Study Guide: Midterm 1 Geog 2412, Fall 2011
This is an outline of what has been covered in class so far, week by week. It should be used as a guide for you to
review your lecture notes. You should also refer back to the keywords given in each lecture and make sure you
know what they mean and how they relate to the material covered either in class, in your reading, or both. You
should also use you textbook to study. You can do this by: reviewing key words (bolded and boxed throughout the
chapter), reviewing the section at the end of each chapter titled, “Thinking with…,” and making sure you can
answer the “Questions for Review” at the end of each chapter.
Outline of what has been covered so to guide your studying
I.
Week 1: Nature Society Geography
a. What is a nature-society perspective?
b. Where does knowledge about the environment come from?
c. How does the question of lion conservation look from different perspectives?
d. Geographic Political ecology
e. Reconciliation ecology
II.
II.
Week 2: Population and Scarcity approach
a. Exponential growth
b. Linear growth
c. Malthus
d. Neo-Malthusian
e. Environmental Kuznets curve
f. IPAT
g. Carrying capacity
h. Ecological footprint
i. Shifting cultivation
j. Green revolution
k. Demographic transition model
l. Fertility rates, women’s rights, education
m. What are the general assumptions of a population perspective? How would this impact
possible ‘sollutions’ to environmental problems?
n. What are the limitations of a population perspective?
o. The role of consumption
Week 3: Markets and Commodities
a. Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon’s bet
b. Neoclassicism (assumptions)
c. Market response model
d. Jervons’ Paradox
e. Coase’s Theorem
f. Externalities
g. Market Failures
h. Story of Stuff film
 The golden arrow, planned and perceived obsolescence
i.
j.
k.
l.
Transaction Costs
Monopoly, Monopsony
Peak Oil
Market environmentalism
 Policies - green taxes, incentives…
 Market-based solutions
 Cap and trade (acid rain, carbon trading) – how does it work?
 Eco-labeling, eco-footprints, Greenwashing
 Ecosystem services
 Wetland banking
 Biodiversity
m. Value and limits of a Market Perspective
III.
Week 4: Institutions and the Commons
a. Prisoner’s Dilemma
b. The Tragedy of the Commons (TOC) Theory: assumptions and critiques
c. Institutions, what are they?
d. Common property management (how does it work?)
e. Social Darwinism
f. Montreal Protocol – what is it? What is it an example of?
g. Ostrom’s characteristics of a successful commons
h. Open access/Common property/Private property/State property
i. Importance of Scale in managing commons
j. Examples from Kitengela Rangelands, Kenya and India Jointly Managed Forests
IV.
Week 5: Environmental Ethics
a. Ethics (Normative v Descriptive)
b. Consequentialism, Deontology, Virtue Ethics
c. Environmental justice
d. Dominion thesis
e. Stewardship
f. Anthropocentrism
g. Utilitarian
h. Pinchot, Muir, their beliefs
i. Conservation vs. Preservation
j. Land Ethic
k. Ecology
l. Ecocentrism
m. Moral Extensionism
n. Deep Ecology, intrinsic value
o. Holism
p. Naturalistic Fallacy
q. Scientism
r. Social Ecology
s. Pragmatism
t. Examples of the use of ethics
u. Animal rights
v. Shielding the Mountains Film