Long Answer Questions Flashcards
Identify and explain Orr’s six myths of education. Do you agree with Orr?
1- Ignorance is a solvable problem.
- ignorance is a part of the human conditions and makes us ask questions in the first place. Education leads to more ignorance
2- enough knowledge and technology we can manage planet Earth
- the complexity of the earth cannot be fully understood. But we can manage US
3- knowledge is increasing and by implication human goodness.
- some knowledge is increasing, but a lot is also being lost. Huge confusion in whats truth and false
4 - we can adequately restore that which we have dismantled.
- through education, people tend to specialize and then not have an understanding of how things work together
5 - the purpose of education is that of giving you the means for upward mobility and success.
-The world needs more people of moral courage that are willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane
6- our current culture represents the pinnacle of human achievement
- We have built a world of sybaritic wealth that creates the façade that we alone are modern, technological, and developed
Discuss four general approaches for understanding how people might value the environment. [Including Spaceship Earth, Big History, bio/ecocentric, and anthropocentric approaches.]
Spaceship Earth - we are all alone and these resourses are all we have in teh world
BIG HISTORY, is also BIG FUTURE means that what we are today was a result that was derived from the long process in the past that it came from. Example, trees and Rhinos. Common misconception is that we can just buy another product, but it is not how nature works because it is finite and it takes a long time to grow them.
Humans are self-centred, we just think that we can just get what we want and it becomes an eco-centric thought
Bio/eco-centric values: things other than humans have morality and rights, thus we must care for them and look after them
Anthropocentric: humankind over everything, use the environment to out advantage
Define all the elements of the “I=f(PAT)” equation. What does this equation tell us about efficiency, environmental justice and sustainability?
I= Environmental Impact
P= Population : More people means that we have to consume more. Cities use more resources than other cities that are not as compact
A=Affluence : Buy more things and consume more
How does power and politics come into this equation, it is indirect
Uses it to log in the government
Unclear of how politics involves in this equation
T=Technology
Gevines paradox
When there is energy savings, people use more energy
F= Function: they are complications such as poverty
Poor people are actually responsible for cutting down forests because they do not have enough resources to sustain themselves so they plant cornfields in order to sustain themselves
if there was only one rhino left in the world, people in poverty would kill it because they were hungry
- > How to help sustainability? OUT OF DATE-> Credits say it’s too simplistic for these problems, has lead to inaccurate predictions
- > think I is carrying capacity of the environment (global hectares), PAT is the ecological footprint
How does studying Big History inform the study and/or practice of sustainability?
Unlike conventional history, uses many different time scales
- > multidiciplinary, adds a story element to the sciences and social sciences
- > ZOOOOOOMs out to add the perspective of our impacts right from the big bang, to when the sun becomes a red giant
- > This is where the great acceleration comes in. On the big history time scale, we are accelerating everything from GHG, to fishing, to nitrogen in the water at a rapid scale
- > connects it to Anthropocene
- > connect to timescales, how things are happening in smaller and smaller timescales
Is the world over-populated? Discuss your answer using course concepts and debates covered in class.
Thomas Malthus, Paul Ehrlich- population growth would continue until checked by widespread hunger and famine
- > this model doesn’t take into consideration of demographic transition or of technology to produce more food
- > inherent racism in the theories of overpopulation, shifting focus from capitalism and consumerism to cultural, societal and class
- > NO, not overpopulated, just overexploited
Compare any two energy sources according to at least five of the characteristics discussed
in class. [i.e., Occurrence/availability; Transferability; Energy content; Reliability;
Storability; Safety & Impact; Cleanliness & convenience; (Levelized)Cost/Price]
Nuclear- high cost, long construction time
- no ghg emissions when used
- PROBLEM of nuclear waste
- the transition to this shows a huge drop in GHG (think ontario)
- high energy for less mass of a thing (uranium)
- more realistic in comparison to other types of renewable resources
Coal - intensive removal process
- in the powering emits much co2 and other GHGs
Should the Canadian government approve and nationalize the Trans Mountain Pipeline
project? Answer by weighing the arguments for and against from multiple perspectives.
YES - Money generated from this can be put towards sustainability efforts
- maintain the identity and culture of Alberta
NO - can’t 100% guarantee no spillage
- more traffic/exporting can hurt the echolocation of the resident southern killer whales.
What is meant by “environmental discourse” and how does it help us in the analysis of
socio-ecological issues? Your answer should reference at least three common narratives of
socio-ecological crisis covered in class. [E.g., demographic transition; tragedy of the
commons; limits to growth; consumerism; maldistribution; patriarchy; racism;
neocolonialism; capitalism; technocentricism; policy/governance failure.]
- Environmental discourse refers to the shared ideas humans have when it involves helping the environment and solving its related issues.
- (insert how it helps socio-ecological issues)
Examples:
-the Impact benefits agreement will help projects in Indigenous communities in terms of jobs and economy
-Using technocentricism to
STILL IN PROGRESS
Discuss the current crises facing global food systems and some possible solutions.
- > cities built on best/ most nutritious land
- > SOL: high-density cities
- > VIrtical farms./ cite farms
- > SOL: high-density cities
- > lots of energy input into food that won’t even go to us (to livestock like cows)
- > less meat diet - > food and agriculture built around the market, not necessarily to people
- > increased soils acidity due to green revolution
- > creation of superbugs (ones that are resistant to biocides)
- > organic/ ecosystem focused agriculture
- > decrease need for fertilizer through nitrogen-fixing plant (crop-rotation) - > HUGE food waste problem in CND
- > reference food waste laws in France (bans the disposal of certain foods, donate it instead)
How do market dynamics change the forest landscape? Some issues to consider in your
answer: the replacement of old-growth forest with plantation forests; the relationship
between the market and harvesting technology; changing government regulation of
forests; free trade/NAFTA; market-based stewardship mechanisms (e.g., FSC).
Influence of market on forests and logging
- > old-growth forests more valuable in the market thus cut down more.
- > The market should somehow transition to making second-growth forests the dominant source of logging and lumber.
- > pay attention to certifications like FSC, where companies have to meet these certain requirements. These labels make the company or product in question seem more enviormently friendly (greenwashing?)
- > housing crash in us, more raw wood shipped overseas
How does life cycle analysis help assess whether a project is “sustainable”? As part of your
answer, provide a definition of sustainability. Provide at least one example to support your
answer.
DEFINE: looks at the entire process and cycle of a product from manufacturing to transportation to disposal. Use these results to determine if a project is sustainably, thus that is taken into consideration the needs of future generations
Talk about your LCA here
Identify seven key environmental issues facing cities [i.e., urban sprawl & densification;
access to food; congestion & public transportation; access to water and water pollution;
housing and informal settlements; air pollution; access to green/public space].
[One of the following will be asked:]
a. How might these issues interact in synergistic ways (whether negatively or
positively)?
b. How do these issues relate to climate change?
c. How do these issues relate to health?
d. How do these issues relate to social/environmental justice?
e. How do these issues relate to jobs/employment?
urban sprawl
a) more sprawl-> more cars to get to places (like food)-> more pollution from cars-> less overall green space
b) taking away more fertial land that could be used for food. More GHG emissions (more energy lost)
c) air pollution issues -> incease lung cancer -> famine (bad nutrition)
d) concentrating the powerplants, garbage places where there is the most POC (racism)
e) travel far for jobs -> less mental health
What did the 2019 federal election teach you about 4. environmental politics?
Mention functioning of elections (first past the post vs proportional voting)
- > stakeholder of climate change
- > HAS to address this, can’t deny it
Discuss five collective action strategies for addressing the socio-ecological crisis. Discuss
how these strategies can work together to realize social change.
election -> vote in the polices that you want to envoke change
direct action -> PROTECT, climate marches. Non-violent vs violent actions (the extinction rebellion)
court challenge -> BUt is court corrupt? Maybe, but gives it a lense and its PUBLIC
education -> spread awareness that this is a problem, how and why and talk SOLUTIONS } make it tangable
value shift
