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UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY
DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY
Semester 20XX
Professor Tad Mutersbaugh
Office and Mailbox: 14th Floor of POT;
email: tmute2@uky.edu -- I respond to emails only once each weekday
Geography Office: 1457 POT: Complaints: Sue Roberts, Chair, Department of
Geography
GEOGRAPHY 365 GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
This course addresses environmental questions including population/resource
consumption, environmental degradation and biodiversity conservation, and toxic
contamination and environmental justice. Particular attention will be devoted to
environmental impacts of agricultural and industrial development, inequality in income
and resource use, and the human dimension of human-environment interaction. The
first portion of the course considers population growth and explores the underlying
reasons for
environmentally degrading practices, the second explores general
problems of environmental degradation, industrialization, and toxic contamination. A
balance will be struck between review of the extent and logic of environmental
destruction through industrial and agricultural practices, and investigation of popular
and state-level mobilizations to define environmental problems and protect the
environment. The course provides students with both an overview of environmental
issues/problems and an understanding of underlying social processes which create and
frustrate resolution of these problems.
Lectures: Monday, Wednesdays & Fridays
Books and Readers for Global Environmental Issues
Zimmerer, Karl: New Geographies of Conservation
Website with readings to download:
http://www.uky.edu/~tmute2/Global-Env-Issues/
Password: ‘nature’ (to access the readings page)
Course Grading
Mid-term: 30% of Final Grade
Assignments: 55% of Final Grade
Participation: 15%.
Late Policy: ½ of one letter grade for each day late
Grades may be curved upwards, but will not be curved down
Assignments must be returned in person during class on the day that they are due,
unless prior arrangements can be made. If you do make prior arrangements to email the
assignment, it must be in either .pdf or Word (.doc NOT .docx) formats.
Boilerplate and Disclaimers:
Students with Disabilities: I will make any and every reasonable accommodation. Please
come and speak to me if you have any special needs.
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Plagiarism is not permitted. Please do not copy from other sources or students and present
it as your own work. It is grounds for academic dismissal (not to mention boring). If you
have questions about what might constitute plagiarism, please consult the student handbook
or come and talk to me.
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GEO 365: Global Environmental Issues: Topics & Readings
Topics
Intro: Syllabus; Readings; Course Organization
Biodiversity
Intro to Environmental Destruction: Commodity Chains
Worlds: North/South; 1st/3rd; Western/Non-Western
The Carbon Footprint;
Soft Paths, Hard Paths and Global Warming
People: Cultures of Consumption
Demographic Transitions & Situated Rationalities
Nuclear Energy and Decommissioning vs. Sustainable sources
Nuclear & BioWeapons Testing: Global Dead Zones
Solar, Wind, Geothermal, Conservation: Why not?
Farm to Plate: the global food chain
Intellectual Property Rights, Seeds and the Green Revolution
Food & Environmental Degradation: Soil Erosion
Mutersbaugh
Readings
Zimmerer Book Introduction
Gould: The episodic nature of evolutionary change
Gould: nature's odd couples
Gould: Darwin's Middle Road
Conservation Biology and Biodiversity: types of biod
1. Gereffi: industrial product commodity chains
2. the coffee commodity chain
Poverty and Development in the 1990s ch 8 'Capita
Europe' pp 168- 184; with pg 26&27 of 3W Atlas
Cronin 'The Wealth of Nature: Lumber',
Winona La Duke
Botkin. 'Winds of Mauna Loa'
Herald-Leader: Lexington Carbon Footprint/Brookin
http://www.nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/calcu
Movie: Affluenza
Merchant: Back to Eden
Glacken: Traces
Erlich: Population Bomb
Sen: 100 Million Women are Missing
Global Migrations:
Northern Nuclear Power
Nuclear Power in the Global South: Mexico
Nuclear fuel cycles and proliferation
Davis. 'Dead West: Ecocide in Marlboro Country'
Peak Energy
Mansfield B, 2003, Fish, factory trawlers, and imitati
quality in the seafood industry JOURNAL OF RURA
Pollan M. 2000. ‘The Organic-Industrial Complex’
Kloppenburg & Kleinman. 'Seed Wars: Common He
and Political Strategy' (Reader)
Political Economy of Soil Erosion and Desertification
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Global Environmental Issues Readings Schedule page #2
Ecological agriculture and peasant farming
Toxic Contamination of Biosphere: Overview
Ecoconsumerism (green products, ecotourism) Ecotrade
Epidemiology: Studying Toxics and Workers
Biocides and Fertilizers in Fields, Food and Drinking Water
Food and Inputs: Toxics and Alternatives
Waste disposal and export, conventional
Pollution Politics and Social Justice
Dynamics of Habitat Destruction
Green Managerialism: ‘Selling Nature to Save It’ and Fortress
Conservation
Green Managerialism: Conservation and Culture
Environmental Social Movements, Indigenous and Peasant
Resistance
Gender and the Environment
Sustainable Futures
Mutersbaugh
WinklerPrins in New Geographies of Conservation
B Traven: Mexican farmers
Padoch: Farmers and Conservation
Mutersbaugh: Non-Territorial Conservation
Rachel Carson: Silent Spring
Robbins and Sharp. 2003. "Producing and Consum
Economy of the American Lawn" Economic Geogra
Pesticides in the Developing World
Ocean Dead Zones
Henwood. 'Toxic Banking'
Swaney: Summers’ Memo
UN Climate Report and Valuation of Crops and Peo
Bullard 'Anatomy of Environmental Justice' (Reader
Swaney 'So What's Wrong with Dumping on Africa?
Pearce. 'Price of life sends temperatures soaring' (R
Pulido L, 2000, Rethinking environmental racism: W
development in southern CaliforniaANN ASSOC AM
Broad & Cavanagh. Plundering Paradise
Hecht and Cockburn: Fate of the Forest
Hughes, D, (2001) ‘Rezoned for business: how ecofarmland in eastern Zimbabwe’ Journal of Agrarian
Homewood K, Brockington D Biodiversity, conserva
Mkomazi Game Reserve, Tanzania GLOBAL ECOL
BIOGEOGRAPHY 8 (3-4): 301-313 MAY-JUL 1999
Sierra in New Geographies of Conservation
in New Geographies of Conservation
Sundberg in New Geographies of Conservation
Sneddon in New Geographies of Conservation
Turner in New Geographies of Conservation
Zapatista Web Site: www.ezln.org
Chico Mendes: Amazon Rubber-TapperÍs Union
Schroeder R, 1997, Re-Claiming Land in the Gamb
Rights and Environmental Intervention Annals of the
Geographers