Objects of Concern Flashcards
(94 cards)
1
Q
Problem with Carbon Dioxide
A
Imbalance. Cyanobacteria changed the composition of the atmosphere creating more oxygen than CO2.
2
Q
What is proxy record?
A
Estimate earth’s temperatures for thousands of years prior to direct measurement. (tree rings, ice cores, corals)
3
Q
What is the Keeling curve?
A
Direct measurement of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere
4
Q
Who feels the impacts of climate change the most?
A
Most felt by those tho are too poor to mitigate or adapt to climate change impacts.
5
Q
What is the Kyoto Protocol?
A
Agreement between signatory countries reduces carbon emissions (1997) was first enforced in 2005.
- Rules change over time with new information about carbon dioxide and climate change
- Dispersed overtime to allow time to develop new technology regulations
6
Q
What was the goal of the Kyoto Agreement?
A
Shy away from federal governments towards central and state governments (local)
7
Q
What does a market environmentalist say about carbon dioxide?
A
- Emissions are an externality
- Command and control (regulation) is inefficient
- Market-based solutions (cap and trade, carbon offsets) (best way to account for costs)
8
Q
What is green carbon production?
A
People can pay the producer not to emit nby purchasing low-emission products
9
Q
What is REDD +?
A
Reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation
10
Q
What is the problem with capital accumulation?
A
Requires more output, cannot be sure that carbon offset programs will actually offset carbon.
11
Q
What does the Keeling curve show?
A
- Overall increase in CO2 emissions
- Annual fluctuations of emissions north hemisphere seasons
12
Q
What is the main problem with greenhouse emissions?
A
Rising faster and faster in a very short amount of time
13
Q
(True or false) All countries would benefit from reductions in greenhouse gases.
A
True
14
Q
Institutions: Freerider and carbon cooperation.
A
- Everything has become nationalist and unable to come to decisions
- Assuming that cuts in emissions would put a country at a disadvantage, only those who will make reductions will pay.
15
Q
What does political economy say about Carbon Dioxide?
A
- Market mechanisms are the most popular way to deal with carbon emissions
- Can’t rely too much on capitalism
16
Q
Critiques of carbon markets?
A
- Greenwashing: marketing products or services as environmentally friendly without substantial efforts to reduce impacts.
17
Q
Why do political economists prefer regulatory solutions instead of markets?
A
Since contradictions in the economy are producing the problem in the first place.
18
Q
What are trees?
A
- Trees are symbolic (fear, religion, wilderness)
- Useful (humans have used trees for food, shelter, fuel, travel
(Complex relationship)
19
Q
What is contributing to deforestation?
A
- Logging, clearing land for agriculture, and acid rain
20
Q
What is contributing to reforestation?
A
Preservation, plantation, and reconciliation ecology
21
Q
What is the difference between preservation and reconciliation ecology?
A
- Preservation = protection of a resource or environment, usually for its own sake. Often means preventing human access or use.
- Reconciliation ecology = maintaining both human activities and ecosystem services as biodiversity. Humans allowed to access and use resources
22
Q
Example of Ecological reconciliation?
A
- Shade-grown agriculture: does not require trees to be cut down for agricultural commodity production
- Provides complex habitat and supports biodiversity
23
Q
What is climax vegetation?
A
The average vegetation of a place, determined by climate and physiographic conditions
24
Q
What is a Disturbance?
A
An event that permanently or temporarily alters the vegetation in an ecosystem
25
What is Succession?
After a disturbance, a series of species invasions progress an ecosystem through stages until they return to the same or new climax vegetation.
26
If population growth and economic activity are related to forest decline, why are forests showing recovery in Europe?
- Forest transition theory (population and market approaches)
- Political economy approach
27
What is forest transition theory?
States that initial population growth and development in an area will cause deforestation at first, but as the economy changes and people migrate to urban areas the forest will recover. Like an Environmental Kuznets curve.
28
What are the limits of the forest transition theory?
- Encourages deforestation assuming that...
- That the forest will recover no matter what in all regions, and return to its desirable condition, even though economic and biophysical characteristics create uneven forest decline and recovery
29
What does a political economist's approach say?
- Contradictions of capital: the decline of agriculture usually leads to more intensification and extensive land use, rather than leaving lands fallow
- Uneven development: Privatization of communal forest areas usually makes non-local people more wealthy at the expense of local people and the environment.
(Reforestation in one area is possible because of deforestation somewhere else (spatial fix))
30
What movements have there been for trees?
- Movements against deforestation tend to be about protecting local livelihoods, not just trees for trees' sake.
- Chipko movement in India
- Wood-resin tappers in Cambodia
- Malva nut collectors in Loas
31
What does Ethics say about this? (Do trees have rights)
- Should trees have rights?
- Ecocentrism: tree interests should be protected
- Anthropocentrism: human interest should be protected
32
Wolves in Wisconsin
- Pre-European settlement: 3,000 to 5,000. wolves in state
- 1865 to 1957: Bounty on Wolves
- The last wolf shot in WI, 1954
- No real argument that wolves could impact deer to a large degree
33
How do people share the burden?
People in the southern part are willing to pay for wolves, but the northern is not. (Lack of knowledge)
34
Compensation Programs for Predator Losses
- Cons: Costly, Fraudulent, Remove incentives to protect livestock, promote the idea that default landscape is predator free
- Pros: Equity: pay those who suffer direct costs of carnivore conservation, politically popular.
35
Which Bill approved the wolf hunt in Wisconsin?
Bill 411
- Human society was more concerned with dogs than the actual hunt of wolves
- It was the fault of the wolf, not humans, even though humans live in the wolf's habitat. And disturb them with dogs when hunting bears.
36
What about Native Americans?
- They were given quotas but didn't use them because they understand that belong with the environment and therefore understand that wolves are in their environment just as much as humans.
37
Social Construction
- Necessary to support broader ecosystem terms
- More based on society's beliefs rather than science
38
A short history of uranium:
- All of earth's uranium is in the geosphere and has been there for all of our planet's 4.6 billion year of life.
- Radioactive, created by supernovae
39
Who discovered Uranium?
-Martin Klaproth
- Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity by accident
- Pierre Curie said, "The question must be raised whether radioactivity will benefit mankind, or whether the knowledge will be helpful."
40
What was the Manhattan Project?
- In 1939 the Manhatten project was launched, worked to enrich uranium to make it more fissile. Later used to make bombs.
41
What was "peaceful nuclear"?
(split between those who wanted to develop "peaceful" nuclear technology) after the US had used nuclear bombs in WW2
42
What are some examples of Nuclear Accidents?
- 1979: three-mile island in Pennsylvania
- 1986: Chernobyl in the Soviet Union
- 2011: Fukushima, Japan
43
What are the different types of nuclear waste?
- High level: spent nuclear fuel - 'radwaste'
- Low level: other contaminated materials, such as tailings
(lower carbon footprint, but harder to deal with)
44
Yucca Mountain
- Nevada desert, high-level nuclear waste (radwaste) storage. Had poor risk communication, but there is a high perception of risk. Many risk assessments were done.
45
What happened to Navajo Nation?
(1919 law opened Indian reserves up to mining exploration)
- By the 1950s there were dozens of uranium mines in Navajo country
- Capitalists secure the conditions of production, and loss of externalities. Unable to speak up since they didn't speak much English.
- 56 times as much lung cancer than the national average amongst mine workers.
- 1971 - $250 million spent demolishing and rebuilding 4,000 buildings in Grand Junction. (took 30 years to do the same for the Navajo despite knowing the problem since 1975)
- 2005 (Navajo nation banned all uranium mining on their territory)
(environmental justice issue)
46
What does the Social Construction of nature tell us?
(discourses)
- Discourses about wilderness and development determine what is appropriate and not appropriate.
- Terra Nullius: British settlement and unowned land (national interest)
47
What about Kakadu National Park?
- Ranger Uranium Mine - began in 1980, surrounded by Kakadu National Park
- (The national park socially constructs the area as wilderness)
- Aboriginals have been stricken from discourses related to the landscape by developers and environmentalists
- Little positive impact, Aboriginal people are largely against uranium mining for different reasons than environmentalists (health)
48
What are some alternatives to Uranium mining?
- Alternative energy sources: solar, wind, geothermal
- Investing in energy-efficient buildings
- Incentives for more efficient energy consumption
- Green Taxes
49
Why study Tuna?
- Tuna is a familiar commodity to most of us.
- Tuna are representative of many overfishing and collateral damage crises in the world's oceans
50
Why has the high demand for bluefin and enhanced fishing techniques led to ecological destruction through:
- The overfishing of bluefin stocks
- Bycatch: The accidental harvest of non-targeted marine species
51
What are the main Tuna fishing techniques?
- Purse-seine fishing: a net encircles the school of fish and the bottom is drawn shut (dolphins become bycatch because they school above tuna and drown in the nets)
- Longliners: fishing lines with hundreds or thousands of hooks are dragged behind the boat. (Bycatch includes birds, mammals, and sea turtles who are attracted to the bait)
- Tuna ranching: young wild tuna are captured and reared for human consumption. (Young tuns are preferentially harvested, which puts pressure on the wild tuns populations)
52
What is the Eastern Tropical Pacific yellowfin tuna fishery (ETP)?
(Covers 18 million km from California to Chile)
- Improvements in fishing techniques allowed for greater profitability in yellowfin harvest, but led to a great amount of dolphin mortality. Since dolphins school above tuns and often drown in purse-seine nets
- Tuna dolphin problem
53
What is the puzzle of Tuna?
- Tuna is not bounded by political borders, but its fate is tied to global geopolitical decisions
- Tuna is too valuable for their own good, and high demand for tuna cannot be sustained at this rate
- Tuna is still readily available on the marketplace despite declining wild populations
- It is nearly impossible to harvest tuna without negatively impacting other important species
54
Markets and commodities: eco-labels to the rescue?
- Green consumerism: the idea that responsible consumer purchasing can change the behavior of firms and industries
55
What have been some attempts at solutions through legislation?
(protests of environmental activists inspired the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) in 1972.
-Prohibits the killing or sale of marine mammals
- Mandates that tuna fisheries be managed for "optimum sustained population"
- Allows for the accidental death of dolphins as long as populations remain above sustainable
- (In the 1980s) Earth Island Institute started a consumer boycott of canned tuna and came up with the idea of "dolphin-safe" tuna labeling.
- Foreign tuna was banned because they did not have a way to prove that they use dolphin-safe practices
56
What did the Dolphin Protection Consumer Information Act promote? (1990)
1. Protection of dolphins from capture by purse seine nets
2. Provide labeling standards for tuna exported from or sold in the USA
3. Setting penalties for non-compliance
57
What did dolphin safe accomplish and at what cost?
- The label was successful in changing the mortality of dolphins, through a market-based solution, but it didn't mean that it is ecologically sustainable.
58
What do the political economy and market environmentalists think the solutions can be for Tuna?
- The market environmentalist approach argues that markets can solve environmental problems
- Political economy approach argues that capitalist production is the root cause of these problems, so markets cannot ever solve them..
(draws attention to the pressures exerted on the environment and on society by capitalist accumulation), how resources such as tuna may be exploited for their elimination
59
What is the yellowfin tuna industry an example of?
- The second contradiction of capitalism, a change in the means of production (purse-seine nets, longliners) and high competition threatens the conditions of production (tuna)
(being successful at fishing destroys the availability of fish in the ocean)
60
What are the geopolitics of Tuna?
- Maximum sustainable yield: the largest amount of natural resource that can be harvested indefinitely (race to harvest, more fish faster)
- Exclusive economic zones (EEZs): were implemented in order for countries to control fish stocks within 200 miles of their coast
61
From Fordist to a Post-Fordist fishery:
- Fordism: a style of production which:
The same company may own all parts of production, domestic corporations compete with foreign ones, and mass production is combined with high wages and mass consumption. (the tuna industry was all based in the US in the 1960s)
- Post-Fordism: a later style of production in which: Production processes are carried out by different corporations, in different countries. Resource extraction, production, and consumption processes are flexible enough to move to new locations that offer higher profits (new resources, cheaper labor, new markets, etc) (spatial fix)
62
What is the Marine Stewardship Council:
(post-Fordist regulatory system)
- AN MSC label can be earned by meeting sustainability requirements
-Takes money and connections to get certified, so small companies and individual fishers are often left out.
63
What do Ethics and ecocentrism tell us about Tuna?
(the social construction of charismatic species, and animal rights are different issues than ecosystems)
- The dolphin-safe tuns labels were a victory for dolphins, but the unsustainable harvesting of tuna and other fish continues
- The ethics of animal rights is more important than that of ecological sustainability.
64
Rights for "noble creatures" (the case against dolphin setting)
- Efforts in conservation tend to focus on species rather than systems or individual animals
(ecological ethic - it is okay to kill individual animals as long as the species is not threatened)
Animal rights ethic: animals should have rights because they suffer, so any action that causes suffering is wrong
Moral extensions: equal consideration (not always the equal treatment of nonhumans).
- (Animals rights over the ecological ethic)
65
Big A and small a (Anthropocene)
Big A: geological epic/era humans influence/change the earth
little a: humans are capable of influencing the earth like never before
(climate change, problem of scale)
66
What did the Kyoto Protocol create in 1996?
It mandated the establishment of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in order to support more climate change-friendly development.
(resulted in the "greening" of hydropower dam development, even though dams often cause serious negative environmental and social impacts, as documented globally by the World Commission on Dams (2000)
67
Which Dam did they look at in Cambodia?
Focused on looking at the largest and most controversial dam to be built in Cambodia so far, the Lower Sesan 2 dam, located on the Susan River in Stung Treng Providence.
(four dams, through the CDM process and received financing through selling carbon credits)
- Built at the confluence of the Srepok River and the Sesan River in the Sesan District, stung Treng Providence.
- (very controversial project; serious concerns about environmental and social impacts) Reducing Mekong fisheries by 12%.
68
Why didn't they use carbon credits?
Since carbon credits didn't work well in a market system, the carbon system fell apart.
- (more methane coming from dam reservoirs than previously thought)
69
What were the conclusions found through the Sesan dam 2?
- Sustainable development issues have not been adequately considered in relation to CDM. Biodiversity and local livelihoods are being impacted.
(Unevenness and political ecology
1. Global vs Local - Global emission reductions are valued whereas local impacts are not valued
2. Empowers Central governments and their corporate supporters and not local people
3. Costs and benefits are unevenly distributed (environment, livelihoods)
SHOULD WE BE SACRIFICING THE ENVIRONMENT, JUST TO DIMINISH EMISSIONS? PEOPLE DON'T think ABOUT The CONTRIBUTIONS TO ISSUES (HOLISTIC VIEW/POLITICAL ECOLOGY VIEW)
70
Who published the Lawn People novel?
Paul Robbins
71
History of Lawns
- First cultivated thousands of years ago for livestock grazing.
- Many plant species, including grasses cam. to North America via the Columbia Exchange.
- Originated from Europe, Asia, and Africa
- With the expansion of the suburbs in the 1940s and 1950s, due to greater use of the automobile, lawn spaces expanded.
(Minery and chemical inputs needed to maintain MONOCULTURE lawns were also developed)
72
Lawns and Chemicals
(lawn chemicals were particularly toxic)
- In the late 1930s, DDT was developed. It was actually believed to be safer than the previous generation of chemicals.
- In 1962 Rachel Carson exposed the problems of DDT in Silent Spring (freshwater and marine life and birds populations) like many other organo-chlorines, DDT is very persistent.
(Was banned in the USA in 1972)
73
What is the positive impact of lawns?
Urban heat island effect reduction in cities (better than concrete)
74
Risk and Chemical decision-making with lawns
(What. is the risk perception among Americans related to lawn chemicals?)
- In early 2000, it was found surprisingly, that people who use lawn chemicals are the most aware of their environmental impacts (higher educated)
(curb appeal)
75
What is the social construction of lawns?
- A certain narrative has developed, which is linked to particular ideologies
(affect = emotions and unconscious responses)
- Socially constructed landscapes are filled with agreed-upon meanings.
76
What is the political economy of lawns?
- The US turfgrass industry was worth 57.9 billion in 2002, with $10 billion in lawn chemicals
- Various players: retail sellers, lawn services, distributors, formulators, manufactures
- Each player linked to the commodity chain
- pull marketing (convincing people that they have. a problem that they previously did not have)
- Spatial fix
77
A short history of the french fry.
-Different varieties of potato were cultivated in the Andes, but the globalization and homogenization of the global food economy have led to increasing reliance on one particular cultivar, the Russet Burbank potato.
(Domestication - change a plant or animal from its wild characteristics to better fit humans)
- Came to America through the Columbian Exchange
78
Why did the potato not become widespread in North America when the Irish had taken the potato over?
- Prejudice against the potato among European Americans
- Prejudice against the colonizers (Europeans) trying to settle and force potato cultivation on the native Americans.
79
Why did the french fry become so popular in American culture?
- Soldiers returning from World War 1 brought the idea of fried potato strips to the US
- The rise of drive-through and fast food and the compatibility of fries with this food genre led to the ubiquity and popularity
80
What is the risk analysis of potatoes?
Potatoes present a health risk to human bodies as well as the environment (the two are linked)
81
The science of good and bad fats
Hydrogenization: the process used on oils and fats to make foods have a better consistency.
- Which produces trans fat
- In 1957, The American Heart Association announced that saturated fats are linked to heart disease. Since trans fats were considered a healthy alternative and became a huge portion of the American diet.
- 1990s, the AHA linked trans fats to heart disease, diabetes and other illnesses.
82
What are food deserts?
-A area which has a much
greater density of fast-food restaurants than
grocery stores and fruit vendors
- They tend to occur in low-income and minority
neighborhoods
- They are also associated with a high incidence of
diabetes, obesity, and other health problems
83
Globalization as McDonaldization
In the 1970s, Jim Hightower warned about the
McDonaldization of America, or the rapid
homogenization of food culture
(example of spatial fix)
-Companies were under high competition and began
to move around the world looking for new markets
84
What does the Ethic approach tell us about french fries?
- The ethics approach can be used to assess
how we value species and species diversity
- It can also help us to understand why certain
activities such as the use of biotechnology can
become controversial
85
What does an ecocentric and anthropocentric approach tell us about potatoes?
- An ecocentric approach to environmental ethics
would assert that we are eliminating all other
potato species and creatures that depend on
them
- An anthropocentric approach would argue that it
is better to serve the needs of humans
86
What about Biotechnology?
- Farmers keep producing them because there
is such a demand for the Russet Burbank
- Biotechnology is often sought to improve the
the success of agricultural production, but
genetically-modified (GM) crops can be
controversial
- The New Leaf potato was a version of the Russet Burbank that produced its own pesticide to prevent total crop death. (But consumers were not willing to consume the pesticide, so the New Leaf potato was abandoned) he small farmers who cannot afford the patented seeds have more difficulty competing
87
What was the Slow Food Movement?
- Began in the 1980s in the U.S.
- Good – the quality of food and experience
- Clean – light environmental footprint
- Fair – socially just food economies
- (Elitist)
88
What is the main problem with E-Waste?
- E-waste stands uneasily between being
“waste” and “commodity”
89
Problem with Cathode Ray Tubes (CRTs)?
- Lots of lead used with CRTs caused problems
for landfills.
- In October 2001 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began to require that CRTs be sent to special recycling locations.
- Warehouses full of useless CRTs were
abandoned.
(Taking a risk assessment approach, it was
seen as the better of two bad options.)
90
Why is E-Waste hazardous?
1. the products themselves
2. substandard processing (chemicals
released)
3. use of reagents like cyanide when recycling
91
What is the Pollution Haven Hypothesis?
- A theory that holds that some countries might voluntarily reduce environmental regulations in order to attract foreign direct investment.
-The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal is designed to prevent wealthier countries from dumping hazardous waste on less developed countries.
92
Why was recycling E-Waste problematic?
- Cost of disposing of waste was an externality
- The cost of disposing of waste was replaced by recycling, a benefit for capitalists
- Recycling programs sounded good initially but some
programs were actually exporting e-waste
- Recycling programs served as loopholes to export e-
waste
93
Which places were impacted by E-Waste and therefore relied on it for their livelihoods and professions?
- Agbogbloshie, Ghana
- Guiyi, Guangdong Providence, China: (previously the e-waste capital of the world.
- Starting in 2018, China's waste import ban is prevented foreign inflows of waste products. The ban caused widespread repercussions globally. It is promoting investment in domestic recycling facilities and innovation in plastics production, making these products easier to reuse.
94
Once again an example of a spatial fix in E-Waste
- After the ban policy started in China and before the policy was learned by surrounding Asian countries, the imported trash increased by about half time in Indonesia, two times in Vietnam, and tens of times in Thailand.
- These countries are big waste-importing countries as well but don't have the ability to recycle and deal with so much waste, so many of them started to decrease and stop importing waste from western countries to alleviate serious environmental problems.
