Test 1 Study Guide What did Toynbee say about the rise and fall of civilizations Toynbee Civilizations die from Suicide not Murder Creative minorities respond to challenges in ways that reorient them and cause them to flourish Decline occurs when nepotism supplants meritocracy Exception Incas Describe what Marsh argued in Man and Nature Marsh argued that man should 1 Moderate his activities 2 Develop a morality in his use of the earth focus on land What does Jared Diamond list as the causes of societal collapse Climate Change Hostile Neighbors Lost Trading Partners Environmental Problems What is the Russian Dolls model The economy is dependent on society and both the economy and society are dependent on the environment Contrast the Frontier Economics Open Earth with Spaceship Earth Closed Earth models Spaceship Earth Travel together on ship vulnerable closed earth The biosphere conditions the possibilities Frontier Economics Earth is boundless What are Gutkind s Stages in Man s Attitude Toward the Environment 1 1 2 3 4 5 Fear and Defense fearing nature Confidence and adjustment to natures challenges Aggressiveness and disintegration ignoring nature Understanding responsibility unification Sustainability and sciences profession I e social sciences science humanism What did Rachel Carson focus us on Rachel Carson shifted focus from scarcity to pollution What was common to most of the approaches to sustainability reviewed by Kidd Looking at the genealogy of the aspects of sustainability Read article What did Pivo say in class were the key points from Kidd 1 Sustainability has many roots uses need to state their meaning 2 Most definitions share a common element concern for a future generation thus merging science values 3 Emerged in the 1970 s contrasting endless growth vs limits to growth 4 Shifted towards sustainable development What is the Great Reconciliation Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable without compromising present needs Sustainable development does not imply limits but only limitations imposed by the present state of technology and social organization on environmental science and the ability of the biosphere to absorb the effects of human activities Technology and social organization can both be managed to new era of economic growth 2 In your own words contrast the Expansionist and Steady State paradigms The difference between the Expansionist and Steady State paradigms is that the expansionist paradign supports the open earth hypothesis while the Steady State paradigm supports the Spaceship earth hypothesis Expansionists treat the economy as an open growing system lacking fundamentally important connectedness to an infinite environment Steady State paradigm sees a more ecological economy as the basis of a finite ecosphere What is Carrying Capacity and what happens if animal populations overshoot it The number of animals an ecosystem can support without being damaged If it is overshot the death rate exceeds the birth rate and population goes back down to the Carrying Capacity Sometimes lowers carrying capacity if ecosystem is damaged What are some conceptual problems with applying the carrying capacity approach to humans 1 It is not fixed it can change with technology 2 There are data problems we don t know the planetary capacity 3 It s a maximum not an optimum short of die off what standard of well being do we want 4 Difficult to say a region can hold a certain amount of humans when resources are being transported from other places The average number of humans that can be supported depends on their average impact per human and our definition of impairing the system we live in What is the Ehrlich Holdren thesis and what does it suggest explains the level of impact per capita 3 I P X A X T I is impact land use resource use pollution P is population of an area A is affluence Average per capita consumption T is resource intensity of production or eco efficiency Impact per capita depends on Affluence and Technology What is the Capital Approach to Sustainability What types of capital are there The Capital Approach to Sustainability focuses on resources Our well being comes from the goods and services produced from Capital Stocks K It can be natural or man made If capital decreases and productivity remains the same well being declines What s the difference between Weak and Strong Sustainability Weak sustainability allows the substitution of manmade capital Km and natural capital Kn Strong sustainability requires constant stock of Kn cannot be interchangeable with Km What do proponents of the Material Input approach say should be our objective in order to move toward sustainability What is the ecological rucksack Reducing Material input is a good alternative objective Ecological Rucksack is the process of consuming a lot of resources before ultimately producing the objective product i e diamond ring In Decoupling what is being decoupled from what Decoupling reflects the need to reduce Material Input per Unit of Service by perhaps 10 fold Resource use is being decoupled from Economic activity 4 When did Sustainability emerge as a major theme according to Kidd Sustainability emerged as a major theme in the 1970 s What is the present global balance between urban and rural populations and when did the world shift to being mostly urban The present global balance is about urban and rural What s growing faster City populations or the amount of land they use The amount of land they use What are the 5 equities and why are they relevant to sustainability Why does fairness matter to sustainability according to Haughton 1 2 3 4 5 Intra generational Geographical Procedural Inter generational Interspecies What are consumption landscapes see Seto Autocentric low density cities What do Seto et al say are the major characteristics of contemporary urbanization Changes in scale Changes in rate Changes in location 5 Changes in form Changes in urban life and urban function How do Seto et al describe the contemporary form of cities Contemporary urbanization differs from historic patterns and is characterized by many different interconnected dimensions Contemporary cities have the ability to help the transition to sustainability solutions you might want to just read the paper Why are cities an important focus for people interested in sustainability It s where people are and where future growth will occur They re the epicenter for resource use They re an issue for Greenhouse