My personal relationship to the world around me has changed over the spam of this term. Where I come from there is not much effort on expressing the importance of the environment or spreading awareness of its decline due to human impact. Reading the novels made me realize how much environmentalism there is in peoples even no matter how big or small, it’s there. These reading have also impacted me because I now know where I stand in this living world. My society’s relation to this world is unlike mine, you see I am from the South, and people are not as evolved as the people from the west coast. Southerners are less openminded and selfish and when it comes to the environment, they often times don’t care. After this term and the readings, I feel more comfortable with my place in this society and my understanding of the natural world. I am small, but I care. If I can make the slightest significance I will.  Anthropocene: The Human Epoch is a primary/secondary source that influenced me. What intrigued me was how human destruction could appear so aesthetically pleasing. What I also found interesting was the lithium pools and how the lithium was used for electric cars. Lithium itself is very toxic and using it for electric car batteries defeats the purpose of it being a “greener” solution. Another source that influenced me is Braiding Sweetgrass because of its indigenous knowledge. Before reading this book, I was not aware of traditional indigenous knowledge and its importance to tribes. The kincentric worldview of these communities is a way of life but also a way of survival. Indigenous knowledge is a topic that we should all explore and get familiar with. Questions we can explore can be tied to indigenous knowledge as well. For example, how can indigenous knowledge be used today? Why are people kept from being aware of this type of knowledge? How can we benefit from indigenous knowledge?

I think art and literature are essential when it comes to expressing and building strong connections with objects and people or vice versa. Art and literature both allow there to be freedom of expression. The role that these to play legitimizes the severity of climate change and its mobility allows it to be everywhere.