For the first half of the book I thought that a lot of the ideas discussed are frequently brought up in small portions in all of my classes. Granted, I?m a geo/es/us major but I still find it?fascinating?that one book could be the text book for 4 different classes. If the first part needs a frame to be viewed through its clearly humans (anthropocentrism). Meaning, we are the frame through which we deal and see the world. We decide if something is?valuable or rare and therefore it needs to be kept. We have been the ones saying that it?s important to reduce the amount of impact we have on the earth. Our frame is mankind and what is done is done to help us.
Many of the ideas brought up strongly correlate with the idea that the environment is something around us we use to better ourselves. Not the fact that we should be bettering our own environment. The policies, the markets, the technology and the resources are all things that we use and set up to make our life more comfortable here. The idea of environmental justice is only something just beginning to be of importance to people because we realize we?ve been a bit too comfortable in our ways, and now we?re trying to make up for it.
In chapter 3 when the market response model is displayed I was shocked at how true this is. I didn?t expect for this to be so simple, but at the same time so complex. Would this model infer that still today at the rate we?re going that it would hold true? What about the model for population growth and decline, will this stay the same leading us to a more stable population for the next 100 years? And how about the risk factors mentioned in chapter 6, will people be willing to take higher risks for greater returns or stay on the safe path? These questions aren?t ones that nature would have us ask but rather ones we?re asking ourselves, because why: it?s all about us.
In the second half of the book I think a more worldly view was brought into play and therefore examined in the same style. There were more things about change and what we?re going to do about the change that were brought into the picture. For example, carbon dioxide and the rest of the green house gases gang. We know they?re bad but we don?t know exactly how to stop them yet so we?re afraid and worried about what will happen to us! Yes there are people who are worried about the environment and how it?s reacting to our bad habits but mostly people are worried about how it will affect them.?
For as many things that the book brings up there is something that can be related back to my studies here at OWU. I didn?t exactly open the book and expect it to all be laid out nice a dandy for me, but with some thinking everything has its purpose. The talks about trees, food, water each of these has been talked about in one of my classes within the past two weeks. I think that generally this book helps give a more basic layout of the ideas that we discuss in class. I think that to use it more effectively then it might be better to use this as a chapter a week type of book rather then try and scarf it down in two weeks.
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Source: http://environmentalgeography.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/environment-and-society-6/
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