Dr. Kevin Raskoff
• Instructor: Dr. Kevin Raskoff
• Email: kraskoff@mpc.edu
• Phone: (831) 646-4132
• Office: Life Science, 203B
• Office hours:
• The MPC site…
• Raskoff’s Class site…
• How to get yourself logged in…
• How to use them both and not get confused!
• Why is Raskoff not going to be passing out the handouts!?
– Waste
– Passivity
– Training
From Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)- 2002
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• Name
• Academic plan
• Why are you here at MPC and in this class?
• What is your comfort with science?
• What do you think is the biggest environmental problem?
?
• Current
Environmental
Topics
• Forms
• Debates
• Assessment
Sheet
?
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• Class Roster…
?
?
is
• What do you think?
• Environmental Studies = Environmental
Science = Environmentalism???
• Environment
( French- “encircle or surround”)
1. Circumstances and conditions that surround an organism or group of organisms.
2. Social and cultural conditions that affect an individual or community.
• Science
(Latin- “knowing”)
– A way of knowing…a process for producing knowledge
?
3

The best environmental policies incorporate economic, ecological, and social/cultural considerations.
Why?
So, it is not just about the ecosystem… humans are a big part!
Source : Modified from Ray Grizzle, Bioscience , vol. 44(4), April 1994.
• The Scientific Method
– What is science?
• It’s a special way of looking at the world.
• It’s not just a collection of facts…although knowing some facts does help!
– The scientific method is what makes knowing something through science different from other ways of “knowing” things.
• 2000 miles from coast
• Settled ~ AD 300
• Peak population of
10,000
• Giant stone monoliths, known as
Moai
– 30+ ft high, 80 tons!
– How move over 6 miles?
• What happened?
Example
• Observation- Eat a red chili…its HOT!
• Question- Do all red fruits taste hot?
• Hypothesis- All red fruits are hot.
• Prediction- I will eat other red fruits and they will also be hot.
• Test- Eat a red apple…NOT hot.
• Reevaluate- Maybe its not the color but something else…start over
“wash and repeat”
• Think of another example with a partner…
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• Hypothesis vs. Theory vs. Fact
• A Hypothesis is a proposed explanation based on all available evidence.
• A Theory is a hypothesis which is supported by a great deal of evidence and usually has broad explanatory power.
• Examples of theories?...
• A theory only has to fail once and it is wrong, but you can never truly “prove” a theory , only gather more support for it through un-ending tests.
This is why scientists are skeptical folks… but believe the world is knowable.
1.
World is knowable
2.
Patterns are uniform
3.
Parsimony is usually right
4.
Change in knowledge and ideas is expected
5.
Science can only support things, never prove them correct
6.
Even though absolute truth is not known, we can be increasingly accurate with our ideas
The general public is not used to thinking in terms of
4-6…which leads to a constant problem relating scientific topics to the masses (or Congress)
“Science...is only a tool, but it is the best tool we have; self-correcting, ever changing, applicable to everything." - Carl Sagan
Reasoned Judgment- how do you (we) decide?
Infant mortality
Food
Water
Literacy
Survival
Health care
• Four Distinct Stages:
– Pragmatic Resource Conservation
– Moral and Aesthetic Nature Preservation
– Modern Environmentalism
– Global Environmental Citizenship
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Four Distinct Stages
– Pragmatic Resource Conservation
• Theodore Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot
– Moral and Aesthetic Nature Preservation
• John Muir, Aldo Leopold
– Modern Environmentalism
• Rachel Carson, David Brower
– Global Environmental Citizenship
• Dr. Wangari Maathai
• President Theodore Roosevelt and his chief conservation advisor,
Gifford Pinchot, believed in utilitarian conservation.
– Forests should be saved so they can be used to provide homes and jobs.
• Should be used for “the greatest good for the greatest number, for the longest time.”
• First to sell rights to use public lands
• opposed reckless exploitation
• John Muir, first president of the Sierra Club, opposed
Pinchot’s utilitarian policies.
– Biocentric Preservation
• Emphasizes the fundamental right of all organisms to pursue their own interests.
• Helped to save the Yosemite
Valley and other wilderness areas.
• Founded the Sierra Club
• Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
(1962)
Awakened the public to threats of pollution and toxic chemicals to humans as well as other species.
• Modern environmentalism extends concerns to include both natural resources and environmental pollution.
• Her work lead to the creation of the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency in
1970
First Earth Day…?
1970!
• Increased travel and communication enables people to know about daily events in places unknown in previous generations.
– Common environment shared on a global scale.
• Global Environmentalism
• The “Global Village”
• Exploring links between our environment and poverty, injustice, oppression, exploitation, etc.
This is big stuff, never simple, and often hard to think about, but do we have any other choice?
• About 20% of the worlds population lives in the twenty richest countries.
– Average per capita income above $25,000
• Other 80% live in middle or low-income countries.
– Ten poorest countries each have average per capita income of less than $620
• Richest 200 people in the world have a combined wealth of $1 trillion.
– This is more than the total owned by poorest half of the world population (3 billion).
– What is the (inevitable?) result of this inequity?
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