Concepts

Question 1

What is the Malthusianism?

Answer 1

Created from the essay “principle of population” by Thomas Robert Malthus. Believes in inevitable misery created by a exponential population growth versus a linear growth in food. Malthusians are also called doomsters.

Question 2

What is Neo-Malthusianism

Answer 2

The advocacy of population control programs, to ensure resources for current and future populations.

Question 3

Name other known “Malthusians”

Answer 3

Poul Erlich (The population bomb).
Kenneth E. Boulding (Spaceship economy)

Question 4

Name some boomsters

Answer 4

Julian Simon

Question 5

Which group is also called “boomsters”?

Answer 5

The Cornucopians

Question 6

What are the three faces of growth?

Answer 6

1. Multiplication, 2. differentiation, 3. centralization/organization.

Question 7

Mention examples of multiplication (first face of growth)

Answer 7

• Microbial propulations
• Beer yeast at Carlsberg
• The population of homo sapiens

Question 8

Mention examples of differentiation (second face of growth)

Answer 8

• Mutations
• Niches in product markets
• Technological development

Question 9

Mention examples of centralization/organization (third face of growth)

Answer 9

• Supply chains
• Agricultural development
• Political organization eg. EU
• Globalization
• Urbanization

Question 10

What where the conclusion in Adam Smiths “The invisible Hand”?

Answer 10

• Individual optimization leads to the societal optimum (under perfect conditions).
• Think of money as a sign of gratitude. Nobody will pay you anything, unless its of benefit to them. So a rich man has been of benefit to many people.

Question 11

What was highlighted as the three most influential of these inventions leading to the industrial revolutions?

Answer 11

• The cooked fueled furnace ( pig iron melting for the production of steel)
• The steam engine (james watt)
• Spinning Jenny (spinde maskine)

Question 12

What does the letters IPAT stand for in the I=PAT equation?

Answer 12

I = total environmental impact of human origin
A = Affluence economy per person (e.g. GDP/person) 
T= techonology, an indicator for eco-efficency of technology, eg environmental impact per unit of economy (impact/GDP unit).

Question 13

What does the term Anthropocene mean?

Answer 13

The term Anthropocene is a term for the present human-dominated geological epoch , supplementing the Holocene period of the last 10-12 millennia.

Question 14

How much faster do we need to develop technology (impact/GDP) to reduce the impact by 50% with the rising population and affluence?

Answer 14

5 times faster as buisness-as-usual, can we do it??

Question 15

What is industrial ecology according to the publication “ strategies of manufacturing”?

Answer 15

A more integrated model for industrial activity: an industrial ecosystem. In such a system the consumption of energy and materials is optimized, waste generation is minimized, and the effluents of one process serves as the raw material for another.

Question 16

When does individual optimization NOT lead to social optimum?

Answer 16

In a tragedy of the commons situation.

Question 17

What is the teragedy of the commons?

Answer 17

When individual optimization does NOT lead to social optimum, eg fishing, cows on a finite amount of grass (extra cow=smaller cows in general).

Question 18

What three criteria must be fufilled to have a tradegy of the commons situtaion?

Answer 18

1) The natural resource/recipient shall be common and with unlimited access for all - i.e. so-called “common pool of resource”.
2) The carrying capacity of the natural resource/recipient can be exceeded.
3) There shall be no competitive alternatives - in a free market economy - to the activity that threatens the carrying capacity of the natural resource/recipient.