ENVS 101

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ENVS 101

• http//faculty.winthrop.edu/bollingerm

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• Environmental science
• Environmental studies
• Interdisciplinary!

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Population changes over time

• Hunter gatherers
• Agricultural revolution (10,000 years ago)
• Industrial revolution (mid-1700s)

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Limited Resources

• Garrett Hardin Tragedy of the Commons (1968)
• Ecological footprints
• Renewable vs. nonrenewable resources

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Ecological footprint
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Environmental ethics

• Values
• Anthropocentrism, biocentrism, ecocentrism
• Preservation vs. conservation
• Environmental justice
• Sustainability

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• Preservation

• Conservation

• Fundamental right of all organisms to exist
• Protect environment in a pristine, unaltered
  state
• John Muir

• Put natural resources to use
• Manage resources wisely
• Greatest good for greatest number of people for
  longest time
• Gifford Pinchot, Aldo Leopold

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Economics

• Subsistence vs. capitalism
• Supply and demand
• Cost-benefit analyses should Include ecosystem
  services and other externalities
• Is economic growth sustainable?

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Environmental policies

• Problem solving
• Examples from the United States
• Federal vs. state level
• International policies depend on customs and
  conventions

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Policy development in US

• Identify problem and its cause
• Identify a solution and organize
• Get access to policymakers
• Laws established by Congress and President
• Administrative agency establishes regulations and
  monitors compliance

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US balance of power

• Legislative branch
• Executive branch
• Judicial branch
• Power of states?

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United States examples

• Westward expansion and exploitation
• Preservation vs. conservation
• Responses to pollution problems

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Early Phase in US (1)

• Driven by desire for westward expansion
• From 1780s until late 1800s
• Western lands are infinite and uninhabited?

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Second phase in US Preservation and Conservation

• Late 1800s until now
• Correct some problems caused by westward
  expansion
• Mitigation of exploitation

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Preservation and conservation (2)

• First national park (1872)
• Forest reserve system (1891)
• First national wildlife refuge (1903)
• Soil conservation laws during Dust Bowl (1930s)
• Wilderness Act of 1964 untrammeled by man

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Third phase in US Response to
pollution problems

• Silent Spring and burning of Cuyahoga River
• National Environmental Policy Act (1970)
• Creation of environmental agency
• Requirement of Environmental Impact Statements
  for federal projects
• Environmental Protection Agency established in
  1970 subsumed many agencies

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Third phase or modern environmentalism

• Fight pollution and its effects
• Human health
• Environmental justice movement
• Many famous environmentalists
• Intervention in regulatory hearings, books, mass
  media campaigns, law suits and litigation

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Enforcing a policy

• Command and control
• Economic incentives
• Tax breaks or subsidies
• Green taxes (polluter pays)
• Cap and trade (tradable pollution permits)
• Local incentives (tax breaks for water efficient
  appliances, waste disposal penalties, for
  instance)

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International environmental policies

• System of conventions or treaties
• Pay attention to customs
• Powerful organizations
• UN, World Bank, European Union, World Trade
  Organization, Non-governmental organizations
  (Nature Conservancy, Greenpeace, for example)

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Global environmentalism

• Famous photo of Earth from space
• Activities primarily through United Nations
• Links between poverty, oppression, exploitation
  of humans, exploitation of environment

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Earth Rise