Professor Wai Chee Dimock from Yale University gave a similar talk to that of professor Nathan Hensley of Georgetown. In both instances the professors proposed that in order to understand and overcome the current issue of climate change, we must turn to literature to fully understand the phenomenon. Professor Dimock, took a slightly different approach than Hensley and compared the works of Elizabeth Bishop and William Blake in order to describe the lack of understanding and knowledge that currently exists around the future of the environment and the changes that are occurring as a result of global warming. The difference between Bishops and Blakes poetry is that one acknowledges the future and the unknown compared with Blake who describes the environment in a concrete and unchanging way. This is a mindset that makes it impossible to understand work towards reversing the current climate change as it focuses on the past and doesn’t accommodate for the ever-changing nature of the environment and even more broadly the world.
I was particularly interested in Dimock’s understanding of Peter Singer and his stance on vegetarianism. I have read his book Animal Liberation as part of an ethics class my freshman year in high school, his arguments were so convincing that I even converted to vegetarianism for six years following. I thought it was interesting how Singer addresses the problem of vegetarianism and how to help people understand why it is important. Although he feels that animal lives are worth the same as human lives and he argues that in his book, he knows that it is not a common belief amongst humans and that is not a way to convert people to vegetarianism. Instead, he takes the approach of the contribution of meat towards the global warming problem. This is a way to address the larger audience in a more effective way because global warming directly effects the lives of humans, and the amount of green-house gas generated in the meat process is alarming.
One of the major commonalities between Professor Dimock and Professor Hensley’s talks was the need to merge the scientific and the literary world. Dimock suggested that literary thinking can bridge the lack of understanding that often goes along with scientific works and help us understand the true gravity of the climate change issue. Clearly, there has been difficulty with a scientific approach to understanding climate change. People who don’t understand science don’t believe that climate change is real and we need to bring the emotional aspects of the humanities to help people understand the science behind climate change. The development of STEAM groups on college campuses shows that sciences arts and humanities must be in collaboration in order to fully address the issue of climate change and make it a more widespread issue. I admire this observation and agree with the need to address the disconnect between the science of climate change and the lacking emotional understanding of certain populations who do not depend on science. However, this does not seem to be a true solution to the issue of climate change, but the first step is to understand that it is real and happening.