Over the course of my time at the University of Maryland, College Park so far and being part of the Science & Global Change program, my understanding of how to plan for a resilient future in the face of global change has become more nuanced: I have learned a lot that in order for the course of the future to change, there needs to be accountability taken on a collective level and through means of collaboration. Rather than seeing the problem occurring on an individual-by-individual basis, I have recognized that to create a more resilient future, the problem needs to be solved systematically to make an impact. Before, I have seen global change less of a scientific lens and more of a social and moral lens, where I blindly taken the information I have received from the news at face value rather than critically thinking about the quality of the source and what the scientific community is saying.
My experience as a SGC Scholar has helped in my understanding of how to plan for a future of global change through informing me how I can contribute even in a major that's not known to directly engage in the envrionment. However, given the recent rise of the construction of data centers and the issue of electricity and use of space that comes with development, I have changed my attitude in my consideration of making the algorithms that I use more efficient. Knowing now that how efficient the algorithms I use are directly correlated to electricity and compute used that aren't going to people's homes or other critical infrastructure reminds me that I have to take responsibility for code that I produce and that regardless of how small something I write may seem, it could have widespread implications. Additionally, news about rising home insurance prices (one example from the NYT) demonstrates how climate change exacerbates socioeconomic statuses between people and impact people from different geographic regions in similar ways. From our global climate change project about fires in California, I recognized similar patterns of how global warming increase the intensity of the scale and impact of natural disasters, and how this risk discourages insurance companies from operating at certain states to minimize potential losses or dramatically increase their home insurance premiums in order to counteract anticipated damage.
From my two supporting classes, ENSP 101: Introduction to Environmental Science and ECON 181: Putting a Price on the Environment: An Economists's Perspective on Sustainability, I have learned more about 1) how the world is changing right now in detail, from the different ecosystems and how they're structured and 2) economists view environments and sustainability in different terms from the population through different lenses and that different approaches can still achieve the same ultimate goal.
From interacting with my SGC Scholars, I learned a lot about how different majors are tackling the issue of a warming planet. For example, I learned more about aerospace engineering and how, by exploring planets beyond our own, we can learn more about how our future might look like based on data collected from planet exploration. Living in a living-learning community was especially beneficial because I had the opportunity to meet more people outside of my major and gain additional perspectives that I ordinarily wouldn't have had access to. In terms of giving back to the SGC community, I have personally worked on sharing the knowledge that I have accumulated with younger SGC scholars. For example, I have volunteered as a Scholars ambassador to do more outreach to potential incoming SGC scholars, as well as volunteering as a CMNS ambassador and serving on panels, talking about the Scholars program and SGC to prospective students. Finally, I have also served on the panel, speaking directly to the younger SGC students about my experiences and tips that I have learned over the semesters.
Being in Scholars has challenged me to reanalyze the knowledge that I have taken for granted and critically think about the sources that they originate from. For example, I never even thought to challenge the core assumption I originally had that we, as individuals, are equal or even bigger contributors to carbon emissions than corporations. I overemphasized people's contributions to the carbon in the environment right now and underestimated the scale at which companies are actually producing carbon. Over the semesters, I have realized that global warming was never meant to be addressed by individuals or even one or two countries. Rather, more than ever, it requires a global coordinated effort to combat changes and intentional systematic changes to policies and laws being passed. My Scholars experience has informed me that there is more than I can do, and I expect to draw more on the lesson of questioning where my core beliefs come from and how I can do my part as a scientist in making sure I am responsibly disseminating knowledge to inform the public about the current state of the world.