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Session 5

curlew.jpg (12678 bytes) Community & Individual Sustainability
Class Overview

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 This class entails a continuing discussion of the concepts associated with Ecological Footprint, as well as the introduction of concepts associated with an individual approach to sustainability as introduced through the work of Aldo Leopold in Sand County Almanac .

Readings		 Web Readdings:

Sand County Almanac (Part One, pp. 3-98).

Ecological Footprints of the Future, William Rees 

Ecological Footprints, William Rees

The Ecological Footprints of Tokyo

Creating a Sustainable London

Writing
Assignment		 Overview of a selected environmental problem. 

Writing assignment # 2 due to be posted on the Web Board  by today.  Your next writing assignment, Paper 3, is due on Session 8.

Web Board:

 Discussion Questions: 

1.   Explain how trade & technology actually serve to limit rather than extend our ecological capacity.

2.   Compare and contrast the two sustainability poles: ecological stability and human quality of life.

3.   Please define "ecological sustainability."

4.     What is Rees talking about when he refers to an "ecological hinterland?"

5.     What is the "Second Law" argument and how does it apply to human beings?

6.      What is "natural capital?"

7.      How is it that Rees argues that economics "can't cope?"

8.      So what is our "blind spot?"

9.       Please describe Tokyo's "footprint" and how it acts as a "sponge".

10.     Identify four ways in which London is seeking to reduce its ecological footprint.

11.     What lesson does Leopold teach with his reflections about the "Bur Oak?"

12.     Briefly describe what Leopold beheld on the prairie in July?  How about in December?

Post your answers to these discussion questions on the Web Board.

 

Journal Writing		 Continue with your journal entries. You will be asked to send your journal in for review during the week of Session 8. Think about the footprint your family or you on your own leave in a year.  Look through your trash to see what you use.  This might provide you an opportunity for yet another journal opportunity.  Similarly, think about going to the grocery store and make note of what you buy that you feel is beyond what it is that your family more nearly needs than wants. 

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