Second Post

     So last class, the instructors invited a Tufts's alumna to give us some insight into what she does. Laur Fisher currently works as the Project Manager for the Climate CoLab, a project started by the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. She briefly talked about her struggles with creating her self-designed major and finding the necessary resources related to sustainability, something that I could really identify with, especially the first year of my college career. But luckily, as I progress through my journey at Tufts, I'm meeting more people, and finding more resources, something she probably had a harder time with a decade earlier.

      After watching her TEDx talk, I was shocked to find out that Wikipedia, a website most professors deem unreliable, is almost as accurate as an encyclopedia. On the other hand, Wikipedia covers hundreds of times more topics than a set of encyclopedias. The collective knowledge of the world, collaborating with each other, building upon each other's knowledge, through millions of edits, was able to come together and create something wonderful. This was amazing. Astounding. Almost magical. The Climate CoLab is based on this principle. It connects people all around the world, all trying to make a difference, protecting our world, and solving the greatest problem of this generation.

      I think one of the reasons it is so inspiring is because you can see the results, the results of human collaboration. One reason why we humans don't often take action to mitigate the global problem of climate change is because many of the actions we accomplish today, take effect decades from now. We might not even see a notable positive difference in this lifetime. Most people don't think about the time after our life ends, except maybe in the spiritual sense. It's hard to not think about ourselves. It's hard to picture this world without us in it. The Climate CoLab doesn't necessarily show us the results, per se, but it does show the global effort of changing our ways, of making this world better. It shows that there are solutions. And some of them, you could even see the immediate change.

      Laur Fisher's talk has definitely made me think more about approaching the climate issue from different angles. Extending from the above thought, I started brainstorming more about donations, and how there should be a more visual, or definitive proof that their money, is directly helping "blank". There are a few organizations out there trying to do that, like sending postcards of endangered species to supporters, but I wonder if I could expand on this. Psychologically speaking, humans respond greatly to the reward sensation. It's how we evolved. Sugar used to be scarce, so that's why it taste sweet, sending pleasure signals to our brains, telling us to get more, and more. I want to be able to combine these aspect to environmental issues.

       I think this is something I could talk to Thomas French about, the Assistant Director of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife and Director of the Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program. He is coming to one of Tufts's Environmental Lunch and Learns to discuss the difficulties about preserving unpopular species, specifically snakes. If we could build a type of reward system, it might make the efforts of protecting unpopular wildlife a little easier.