I got my Bachelor’s and Specialist’s (a Soviet-style degree; one-year degree above the bachelor, usually in engineering and related fields) in Environmental Science. Contrary to what many think, it wasn’t a random or spurious choice — while that’s not apparent or not know to most people who know me, I’ve been doing those or that researches in envsci (mostly, municipal solid waste handling research) for the last eleven years.
Comrades who know that I do environmental science work, unerringly think that I should be some kind of a valiant green knight, tree-hugger extraordinaire, an eco-activist with a flawlessly green past record.
Well, I’m sorry, I apologize. I am an environmental scientist, not an environmentalist!
A mixture of the ideology and the science, a witch potion of ecoactivism, a movement first of all lifestyle and political, and environmental science, a holistic earth science akin to meteorology or oceanology, is a vile poison to my cognitively-sensitive mind.
Having an “approved” agenda is a norm in many social sciences (liberal capitalism in economics; Western-styled democracy-based approach in history; etc.) — yet in no other field a deviation from the norm is so unusual. It seems that people only become env scientists to feed their ecoactivist spirit, which is odd — after all, you don’t see vegetarians studying nutrition science just because it’s an “obvious” choice for a vegetarian.
I don’t drive a hybrid car, and I don’t particularly watch my electricity consumption. I don’t think my (or society’s) conscious actions are going to change anything, in my research I focus on ways to subvert primary human emotions (greed, laziness, etc.) for more efficient municipal solid waste handling, not preaching an agenda.
It’s just funny just how fringe this worldview is in environmental science.
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