Global Systems: Space, Place, and Environmental Change

Global Systems

Distinguish space from place and explain why these concepts matter to geographers
Space – The physical locations of events and phenomena. Where things can occur often represented on maps
Place – Space is organized into places often thought of as bounded settings in which social relations and identity are constituted.
- For environmental invasive projects, such as pipelines it is important to consider the place and what social relations are ongoing in that space.

Role of population, consumption (affluence) and technology as drivers of environmental change – including the consequences of prioritizing one over others

More people, more resources needed, therefore more pollutants
Consumption(Affluence) – Consumption per person
- Higher consumption means using more energy, more materials, more food. Certain countries have higher consumption than others.
Technology - Can enable faster, more extensive resource extraction
- Allow processes to happen quicker which results in depleting resources quicker

If we only consider one of these drivers, we do not focus on the others therefore getting an inaccurate measurement of the impact.

Population theories of Malthus and Boserup and their legacies

Population size is
 limited by available resources
- Overpopulation will cause crisis such as famine, disease and conflict - Predictions of ecological catastrophe

Ester Boserup – As population grows,
innovation increases
- New agricultural methods will increase production to meet demand
- Technological optimism

Weaknesses and omissions in the IPAT framework

, talking about consumption per person varies within regions
- The kind of consumption matters
- Critique 2: IPAT ignores power, Lower classes don’t have control over economy and production
- Critique 3: Culture is missing, Culture includes values, beliefs, social norms
• IPAT implies that everyone makes consumption choices with a similar degree of environmental impact
- Critique 4: IPAT’s predictions are wrong, global resource scarcity has not occurred, food production has kept pace with population growth, prices of key commodities have remained stable

Key Terms:

IPAT – an equation that expressed the idea that environmental impact is:
Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology
Impact – Land resource use
Population – Number of people
Affluence – Consumption per person
Technology – resource intensity of production

Telecoupling – Distant impacts of local actions or events
Example: The greenhouse gas emissions produced from a car in London contributes to climate change globally

Planetary Boundaries
 – The idea there is a ‘safe operating space for humanity’ with respect to biological limits – which can be exceeded like how we are today
- According to scientists, we are already outside the “safe space” in some areas

Ecosystem Services – A way to account for different kinds of benefits that ecosystems provide. Such as economic benefits to economy.

Environmental Footprint – A calculation of how much land area is required to support a given lifestyle.

Time-space Compression
 – Rapid travel and communications let people and goods move farther, faster, physical distance becomes less relevant.
For example, skype.
-But the process is uneven. More developed countries have more time-space compression.

Virtual Water – The virtual water content of a product (a commodity, good or service) is the volume of freshwater used to produce the product.
For example, wheat takes 1600 cubic meters of water.

Pollution Haven Hypothesis – Poses that when large industrialized nations seek to set up factories or offices abroad, they will often look for the cheapest option in terms of resources and labor that offers the land and material access they require.

Summary

• Population, consumption and technology all contribute to environmental impact

Biodiversity

Describe the Biosphere II experiment and what lessons it offers on biodiversity
- 8 scientists lived for two years in an airtight greenhouse
- Year 1 lost weight. Year 2 gained weight
- Most small insects and pollinating died, cockroaches and ants thrived
- Concludes that its harder to create a new ecosystem than protect the one we have

Explain how intrinsic and instrumental values inform different positions on conservation (including Lomborg’s and Escobar’s views)
Intrinsic Value - organisms are valuable in their own right, regardless of their use to us.

Instrumental Values - Use and non-use. Organisms provide us with things we want or need. For example food medicine.
 Contrasting Views

Arturo Escobar: Biodiversity is not only a biological concept – it also has social meaning.

Identify the biggest current threats to biodiversity and give examples

HIPPO
Habitat Destruction
- Caused by deforestation, forest fragmentation, urban sprawl, agriculture activities, resource extraction

Invasive Species
- Introduced species that change the competitive balance of an ecosystem. Such as zebra mussels or Ash Borer Beetle
Pollution
- Impacts of chemicals and wastes from industrial releases or oil spills
- Examples air pollution

Population Growth
- More people means more built up land, more pollution
Overconsumption
- Over consumption of goods and foods

Discuss possible reasons for the co-occurrence of linguistic and biological diversity

- Areas of high biodiversity coincide with areas of high linguistic diversity. Almost half the languages on Earth are found in the 35 biodiversity hotspots. Of these, 2/3 are endemic to the hotspots.

Discuss the goals and impacts of the ‘fortress’ conservation model, giving examples
An approach to conservation that defines protected areas and restricts human activities inside them
ex. US national parks system

-Credited with protecting some species and landscapes
-Criticized as first nations people were prevented from hunting/fishing/gathering
-European countries adopted US park model and applied it to African colonies 1900
-Hunters like Roosevelt were among early promoters of protected areas – ‘to protect their access to big game’
-Note that not all protected areas were equally protected

Engage with ethical dilemmas raised by the use of new technologies in conservation
Specifically in African parks, poaching for elephants have significantly increased and the parks thought of using drones as a new technology to prevent poachers. The local population has issues with the invasion of privacy. Some people upon introduction of the drones are scared, because it is an unfamiliar sight. Some recognize that these drones are useful to prevent poaching but cannot agree to have their privacy violated. Questions raised on what happens if something other than poaching is caught on camera. 
Ethical Issues with Technology
- Invade privacy
- Will data be kept safe

Explain how the rise of the Andes Mountains shaped the Amazon region
- The Andes mountains mountain range has kept moist air within the rain forest
- contributing to wetness by filtering rain clouds over the mountain from the ocean, which then releases the water onto the amazon
- Mountain structure prevents winds from carrying moisture from the amazon to the pacific
- Ecosystem probably formed by the rise of the Andes mountains starting 35-65 million years ago
- Increased rainfall by blocking humid Atlantic air
- Prevented water from draining to Pacific; formed wetlands

Explain how people shaped the ecology of the Amazon before European contact
- Created ponds to keep homes safe from flooding
- Changed composition of soil by creating garbage piles forming rich soil
- Built raised fields reduced shade, raised water temperatures

Describe current threats to ecological and cultural diversity in the Amazon
- Deforestation (agriculture expansion, timber harvesting)
- Hydroelectric Dams
- Oil and Mining

Explain how Brazilian policies have both encouraged and reduced deforestation

– 1966 strategy to encourage investment offered a 12-year tax holiday for projects started before 1972; 75% of project costs to be covered by federal government
– Other policies encouraged migration to the Amazon, e.g. offering 240 acres to each settler plus subsidies, guaranteed credit
 – 1985 land reform: included the possibility that land would be expropriated to give to new settlers. Triggered deforestation as people tried to keep claim to land by showing use

Reduced Deforestation:
REDD+ Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation
- Countries in global North make payments to countries in global South with major forest cover or other stored carbon
- Money used for sustainable forest management including community compensation
Soy Moratorium
- Large soybean traders agreed not to buy soy grown on Amazon land cleared after 2006
- Goal: reduce deforestation for growing soy
Forest Code
- Enabled law enforcement to seize or destroy property
- Monitored deforestation with satellite imagery
- Created new protected areas in deforestation hotspots

Discuss lessons learned from the Yasuni-ITT initiative as an example of market based conservation
Government of Ecuador sought payments to not develop an oil reserve under a national park. This conservation of natural areas was supported by market mechanisms
- Goals were to protect indigenous people, protect biodiversity, address climate change, and for Ecuador to stop using Fossil Fuels

- 2007: sought $3.6 billion
- Promised to repay money if they drilled for oil
- Developed other oil reserves while Yasuni was being debated
- 2013: $300 million delivered
- Ecuador cancelled the plan
- Awarded drilling concessions and refunded the money already paid

Key Terms:

PES -Payments for Ecosystems
- Financially rewards people for providing ecosystem services instead of depleting them
- Voluntary, negotiated transaction
Examples - protecting watersheds, preventing soil erosion

Biodiversity Hotspots - A biodiversity hotspot is a biogeographic region with significant levels of biodiversity that is under threats 

REDD+
- A form of PES
- Countries in global North make payments to countries in global South with major forest cover or other stored carbon
- Money used for sustainable forest management including community compensation
- Local participation is one of the requirements
- Provides incentive to keep the forest standing

Intrinsic Value - organisms are valuable in their own right, regardless of their use to us.

Instrumental Values - Use and non-use. Organisms provide us with things we want or need. For example food medicine.

HIPPO
Habitat Destruction
- Caused by deforestation, forest fragmentation, urban sprawl, agriculture activities, resource extraction

Invasive Species
- Introduced species that change the competitive balance of an ecosystem. Such as zebra mussels or Ash Borer Beetle
Pollution
- Impacts of chemicals and wastes from industrial releases or oil spills
- Examples air pollution

Population Growth
- More people means more built up land, more pollution
Overconsumption
- Over consumption of goods and foods

Summary of Amazon
• Amazon deforestation has slowed
• Many strategies have contributed to this slowing – Local, national, international – Voluntary agreements, legislation, direct actions
• Challenges remain – Key pressures driving deforestation remain unaddressed

Food and Agriculture

Identify major challenges for agriculture and explain how large-scale, intensive agriculture and small-scale, alternative agriculture have responded to them

Major Challenges for Agriculture:
• Feed a growing global population - equally
• Maintain ecosystem services
• Provide livelihoods for almost half of humanity
• Contribute to identity and culture

These challenges are responded to by:
• Intensive agriculture – Dominant in North America – High input, low labor – highly mechanized, encourages ever greater production
• Traditional, low-input agriculture – Most farms in global South – Low input, high labor

Summarize key developments that have increased crop yields
- Synthetic Fertilizer, source of nitrogen for plants such as corn
- Mechanization, cut down labor costs by using tractors and various machines
- Irrigation, watering plants
- Specialization, monoculture - only having to worry about one crop
- Improved varieties, Modern improved varieties offer much higher yields, better quality and more stable production. 

Discuss the history and legacies of the Green Revolution
• The notable increase in cereal-grains production in developing countries in the 1960s/70s
• This trend resulted from the introduction of hybrid strains of wheat, rice, and corn (maize) and the adoption of modern agricultural technologies, including irrigation and heavy doses of chemical fertilizer.
• Effort to increase agricultural yields in Asia, Latin America starting in 1960s
• Technologies imported from U.S.
• Productivity seen as measure of progress

Methods:
• Monoculture • Fertilizers • Pesticides • Transgenic seeds • Irrigation • Mechanization

Green Revolution legacy:
• Who benefited most?
- Extra food produced by the green revolution allowed many developing countries to keep up with population growth, and is considered to have helped India and Pakistan avoid famine
• A new Green Revolution for Africa?
Africa benefited far less from the Green Revolution than Asian countries and is still threatened periodically with famine.

Explain the major environmental impacts – and potential environmental benefits – of intensive agriculture
Environmental Impacts:• Habitat and biodiversity loss
• Water pollution (runoff)
• Impacts on wildlife (pesticides)
• Soil degradation – Erosion, nutrient depletion
• Water use
• Fossil fuel use and carbon emissions

Environmental Benefits:
• ‘Spares” land for conservation
• Technology helps use water efficiently (precision irrigation)
• Growing bigger livestock means fewer animals provide more calories

Explain how agro ecological farming interacts with ecosystem services
• Agro ecology – “the application of ecological concepts and principles to the design and management of sustainable agricultural ecosystems” – Altieri 2009
– Aims to produce food while enhancing habitat both in the soil and above ground
– Draws on local and indigenous knowledge

Agro ecology and the environment
• Rotate crops, plant trees to conserve soil
• Use few or no chemicals
• Plant heritage varieties, intercrop to use less water
• Fewer GHG emissions and greater resilience to climate change than industrial agriculture

Highlight key events in the history of corn (you do not need to memorize dates)
• 9000 BCE-ish: corn domesticated in Mexico
• 1500-ish: introduced from Americas to Europe
• 1500s: brought overland to west Asia (Afghanistan)
• 1600s: introduced to Africa, perhaps by Portuguese traders linking W. Africa and Brazil
• 1800s: advances in mechanized harvesters and hybrid varieties
• 1896: Ford’s first car runs on pure ethanol (Model T could run on ethanol, gas, or both)
• Early 1900s: More processed foods from corn: corn starch, corn syrup
• 1940s: Synthetic fertilizer drastically increases yields
• 1962: Carson’s book Silent Spring raises awareness of pesticide impacts
• 1960s: high-fructose corn syrup invented
• 1978: first US government subsidy for gasohol
• 1990s: genetically modified corn introduced (and approved): resistant to pests
• 2008: Obama wins presidency partly due to winning Iowa, due to support for ethanol?
• 2010: One-third of US corn crop used for ethanol

Describe how U.S. policies have encouraged ever-increasing corn production
• 1930s: New Deal policies – Farmers given option of taking a loan and storing their corn in years of abundant harvest
• 1970s: Direct payments to farmers – No matter how low the price of corn falls, government will pay farmers a set price – Creates incentive to always produce more
• 1996: Further deregulation; even more surplus corn

Explain what it means that corn is a ‘flex crop’
Flex crops are crops that can be used for food, feed, fuel or industrial material.
- corn has many different uses
• Food, feed, fuel, industrial chemicals etc.

• “Cornification” of the food supply – Livestock feed, processed foods
• “Cornification” of everything else? – Ethanol, industrial chemicals, “bio economy”

Discuss how international trade rules and food aid can affect agricultural markets
• International trade rules can undercut local production, especially in developing countries
EX.
 – Since NAFTA (1994), Mexico imports yellow corn from US; cheaper than preferred white corn
 – NAFTA forced Mexico to end tariffs that closed price gap
– White corn prices lowered; Mexican farmers lost money

World Trade Organization (WTO) legal challenges
– WTO has guidelines on ‘unfair’ market distortions
– Sept 2016: U.S. launched a complaint against China for ‘unfair’ corn subsidies (over and above WTO rules)
– But trade disputes are very political: a challenge from a less powerful country may be met with a more damaging counter-suit

• Giving food as ‘aid’ also undercuts local markets – Food aid not subject to same WTO restrictions on trade distortion
EX. – Malawi 2002-03
– Projected deficit in food production caused donors to send lots of food aid
– but food also imported in other ways – Market flooded; prices dropped; local production fell

Summary of Corn:
Corn interacts with global systems in different ways;
• Corn has an environmental, economic, social, cultural, political dimensions
• Ecosystem services
• Ecological footprint – Land, water, resource use for corn’s end products
• Telecoupling – Trade flows, trade rules, aid policies

Give examples of policies that can help reduce food waste
- composting, urban metabolism, nutrient recycling, donations

Key Terms:

Mono culture - The use of land for growing only one type of crop

Polyculture - The simultaneous cultivation or exploitation of several crops or kinds of animals 

Teosinte - A Mexican grass that is grown as food and is considered to be one of the parent plants of modern corn.
- Has few kernals, hard seeds
- Took hundreds/thousands of year to breed corn

Agro ecology – “the application of ecological concepts and principles to the design and management of sustainable agricultural ecosystems” – Altieri 2009
– Aims to produce food while enhancing habitat both in the soil and above ground
– Draws on local and indigenous knowledge

Food Sovereignty - Farming based on small farmer autonomy, ecological methods, culturally appropriate foods, gender equity, non-exploitative labor
- La Via Campesina: worldwide present movement pushing for food sovereignty

Flex Crops - Flex crops are crops that can be used for food, feed, fuel or industrial material. Their emergence as critical global commodities is integral to understanding today's agro industrial economy

Energy Systems

Describe recent economic trends in the energy sector (IEA 2015)

World Energy Outlook 2015 headlines
1. Many people lack sufficient energy to live the lives they want to live
• 1.2 billion lack access to electricity
• 2.7 billion use solid biomass for cooking (wood, charcoal, dung, crop waste)

2. There are major geographic differences in energy production and use
• Global energy use is not even
• Every country wants energy security

3. Fossil fuel use contributes to climate change and is not shrinking fast enough
• Fuel efficiency measures expanding, renewables gejng cheaper – but not enough to meet climate mitigation targets
• Fossil fuels are heavily subsidized: $490 billion/yr
• Low oil prices provide no incentive to use less or pursue alternatives

4. The energy sector is crucially important in economic terms
• Energy production and distribution is an economic activity in itself
• Energy powers all other economic activities

Discuss social impacts that can result from shortfalls in energy access
Shortfalls in energy access (energy poverty) can have many social impacts. Energy poverty is lacking reliable access to safe, affordable energy when it is needed. Facing blackouts, not having enough energy to heat your own home or cook leading to biomass cooking (wood, charcoal, dung, crop waste) More examples include health, displacement, lost livelihoods, habitat loss

Identify benefits and drawbacks of common sources of electricity

Nuclear
Benefits • Steady, low-emission electricity source
• High up-front investment needed
Drawbacks • very long-term waste disposal
• Risk of accidents (low probability, high impact)
• nuclear energy is non-renewable, bad for the environment

Hydroelectricity
Benefits • Uses water flow to spin turbines
• Renewable (though infrastructure deteriorates)
Drawbacks • Most hydro power linked to large dams
• reservoir displaces people, changes ecology and livelihoods, releases emissions (methane from decomposing underwater vegetation)

Coal
Benefits • Cheap fuel
• Easy to adjust amount of power produced
Drawbacks • High GHG emissions; many countries and provinces phasing it out
• Environment and health impacts of mining

Wind
Benefits • Wind spins a turbine
• Stronger wind = more electricity
• Larger blade = more electricity
Drawbacks • Wind level varies
• Siting controversies

Solar
Benefits • Photovoltaic: produces electricity
• Solar water heating: substitutes for electricity or gas
• Renewable, low-emission, price is declining
• Small solar panels can provide decentralized energy
Drawbacks • intermittent, only practical in some places

Oil and gas
• Crude oil is refined into many gasoline, diesel, kerosene, more
• Natural gas important for heating and electricity
• Large parts of the global energy system are “locked in” to oil (e.g. for transportation fuels)
• arguably, the global economy is also “locked in” to oil and gas (e.g. subsidies)
• non-renewable, carbon emissions/pollutants bad for the environment

Energy sources: summary
• Different energy sectors use different energy sources
 – Electricity: lots of options
 – Transport: liquid fuels
– Heating and cooking: biomass, gas, electricity
• each energy source has advantages and drawbacks – none is automatically ‘good’ or ‘bad’

Explain the main components of an energy justice perspective; give examples
Energy justice • The ways energy is produced, distributed and used can have major social and environmental impacts, both negative(Health, displacement, lost livelihoods, habitat loss, climate change, wildlife, cultural impacts) and positive(Financial gain, energy access)
• These impacts are not evenly distributed

This is a framework for thinking about fairness in energy systems and decisions
• Asks: What would a more just energy system look like? What would it take to achieve it?
• Three core aspects: outcomes (who benefits from the energy project? Who suffers?),
process (who does what? How are decisions made?), and recognition (Who is valued? recognizing the diversity of people involved in an energy decision. Individuals must be fairly represented).

Summary • Specific energy sources are not automatically “good” or “bad” – a lot depends on how they are deployed
• Energy justice involves fairness in terms of distributional, procedural and recognition issues

Differentiate between equality and equity and be able to apply these concepts
• Competing ideas of fairness
• Equality: treating everyone the same way

• Equity: accounting for different starting points
- giving everyone what they need to be successful

Describe hydraulic fracturing (fracking) as a means of extracting energy: how the process works and its impacts

Shale gas is gas trapped in porous rock far below the surface. It is extracted through hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking’
– Drill down to shale layer (1-3km deep)
– Drilling horizontally through shale layer (up to 1.5km)
 – Inject ‘frack fluid’ (water, chemicals, sand – to break rock)
 – Pump gas and ‘flowback water’ out through well

Impacts of fracking
• Air pollution: With what consequences?
• Water pollution: Ground or surface water, or both?
• Health effects: For whom?
• Earthquakes: What causes them?

Discuss the process of extracting energy from the oil sands (tar sands): how it works and its impacts

Bitumen – thick, heavy oil – is integrated with sand. There are two ways to extract bitumen:
– Mining (remove forest and topsoil; dig; truck out)
– In situ (drill; pump steam underground to separate bitumen from sand; pump out) • Energy-intensive way to produce oil

Impacts of extracting from the oil sands:
• A source of toxic pollution impacting people and wildlife
• Landscape damage that cannot be “restored” easily – if at all
• A major contributor to climate change
• An example of public policy serving private interests
 • A clear case of environmental racism

Give examples of company arguments and critical perspectives on the oil sands
Company Arguments Include:- Investing in communities
- Found dinosaur bones
- Highly efficient machinery - Large trucks
- Reducing water, re-claiming land, reducing emissions