possible right now. Brainstorm your dream sustainable world. Then, as a group, talk over options for the different areas below and build your collaborative dream of a sustainable world. You will share these with the class and explain not only how you came to this decision and why but also how each of these impact others.

    • Government (democracy, AI, matriarchy, monarchy, only people under 75 in government, only people voted by the majority of the entire nation, etc.)
    • Economy (living wage for all, capitalism, self-sustaining, etc.)
    • Schools/ Universities (voluntary k-12 education, free college tuition, education up until a certain grade and then trades/apprenticeships, etc.)
    • Transportation (public transit, walking/ biking infrastructure in all cities and towns, shared rides, etc.)
    • Living Conditions (communal living, rural/agricultural, mostly urban with natural spaces added and the rest of the country left for other species, children live separately, etc.)
    • Healthcare (universal healthcare, health monitoring via tech, free medical training with 1/10 folks able to practice medicine, rewards for good health, get rid of insurance companies, etc.)
    • Food (veganism, vegetarianism, no big agriculture, no chemicals, local and organic accessible to all, eating only in season, etc.)
    • Arts (all arts publicly supported, art education for all, music/theater/exhibits available to all for free, sustainable art only, etc.)
    • Work (80 hr/week half the year and leisure the other half, equal pay, jobs paid based on importance rather than market value, 20 hours of work/ week, no work and universal pay so that people do what they are passionate about without worrying about salary, etc.)
    • Any other categories you would like to add?
    Sustainable World Building Activity: Shared Work
    Share your ideas from above with your group members
    • Work with your group members to create a community-built sustainable world and take notes
    • Share your community-built sustainable world with your full class, taking notes on their ideas
    • After sharing, please work through questions below on your own to share with the full class in discussion
    Discussion Questions
    1. What were the insights from your peers' original answers and how you negotiated to come to a consensus as a group?
    2. After all groups share their sustainable worlds, what patterns do you see?
    3. What are the major areas of disagreement among groups?
    4. How could we work towards some of these goals?
    5. How is the interdisciplinary nature of Environmental Studies important to this exercise, and how did the inquiry into your own ideals and the negotiation with others’ ideals impact your understanding of the field?
    6. How is imagination important to “make possible” the “recuperation and recomposition” that Haraway calls for, and why is “mourning irreversible losses” important to that (Haraway 160)?
    7. Research credible sources (AU students can learn about credible sources here) about your ideas in the Imagining Futures exercise and reflect on how what you wrote there is drawn from your own understanding of the natural world, what is possible, and what we are bound by. Does an understanding of how narratives shape us help address some obstacles in your dreaming?

    5.3: Revisiting Sustainable World Building is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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