After finishing four beastly finals and spending my first few days of Winter Break, I reflect on one of my favorite classes this Fall Quarter and how its topics relate to our life of today.

The class was asked the following question:

In light of global warming, which is better – Reductionist or Gaian approaches to technology? Why?

The Gaian view states that the destined trajectory of Earth’s life depends on how people conduct themselves in behavior and lifestyle with respect to their environment. This view promotes smaller scale, more simplicity and interconnectedness. The Reductionist view states that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts; the evolution of life and the planetary environment may affect each other, but not in a coordinated manner. This view promotes bigger scale, more complexity and centralization.

What is most interesting about these new things are that they suggest that our perception of the world dictates how we treat our environment. In some ways, our perception plays a dominant role in our society. For example, imagine that you were given a choice between spending time developing skyscrapers and constructing environmental buildings. The former promotes businesses in large urban areas, which is much needed in today’s economy. However, it may result in environmental disaster. On the other hand, the latter encourages the sustainability of human welfare and is a way for us to cut down our operational costs. This may seem like a trivial choice, but the response from it will tell us much about how we care about our future. According to scientists and phenomena such as the Keeling Curve, our environmental safety will be severely compromised by the year 2050 due to global warming. With this fact, I realize one thing – we must take drastic measures and make sure our insights count.