Sustainability Freshman Inquiry

Feb. 10, 2011

Jeff FletcherSee also: Daily Log Page

Logistics• Extra Credit Opportunities

– PSU Social Sustainability Colloquium• Friday, Feb 11, 1-3pm, ASRC 660 (Student Rec Center Building)• Economics of Happiness . . . and Beyond• Angela Rodgers, SSW, and panel

– Groundwork Portland PSU Party, Feb. 25

• Read Collapse Prologue, Ch. 2 (p. 79-119)– For Tuesday (reading notes)

• Mercy Corp Fieldtrip Thursday Feb. 17, 2-5pm (including transportation time), $2.50 each– Meet 2:00 at PSU MAX; Catch Yellow Line at 2:08pm.

• Mentor Lab:– Thursday: Story of Stuff (discuss and critiques)

• Think about preferences for Collapse chapters

– Tuesday: Executive Summary from HW3 & results of suveys and garbage/recycling room assessments

CollapseHow Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

Think about Collapse

• The context of the book• The thesis of the book• The contribution of the book• The method of investigation • The “power” of the results • The influence of the book/chapter • The applicability of the results • Summary of the technical development • Details of any examples

Collapse Chapter Assignments• Chapter 3: The Last People Alive: Pitcairn and Henderson Islands• Chapter 4: The Ancient Ones: The Anasazi and their Neighbors• Chapter 5: The Maya Collapses

Chapter 6: The Viking Prelude and Fugues• Chapter 7: Norse Greenland’s Flowering• Chapter 8: Norse Greenland’s End• Chapter 9: Opposite Paths to Success • Chapter 10: Malthus in Africa: Rwanda’s Genocide• Chapter 11: One Island, Two Peoples, Two Histories: Dominican

Republic and Haiti• Chapter 12: China, Lurching Giant• Chapter 13: "Mining" Australia

Quiz Discussion

• 1) In your own words, explain what Diamond means when he uses the term "collapse"

Possible Answer

• Explain what Diamond means when he uses the term "collapse"

• “…a drastic decrease in human population size and/or political/economic/social complexity, over a considerable area, for an extended time.” (p. 3)

New Orleans 9th Ward

Is New Orleans a modern day Collapse?

New Frontline program on New Orleans recovery—one family’s storyhttp://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/katrina/view/

Quiz Discussion

2) List some of the reasons Diamond gives to support the claim that "any people can fall into the trap of over-exploiting environmental resources…" (p. 9)

Possible Answer

• List some of the reasons Diamond gives to support the claim that “Any people can fall into the trap of over-exploiting environmental resources…" (p. 9)

• (p. 9-10)– Resources seem inexhaustible at first– Signs of resource depletion are hidden in normal (yearly or

decade scale) fluctuations– Difficult to get people to exercise constraint on sheared

resources (tragedy of the commons)– Complexity of eco-systems makes it hard to predict long term

consequences of individual actions

Consumerism

• Story of Stuff (21:00)– Questions

• Does the video overstate anything?• Can you think of alternative ways of addressing these

issues?

• Critique– Story of Stuff, The Critique Part 3 of 4

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgLrZc7cws8• Does it deal with the central argument of a linear throughput

on a finite earth

– Part 4 of 4• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XeW5ilk-9Y&NR=1