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Environmental Geography Flashcards

(60 cards)

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1
Q

What is environmental geography?

A

A field that explores the interactions between society and nature, examining how environments are shaped by political, cultural, and economic processes.

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2
Q

What is meant by the social construction of nature?

A

The idea that concepts of ‘nature’ are shaped by human perceptions, values, and historical contexts rather than being purely objective.

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3
Q

Define ‘environmental justice’.

A

The fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people in environmental laws, regulations, and policies regardless of race, income, or nationality.

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4
Q

What is commodification of nature?

A

The process of turning aspects of nature into products that can be bought, sold, or traded on the market.

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5
Q

What is a socio-natural disaster?

A

A disaster whose impact is shaped not only by natural hazards but by social, political, and economic conditions.

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6
Q

What does William Cronon argue in ‘The Trouble with Wilderness’?

A

That wilderness is a cultural invention rooted in colonial ideologies, masking human presence and justifying dispossession.

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7
Q

What is David Harvey’s view of nature and capital?

A

Harvey sees nature as integrated into capitalist cycles through processes like commodification and the spatial fix.

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8
Q

How does Donna Haraway’s concept of ‘companion species’ relate to environmental geography?

A

It challenges human exceptionalism by showing how humans and nonhumans co-evolve and shape each other.

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9
Q

What is Anna Tsing’s contribution to more-than-human geography?

A

She highlights multispecies entanglements and how non-capitalist ecologies persist at the edges of global systems.

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10
Q

What is Rob Nixon’s concept of ‘slow violence’?

A

Violence that is delayed, dispersed, and often invisible — like environmental degradation — disproportionately affecting the poor.

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11
Q

What is the risk-hazard approach?

A

An approach focusing on physical hazards and their spatial distribution, often criticised for ignoring social vulnerability.

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12
Q

What is the entitlements-livelihoods approach to disaster?

A

An approach that considers how access to resources and social protections shape vulnerability to environmental hazards.

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13
Q

What did Watts argue about the 1970s Sahel famine?

A

It was not a natural disaster, but the result of colonial legacies, market integration, and disrupted local resilience.

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14
Q

What does Neil Smith mean by ‘there is no such thing as a natural disaster’?

A

That all disasters are shaped by existing social, political, and economic structures of vulnerability.

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15
Q

Why is water considered a ‘fictitious commodity’?

A

Because it is essential to life, not produced for exchange, yet is commodified via pricing and infrastructure.

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16
Q

What are carbon markets?

A

Systems where carbon emissions are priced and traded, treating pollution rights as marketable commodities.

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17
Q

Criticism of market environmentalism?

A

It oversimplifies ecological complexity, reinforces inequality, and prioritises profit over sustainability.

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18
Q

What is the ‘commons’ in environmental geography?

A

Resources like water, land, and air that are collectively used and managed outside of market systems.

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19
Q

Define environmental racism.

A

The disproportionate exposure of marginalised communities to environmental harm due to racialised policies and neglect.

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20
Q

What is Critical Environmental Justice (CEJ) according to Pellow?

A

An approach addressing intersecting injustices (race, class, gender) and calling for systemic transformation.

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21
Q

How does EJ expand the definition of environment?

A

It includes homes, workplaces, and bodies — not just wilderness or ‘natural’ spaces.

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22
Q

What is the significance of the phrase ‘I can’t breathe’ in EJ?

A

It symbolises the convergence of police violence and environmental inequality affecting racialised communities.

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23
Q

What is more-than-human geography?

A

A field that examines the entanglements of human and nonhuman life, challenging anthropocentrism.

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24
Q

What is meant by nonhuman agency?

A

The idea that animals, ecosystems, and materials can influence and shape human and spatial outcomes.

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25
What does the Whanganui River case represent?
Legal personhood for a river in NZ based on Māori worldviews of nature as kin.
26
How does settler colonialism use animals?
To displace Indigenous ecologies and enforce control — e.g., through introduced species, hunting bans, and property regimes.
27
What is the Anthropocene?
A proposed geological epoch where humans are the dominant force affecting Earth's systems.
28
What is the Great Acceleration?
A post-1945 surge in human activity (population, energy use) proposed as a marker for the Anthropocene.
29
What is the Capitalocene?
A critique that locates ecological crisis in capitalism, not abstract 'humanity' (Jason Moore).
30
What is the Plantationocene?
A term linking ecological destruction to colonial plantation systems of monoculture and forced labour (Haraway, Tsing).
31
What is the role of Indigenous knowledge in environmental geography?
It provides relational, place-based understandings of land, often sidelined by colonial science.
32
How does Bawaka Country define 'Country'?
As a living entity including land, sea, people, and ancestors — requiring care and mutual responsibility.
33
How does settler colonialism reshape ecology?
By removing Indigenous people, introducing new species, and enforcing extractive land use.
34
What is the significance of the 'plot' in Clyde Woods' work?
It represents spaces of resistance and autonomy within plantation systems — a counter-geography of survival.
35
What are the SDGs?
The UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals aimed at global environmental and social wellbeing by 2030.
36
What is environmental due diligence?
Corporate responsibility for ensuring social and environmental standards in their value chains.
37
What is agroecology?
An approach combining sustainable farming, biodiversity, and local knowledge — often linked to food sovereignty.
38
What is food sovereignty?
The right of people to define their own food systems, prioritising local control, sustainability, and justice.
39
What is the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC)?
A hypothesis that pollution rises with development then falls — often criticised for assuming automatic greening.
40
What is 'unfreedom' in environmental justice (Ranganathan)?
A condition of constrained life chances caused by systemic environmental violence and deprivation.
41
What is the 'right to the environment'?
A normative principle asserting that clean air, water, and a safe climate are human rights.
42
How does environmental geography critique resilience discourse?
It argues resilience shifts responsibility to the vulnerable without addressing root causes of risk.
43
Compare Anthropocene and Capitalocene framings.
Anthropocene blames all of humanity; Capitalocene focuses on capitalism and its systemic role in ecological crisis.
44
Why is environmental geography concerned with scale?
Because environmental processes and injustices operate across scales — from the body to the planet.
45
What does 'decolonising environmental geography' involve?
Challenging Eurocentric knowledge systems and centring Indigenous ways of relating to land and ecology.
46
How does power shape environmental outcomes?
Through state policy, corporate influence, social inequality, and historical structures like colonialism.
47
What is the role of institutions in environmental governance?
Institutions structure how resources are managed, rights are enforced, and environmental policies are implemented.
48
What is climate justice?
A movement and framework recognising that climate change has unequal causes and effects, requiring fair solutions.
49
What does 'fossil capitalism' refer to?
A term describing how modern capitalist economies are built on fossil fuel extraction and combustion.
50
How do carbon offsets work?
They allow polluters to compensate for emissions by funding reductions elsewhere — often criticised for lack of real change.
51
What is 'green grabbing'?
The appropriation of land and resources in the name of environmental protection, often displacing local communities.
52
What is the Brundtland definition of sustainability?
'Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.'
53
What is a 'just transition'?
A shift to a sustainable economy that protects workers and communities, ensuring equity in climate and energy policies.
54
How is biodiversity loss linked to capitalism?
Through habitat destruction, monoculture, pollution, and commodification of species.
55
What is urban political ecology?
A framework analysing how power, infrastructure, and inequality shape environmental conditions in cities.
56
What is the significance of the Flint water crisis?
It highlights environmental racism, state neglect, and infrastructure failure in a predominantly Black city.
57
How does environmental geography use case studies?
To explore how global processes manifest in specific local contexts, often revealing inequality and resistance.
58
What is a multispecies assemblage?
An entangled network of humans, animals, plants, and materials co-producing space and meaning.
59
How does neoliberalism affect environmental policy?
It promotes deregulation, privatisation, and market-based solutions, often undermining collective governance.
60
What is a socio-ecological system?
An integrated system of humans and nature with reciprocal feedback loops and co-evolution.

GY100 (12 decks)

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