Lecture Guides, 8/24—10/05
Lecture guide for 8-24
GPB 1-15 & Sand County Almanac
GPB
- Trends in global awareness of environmental problems
- Challenges to studying environmental politics – causes of pollution and
environmental degradation
o Scientific uncertainty
o Social dimensions
- Questions of power, interest, authority, and legitimacy that shape environmental
debates
- Ideas that have most powerfully shaped the debate and action
Sand County Almanac
- Context of Leopold’s work & Leopold’s background
- Style of SCA – months
Key ideas:
- Human intervention in plant succession
- “timely laws to protect nature” (p.37)
- Value of Leopold’s experience – full memory not a full creel
- Fundamentals of an “ecological education”
- River progress
- “Idle spots” (p.47)
- Nature enhances nature (August, September, October)
- November – month of the axe
o Human use of the shovel (the giver) & the axe (the taker) = divine
responsibility
o Definition of a conservationist
o Biases
- Woodsmanship & translation between science & ethics
- Effects of the modern dogma
Lecture Guide for 8-26
Leopold pp. 95-162 - (Sketches here and there); Economist "When nature goes
too far" (linked)
Key concepts:
• Modern dogma/ modern mentality of "comfort at any cost" (p.71) = degradation
of land
• Nature has Aesthetic value
• Quality of outdoor experience is decreasing
• Characteristics of a conservationist
• Arizona/ New Mexico
• Transition from stewardship resource management mentality to stewardship &
ecological conscience
• Land transitions via humans
• Leopold’s treatment of farmer v. treatment of woodsman
• Key words to describe different sketches
• Economist’s thesis in Yellowstone article
Lecture guide for 8-29
Shadow Ecologies pp. 94-6 (e-reserve); Rees "Your ecological footprint" (linked);
Beckermanhow "Lightly do you tread?" (linked); Economist "Treading Lightly" (linked)
Goals of lecture:
- Consider notion that people are ecological entities
- Consider why, if all humans are ecological entities, there is a marked inequality in
the "ecological footprints" of people in different cultures and places?
Key Words/Concepts:
• ecological footprint v. ecological shadow
•
ecological deficit
•
ecological location v. physical location
•
ecological sustainability
•
ecological space
•
ecologically benign
•
•
•
ecological capital
•
global hinterland
•
trade & ecological ties
•
how to sustain ecological shadows
•
what can’t be measured can’t be managed
ecological costs
Lecture Guide for 8-31
GPB Ch. 10 pp. 107-117 "Think Locally, Act Globally?" ; Tsosie "Tribal
Environmental Policy in an Era of Self-Determination" (linked); Economist "Dirt
Poor" (linked)
Organization/Goals:
 Cultural constructions of nature

Review of mechanics of ecological footprints/shadows

Links between ecological footprint and culture

Cultural constructions of environmental v. economic constructions of
environmental problems

Mobilizing culture in conflicts over nature
Key Concepts/ Ideas:
 European v. Indigenous
o World views
o Human relationships w/ nature
o Ways of valuing nature
o Time and space
o Spiritual origins and value of human landscapes
o Sustainability
 Culture
 Cultural development
 Culture & landscape use
o Beastie Boys (Ad-Rock) Banana Boom scenario on relationship between
Environmental footprint and Culture
 Mobilization of culture to influence flow of information in international networks
o Challenges?
Lecture Guide for 9-2
Marx - Capital ch26,27 ( e-reserve)
Organization:
 Tension between development and conservation

Key Words/ Concepts for Understand Marx

Marx’s materialist theory of economic history

Marx & Alienation
Key concepts/Ideas:
 To explain how and why humans transform the natural environment we have to
consider the tension between development and conservation
o We have to talk about nature – Leopold does a lot of this
o We have to talk about human transformation of nature
o We have to talk about differences in how people conceive of nature
 We have to understand human interaction with the environment as a function of
the intersection of cultural, economic, ecological, and political processes.
Key Terms for understanding Marx
• Time period
• Capital
• Primitive Accumulation
• Capitalist production
• Capital-relation
• Commodities
• Technology
• Use Value
• Exchange Value
• Commodity Fetishism
• Profit
• Yeoman
• Enclosures
• Violence, church, legislation
• Main point
• As humans are removed from the land & lose ownership of the means of
production, the way that land was valued (it’s use value to the yeoman) is
also, to a certain degree, lost
• Labor & humans’ relationships to the environment
Lecture Guide for 9-7
State of the world 2003 xix-14 (linked); Vital signs 2003 33-41, 43-60 (linked);
Vital Signs part II—recommended
Organization:
• Marx - take home points revisited
•
Why are we reading this?
•
Lester Brown
•
WWI Background
•
Group Activity
• Ranking WWI’s 5 serious threats
• Population & resource scarcity
• Biotic mixing
• Long term risks of toxic chemicals
• Geochemical flux
• World is in a state of ecological decline
•
Key concepts/ideas:
 Primitive accumulation
o good or bad?
 Deer farms
 Exploitation of the land
 Context/ Background of Lester Brown & World Watch Institute
o WWI’s goals
o WWI’s focus
o WWI’s strategy
 Aurignacian transition
 Links between different threats to environment
Lecture Guide for 9-9
Lomborg - Intro pp. 3-33 (linked); Conclusion pp. 327-352; focus on Lomborg's
discussion of the 'fundamentals' & the words he uses to describe reality v. myth
Organization
• Reactions to Lomborg?
• Lomborg background & reactions to TSE
• Lomborg's argument
• GEOG 3422 V. Lomborg
• Discussion
• What non-renewable resource is the most important for Lomborg?
• How does Lomborg suggest that environmental threats be dealt with?
• Where are political processes for Lomborg?
• Quiz
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
What word does Lomborg continuously use to refer to the overabundance
of misguided information about environmental degradation?
What does Lomborg say is it absolutely necessary for humans to do with
their efforts, "in many different fields," to improve the world?
For Lomborg, at what scale do statistics about the environment have to be
analyzed in order for us to see the “real” state of the world?
Does Lomborg argue that the problem of water scarcity is an issue of
access, an issue of over consumption, or a political issue?
Is Lomborg trying to increase the complexity of environmental problems
or to decrease it?
Key Concepts/Ideas
 Lomborg’s background/inspirations
 Lomborg’s goal
 Reactions to The Skeptical Environmentalist (TSE)
 Myth of Economic Welfare v. Greener environment
 Environmental development stems from economic development
 So how do we make sure that environmental and economic development will be
sustainable?
 Greasy plate metaphor
 Prioritization, Risk, trade-offs
 Growth
Lecture Guide for 9/12
Nash “Wilderness & the American Mind” prologue, introduction, Ch1 (skim ch.1),
Ch 2. (linked)
Organization:
• Lomborg's argument
•
Nash's background
•
WAM in a nutshell
•
Origins of "Wilderness"
•
Wilderness Condition & the American frontier
Key Concepts/Ideas:
• Myth of Economic Welfare v. Greener environment
• Environmental development & economic development
• Nash’s background and context of Wilderness & the American Mind
• Wilderness is a state of mind
• Etymology of wilderness
• Wilderness condition
• Judgment of wilderness
• Wilderness and material progress
• Modern definition of wilderness – problems
• Applying wilderness
• Emergence of ethical & aesthetic values
Lecture Guide for 9-14
GPB pp. 24 - 36 (Meadows et al. & Castro); National Geographic (linked)
Organization:
• QUIZ
•
CONSERVATION THOUGHT IN THE 1950s and 60s
•
CLUB OF ROME & STOCKHOLM 1972
•
LIMITS TO GROWTH (Meadows et al.)
• ENVIRONMENT & DEVELOPMENT (Castro)
Key concepts & Ideas:
• Developing countries
• Developed countries
• Environment Fund
• Qs about which issues the conference should deal with
• 1950s & 60s
•
•
•
•
•
•
•


economic growth
government intervention
Western formula
environmental crisis
Limits to growth
o Inherent "limits to growth"
o Assumptions
o earth is finite
o trade-offs
o Evidence
 Systems modeling
o Limitations of study
 data quality and computer capabilities’
o 5 trends of global concern
o Technological solutions
Environment & Development
o Freezing of the present international order
o "spaceship earth"
o myth of natural limits
o pollution of poverty v. Pollution of affluence
o developing countries’ position on the environment
Lecture Guide for 9-16
GPB pp. 37-71 (Hardin, Buck, Ophuls.); Economist Water Hazard (linked)
Organization:
• TECHNOLOGY
•
ENVIRONMENT & DEVELOPMENT
•
TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS
Key Concepts & Ideas:
 "green area reserve" & ethical Qs
 ecological policy and development
 Hardin’s background & context of tragedy of the commons
 What are the commons?
 What is the tragedy?
 What causes the tragedy?
 Morality
 Doing nothing
 Welfare state
 Private Property
 Hardin's Solution?
 No tragedy of the commons? - significance
Lecture Guide for 9-19
Leopold pp.163-226 (the Upshot)
Organization:
• Wilderness
– Wilderness
•
What is the “goodness” of wilderness?
– Conservation Esthetic
•
What is the cultural value of wilderness ?
– Wildlife in American Culture
•
Besides culture, why else should we preserve wilderness?
– Wilderness
•
How should we preserve wilderness?
– The Land Ethic
Key Concepts/ Ideas:
 Preservation of Cultural inheritance
 2 impending changes related to wilderness
 Sport and cultural values
 threats to the value of sport
 gadgets
 the "goodness" of outdoor recreation
 an esthetic exercise
 wildlife research (new sport)
 remnants – threats
 ethics – history & complexity of
 expanding the community
 land ethic & ecological conscience
 conceptualizing an ethical relation to land
 dissention & basic paradoxes
Lecture Guide for 9-21
Organization:
•
How should we preserve wilderness?
– The Land Ethic
•
Nature-State-Territory
– summary
•
Paper topic
•
Quiz
•
Compare & contrast Neumann's argument about the enclosure of the
commons in "Nature-State-Territory" to either Marx's argument (Ch. 26
& 27 Capital) or Hardin's argument (Tragedy of the Commons) about the
commons.
• Why does/should enclosure happen?
• How does the enclosure take place?
Key Concepts/ Ideas:
 Leopold’s idea of wilderness – “raw material”
 Neumann’s idea of wilderness – “artifactual wilderness”
 Construction of wilderness & enclosure of the commons
 Why are national parks and wilderness reserves created?
o Spatial control = development
o proprietary claims & mapping nature = state
 How are parks created?
o enclosure
o sedentarization, concentration, reservations
Lecture Guide for 9-23
Organization:
• Social Construction of nature
•
Enclosing Nature & the Modern State
•
The case of the Yosemite & the Hetch Hetchy valley
Key Concepts/Ideas:
 man ---- wilderness --- artifact = civilization
 man ---- environment - artifactual wilderness
 spatial control & development
 proprietary claims
 projects of the modern state
 “forest”; “agricultural enterprise”; “settlement”
 Enclosure
 Sedentarization, concentration, reservations
 Tools of the state
 Hetch Hetchy conflict
o History
o Preservationists
o Promoters
o What’s missing?
9/27 Lecture Guide
Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
Organization:
 Carson’s Background
 Context of Silent Spring
 Key Arguments
Key terms/concepts:
 1935-1952 - Worked as a marine biologist for the F & W service
 1952 – The Sea Around Us became a best seller and Carson quit F & W job
 DDT – ‘savior of mankind’
o stopped the transmittal of typhus through fleas, DDT saved millions of lives
during the war.
 Carson wanted to bring science of chemical use into public view
 Reactions to Silent Spring
 Carson’s style (Problem, Summary, Case Studies, Alternatives, Rhetorical Qs)
 Information on chemicals (composition, effects on cellular processes, storage in
fat, transmission via food chain)
 Carson’s argument: chains of life = chains of poison
o
o
o
o
People are unfairly exposed to chemical insecticides & herbicides
 destruction of wildlife & ecosystems - deprivation of pleasure to which
the recreationist has a legitimate right (p.86)
We don’t know enough about them
we must think about water, soil, wildlife and ourselves "in terms of the chains of
life we support"
invasions of species/ chemical use & control/ alternatives to chemicals
 The problems (specialists, industry, response to public protest, public assumes
risk, scientific uncertainty)
 Negative economic consequences of pesticide use?
Lecture Guide for 9/30
Finish Silent Spring
Organization:
 Silent Spring Viewing guide
 Babbit presentation
 Science & Conservation Thought
 Risk Humans Environment
 Common themes
 Framing the question of Risks of Chemicals –
o The goal of this lecture was to make you guys think about the nature of the
information that decision makers use to make decisions about conservation and
development issues. Both Lomborg's & Carson's arguments talk about Risk in
order to sway opinion about chemical use in a certain direction. Instead of
talking about whose argument is correct (and whose is wrong), though, we
discussed how Lomborg & Carson use risk to make certain elements of the
chemical-human-environment nexus visible & to make others visible.
Key concepts/ideas:
 Question about the universality of science from the Silent Spring video viewing
guide
 Scientific uncertainty in Lomborg & Carson
o
o
Lomborg says its because we don’t know how to interpret results of animal
testing into acceptable daily intake figures
 = debate over whether threshold (beyond which levels are
dangerous) actually exists
Carson says its because not enough resources are directed towards researching
the question
 Social Construction of nature


Nature is socially constructed (society creates artifactual nature) v. Nature
exists apart from society
influenced by a complex web of interactions
 cultural perceptions of nature
 economic ties between different cultural groups ( who have
different perceptions of nature)
 ecological spaces (which might have always existed as
“wilderness” or which might have been constructed as
“wilderness” only as a political/economic project of the drive
towards modernity) shape & are shaped by our cultural perceptions
of the possibilities of that ecological space & by economic ties.
 Paralysis
 If we reduce the tension between conservation & development to a purely “social
construction” argument everything that exists becomes subjective (well, if you
look at it this way… well if you look at it that way…)
 Risk, Humans, Environment
 Carson & Lomborg both agree that the risk exists and that risk itself is an
inherent condition of being alive in modern society.
o 2 different constructions of RISK
 Framing of this conflict over the effects of pesticide use in terms of three criteria
o Goal of argument
o Framing of risk
o Scale of the framing of risk
o Visibility & Invisibility
o Conclusions about risk
 Carson v. Lomborg handout
 Where a debate is characterized by scientific uncertainty arguments are often
framed in terms of risk
 = science (supposed objective & universal knowledge) can be used
strategically in the framing of risk
 framing of risk allows for plurality of scales
o many debates about the environment are framed in terms of risk
o Making things visible is an essential effect of framing
o Making things invisible is an equally critical effect
Lecture Guide for 10/3
Avery – Saving the World with Pesticides
Organization
 Quiz
o Explain two ways that high yield agricultural technologies and practices
preserve the environment.
 Paper clarification
 Risk – Visibility & Invisibility revisited
 High Yield Agriculture – visibility & invisibility
Key Concepts/Ideas:
 Risk – visibility & invisibility revisited
o RISK IS A TOOL that humans use when there is
 scientific uncertainty about the nature of a specific issue
 the issue is controversial.
o
o
Case Study problem – how should the results of scientific studies conducted in
one place be interpreted?
Avery’s framing of risk of pesticides
 Risk to humans and wildlife from agrochemicals < the risk of
losing wildlife (and human life) to low yields and plowing down
of more habitat.
 High Yield Agriculture & Food Production
o See handout for visibility & invisibility of Avery’s framing of risk
 The Africa problem
o Risks associated with pesticides use/ non-use:
 Economic
 Ecological
 Human health
o What types of risks remain
 Cultural?
 Political?
 Why are these left out?
o What are the advantages and disadvantages of using Risk to make
arguments about conservation v. development?
Lecture Guide for 10-5
WWI – Gender Myopia
Organization
 HYA - Visibility & Invisibility revisited (see 10/3 handout)
 Gender Myopia
Key Concepts/Ideas
 HYA – skill, time & $$ intensive projects
 Disposal of pesticides?
 Why are culture & politics left out of the way the Carson, Lomborg, and Avery
frame risk?
o What would Nierenburg say is missing from these discussion?
 Qs of gender & equity
 the Q of whose health -- and Nierenburg wants to talk about people
like Mercedes -- 1) presents the most risk to the environment if it is
left unimproved 2) is threatened most by environmental
degradation.
 What does gender add to the discussion of the relationship between chemicals,
land use, humans, and the environments?
 Gender Lens & invisibility/visibility
o Women’s Reproductive health & Population
o Population & Environmental Degradation
o Distribution of exposure to chemicals/negative impacts of environmental
degradation is uneven between men & women
o Issues of power, rights and responsibilities emerge as essential
components of the process by which we pursue sustainable development/
conservation goals