ENST 240 Environment and Society

What is Environmental Studies?

Introduction to Systems Thinking

What is the Environment?

Notions of Wilderness and Nature

Humanities focus

What is Society?

Environmental Economics

Environmental Policy

Humans-in-Systems

Politics, Policy, and Econ focus

Key Queries of the Unit

Inner Work

What do I believe?

Where is my moral center?

Where do I find hope?

What am I personally committed to?

Outer Work

How do I make a difference?

How do I build solidarity with others?

What kinds of movements and activism are most effective?

What am I supposed to do with what I know?

Meatless Monday's!

Intro to Education for Sustainability

Discussion of Leopold, Orr, and Wilcove/Eisner

Sir Ken Robinson

Reflections

Education is a MULTIDISCIPLINARY field

SoAn

Philosophy

History

Politics/Policy

Psychology

Education is an APPLIED field

Aims to examine (and solve) specific problems

Fulcrum Point of Social Change

National Identity and Civichood: "Becoming Americanized"

Economic Competitiveness: Sputnik, Flat World

Diversity and Race Relations: Brown v Board, Affirmative Action

Environment/Sustainability?

Some Key Terms

Education vs Schooling

Educare= Leading Out

Schooling= social institution of cultural transmission (both reprecutive and productive)

A process of BOTH individuation and socialization

Formal v Informal Curriculum

Formal curriculum

Hidden curriculum

Informal curriculum of the everyday

Method and Content

What you teach

How you teach it

But... what if how you teach influences what you teach?

Some Environment-Related Curriculum Projects

Education for Sustainability (EfS)

Place-Based Education

Environmental Education

Outdoor Education

Eco-Literacy

STEM

Eco-Schools movement

Three Key Questions

Epistemology

What knowledge is of the most worth?

How do we come to "know" nature and what role does formal and informal curriculum play?

Ontology

What is the purpose of schooling?

What is education for? Should all education be environmental education?

Ethics

How should education prepare you for the Good Life? What is a moral education?

Teaching about sustainability vs teaching FOR sustainability?

Discussion of the Readings

Number One's

Find evidence in Aldo Leopold's text of these key questions. Be prepared to cite at least one passage.

Number Two's

Find evidence of the same in David Orr's text.

Number Three's

Find evidence of the same in the piece by Wilcove and Eisner

Everyone

What is your reaction to this call? Should we look to the epistemology, ontology, and ethics of school as a key driver for both environmental probelms and possible solutions?

Reflections

Do you all agree with Ken Robinson that we have a "factory" model of education?

Are we trying to "meet the future" with what we have done in the past?"

What might an education for the future (in terms of EfS) look like?

Next Time

Avoiding "activist burnout"

How do we work positively toward change given the realities of the world?

Read: Thich Nhat Hahn and Francis Moore Lappe

Vocation-By-Design project due

Overview

Final Quiz!

Meadows: Living in a World of Systems

Systems Thinking Reflection

Preparations for CAP presentations for TH

Meadows: Living In A World of Systems

Systems, once lived out in the social world, are messy

This messyness means we have to be comfortable with uncertainty, unpredictability, and a lack of control

What to do? "...stay wide awake, pay close attention, participate flat out, and respond to feedback" (170)

It requires the BEST of the Liberal Arts... "our rationality, our ability to sort out truth from falsehood, our intuition, our vision, and our morality" (170)

Systems Wisdom

Learn a system by watching it work and studying its history. Permaculture-- watch your land for a full year before planting.

This helps reveal misconceptions and "over-realizing" the problems (leaping to solutions after quick problem definitions). 171-172

Be transparent in your thinking, admit your mistakes, and be mentally flexible- everything you know is only still a model.

Question: why do you think Meadows sees the Freedom of Information Act as one of the most important laws in the nation from a systems point of view? (173)

Langauge creates reality. How we speak about the world creates the world. "We don't talk about what we see, we see only what we can talk about"

Just because it is hard to measure, or quantify, does not mean it does not exist. "No one can define of measure justice, democracy, security, freedom, truth, or love" (177). Beware the Biospheric Number.

In times of change, the learners will inherit the earth... (180)

Be TRULY interdisciplinary. Learn from, but don't be limited by, multiple disciplinary lenses. Recognize the value of the disciplines and also the distortions that can come from narrow points of view. Work on real problems.

Expand the Boundary of Caring-- our world is inextricably connected. "It will nto be possible for your heart to succeed if your lungs fail, or for your company to succeed if your workers fail..." (184).

Queries

What does Systems Thinking mean to you now, as we approach the end of the class and semester?

How does one (can one?) think this way? Does it come naturally or does one need to learn it?

Does it represent a core, essential way of knowing for those interested in environmental problems and problem solving? Why or why not?

Next Time

CAP exhibitions

Come ready to present your CAP in some way

Gallery style. 15 minutes for each "gallery" with class mingling.

Final course reflections

Course evaluations

Final Course Reflections

Introduction to Environmental Justice

The Context

Environmentalism=Preservation of Pristine Areas and Wildlife Preservation (Save the Rainforest, Save the Whale)

Environmental Elitism

Compositional: mostly middle and upper-class white's in developed world

Imapcts: NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) and LULU's (Locally Undesireable Land Uses)

Ideological: Environmental "concerns" are only those that disproportionately benefit middle and upper class white's in developed world at the expense of marginalized Others.

Readings for Today

Three Groups

Three Stations

Station #1 Rachel Carson

Station #2 Alice Walker

Station #3 Cynthia Hamilton

Basic Definitions

Linking Social Justice with Environmental Concerns

The right to access and acquire certain fundamental needs: health, education, civil liberties, economic opportunity, etc.

"Until you talk about me having food, shelter, and clothes, I'm not listening to any appeals from environmentalists," a Black woman shouted out in one of the Workshops at the 1976 UAW Conference at Black Lake, Michigan.

Issues of equity: whose fundamental needs are met now? Whose needs are not? Why?

Power and Hegemony: an indirect from of rule or dominance. Can be established historically (colonialism/imperialism) or socio-culturally (policy/education/media/socialization)

Examples

Maori system of property ownership

Issues of Identity and Marginalization: race, class, gender, and inter-nationalism (between) and intra-nationalism (within)

A Brief History

1982 Warren County, NC PCB hazardous waste site: 69% non-white and 20% below poverty line

1990 University of Michigan convened conference on race and incidence of environmental hazards launched an academic focus on "environmental racism"

Environmental groups such as Sierra Club, Greenpeace began to pay more attention to disproportionate environmental impacts on communities of color and economic disadvantage

Internationally- more focus on indigenous rights and issues of intellectual property rights and cultural self-determination

Like the Civil Rights Movement, much of this work has happened through the court system and through legislation

Environmental Justice Act of 1992

Clinton Executive Order in 1994

Popular Examples

Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

Erin Brokovich, Hinkley, CA

Hurricane Katrina

Fundamental Questions of Environmental Justice

Who is defining the problems and potential solutions? Who benefits from such definitions? Who pays?

Example: Climate Change and Developing World. Average U.S. citizen takes approx. 4 planets in terms of resource footprint. So why are problems framed as an issue of the "dirty" countries such as China, India, etc?

Where do people live? What are the interesections between health, economics, and policy?

Example: "Cancer Alley" in LA. Home of 125 companies that produce 25% of petrochemicals manufactured in U.S. 85 mile stretch is predominantly A-A.

Who decides? How do decision-making structures at local, national, and transnational levels either give voice to or disempower the historically marginalized?

Example: Migrant workers and working conditions in the U.S. Living wage, pesticide exposure, access to health care, etc.

Ownership, globalization, and the commons: how does globalization, privatization and commons "enclosure" benefit and/or disenfranchise historically marginalized communities?

Example: Shrimp industry-- wild caught vs farm raised

Class Announcements

Mid-Term Feedback

Positives

Mixing things up (movement, music, etc)

Readings (amt, type, etc)

Small group discussions

Experiential and hands-on activities

Quizzes keep us on track

Overall course design

Adjustments

Large group discussions (low energy sometimes and low participation). Make more directive, more depth, more prompts. More students need to get involved.

Provide more guidance ahead of time with readings

Put Powerpoints up on Moodle

Provide more concrete examples

All students should more consistently do the reading

Students "multi-tasking" with computers (checking email, etc). Distracting to others.

Next Time

Deb Jackson Visit

Meet in LBC Computer Lab

2 Readings

Deb Jackson and SOAN focus

Global and Local Dynamics

Introduction

Avalanche!

Why did it result in the opposite of what you wanted?

Who was responsible?

Is it possible to opt out of globalization?

Query: is the process of globalization giving us the results we want? Why or why not?

Definitions

a contested concept

"The free movement of products, reosurces, plants, animals, and in some cases people around the world" (Adelson, p. 248)

Economic integration of transnational corporations and ideological dominance of free-market systems.

Brief History

Thomas Friedman, The World is Flat

Globalization 1.0
1492-1800, New World, Trade Routes
Globalization 2.0
1800-2000, rise of multi-nat. corps.
Globalization 3.0
2000-?, global, fiber-optic network and rise of a flattened world

Flattening Forces...
Fall of Berlin Wall
Beyond communism. New world order.
Netscape goes public
Development of a web browser
Off-Shoring
Moving operations to where cheap labor is
Open-sourcing
Intellectual commons (wiki’s, google, apps., etc.)

“Creation of a global, web-enabled playing field that allows multiple forms of collaboration-- the sharing of knowledge and work-- in real time without regard to geography, distance, or… even language” (p. 176).

“More and more, politics in the flat world will consist of asking which values, frictions, and fats are worth preserving-- which should, in Marx’s language, be kept solid-- and which must be melted away into the air.” (p. 222)

Environmental Globalization

'Globesity"

Disproportionate impacts

Population: A Bomb or a Boom?

Population rates:
The first billion took from the dawn of humanity until 1830.
The second billion took only 100 years -- from 1830 to 1930.
Three billion more arrived in the next 60 years.
The next billion will take only 13 years.
11 new NYC/year
Now: 6.9 billion. By 2050: 9 billion

Is it population increase, resource consumption, or poverty that is the real issue?

Transnational Problems

Health

Diseases (Malaria)

Resource depletion

Food

Fisheries

What do we do with globalization?

"You may have your own views about whether the freedom to choose between 30 different types of breakfast cereal is a valuable freedom. That is a matter of opinion. What is not a matter of opinion but rather a matter of bitter experience is that the extension of state power required to eliminate the cross-border choice offered by globalization is damaging and deeply undemocratic" (Martins, p. 13)

Friedman: "...the only way to run as fast as the herd is by riding the herd itself and trying to redirect it. We need to demonstrate to the herd that being green, being global, and being greedy can go hand in hand. If you want to save the Amazon, go to business school and learn how to do a deal..." (254)

Ted Talk

In what ways do you agree with the characterizations of globalization as essentially a positive force?

In what ways do you disagree?

Next Time

Discuss the more detrminetal aspects of globalization

Quiz #4!

From Env Justice Unit thus far

First, using available resources (Web, Career Services, and/or the Environmental Studies website), find a job in the environmental field that you would be interested in that you might reasonably qualify for in 3-5 years after graduating from Earlham. Be sure to note what qualifications and experience requirements they are looking for. Write a cover letter and resume for that job noting your current experience and qualifications and a fictional (but reasonable) 3-5 years worth of additional experience that then sets you up for that job.

Globalization: Part 2

Overview

Quiz #4

Discussion of each text

Free-Write

Reflections

Vandana Shiva

What does Shiva mean by monoculture of the mind?

How does she argue that globalization disproportionately affects women in the developing world?

“The global, free market economy has become a threat to sustainability. The very survival of the poor and other species is at stake not just as a side effect or an exception but in a systemic way through a restructuring of our worldview at a most fundamental level.” Agree?

Paul Hawken

How does Hawken provide a direct critique and response to Friedman’s call for speed and greed in regards to globalization? What other chronologies does he speak about?

What the heck was the whole skeleton woman thing about?

John Vidal

How does he define localism and globalism? How do proponents of each view the other?

What does he mean when he says “environmentalism wants it both ways, needing, as much as loathing, globalization”?

Free-Write

Vidal writes, “the new age of localism and globalism is here to stay. Where environmentalists position themselves is another matter.” After these two classes, where do you position yourself? How do you see living into this new age of localism and globalism? What makes you optimistic? What makes you fearful? What questions do you continue to have?

Next Time

Re-Thinking The Foodshed: Industrial Agriculture and Its Discontents

Read Manning and Levins

Work on Vocation-By-Design assignment!

Class Overview

Opening Parable

Jigsaw!

Manning: The Oil We Eat

Levins: Seven Developmentalist Myths

Final reflections

Opening Parable

Home group

Expert Group

Home group

Home Groups

Select Expert Groups: count off (6) within home group

Expert Groups

Expert Group 1

What is the history of our agricultural system according to Manning? Pgs. 426-430

Expert Group 2

What is the "Green Revolution" and how did it affect our agricultural system according to Manning? pgs. 430-433

Expert Group 3

Is there a way to eat ethically according to Manning? How do we create a "just" food system?

Expert Group 4

What problems does Levins have with the word "modern" pgs. 434-437

Expert Group 5

How does he implicate a particular form of "science" in our current agricultural system? pgs. 437-439

Expert Group 6

How might systems thinking help address current agricultural problems? What specific examples of systems thinking does Levins use?

Home Groups Redux

Can we eat our lamb chops in peace?

Report back from each of the expert groups (1-6)

Final Thoughts

Next Time

Let Them Eat Kale?

Mythbusting 101: Organic Farming

Why Can't We All Just Sit Down and Eat Nicely Together?

Last class in our Env Justice Unit!

Class Overview

Questions on Vocation-By-Design?

Fishbowl!

Reflections on Environmental Justice

Introduce Demonstration of Learning Assignment

How It Works

Folks on inside discuss question posed-- be sure to speak up!

Folks on outside listen and consider what questions and or comments you would make to what is being said

Question #1

Labelling food organic food is a waste of time

Question #2

It would be important for Earlham to work toward a goal of providing more of its food from local sources

Question #3

There is no difference between natural food and unnatural food-- it is all just food.

Question #4

"Food like that is a toy for rich people. It is not an environmental solution." (Owen, p. 78)

Question #5

If you want to make the biggest environmental impact-- become a vegetarian. Why not?

One takeaway from this unit on Environmental Justice is...

Demonstration of Learning Assignment

nother

Subtopic