Environment midterm Flashcards
Discourse
The way we construct interpret discuss and analyze environmental problems.
Nature as sublime
Separate from the culture, pristine and beyond human comprehension
Nature as a resource
Extractable commodities conservation of spaces for later use.
Governace
Arrangements through which governments, private actors, and non governmental organizations direct actions (through policies, programs initiatives, laws, regulations standards social norms etc.)
Tragedy of commons
Nature is external stock of finite resources, people are by nature: individualistic, autonomous, self interest, and rational profit seeking
Commons Hardin v Ostrom
Hardin: Deductive, logic from assumption, deterministic of outcome, narrow range of outcome
Ostrom: Inductive, based on observation, not deterministic of the outcome, wider range of options
Common property resources
Means that all members should have access to that resource
Two types of resources
Nonexcludable: Means its harder to exclude people from these resources ( ground water, fish, wildlife ect.)
Suitability: Where one user can subtract from welfare or benefit others.
Community based management
Held by indefinable community of independent users. Can exclude outsiders while regulating use by member of the local community
Common property resources
Resources that can be freely consumed or enjoyed by anyone
Open access property rights regime
Free and unregulated resources. The absence of well defined property rights. Everyone can access this, can lead to depletion.
Communal property rights regime
Held by a independent community of independent users. Can exclude outsiders while regulating use by member of the local community. Even when there is no official acknowledgement of communal property, that doesn’t stop exclusion.
Private property rights regime
The right to exclude others from using the resource and to regulate the use of the resource, normally protected by the government and transferable. Provides economical incentives for exploitation and not to deplete and destroy their own resources, but does NOT mean sustainable use.
State property rights regime
Exclusive to the state government provides adequate exclusion. Often treated like open access. While it can help regulate resources and how they are used, it does not mean stainability as they decision makers are not the government or the public.
Socionatures
The idea that nature and humanity are one and the same and can be thought of as a single concept.
Production of Nature
Refers to the historically and geographically specific practices through which human “make” their environments and use it as a pregiven.
Political economy
Taking about the structures of the economy and the social relations to power.
Political economy eparch
Signal that economic process and expansion are the root of environment issues and scarcity.
Spatial fix
When Capitalism: Establishes new markets elsewhere( consumption), access new resource elsewhere (inputs), and move to cheaper labor, land, and waste (production costs)
Capitalism
Modern of production, reproduction and consumption. Involves a very distinct division of labor and social relationships to nature.
Affective materiality
Materializes as people turn toward or against an object
Animacy
The state of being alive and animate.
Social construction
any category or thing that is made real by convention or collective agreement
Assimilative capacity
The ability of the environment or a part of the environment to carry waste material without adverse effects on the environment or on users of its resources
Regulation
Can include formal regulation but also less formal accepted practices.
Institutions
Systems of recognized constraints on individual behavior that help govern collective action around resources. (Not just physical institutions)
Scalar Fix
a management solution to environmental problems associated with resource use and extraction (e.g. watershed governance) where rescaling management to a ‘natural scale’ is proposed and implemented.
Operational Scale
The thing itself sperate for the scalar observations. (the board understanding.) It’s not possible to understaand it all but you can decide what the important ones are/ Observational and observational scale sometimes match but often mismatch. They can also influence the phenomenon that you are trying to solve
Observational Scale
Observers practicing “something”, direct observation and how data is collected, reflected in frames we use stories we tell and arguments we make.
Environmental Kuznets Curve
An upside-down U that talks about degradation and economic development. In the early stages of economic growth, environment qualities deteriorates till a certain level of economic growth when the country is wealthier and transitions to more sustainable and cleaner technologies.
Environmental Kuznets Curve Critics
However, it’s important to speak about how wealth effects environment issues
(Technologies not available to low income countries,)
Spatial mismatch problem: the location of consumption vs production. The more suitable technologies can make the air cleaner but they can’t bring back species or land mass, meaning this is not
Adaptation
Actions taken to protect places and people from the impact of climate consequences.
Mitigation
Action taken to stop or slow processes of climate change
Resilience
Ability to absorb “shocks” and maintain same general structure, composition etc “bounce back”
Adaptive Resilience
Adapt to new or dynamic conditions through change that fundamental (eg. zoning, land use)
Transformative resilience
Creation of fundamentally new systems (eg. rethinking relationships to fire and floods) bounce forward
Pollution Haven Hypothesis
the idea that polluting industries will relocate to jurisdictions with less stringent environmental regulations
