Geography 5 Week 4 Lecture 7 Environmental Legislation under former President, Jimmy Carter - Created the Department of Energy (1977) - Regulate & Record NRG use - Increased Fuel efficiency standards - Created the Superfund (Love Canal, Niagara NY) 1980s: Conservative Backlash - The attitude toward public land & environmental oversight was “Deregulation” o James Watt – Secretary of the Interior 1981-1983 - Example: “Sagebrush Rebellion” o Movement led by Western politicians, Miners, Loggers, etc o Goal was to get government to sell land off public lands to private interests 1990s Economy (jobs) vs. Environmental Debates - Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush - Examples: o Spotted Owl Controversy in the Pacific Northwest Old Growth Forests o Spotted Owl Habitats of: Mother Nature o US Forest Service o Timber Industry o Population, Poverty & the Environment - Two ways of analyzing population issues o Demographic  Mathematical/Biological  Fertility, Mortality, Distribution, etc o Social  How does society “problematize” population?  Consequences?  Causes?  Solutions? Demographic Perspectives on Population- Total Population: Explosion of Population of Industrial Revolution o Doubling Time (Human population chart):  How long to double a population? o Growth Rates  Currently 1.2% o Future Projections - Distribution of population o 1. Overpopulation is commonly thought of as a “developing world problem” o 2. Growth rates by country o 3. Population Pyramids  Age, gender  HIV/AIDS Social Perspectives on Population & Poverty - Orthodox and Contemporary Views - Malthusian o An essay on the Principle of Population (1798) o Against England’s “poor laws” o Malthus “Natural Law” of population - Givens: o Food and passion are necessary o Population expands geometrically o Natural “checks” on population (famine, starvation, poverty, war) o “naturalizes” poverty? - Overpopulation  Poverty o Poverty caused by the “irrationality” of the poor - Malthus’s Solutions: o 1. Moral Restraint, Abstinence, “adopt middle class values” o 2. Benign Neglect: No misery = No incentive to change behavior Marx & Population - Karl Marx (1818-1883) o Saw the influence of Malthus on Germany’s public policieso Argued against Malthus “Natural Law of Population” o Poverty is fostered by Modes of Production (i.e. Capitalism)  How we organize ourselves  Stages of society is Subsistence  slavery  feudalism  Capitalism  Socialism o Under Socialism:  Increase of Population  Increase Production  No “Population Problem” o Under Capitalism:  Poverty becomes a problem Contemporary Views on Population - Neo-Malthusianism o Overpopulation  Poverty & Environmental Degradation o Incorporates many ideas from biology & other natural sciences  Ex: “Carrying Capacity – Degraded Carrying Capacity” and “Over-Shoot” (Chart “Consumption x time”) o Control Population w/ Birth Control, etc  Focus activities on areas of high population