By Trevor Durbin, Kansas State University §

“I took this class because I wanted to address my relationship with the idea of climate change. I think I was somewhere between guilt and grief…” I read these opening lines of a student essay with a sinking in the pit of my stomach. It was written by a young woman in a seminar I teach at the Kansas State University called “Environmental Anthropology in the Anthropocene.” She was distraught over our planetary future and, more importantly, over her inability to imagine anything she might do that would make a difference. She continued:

“The problem seemed so enormous. And then I started doing the readings for this class, and every problem that we learn about stresses me out so much. It feels uncomfortable to just go on with my normal, student life. I want to do something about climate change, but an…