Beth and Amy, Global Change students, also discussed the importance of looking at global change issues from a variety of sources. Beth, for instance, noted how the media often paints an inaccurate picture of the global change landscape by portraying certain environmental effects as either uniformly positive or uniformly negative. She explained that a more critical analysis of environmental "inter-relationships" often produces an interpretation that is not so clear cut.

Beth: You read in the mass media that carbon dioxide levels are going to double and that there's a big hole in the ozone and there's going to be so much radiation. [The class] showed that, yes, the carbon dioxide levels might double, but there's a lot of other effects that are going to go along with it. For example, if there's more carbon dioxide, there's going to be more carbon dioxide for plants to use, which means that they'll be able to grow more, which means there'll be more plants. And that will affect the food chain, also.

So you saw that the views that you had been getting from just the media are really, really biased. If you really sit down and you look at how everything is connected to everything else, [you see] that there will be an effect and sometimes it'll be positive and sometimes things that we think are going to be the most negative might not turn out to be that negative at all. And everything just might end up working itself out just because of all the inter-relationships.

Amy: So you think for yourself a lot more through this course. You don't just hear something and assume that it's a fact. You hear something and say, "Why would they say that? What does that mean? Where did they get that information?" And then, "What about the other side?"

Jean-Pierre (interviewer): So it sounds like your thinking is more complex.

{general agreement}

Amy: You do a lot more analyzing. I would say that I went into the course last semester with the idea that the world was doomed--that the ozone was going to disappear and we were all going to burn, or we were all going to suffocate on carbon dioxide. Well, maybe not that extreme, but I thought things were looking pretty hopeless. But the way that this course was approached--the fact that they started with how galaxies are created, how the universe was possibly created, how the earth has been changing since the beginning of time--gave me such a rounder view of everything and made me realize a couple of things. Yes, carbon dioxide is going to double within the next 50 years, and there's absolutely nothing we can do about it. There's nothing we can do to change it. Even if right now we cut emissions to the lowest we possibly could, it will still double within 50 years.

But the object now is not to just go around and say, "Okay, we're all going to die." What we're working for now is not to cut carbon dioxide but to figure out how we are going to live with the higher levels; what will be the effects, both positive and negative?

And so, I gained a more realistic and more responsible understanding of what my role in the future is going to be. I feel like I can do something now. Not that I'm going to start recycling like crazy, like the organizations with those slogans, "Save the earth and save the whales and save the rainforests." It's not that kind of an approach. It's a very responsible, systematic approach to what needs to be done.

And I would say that the coolest experience I had in this class, in terms of learning experience, was when we were discussing the effects of carbon dioxide on plant growth. Carbon dioxide makes plants grow more, but the plants, though larger, will still have the same amount of nutrients. Therefore, you have to eat more of the plant to get the same amount of energy. This has been shown in studies done on leafy green plants--just on the leaf, not on the roots--but not on root plants like turnips. So I asked, "What about the roots? Do they grow more and have less nutrients, too?" The reply was, "Well, no one's studied that yet." And I said, "Well, that's what I want to do." And [my instructor] said, "That would be a great senior honors project." That was the coolest experience--to see that I could take all this information I'd been getting and take it a step further, to where it hadn't been taken before.

Jean-Pierre (interviewer): That definitely classifies as a real learning experience.

Amy: That was the coolest thing, and that made me want to minor in Global Change. Because [it deals with issues] that affect everyone. There is no one in the world who will go unaffected by global change. So there's nothing that I could do that would help more people--if that's my goal--or that would affect more people, than to do something working in global change. After I get my degree, I plan to go on for a graduate degree in the School of Natural Resources. I just thought, "That is exactly what I want to do. That makes so much sense and that's something I could contribute that hasn't been contributed." So that's my real learning experience.