Olivia

Going into this course I was intrigued to see if we would come across some sort of answer to the title question. As one of many who has felt the impact literature can have, particularly in relation to the environment, I felt this course would be relatable. I did go into it with some ideas as to how literature could rescue the natural world, and this project specifically was a good way to isolate those thoughts and figure them out. Talking to Margo and learning of the ways in which she was influenced to do good for the Earth was inspiring. After this and all our readings I now feel that we draw our influence and drive from different sources, but they can come together to form something powerful. When people learn to work for salvation of the land it does not matter how they came to such a place, simply that they are there. In the meantime, writers can keep writing, filmmakers can keep filming, activists can keep promoting, and we will keep learning. Education is key.

Maile

Going into this project I had the same feelings as I have had about the course "Can Literature Save the Environment," which were that literature could possibly influence how people view the environment, but that I don’t think that essays, poems, or novels, could save the earth. Going in with this mind set I got the feeling that Margo Olsen shared my thoughts, she thought literature, specifically scientific literature can’t affect people’s views, but that other sorts of sources such as films were a better outlet in which to show people the damage the environment has, and is taking. 
Listening to Margo speak though I realized that the way she is going about preserving the environment is small, but important on the grander scale of things. She is preserving a species, and although it may not be a species that many people may deem important, it’s still a species that should never have begun to die out, and is only dying out because of the changes to the earth that humans have carelessly made.