GEO 131: Global Environmental Issues: Topics & Readings
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Topics
Readings
Week 1: Intro: Syllabus;
Weds
Biodiversity 101
Readings; Course Organization 8/25
Gould 1978. The panda's peculiar thumb
NaturalHistory 87 (November): 20-30.
Mutersbaugh
Boris Worm et al., from "Impacts
highlight the societal consequences
This trend is of serious concern bec
century."
John Vandermeer and Ivette Per
Backgrounder (Summer 1995) ?Ou
peasant agriculture, export agricult
factors intricately connected with o
Janet N. Abramovitz, from "Putti
gross domestic product (GDP) ? su
most valuable goods and services?t
CONCEPTSBiodiversity
Conservation Biology and
Biodiversity: types of
biodiversity, Evolutionary
Processes
WEEK2 Gould: nature's odd couplesOR THE
Monday PANDA’S THUMB?
8/30
Gould 1990. The Golden Rule—a
proper scale for our environmental
crisis. Natural History 99 (September):
24-30.
Wed 9/1 Western Ideas of Nature
Glacken: Judeo-Christian Ideas of Nature
Glacken: Francis Bacon, Controlling the
Earth
Francis Bacon: New Atlantis
Movie: Affluenza
Monday Sept 6 Labor Day No Class
CONCEPTSIdeas of Nature WEEK3 Non-Western Ideas of Nature
Wed Sept Parkes: Fengshui (China)
8
CONCEPTSEnvironmental
Justice
Videos: Iskay Yachay - Two Kinds of Knowledge
(Part 1)
Iskay Yachay - Two Kinds of Knowledge (Part 2)
Iskay Yachay - Two Kinds of Knowledge (Part 3)
Iskay Yachay - Two Kinds of Knowledge (Part 4)
Environmental Justice ebook, pages 1-18.
WEEK4 SOMETHING ON INTERNATIONAL
Monday ENVIRONMENTAL (IN)JUSTICE: OGONI
Sept 13 STUFF? SAVAGES?
ENERGY and climate
Sept 15
Demographic Transitions &
Situated Rationalities
WEEK5 Erlich: Population Bomb
Monday Sen: 100 Million Women are Missing
PROBABLY OKAY WITH INTERGOV
PANEL AND WEBSITES: NEED TO
VERIFY
Millennium Ecosystem Assessme
years, humans have changed ecosy
history, largely to meet rapidly gro
now becoming apparent."
Gould 1999. Bacon, brought ho
(June): 28-33, 72-78.
Something from merchant or wh
Shoshtak: Nisa's life in the Kalajar
Gonzalez: Zapotec Science 'Maize
Yoon: East Asian ideas of nature (r
Robert D. Bullard, from "Environ
achieve environmental justice, the
must be given the same protection
urban or suburban?deserve to be pr
The Intergovernmental Panel on
Science Basis: Summary for Policy
evident from observations of increa
ice, and rising global average sea le
Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehr
Do," Environmental Law (Winter 1
to the expanding scale of the huma
ENERGYCONCEPTSThe
Carbon Footprint;
Soft Paths, Hard Paths and
Global Warming
Sept 20
Mamdani: ‘myth of population control’
SOMETHING SPECIFIC TO WOMEN’S LIVES?
Sept 22
Herald-Leader: Lexington Carbon
Footprint/Brookings Carbon Footprint report
Marilyn A. Brown and Elise Logan: The Residential
Energy and Carbon Footprints of the 100 Largest
U.S. Metropolitan Areas
civilization."
Southworth, Sonnenberg, and Brown: The
Transportation Energy and Carbon Footprints of the
100 Largest U.S. Metropolitan Areas
http://www.nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/calcu
lator/
ENERGYNuclear Energy and WEEK6 Northern Nuclear Power
Decommissioning vs.
Monday Nuclear Power in the Global South: Mexico
Sustainable sources
Sept 27
Nuclear fuel cycles and proliferation
Got some good websites, but what about
readings?
ENERGYDynamics of Habitat Sept 29 Jesse Ribot: Charcol production in Senegal
Susanna Hecht: Deforestation in th
Destruction: commoditization
Paul Robbins: Trees, Bureaucracy
Biofuels and environmental destruction
of nature
Peak Energy
Solar, Wind, Geothermal,
Need something positive… Amory B.
Conservation: Why not?
Lovins, from "More Profit with Less
Carbon," Scientific American (September
2005) "Using energy more efficiently offers
an economic bonanza?not because of the
benefits of stopping global warming but
because saving fossil fuel is a lot cheaper
than buying it."
FOODENERGYCONCEPTS WEEK7 Gereffi: industrial product commodity chains
Environments, Consumption Oct 4
Cronin 'The Wealth of Nature: Lumber'
and Commodity Chains
Cronon: Photos from 'The Wealth of Nature: Lumber'
FOODFarm to Plate: the
Oct 6
Need something on global food movements,
Mansfield B, 2003, Fish, factory tra
global food chain
OF RURAL STUDIES19(1): 9-21
reading, Dolan? Freidberg? Ponte?
Pollan M. 2000. ‘The Organic-Industrial
Wendell Berry, from The Unsettli
cultural product; it cannot be produ
Complex’
production solely in terms of techn
Lots of good films here on global food
movements
FOODIntellectual Property
Rights, Seeds and the Green
Revolution
FOODEnvironmental
Degradation: Soil Erosion
Biocides and Fertilizers in
Fields, Food and Drinking
Water
WEEK8 Kloppenburg & Kleinman. 'Seed Wars:
Oct 11 Common Heritage, Private Property, and
Political Strategy'
GMOs, maybe potatoes? Fish: Mansfield?
Oct 13 Political Economy of Soil Erosion and
Desertification
Ocean Dead Zones
Food and Inputs: Toxics and
Alternatives
FOODEcological agriculture WEEK9 B Traven: Mexican farmers
and peasant farming
Oct 18
POLLUTIONToxic
Oct 20
Contamination of Biosphere:
Overview
Ecoconsumerism (green
products, ecotourism) Ecotrade
POLLUTIONToxics:
Nuclear & BioWeapons
Testing: Global Dead Zones
POLLUTION Epidemiology:
Studying Toxics and Workers
Padoch: Farmers and Conservation
Davis. 'Dead West: Ecocide in Marlboro
Country'
Death of Ramon Gonzalez
Or flowers in Colombia?
POLLUTIONWaste disposal WEEK10 Henwood. 'Toxic Banking'
and export, conventional
OCT 25 UN Climate Report and Valuation of Crops
and Peoples
CONSERVATIONStrategies Oct 27 Chico Mendes: Fight for the Forest
for Non-Territorial
Conservation
CONSERVATIONGreen
WEEK11 Special topics
Managerialism: ‘Selling NatureNov 1
to Save It' and Fortress
Conservation
Pollution Politics and Social
Justice
Environmental Social
Movements, Indigenous and
Peasant Resistance
Gender and the Environment
Nov 3
WEEK12 Bullard 'Anatomy of Environmental Justice'
Nov 8
(Reader)
Swaney 'So What's Wrong with Dumping on
Africa?' (Reader)
Pearce. 'Price of life sends temperatures
soaring' (Reader)
Pulido L, 2000, Rethinking environmental
racism: White privilege and urban
development in southern CaliforniaANN
ASSOC AM GEOGR 90 (1): 12-40
Nov 10 Zapatista Web Site: www.ezln.org
Chico Mendes: Amazon Rubber-TapperÍs
Union
WEEK13 Schroeder R, 1997, Re-Claiming Land in the
Nov 15 Gambia: Gendered Property Rights and
Environmental Intervention Annals of the
Robbins and Sharp. 2003. "Produci
Economic Geography 79(4): 425-4
Sandra Steingraber, from Living
1997) ?Several obstacles, I believe
and heredity is one.?
Dr. Theo Colborn, Dianne Duma
pressing question is whether human
disrupting synthetic chemicals. Hav
chemical messages that guide deve
Rachael Carson: Silent Spring
Mutersbaugh Fairtrade-Organic Ne
Sears, Padoch et al. Sustainable Ag
Sundberg in New Geographies of C
Sneddon in New Geographies of C
Turner in New Geographies of Con
MacAfee: 'Selling Nature to Save I
Hughes, D, (2001) ‘Rezoned for bu
Agrarian Change 1(4): 575-99.
Homewood K, Brockington D Biod
GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND BIOG
Sierra in New Geographies of Cons
Association of American Geographers
Animal Liberation piece on monkeys
Haraway: Companion species
WEEK 14 THANKSGIVING ******* MONDAY PROJECT WORKSHOP
WEEK15
Nov 29
Environmental Rights
Nov 17
WEEK15
Nov 29
Nov 27
Dec 1
WEEK
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