Abstract

         Over the course of the Fall 2021 semester at CCNY, I participated in Arts in New York City, Modern World Literature, and Writing for the Sciences. Modern World Literature and Arts in New York City exposed me to minor literature (tales of minor peoples articulated in dominant, or major, languages), which unveils the means by which dominant social groups objectify minority groups and, in turn, subject them to the perils of discrimination. Writing for the Sciences exposed me to the scientific aspect of my beliefs, for I strongly adhere to the First Law of Thermodynamics, which states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. In this respect, immortality is within the universe’s essence, but according to Vaclav Havel, “Just as the constant increase of entropy is the basic law of the universe, so it is the basic law of life to struggle against entropy.” Texts such as Arts in New York City exposed me to both works of art and artistic literature that led me to make the connection between systemic mechanisms of control and the means by which mankind’s collective means of self-expression: the latter is causal to the former. Together, these courses have led me to understand writing as a medium through which man exercises the body, mind, and soul, through which I have come to understand myself as an aspiring public policy professional and advocate for social justice within the contexts of economic and environmental sustainability, driven by the increasing entropy of two worlds, the natural and man-made, occupying one planet. It has also led me to understand climate change as a culmination of that increase in entropy.

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         At the beginning of the semester, I decided I would relate all my studies and assignments to my career interests. Surely, it would incite self-reflection and, whether I remained interested in neurosurgery or decided to switch gears, it would point me in the right direction. When Professor Boisvere, of Writing for the Sciences, dedicated an entire unit to discussing and researching the Anthropocene and how human activities have fueled the degradation of the environment, it became clear to me that the amount of effort and words I was putting into discussion boards signified my passion for environmental studies. On September 6th, 2021, I posted a discussion board responding to an article about the Dead Sea Deep Drilling Project. In it, samples revealed that fine sediment accumulated three to four times greater in the area (between Israel and Jordan in southwestern Asia) during seasonal floods some 11,500 years ago, concurring with the earliest human civilization in the region. Suggesting that erosion was facilitated by the removal of natural vegetation, its replacement by crops, deforestation practices, and grazing herds, according to “The Earliest Evidence of Human Impact on Earth’s Geology Has Been Found in The Dead Sea,” Shmuel Marco, from Tel Aviv University in Israel, notes that “This intensified erosion is incompatible with tectonic and climatic regimes during the Holocene – the geological epoch that began after the Pleistocene some 11,700 years ago” (BEC Crew 2017). This struck me as particularly intriguing because the effects of mankind’s transition from the hunter-gathering lifeways of the Paleolithic era to the sedentary lifeways of the Neolithic era can be traced back to as far back as 11,500 years ago. Imagine what future generations would observe in the geological record during the Anthropocene! Analysis of geological records, on a final note, was a skill necessary in writing my Scientific Controversy paper in Writing for the Sciences, for which I explored the various theories pertaining to the origin of life on Earth, arguing that life may have been a culmination of all the theories proposed for life’s origination.

         Currently, in accordance with Cornell University’s Soil Erosion Threatens Environment and Human Health, Study Reports, “Around the world, soil is being swept and washed away 10 to 40 times faster than it is being replenished, destroying cropland the size of Indiana every year” (Cornell University 2006). Two months ago, I posted another discussion board regarding wildfire smoke and COVID risk because as global temperatures rise, so does the frequency of wildfires and the most hazardous type of soot being produced, known as PM 2.5. According to In the West, a Connection Between Covid and Wildfires by Winston Choi-Schagrin, researchers of Harvard University estimated that around 20,000 coronavirus infections and 750 Covid-19 deaths are directly linked to exposure to wildfire smoke between March and December 2020 (Choi-Shagrin 2021). The fine particulate matter released from wildfire smoke—just as does the fine particulate matter from garbage trucks passing through the South Bronx, where the Environmental Protection Agency has egregiously failed to respond to Title XI complaints regarding environmental injustice—has been proven to disproportionately impact low-income minority groups. In the case of Native Americans, who have historically been relocated to mostly rural areas prone to wildfire, endure socioeconomic barriers that make it extremely difficult for them to recover after a disaster. Based on Racial, Ethnic Minorities Face Greater Vulnerability to Wildfires, predominantly Black, Hispanic, or Native American communities endure a 50 percent greater vulnerability to wildfires than other racial groups. For instance, during the 2014 wildfires in eastern and central Washington, language barriers “prevented Hispanic farmworkers from receiving evacuation alerts from authorities, and the only Spanish-language radio station in the area reportedly never received the emergency notification” (Ma 2018). With language barriers comes the underrepresentation of low-income minority communities I centered my writing on throughout Writing for the Sciences, Arts in New York City, and Modern World Literature. 

         For my Creative Research Project in Arts in New York City, I was inspired by Italian sculptor Lorenzo Quinn’s Force of Nature sculptures, in which Mother Nature bears the weight of the world Quinn made of aluminum and steel, to incorporate some of the texts and knowledge I acquired in Writing for the Sciences in my creative research paper. Upon approaching the globe, individuals are met with their own reflections, making them as much a part of the artwork as the artwork itself. When the viewer decides they want to divert their gaze from their role in the work’s meaning, they are, in turn, turning a blind eye to their role in why these sculptures were made. As such, I remain focused on bringing justice to the world, including humanity, by writing about it, which had been encouraged in Writing for the Sciences, which exposed me to a range of linguistic differences as resources, allowing me to explore the social aspects involved not only in scientific writing, such as in the group research paper and presentation, but in understanding the world as finite and irreplaceable, as deduced from our artificial intelligence discussions. My natural drive for justice, both for humans and the environment, has even led my ENGL 21003 group to research scientific studies that prove personhood to be universal and not uniquely human, hence my advocacy for the uplifting of human well-being via a total economic transition to renewable sources of energy which, instead of degrading the environment for profit, instead of selecting which organisms survive on account of usefulness to humans, and finding value not in the fabric of the world but in what it provides us, it works with the environment and sustains a complex human civilization as well as a complex and delicate web of nature to which we all belong. 

         Veena Das, Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University, postulates that language is not the best conduit through which humans can explore and express their pain. Alternatively, she argues that “the experience of pain cries out for this response of the possibility that my pain could reside in your body and that the philosophical grammar of pain is an answer to that call” (Das 2007), so when a doctor asks a patient what is hurting them, or where that patient feels discomfort, the ambiguity of the question seems to have the question fall short of understanding. What, indeed, is hurting low-income minority groups presenting to the doctor with pollution-induced asthma attacks, crippling, capitalism-induced obesity, or mysterious lumps under their beautiful melanin? Enough more pollution solutions, enough temporary resolutions. Removing a tumor does not always guarantee that it will not return, and the literature I explored in this course, as well as in Arts in New York City, truly allowed me to realize how nature currently parallels that concept. I expressed that on September 12, 2021, in my discussion board about the capitalism of the health sector, the first literary implementation of climate studies into my health studies. As I began to understand the health sector’s impact on minority groups and the environment, I ultimately strayed from my former career interest in surgery and look towards public policy and social justice in the contexts of economic and environmental sustainability. I did this because I reflected on my own actions, researched the systemic behaviors of social injustices, and resonated with Lorenzo Quinn’s intention of inciting self-reflection among his audiences. 

References

Choi-Schagrin, W. (2021, August 14). In the West, a Connection Between Covid and Wildfires. 

The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/climate/wildfires-smoke-covid.html 

Ma, M. (2018, November 2). Racial, ethnic minorities face greater vulnerability to wildfires. UW News. https://www.washington.edu/news/2018/11/02/racial-ethnic-minorities-face-greater-vulnerability-to-wildfires/