139 exam 1 Flashcards
Principles of geologic time scale
Hierarchical series of time intervals:
• Eons (largest)
• Eras (i.e. Cenozoic)
• Periods (i.e. Holocene)
o How do you know when to start a new time period?
Define anthropocene
‘the age of man/people’
Have we entered a new time period?
Proposed anthropocene markers
Physical markers:
The land—urban transformations
Changing seas: marine life
• Fishing issue with cod
• New fishing technology brings price of fish down, but destroys other marine life
• Oceans are warming (increases acidity
• ‘Mapping dead zones’ (dropping off of chemical compounds at end of river deltas)
The sixth mass extinction
• 11,575 species are extinct in world
Atmosphere
• Human impacts of atmosphere are significant:
o Temperature change, spike in methane, etc
Problems with proposed anthropocene markers
o The atomic age—crazy amounts of cesium
o The age of consumption—and plastic
o Ultimately our taxonomies don’t matter
Define core
where capital and power have a disproportionate role
• High profit, value-added goods
Define semi-periphery
facilitates geographic interaction and exploits core-periphery tensions
Define periphery
develop dependencies on core
• Low wages and raw materials
Structure of feudal system
Develops b/c only thing the king could do was to enter in these relationships
o Relationships
• King gives charters to merchants who live in town
• Give peasants ability to make money and be king’s army for a bit
• King gives titles to nobles in the country
• Nobles take control of peasants (corvee = labor) and then will be solider to king after able to work for nobles
o **Giving access to these things in order to obtain an army
Origins of feudal system
o The collapse of Carolingian Empire (888 AD)
• When Charlemagne dies, kingdom is split into three parts → competing services
o Norman conquest of England (1066 AD)
• Great political instability
• Viking raiders and traders
• Expansion of Islam
the Feudal Crisis
o Market population flux with agricultural stagnation
o Economic contraction (especially with gold) → no increase in wealth
o Feudal class conflicts
o Titles, privileges, and inheritance
o Warfare → many are small, but significant
o Balkanization
o Rise of coin in mercantile towns and decline of corvee–now competition of labor; without peasantry, whole system collapses
Conditions favoring constitutional monarchies and cores in NW Europe
o Strong central gov’ts
o Extensive bureaucracies
o Large mercenary armies—relationship between people in towns and army
o Taxes
o Town-dwellers, trade, and mean of production
o Population homogenization policies
o Landless wage earners and landless nobles
o Ports—facilitates long distance trade
o Geography of ports during ‘age of discovery’—access to New World
Second Agricultural Revolution
o Fallowing was replaced by rotation
o Food security = very powerful and revolutionary
o The manorial system—All legal and economic power belonged to the lord of the manor, who was supported economically from his land and from contributions from the peasant population under his authority.
Columbian encounter
Columbus encounters New World
Vegetation composition vs. vegetation structure
Composition: species present
Structure: vertical and horizontal distribution of species
Vegetation is correlated with…
Climate Topography--influences of sun and water Soil--water availability, plant/food growth Animals Disturbance
Define disturbance
o Freeing resources made available by other factors
o i.e. fire, any natural disaster
o 3 important factors: type, frequency, and magnitude
o Disturbance leads to succession
Define succession
o The gradual and orderly process of change in an ecosystem brought about by the progressive replacement of one community by another until a stable climax is established
Succession and environmental management (trends?)
- Biomass—increases steadily and then levels off
- Net productivity—increases rapidly and then levels off
- Biodiversity (# of species)—increase quickly, but then declines
Keystone species
Humans are a keystone species; humanized landscape • Hunting • Fishing • Fire—burned landscape often Why? • Subsistence • Game drives (warfare) • Facilitates travel • Insect/pest management • “Honor ancestors” by “cleaning up land” • Established territory
American Indian activities and creation of Eastern Northern American landscape
o Fire
o Gathering (of resources) → ‘hunting and gathering’
o Arboriculture—planting for food, craft, and medicine (specialized uses)
o Crop domestication
o Pan-continental trade (i.e. in Wisconsin, produced alligator teeth)
Columbian exchange (examples?)
o To old world: turkey, tobacco, vanilla, tomatoes, corn, etc. → raw materials
o To new world: grains, onions, bananas, coffee beans, DISEASE, etc. → finished goods
Ecological/biological imperialism (examples?)
o Introduction of pigs—damage of crops, stock, and property; transmits disease
o Introduced dandelions, weeds, honeybees, earthworms
o All made it very difficult for natives since all affected ecosystem differently than what they knew
Historical wilderness and Apostle Islands
o Wilderness is untouched by human hands • But many of the places we called wilderness have great human impacts • Tension • Boating, Native Indians, hunting, etc. o How do you manage wilderness?
Define triangle trade (examples?)
o Includes North America, Europe, and Africa
• From New World: whale oil, lumber, rice, tobacco, sugar
• From Old World: manufactured goods, guns, cloth, beer
• From Africa: gold, ivory, spices, slaves → CHEAP LABOR
Triangle trade and core formation
- Western Europe (New World) becomes core country
- Dependency of core-periphery theory
- Primacy economic activity in peripheries—resource extraction
- Secondary economic activity in core—processing of raw materials
Capital institutions and core formation
o Central banks and exchanges
• Regulate and control supply of capital
• Set up rules for capital
o First international corporation
Examples of early colonial governance
Nature and property and territory:
• Common property resources are owned and managed collectively
“The Regulated Commons”:
• Get 1st laws for access and use of environment
• MA Fence Laws (1642): farmers must enclose crops to prevent animal damage
• Predator bounties
• MA (1645): levied tax on all livestock owners to fund predator bounties (wolves)
• The local control of nature and Indians
• Local deer hunting seasons
• Banishment of ‘diabolical waste’ (100 moose in Lancaster, NH)
Reasons for early colonial governance
o Investing—Fish committee (1803 in Maine) to regulate fishing
o Competing industries for same resource
Conditions favoring industrial revolution in England
o Good roads o Investments of canals o Navigable rivers o Steam engines o Trains o Close to coal and iron deposits
Social consequences of industrial revolution
- Child labor
* Public health
Environmental consequences of industrial revolution
- Abominably filthy; waters black as ink
- Air pollution out of control
- Poor sanitation
- Mills on the Niagara River
Value-added production and segregation of environmental benefits and burdens
o Forest (nature’s gift) → logs (value added—labor) → lumber mill –(value added—labor, utility, exchange)→ merchant* → market*
- Capital creation and accumulation
3 types of environmental groups that coalesced in late 19th century
Urban environmentalists, sportsmen, preservationalists
Results of urban environmentalists
NYC
• Municipal Waste Collection and Incineration (1885)
• Recycling (1898)
Chicago
• Sewers and Public Health (1852)
• Reversal of Chicago River (1871-1900)
Human health
• Alice Hamilton and Jane Cunningham Croly
• People needed access to nature
Central park (1851-1859)
• Sets stage for urban parks and urban access to nature
Results of sportsmen
- The Fall and Rise of Local Game Law
- US Commission on fish and fisheries (1871)
- The Appalachian Mountain Club and White Mountains
- Migratory bird Treaty Act (1916)
Results of preservationists
- Yellowstone National Park (1872)
* Yosemite: CA Reserve and National Park
Environmental accomplishments of Square Deal
o Wildlife Reserve System (1903) • 53 National wildlife refugees o US Forest Service (1905) • 118 forest reserves (109 million acres) o **Shift: nature of a public service • Food and Drug Administration (1906) • The Antiquities Act (1906) • 16 national movements—Grand Canyon • Five national parks
Environmental accomplishments of New Deal
o Creation of Civil Conservation Corps (CCC)–Over 3 billion trees planted; infrastructure of parks improved; water conservation
o Creation of Soil Erosion Service (1933)—due to Dust Bowl
The land ethic
Aldo Leopold understood that ethics direct individuals to cooperate with each other for the mutual benefit of all. One of his philosophical achievements was the idea that this ‘community’ should be enlarged to include non-human elements such as soils, waters, plants, and animals, “or collectively: the land.”
DDT and bioaccumulation
o Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane
o Bottom of food chain is not affected, but upper part was (i.e. birds)
Clean Air vs. Clean Water Acts
Success vs. failure: Air • To protect and enhance quality of air • Data adaptive • 6 elements: CO, SO2, ozone, NO2, ozone, and volatile organic compounds
Water
• Regulations fell far short of what was needed (i.e. no groundwater protection)
“Command and control” vs. market based policy
Commands
– Agencies draft regulations dictating behavior
• Regulations are detailed & universalistic
Controls
– Agencies develop means for enforcing regulations
– Sanctions & punishments for failure to obey regulations
Globalization and de-territorialization of production
.
Montreal protocols vs. Kyoto protocols
Success vs. failure:
Montreal
• Problem: ozone hole
• Consequences: immediate affect of phytoplankton and skin cancer
• Results: 197 countries reduced production of chlorofluorocarbons
• Technological solution: changed to producing HCFC and HFC
Kyoto
• Problem: increased production of carbon dioxide, leading to Earth’s temperature increase
• Consequences:
• Increase of Earth’s average temperature
• Influence patterns ad amounts of precipitation
• Reduce ice and snow cover
• Rise of sea level
• Increase in acidity of waters/seas
• Results: since Kyoto, matters have become MUCH worse; failure
• Nature of environmental threat is variable and far away/far off
• Consequences are poorly understood by public (i.e. USA)
• Science is known, but not simple
• No simple solution
Define ecosystem services
o Services beyond the cost of obtaining nature’s gift
Types of ecosystem services
o Provisioning services—water, medicine, raw materials, air
o Regulating services—flood defense, erosion protection, pollination
o Supporting services—habitat diversity, genetic diversity
o Cultural ecosystem services—(eco) tourism, real estate and natural resources, entertainment and nature, cultural inspiration
Ecosystem service valuation
o How to value an ecosystem service?
Four types of valuation
o Direct benefits—immediate value; replacement costs
o Indirect benefits—positive externalities (i.e. student at UW)
o Future option value—future exchanged and utility (i.e. Velcro)
o Aesthetic and inspiration value (i.e. standing over Grand Canyon)
Promise and limits of natural capital
.
Environmental law vs. regulation
LAW
Federal laws generally apply to people living in the United States and its territories.
Congress creates and passes bills. The President then signs those bills into law. Federal courts may review these laws and strike them down if they think they do not agree with the U.S. Constitution.
REGULATION
Regulations are issued by federal agencies, boards, or commissions. They explain how the agency intends to carry out a law.
