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91 Cards in this Set
- Front
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Discourse |
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Social Construction |
Any, category, condition, or thing that exists or is understood to have certain characteristics b/c people socially agree that it does. |
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Wilderness |
A natural parcel of land, more or less unaffected by human forces; =viewed as a social construction |
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Constructivist |
Emphasizing the significance of concepts, ideologies, and social practices to our understanding and making of (literally, constructing) the world |
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Nature |
Everything that exists that is not a product of human activity; often put in quotes to designate that it is difficult if not impossible to divvy up the entire world into discrete natural and human components |
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Rewilding |
A practice of conservation where ecological funstcions and evolutionary processes, which are thought to have existed in past ecosystems or before human influence, are deliberately restored or created; rewilding often requires the reintroduction or restoration of large predators to ecosystems. |
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Anthropocene |
A metaphoric term sometimes applied to our current era, when people exert enormous influence on environments all around the Earth, but where control of these environments and their enormously complex ecologies is inevitalby elusive (certainly difficult to achieve) |
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Political Ecology |
An approach to environmental issues that unites issues of ecology w/ a broadly defined political economy perspective |
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Reconciliation Ecology |
A science of imagining, creating, and sustaining habitats, productive environments, and biodiversity in places used, traveled, and inhabited by human beings. (feeling that in order to go greener, it will still be done in a world surrounded by human activity and done in cities, labs, etc. And won't be down by returning to the natural world.) |
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Exponential Growth |
A condition of growth where the rate is mathematically proportional to the current value, leading to continued, non-linear increase of the quantity; in population, this refers to a state of increasingly accelerated and compounded growth, with ecological implications for scarcity. |
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Neo-Malthusians |
Present-day adherents to a position - established by Malthus in the nineteenth century - that population growth outstrips limited natural resources and presents the single greatest driver of environmental degradation and crisis. |
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Kuznets Curve (Environmental) |
Based in the theory that income inequality will increase during economic development and decrease after reaching a state of overall affluence, this theory predicts that environmental impacts rise during development, only to fall after and economy matures. |
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Forest Transition Theory |
A model that predicts a period of deforestation in a region during development, when the forest is a resource or land is cleared for agriculture, followed by a return of forest when the economy changes and population out migrates and/or becomes conservation-oriented. Propents to the Kuznet Curve |
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Carrying Capacity |
The theoretical limit or population (animal, human, or otherwise) that a system can sustain. |
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Ecological Footprint |
The theoretical spatial extent of the earth's surface required to sustain an individual, group, system, organization; an index of environmental impact. |
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Induced Intensification |
A thesis predicting that where agricultural populations grow, demands for food lead to technological innovations resulting in increased food production on the same amount of available land. |
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Green Revolution |
A suite of technological innovations, developed in universities and international research centers, which were applied to agriculture between the 1950s and 1980s and increase agricultural yields dramatically, but w/ a concomitant rise in chemical inputs (fertilizers and pesticides) as well as increased demands for water and machinery. |
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Zero Population Growth |
A condition in a population where the number of births matches the number of deaths and therefore there is no net increase; an idealized condition for those concerned about overpopulation |
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Death Rate |
A measure of mortality in a population, typically expressed as the # of deaths per thousand pop. per year. |
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Birth Rate |
Natural growth in population, typically the # of births per thousand people per year. |
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Demographic Transition Model |
A model of population change that predicts a decline in population death rates associated with modernization, followed by a decline in pop. death rates associated with modernization, followed by a declin ein birth rates resulting from industrialization and urbanization; this creates a sigmoidal curve where pop. growth increases rapidly for a period, then levels off. |
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Fertility Rate |
Average number of births by an average statistical women during her reproductive lifetime. |
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Market Response Model |
A model that predicts economic responses to scarcity of a resource will lead to increases in prices that will result either in decreased demand for that resource or increased supply, or both. |
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Coase Theorem |
A thesis based in neoclassical economics, holding that externalities can be most efficiently controlled through contracts and bargaining between parties, assuming the transaction cost of reaching a bargain are not excessive. |
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Externality |
The spillover of a cost or benefit, as where industrial activity at a plant leads to pollution off-site that must be paid for by someone else. |
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Market Failure |
A situation or condition where the production or exchange of a good or service is not efficient; this refers to a range of perverse economic outcomes stemming from market problems like monopoly or uncontrolled externalities. |
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Transaction Cost |
In economics, the cost associated w/ making an exchange, including, for example, drawing a contract, traveling to market, or negotiating a price; while most economic models assume low transaction costs, in reality these costs can be quite high, especially for systems w/ high externalities. |
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Monopoly |
A market conditions where there is one seller for many buyers, leading to perverted and artificially inflated pricing of goods or services. |
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Monopsony |
A market condition where there is one buyer for many sellers, leading to perverted and artificially deflated pricing of goods or services. |
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Cap and Trade |
A market-based system to manage environmental pollutants where a total limit is placed on all emissions in a jurisdiction (state, country, worldwide, etc.) and individual people or firms possess transferable shares of that total, theoretically leading to the most efficient overall system to maintain and reduce pollution levels overall. |
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Greenwashing |
The exaggerated or false marketing of a product, good, or service as being environmentally friendly. |
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Green Certification |
Program to certify commodities for the purposes of assuring their ecological credentials, such as organically grown vegetables or sustainable harvested wood products. |
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Prisoner's Dilemma |
An allegorical description of a game-theoretical situation in which multiple individuals making decisions in pursuit of their own interests tend to create collective outcomes that are non-optimal for everyone. |
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Game Theory |
A form of applied mathematics used to model and predict people's behavior in strategic situations where people's choices are predicated on predicting the behavior of others. |
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Institutions |
Rules and norms governing collective action, especially referring to rules governing common property, environmental resources, like rivers, oceans, or the atmosphere. |
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Common Property |
A good or resource (e.g. bandwidth, pasture, oceans) whose characteristics make it difficult to fully enclose and partition, making it possible for non-owners to enjoy resource benefits and owners to sustain costs from the actions of others, typically necessitating some form of creating institutional management. |
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Factory Farms |
Intensive animal-raising agricultural operations; factory farms attempt to maximize production by raising as many animals in as little space as possible, often resulting in significant air and water pollution. |
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Ethics/Ethical |
The branch of philosophy dealing with morality, or, questions of right and wrong human action in the world. |
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Environmental Justice |
A principle, as well as a body of thought and research, stressing the need for equitable distribution of environmental goods (parks, clean air, healthful working conditions) and environmental bads (pollution, hazards, waste) between people, no matter their race, ethnicity, or gender. Conversely, environmental injustice describes a condition where unhealthful or dangerous conditions are disproportionately proximate to minority communities. |
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Dominion Thesis |
Arising from the Book of Genesis, the dominion thesis states that humans are the pinnacle of creation; as such, humans are granted ethical free rein to use nature in any way deemed beneficial |
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Stewardship |
Taking responsibility for the property or fate of others; stewardship of land and natural resources is often used in a religious context, such as "caring for creation" |
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Anthropocentrism |
An ethical standpoint that views humans as the central factor in consideration of right and wrong action in and toward nature (compare to ecocentrism) |
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Utilitarian |
An ethical theory that posits that the value of a good should be judged solely (or at least primarily) by its usefulness to society; following the eighteenth-nineteenth-century philosopher Jeremy Bentham, usefulness is equated with maximizing pleasure or happiness and minimizing pain and suffering. |
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Conservation |
The management of a resource or system to sustain its productivity over time, typically associated with scientific management of collective goods like fisheries or forests (compared to preservation) |
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Preservation |
The management of a resource or environment for protection and preservation, typically for its own sake, as in wilderness preservation (compare to conservation) |
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Wilderness |
A natural parcel of land, more or less unaffected by human forces; increasingly, wilderness is viewed as a social construction |
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Ecocentrism |
An environmental ethical stance that argues that ecological concerns should, over and above human priorities, be central to decisions about right and wrong action (compare to anthropocentrism.) |
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Moral Extensionism |
An ethical principle stating that humans should extend their sphere or moral concern beyond the human realm; most commonly, it is argued that intelligent or sentient animals are worthy ethical subjects. |
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Animal Liberation |
Named after Peter Singer's groundbreaking 1975 book, radical social movement that aims to free all animals from use by humans, whether those uses are for food, medical testing, industry, personal adornment, entertainment of anything else. |
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Deep Ecology |
A philosophy of environmental ethics that distances itself from "shallow" or mainstream environmentalism by arguing for a "deeper" and supposedly more truly ecologically- informed view of the world. |
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Intrinsic Value |
The value of a natural object (e.g., and owl or a stream) in and for itself, as an end rather than a means. |
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Holism |
Any theory that holds that a whole system (e.g. and "ecosystem" or the Earth) is more that the sum of its parts |
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Naturalistic Fallacy |
A philosophically invalid derivation of an ethical "ought" from a natural "is" |
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Scientism |
Usually deployed as a term of derision; refers to an uncritical reliance on the natural sciences as the basis for social decision-making and ethical judgment. |
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Social Ecology |
A school or thought and set of social movements, associated with the thinker Murray Bookchin, asserting that environmental problems and crises are rooted in typical social structures and relationships, since these tend to be hierarchical, state-controlled, and predicated on domination of both people and nature. |
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Hazard |
An object, condition, or process that threaten individuals and society in terms of production or reproduction |
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Risk |
The known (or estimated) probability that a hazard-related decision will have a negative consequence. |
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Uncertainty |
The degree to which the outcomes of a decision or situation are unknown |
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Risk Perception |
A phenomenon, and related field of study, describing the tendency of people to evaluate the hazardousness of a situation or decision in not-always-raitonal terms, depending on individual biases, culture, or human tendencies. (conversation with Rhodie on death rates.) |
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Affect |
Emotions and unconscious responses to the world that influence decision-making |
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Cultural Theory |
A theoretical framework associated with anthropologist Mary Douglas that stresses the way individual perceptions (of risk, for example) are reinforced by group social dynamics, leading to a few paradigmatic, typical, and discrete ways of seeing and addressing problems. |
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Externality |
The spillover of a cost or benefit, as where industrial activity at a plant leads to pollution off-site that must be paid for by someone else. |
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Environmental Justice |
A principle, as well as a body of thought and research, stressing the need for equitable distribution of environmental goods, (parks, clean air, healthful working conditions) and environmental bads (pollution, hazards, waste) between people, no matter their race, ethnicity, or gender. Conversely, environmental injustice describes a condition where unhealthful or dangerous conditions are disproportionately proximate to minority communities. |
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Commodity |
An object of economic value that is valued generically, rather than as a specific object (example: pork is a commodity, rather than a particular pig). In political economy (and Marxist) thought, an object made for exchange |
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Means of Production |
In political economic (and Marxist) thought, the infrastructure, equipment, machinery, etc. required to make things, goods, and commodities. |
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Conditions of Production |
In political economic (and Marxist) thought, the material or environmental conditions required for a specific economy to functions, which may include things as varied as water for use in an industrial process to the health of workers to do the labor. |
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Surplus Value |
In political economic (and Marxist) thought, the value produced by under paying labor or over-extracting from the environment, which is accumulated by owners and investors. |
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Primitive Accumulation |
In Marxist thought, the direct appropriation by capitalists of natural resources or goods from communities that historically tend to hold them collectively, as, for example, where the common lands of Britain were enclosed by wealthy elites and the state in the 1700s. |
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Relations of Production |
In political economic (and Marxist) thought, the social relationships associated with, and necessary for, a specific economy, as serfs/knights are to feudalism and workers/owners are to modern capitalism. |
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Overaccumulation |
In political economic (and Marxist) a condition in the economy where capital becomes concentrated in very few hands (e.g., wealthy individuals) or firms (e.g., banks), causing economic slowdown and potential socioeconomic crisis. |
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First Contradiction of Capitalism |
In Marxist thought, this describes the tendency for capitalism to eventually undermine the economic conditions for its own perpetuation, through overproduction for commodities, reduction of wages for would-be consumers, etc., predicted to eventually lead to responses by workers to resists capitalism leading to a new form of economy. Compare to the second contradiction of capitalism. |
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Second Contradiction of Capitalism |
In marxist thought, this describes the tendency for capitalism to eventually undermine the environmental conditions for its own perpetuations, through degradation of natural resources or damage to the health of workers, etc., predicted to eventually lead to environmentalist and workers' movements to resist capitalism, leading to a new form of economy. Compare to the first contradiction of capitalism. |
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Social Reproduction |
That part of the economy, especially including household work, that depends on unremunerated labor, but without which the more formal ash economy would suffer and collapse. |
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Production of Nature |
In political economic thought, the idea that the environment, if it ever did exist separate from people, is now a product of human industry or activity |
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Superfund |
The environmental program established address abandoned hazardous waste sites in the U.S. |
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Commodification |
The transformation of an object or resource from something valued in and for itself, to something valued generically for exchange. In Marxist thought, the rise of the exchange value of a thing, over its use value |
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Spatial Fix |
The tendency of capitalism to temporarily solve it inevitable periodic crises by establishing new markets, new resources, and new sites of production in other places. |
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Globalization |
An ongoing process by which regional economies, societies, and cultures have become integrated through a globe-spanning network of exchange. |
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Eco-feminism |
And of a number of theories critical of the role of patriarchal society for degrading both the natural environment and the social condition of women. |
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Social Construction |
Any category, condition, or thing that exists or is understood to have certain characteristics because people socially agree that it does. (Wilderness is perceived as this.) |
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Constructivist |
Emphasizing the significance of concepts, ideologies, and social practices to our understanding and making of (literally, constructing) the world |
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Nature |
The natural world, everything that exists that is not a product of human activity; often put in quotes to designate that it is difficult if not impossible to divvy up the entire world into discrete natural and human components. |
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Social Context |
The ensemble of social relations in a particular place at a particular time; includes belief systems, economic relations of productions, and institutions of governance. |
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Race |
A set of imaginary categories distinguishing types of people, typically, based on skin color or body morphology, which varies significantly between cultures, locations, and periods of history. |
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Discourse |
At root, written and spoken communication; thicker deployments of the term acknowledge that statements and texts are not mere representations of a material world, but rather power-embedded constructions that (partially) make the world we live in. |
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Narrative |
A story with a beginning and end; environmental narratives such as "biological evolution" and "the tragedy of the commons" aid our comprehension and construction of the world |
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Concept |
A single idea, usually captured in a word or phrase |
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Ideologies |
Normative, value-laden, world-views that spell out how the world is and how it ought to be. |
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Signifying Practices |
Modes and methods of representation; the techniques used to tell stories, introduce and define concepts, and communicate ideologies |
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Relativism |
Questioning the veracity of universal truth statements, relativism holds that all beliefs, truth, and facts are at root products of the particular set of social relations from which they arise. |
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Co-production |
the inevitable and ongoing process whereby humans and non-humans produce and change one another through their interaction and interrelation. |
