Geography 210: Physical Geography

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Geography 210 Physical Geography Environmental
Issues

• Lecture 17 Planning for the future

http//geog-www.sbs.ohio-state.edu/courses/G210/
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The final stretch

• Review lecture Wed 9 March
• Last lab Friday cancelled
• Final lab grade is best 7 of 8
• FINAL EXAM Wed 16 March 1130 am

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Chp 30 Imagine a sustainable future

• Putting it all together
• Consider an ecotopia
• A sustainable future
• Land use planning
• Environmental law

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Chankanab Lagoon, Mexico
Tourism and ecological management
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Ecotopia qualities

• A stabilized or even decreased population
• Sustainable living resources and harvest
• Recreation enjoyment of nature open to all,
  with minimized pollution
• Risk of species extinction minimized

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Developing a sustainable future A new paradigm

• Evolutionary, not revolutionary
• Inclusive, not exclusive
• Proactive, not reactive
• Attracting, not attacking
• Assisting the disadvantaged, not taking advantage

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Planning a nations landscapes

• What is necessary at a national scale to achieve
  goals?
• John Wesley Powells vision organized around
  watersheds
• 1902 Congress water rights sold

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The Wildlands Project

• America needs rewilding
• Larger parks needed
• Managed around big predators
• Controversy of science values

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Process of future planning

• Two qualities of formal land use planning
  processes
• A set of rules requiring paper work procedures
• An imaginative attempt to use land resources in
  beautiful, economically beneficial and
  sustainable ways
• All human civilization plans land use
• Democracy involves tug-a-war between individual
  freedoms and societal welfare

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Regional planning (TVA)

• Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) 1933
• One of worlds best examples of regional planning
• Multidimensional multilevel planning to manage
  land water resources
• Central authority with considerable public input

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The TVA
Raccoon Mountain
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Environment law

• US legal system derived from British common law
  system
• Custom, judgment, court decrees instead of
  legistlation
• Protect individual just give me a little land,
  a horse, and a gun and leave me alone.
• A caveat when individual behavior infringed on
  the property or well-being of others
• Public trust doctrine government is public
  guardian of natural resources

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History of federal environmental law

• 3 stages
• Convert public lands to private uses (early 19th)
• Conserved public lands for recreation, beauty,
  historic preservation
• National parks
• US Forest Service
• Primary environmental laws
• NEPA 1969 ? Water Quality

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Who stands for nature?

• 2 widely supported moral positions
• Public lands (resources) must be open to public
  use
• Public lands should serve society first,
  individuals secondly

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Skiing at Mineral King
Should our ethical values be extended to
non-human?
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How you can be an actor in legal processes

• Environmental litigation
• Citizen actions
• Environmentalism to ecotage
• Civil disobedience

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Mediation

• Negotiation between adversaries guided by neutral
  facilitator
• Classic case Storm King Mountain, Hudson River
• 1962 hydro plant
• 1965 lawsuit
• 1981 settlement

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International environ law diplomacy

• No world government with enforcement authority
• Agreement with multinational issues
• Montreal Protocol, 1987, ozone
• Antarctica White Continent

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Euro Tunnel tunnel rubble to nature reserve

• Pros cons of innovative environmental change

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Global security environment

• Terrorism comes in part from poverty,
  overcrowding, disease conflicts that have
  environmental significance
• Over 1 billion live in poverty with little hope
• 1992 Rio Earth Summit on Sustainable Development
  objective global environmental vs. economic
  problems
• Wealth gap is growing
• Environment remains under-funded
• 100 million/yr vs. 2 billion/day

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Earth Summit on Sustainable Development 2002

• Continue work toward environmental social
  justice for all people
• Enhance the development of sustainability
• Minimize local, regional global environmental
  degradation
• Develop support international agreements to
  control global warming pollutants

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Challenge

• Solving our environmental problems will help
  build a more secure sustainable future
• As university graduates you will take on
  responsibility of transferring environmental
  knowledge taking responsible leadership