socenv

Anth/Soc 370: Environment and society

Spring 2012

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Readings schedule

academic calendar 2011-12

Week/date	topic	films/other	readings, authors
Wk 1 4/2- 6	Humans & environment, intro	Guns, germs & steel;	Harrison; Harris; Kolbert
Week 2 4/9 - 13	Humans & environment, interactions	Small groups--nuclear power, energy	McKibben; Weisman
Week 3 4/16 - 20	Energy, ecology	Manufacturing Landscapes	Odum, Flannery, Kolbert
Week 4 4/23 - 30	Ethics	Small groups--Industrial tourism	Arnold, Scuhmacher, Weisman, Bullard
Week 5 5/2 - 6	Population and resources	Crude Awakening	Hardin, Kolbert, Weisman, Odum
M-T, May 7-8	Mid-term exam (occurs over two days)
Week 6 5/9 - 11	Technology		Schwartz Cowan; Jackson, Schumacher
Week 7 5/14 - 17	Technology	Small groups--Paper, plastic or tax?	Perrow, Winner, Berry
Thur, May 24	Spring Symposium, class canceled
Week 8 5/21 - 25	Growth		Korten; O'Connor; Daley/Cobb; Kolbert
Week 9 5/29 - 6/1	Change	Small groups--carbon footprinting	Oreskes and Conway, Schnaiberg and Gould
Monday, May 28	Memorial Day observed -- no classes
Week 10 6/4 - 8	The future		Weisman, Kolbert
Finals 6/11 - 15	Final Exam (Monday, 7:15 - 10 am)

Note: Dates and reading assignments may be subject to change--you'll receive notice and justification if changes are made.

Week 1 Humans and the environment: Introduction

Readings:

Elizabeth Kolbert. 2006. Field Notes from a Catastrophe. NY: Bloomsbury (Chapter 5, 'The curse of Akkad,' pp. 93-121).
Marvin Harris. 1977. Cannibals and Kings: The origins of cultures (Chapter 7). In Blackboard .
Paul Harrison. 1992. The Third Revolution. London: Penguin Books (chapter 2, 'The o'ergrowth of some complexion: Three billion years of environmental crisis,' pp 21-37; also download missing pp 34-35) In Blackboard

Citations:

Elizabeth Kolbert. 2006. Field Notes from a Catastrophe. NY: Bloomsbury
Paul Harrison. 1992. The third revolution. London: Penguin Books (chapter 2, 'The o'ergrowth of some complexion: three billion years of environmental crisis, pp 21-37) (download pp 34-35 here)
Marvin Harris. 1977. Cannibals and Kings: The origins of cultures. New York: Random House (Chapter 7, 'The origins of pristine states,' pp 101-23).
Optional: Robert Kates, B.L. Turner II, William Clark. 1990. The great transformation. Pp 1-15 in The earth as transformed by human action (edited by B.L. Turner II, W. Clark, R. Kates, J. Richards, J. Mathews, W. Meyer). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. On Electronic reserve.

Week 2 Humans and the environment: Interactions

Readings:

Bill McKibben. 2011. Eaarth. NY: St. Martin's (chapter 1, 'A new world').
Alan Weisman. 2007. The World Without Us. NY: Picador (chater 3, 'The city without us') in Blackboard

Citations:

Bill McKibben. 2011. Eaarth. NY: St. Martin's
Alan Weisman. 2007. The World Without Us. NY: Picador

Friday Discussion: Fallout from nuclear power (make-up questions)

Clean and Safe Energy Coalition (go to the 'Nuclear Energy' link at the top, and read the short briefings under the 'CASEnergy Classroom'
Elizabeth Kolbert. 2011. The nuclear risk . Mar 28, New Yorker Magazine. Also in Blackboard.
Bryan Walsh. 2011. Could shale gas power the world? March 31, Time Magazine.
Michael Klare. 2012. A new energy third world in North America? April 1, TomDispatch.com.
US Department of Defense. Properties and characteristics of DU (depleted uranium). From Environmental Exposure Report: Depleted Uranium in the Gulf (II). Link to report summary. (but you only need read the first link with DU in the title)

Videos (all commercials, short):

Commercial from the American Petroleum Institute
Another from the API
Yet another
from Exxon
from the Nuclear Energy InstituteFriends of the Earth
Another from FOE
from Belgium

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Week 3 Energy and ecology

Readings:

Elizabeth Kolbert. 2006. Field Notes from a Catastrophe. NY: Bloomsbury (chapter 2, 'A warmer sky')
Tim Flannery. 2005. The Weather Makers. NY: Grove Press ( chapters 1-3 , pp 11 - 35). In Blackboard.
Eugene Odum. 1993. Ecology and our endangered life support systems (chapter 4). In Blackboard
Optional: James Howard Kunstler. 2005. The long emergency. Rolling Stone, Mar 24.

Citations

Elizabeth Kolbert. 2006. Field Notes from a Catastrophe. NY: Bloomsbury.
Tim Flannery. 2005. The Weather Makers. NY: Grove Press.
James Howard Kunstler. 2005. The long emergency. Rolling Stone, Mar 24. Online at www.energybulletin.net/node/4856
Eugene Odum. 1993. Ecology and our endangered life support systems. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates.
Optional:
- Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins. 2002. Mobilizing energy solutions. In American Prospect 13(2), Jan 28. Online at http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/2/lovins-a.html

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Week 4 Ethics

Ron Arnold. 1996. Overcoming ideology. In A Wolf in the Garden : The Land Rights Movement and the New Environmental Debate. (Edited by P. Brick R. McGreggor Cawley). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Online at www.cdfe.org/center-projects/wise-use.
Ernst Schumacher. 1973. Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered. New York: Harper Colophon Books. (chapter 4, 'Buddhist Economics,' pp. 50-58).
Robert Bullard. 2001. Anatomy of environmental racism and the environmental justice movement. Pp 97-105 in (R. Scott Frey, editor) The Environment and Society Reader. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. In Blackboard
Alan Weisman. 2007. The World Without Us. NY: Picador (pp 217-32).

Optional:

David Orr. 1992. Ecological literacy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. (chapter 5, 'Ecological iteracy,' pp 85-95). In Blackboard.

Small Group Discussion (Friday April 22): Industrial tourism

Edward Abbey. 1968. Desert Solitaire ("Polemic: Industrial tourism and the national parks"). NY: Bantam.(pp 45 – 67) In Blackboard.

Write an abstract of 200-250 words, summarizing the article and analyzing the issues. To be turned in in class. Should you miss a small group day, you can write an extended reflection paper to make it up (the first one, anyway). Here's how I'd like it structured:

Week 5 Population and natural resources

Readings:

Garrett Hardin. 1968. The tragedy of the commons. Science 162: 1243-48.
Elizabeth Kolbert. 2006. Field Notes from a Catastrophe. NY: Bloomsbury (chapter 4, 'The butterfly and the toad')
Alan Weisman. 2007. The World Without Us. NY: Picador (chapter 5, ' The Lost Menagerie'). In Blackboard
Eugene Odum. 1993. Ecology and our endangered life support systems. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates (chapter 6, 'Population ecology,' pp 150-59). In Blackboard

Optional:

S. Ciriacy-Wantrup and Richard Bishop. 1975. 'Common property' as a concept in natural resources policy. Natural Resources Journal 15: 713-27.In Blackboard

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Monday-WednesDAY, May 7-8: mid-term exam

Week 6 Technology

Readings:

Ruth Schwartz Cowan. Less work for mother? Pp 329-39 in Albert Teich (ed), Technology and the Future. NY: St. Marin’s Press. In Blackboard.
Kenneth Jackson. 1989. The baby boom and the age of the subdivision. Pp 148-61 in (R. Stross, editor) Technology and society in twentieth century America. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. In Blackboard.
E.F. Schumacher. 1973. Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (Chapter 12, 'Social and economic problems calling for the development of intermediate technology')

Week 7 Technology

Readings:

Charles Perrow. 1999. Normal Accidents. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (Chapter 2, 'Nuclear power as a high-risk system'), plus additional pages. In Blackboard.
Langdon Winner. 1986. The Whale and the Reactor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (Chapter 2, 'Do artifacts have politics?'). In Blackboard.
Wendell Berry. 1987. Why I am not going to buy a computer. Online at http://home2.btconnect.com/tipiglen/berrynot.html.

Friday discussion: Paper, plastic, or tax? (questions)

Guo Shipeng and Emma Graham-Harrison. 2008. China launches crackdown on plastic bags. Jan 8, Reuters.
Colin Dunn. 2008. Paper bags or plastic bags? Everything you need to know. Aug 3, Environment.
Alan Weisman. 2007. The World Without Us. NY: Picador (chapter 9, ' Polymers are forever')
Albany Democrat Herald. 2011. Plastic Bags: Read the bill. April 23.
Heal the Bay. 2010. The Majestic Plastic Bag (A Mockumentary).

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Week 8 Growth

Readings

David Korten. 1995. When corporations rule the world. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press. (Chapter 3, ' The Growth Illusion ,' pp 37-50). In Blackboard.
James O'Connor. 1993. Is sustainable capitalism possible? Pp 125-37 in Food for the Future (editor Patricia Allen). New York: John Wiley & Sons. In Blackboard.
Herman Daly and John Cobb. 1994. For the Common Good (Pp 44-61, 'Misplaced concreteness: The market'). Boston: Beacon Press. In Blackboard.
Elizabeth Kolbert. 2006. Field Notes on a Catastrophe. NY: Bloomsbury (Chapter 7, 'Business as usual').

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Week 9 Change

Allan Schnaiberg and Kenneth Gould. 2000 (2nd ed.). Environment and Society: The Enduring Conflict. NY: Blackburn (chapter 7, 'Resisting the Treadmill', pp 143-67) In Blackboard
Robert Bullard. 2001. Anatomy of environmental racism and the environmental justice movement. Pp 97-105 in (R. Scott Frey, editor) The Environment and Society Reader. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. In Blackboard
Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway. 2010. Merchants of Doubt. NY: Bloomsbury Press (chapter 4 & epilogue). In Blackboard

Small Group Discussion (Friday May 25 ): Carbon footprinting

Michael Specter. 2008. Big Foot. Feb 25, New Yorker.
Calculate your carbon footprint
Alexis Madrigal. 2008. MIT class calculates carbon footprint of 'the man.' Aug 30, Wired Science.

Week 10 The future

Elizabeth Kolbert. 2006. Field Notes on a Catastrophe. Chapter 3, 'Under the glacier'; chapter 9, ' Burlington, Vermont,' and chapter 10, 'Man in the Anthropocene'
Alan Weisman. 2007. The World without Us. NY: Picador (chapter 8, pp 128-39; chapter 17, pp 301-14)
Greg Craven's video, How it all ends (not as gloomy as the title might suggest). About 10 min. long