Final Weather
As you answer, make sure to draw on ideas and quote specific sections in the readings and films we have discussed in class and to engage with these ideas in your essay. You can quote relevant sections, summarize what an author wrote, and elaborate on their ideas by putting them in dialogue with yourself or another one of our authors. You can question, disagree, criticize, and/or appreciate – but remember to explain how and why. This is an exam, so it’s important to demonstrate the depth and range of your knowledge. Feel free to judiciously include your own experiences and thoughts as these inform your answers.
Include: Everything since February 5th – readings (Module 5-Module 13), films (The Condor and the Eagle; Feed the Green: Feminist Voices for the Earth; Moana; Pumzi), speaker Casey Camp-Horinek
CAUTION: THERE IS SOME OVERLAP IN THE QUESTIONS. SO, IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU CHOOSE TWO TO ANSWER THAT ALLOW YOU TO EXPLORE DIFFERENT IDEAS AND READINGS. IF YOU REPEAT YOURSELF, YOU WILL LOSE CREDIT.
Your answer is due by 11:59 PM on April 26th. Please submit through Turnitin on Canvas. This exam is worth 150 points out of 500 points total.
Exam Questions:
1. Consider the selected quotes listed below. Pick three of these, and for each quote, expand upon the significance of this idea to understanding the causes, consequences, and solutions of climate change. You can agree, disagree, expand upon, or critique. For each statement, make sure to deepen your discussion with the relevant ideas of at least one other author (with a different additional reading for each quote).
a. “If humans are to help reverse global warming, we will need to step into the flow of the carbon cycle in new ways, stopping our excessive exhale of carbon dioxide and encouraging the winded ecosystems of the planet to take a good long inhale as they heal. It will mean learning to help the helpers, those microbes, plants, and animals that do the daily alchemy of turning carbon into life. This mutualistic role, this practice of reciprocity, will require a more nuanced understanding of how ecosystems work. . . We can return to our role as nurturers, each a helper among helpers in this planetary story of collaborative healing.” Batista, “Calling In,” All We Can Save, p. 13
b. “Culture is in a constant battle for our imagination. It is our most powerful tool to inspire the social change these times demand.” Favianna Rodrigues, “Harnessing Cultural Power,” All We Can Save, 121.
c. “The GND [Green New Deal] emerges from an analysis of the climate crisis that identifies it as a consequence of systems – neoliberalism, strategic racism, unfettered capitalism – and their interaction.” Rhiana Gunn Wright, “A Green New Deal for All of Us,” All We Can Save, 96.
d. “It is necessary to put agriculture at the heart of international climate change negotiations.” Nidhi Tandon, “Food Security, Women Smallholders, and Climate Change in Caribbean SIDS (Small Island Developing Societies), United Nations Policy Research Brief, no. 33, Oct. 2012, https://ipcig.org/pub/IPCPolicyResearchBrief33.pdf
e. “In order to make these changes [to deal with the climate crisis] . . . it means lower standards of living, for that 1 percent and for the middle class. At the end of the day, that’s what it means. And I think in the absence of having a meaningful life outside of capital and outside of material wealth, that’s really scary.” Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, interview with Naomi Klein, “Dancing the World into Being: A Conversation with Idle No More’s Leanne Simpson.”
f. “Trans and Non-Binary people have always existed and always will. The narrative that we are new phenomena is a colonial story. Two-Spirit and other Indigenous gender-expansiveness is older than America. We are ecological formations, and also ecological indicators of health, place, and culture.” Pinar Sinopoulous-Lloyd, in Queer Ancestral Futures, p. 23
2. Climate justice advocates point to industries including fashion, industrial agriculture (animal and plant), and personal grooming as contributing to climate change and being harmful to the health of ecosystems and humans (workers and consumers). In this answer, explain the significance of these industries to the climate crisis and evaluate what the advocates we have read suggest for ethical practices. Make sure to discuss the particular films, stories, authors, and specific ideas in the readings that connect with your response.
3. LGBTQ+ advocates speak to the ways that LGBTQ+ groups are particularly vulnerable to climate change and must be participants in leadership to find and guide solutions to climate change. Please explain both the realities of LGBTQ+ people as a frontline community and why LGBTQ+ advocates say that their existence and perspectives are essential to solutions to the climate crisis. Make sure to discuss the particular films, stories, authors, and specific ideas in the readings that connect with your response.
4. Anna Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson (All You Can Save, p. 374) write: “Everyone has a role to play. . . . This is an era of transformation. This is generations of work. If no one has ever invited you to the climate movement, please consider this your warm welcome. And if no one has ever thanked you for your efforts, please hear our gratitude. You are important to this moment; you are so needed.” With a strong concentration on readings, videos, images, and films from the second half write an essay covering what you feel are the most important things you have learned from this second part of the class and how you see yourself in relation to the climate movement and, if a participant, what you see yourself as doing. Make sure to discuss the particular films, stories, authors, and specific ideas in the readings that influenced you.
5. We have watched a feature film (Moana), a short, Pumzi, by Wanuri Kahiu (2010), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlR7l_B86Fc, a short documentary Feed the Green, a feature-length documentary The Condor and the Eagle, and read a novel (Parable of the Sower) that engage themes relevant to the current ecological crisis, women and girls’ leadership, and the value of the solutions, practical and visionary/imaginative that each express. Select two of these and speak to the ways that each of these two pieces offer commentary on the causes, consequences and solutions to the multiple crises that climate change is bringing. Make sure to bring in substantial ideas from at least two relevant class readings per item (films or novel). These readings do not have to be directly about the films or novel.