INTB 310
INTB 310 Midterm Notes
Edward Wilson: Is Humanity Suicidal?
What are the two main ways the author characterizes the approaches to the world’s problems?
Exemptionalism vs. Environmentalism
Outside of the ecosystem vs. depend on the ecosystem
Depend on brainpower vs. depend on natural world
Daly/Cobb – For the Common Good
QUESTIONS:
1. What are some of the issues with how economists look at the world?
2. How do the authors think we should use economic information?
ANSWERS:
1. Economists have paid little attention either to the exhaustion of resources or to pollution. The complain that economists have not only ignored the source of inputs and the disposition of outputs, but also that they have encouraged the maximization of both, wehre as living lightly in the world requires that throughput should be kept to the minimum sufficient to meet human needs. Economists have ignored these criticisms. Economy will take care of it.
Tragedy of the commons – no one has control of the resource, therefore it will be misused.
People refer to economics as the dismal science
2.
Rees: Ecological Integrity and Material Growth: Irreconcilable Conflict?
QUESTIONS:
1. How has mankind moved from the original subsistence model to our development today?
2. Understand the model that Rees has developed. What does it do?
ANSWERS:
1. Patch Disturbance – Ecological footprint
2. Ecological Footprint – includes both biological and industrial metabolism. It recognized all of our toys and tools, factories and infrastructures.
Eco-foot printing is further based on the face that many material and energy flows can be converted into land- and water-area equivalents. These are the ecosystem areas effectively appropriated for human use to produce food, fiber, and minerals and to assimilate selected categories of waste. Thus, the theoretical ecological footprint of a specified population is the area of land and water ecosystems required on a continuous basis to produce the
Edward Wilson: Is Humanity Suicidal?
What are the two main ways the author characterizes the approaches to the world’s problems?
Exemptionalism vs. Environmentalism
Outside of the ecosystem vs. depend on the ecosystem
Depend on brainpower vs. depend on natural world
Daly/Cobb – For the Common Good
QUESTIONS:
1. What are some of the issues with how economists look at the world?
2. How do the authors think we should use economic information?
ANSWERS:
1. Economists have paid little attention either to the exhaustion of resources or to pollution. The complain that economists have not only ignored the source of inputs and the disposition of outputs, but also that they have encouraged the maximization of both, wehre as living lightly in the world requires that throughput should be kept to the minimum sufficient to meet human needs. Economists have ignored these criticisms. Economy will take care of it.
Tragedy of the commons – no one has control of the resource, therefore it will be misused.
People refer to economics as the dismal science
2.
Rees: Ecological Integrity and Material Growth: Irreconcilable Conflict?
QUESTIONS:
1. How has mankind moved from the original subsistence model to our development today?
2. Understand the model that Rees has developed. What does it do?
ANSWERS:
1. Patch Disturbance – Ecological footprint
2. Ecological Footprint – includes both biological and industrial metabolism. It recognized all of our toys and tools, factories and infrastructures.
Eco-foot printing is further based on the face that many material and energy flows can be converted into land- and water-area equivalents. These are the ecosystem areas effectively appropriated for human use to produce food, fiber, and minerals and to assimilate selected categories of waste. Thus, the theoretical ecological footprint of a specified population is the area of land and water ecosystems required on a continuous basis to produce the