Economic Growth & Environmental Protection

A collection of flashcards covering key concepts from the lecture about the interplay between economic growth, environmental protection, and related societal impacts.

Minamata Disease (1950s)

It occurred in Southern Japan and created a “spiral of mistrust” in heavily affected communities regarding industrial progress. It is cited as a starting point for environmental awareness that eventually led to global conferences.

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962)

Carson documented the environmental harm caused by the pesticide DDT. She argued that its use would kill birds and other animals, leading to a "silent spring". (Supplement: Theodore Panayotou’s "Economic Growth and the Environment" notes this era began the debate on whether economic activity would eventually overwhelm the carrying capacity of the biosphere.)

UN Stockholm Conference (1972)

The United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) was established following the UN Conference on the Human Environment.

The Brundtland Report (1987)

It defined sustainable development as development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. The lecture notes question if we can truly anticipate those future needs.

Images of Sustainability (Models)

• Triple Bottom Line (TBL): Overlapping circles of Society, Economy, and Environment

• Three Pillars: Sustainability supported by three pillars of Society, Economy, and Environment

• Alternative Model: Nested circles where the Economy is inside Society, which is inside the Environment.

Middle Ages View of Nature

Basic Image: God’s created cosmos. Human-Nature Relationship: Primary distinction between cultivated and wild nature. Emotional Tone: Mixture of reverence and fear. Text: Dante’s Inferno (c. 1308), depicting the "dark wood" as something drear and rank to be feared.

17th Century / Early Modern Science View

A law-governed machine sharpening the human-nature divide. Neutral, rational, and analytical; powered by Descartes’ Dualism ("I think therefore I am") which separated mind from body and human from nature.

Romanticism & Transcendentalism (Late 18th-19th c.)

Basic Image: A living, dynamic, spiritually meaningful force. Human-Nature Relationship: Humans are seen as part of nature; boundaries are questioned. Tone: Awe, wonder, and reverence ("the sublime"). Thinkers: Thoreau (Walden), Wordsworth, Emerson (Nature), and Muir (My First Summer in the Sierra).

The "Yellowstone Model"

Emma Marris (Rambunctious Garden) describes it as the American export of setting aside "pristine wilderness" and banning human use. Ironically, Indigenous peoples were moved out of their homes to "conserve" land they had inhabited for 10,000–11,000 years while doing the least harm.

The "Holy Baseline"

It is the ideal form of natural areas, which many believe should look as they did before Europeans arrived. Marris notes this "vignette of primitive America" is a core goal of the Leopold Report.

Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC)

It suggests that environmental degradation increases with income per capita during early development (Stage II) but begins to improve at higher income levels (Stage III).

Panayotou’s EKC Findings

Theodore Panayotou’s "Economic Growth and the Environment" found that deforestation conforms to the EKC with a turning point around $800 per capita. However, he notes that while local air pollutants may show an EKC, global indicators (like CO2) often increase with income.

Three Structural Forces of the EKC

Scale: Total volume of economic activity. Composition: Structural shifts (e.g., from industry to services). Abatement: The effect of income on the demand and supply of pollution abatement efforts.

International Trade & Pollution Havens

The Pollution Haven Hypothesis suggests rich countries "spin off" pollution-intensive production to lower-income nations with weaker standards. While production in rich nations looks cleaner, Panayotou argues their consumption patterns remain as environmentally burdensome as ever.

The Bhopal Disaster (1984)

Ravi Rajan (Bhopal – Vulnerability, Routinization, & the Chronic Disaster) uses this term because while the initial leak killed thousands, survivors face chronic cancer and suffering that has receded from public attention.

Bhopal’s Design Flaw & Labor

US design engineers insisted on large-scale storage of methyl isocyanate (mIC) because it was less expensive, despite it being high-risk. Due to unsafe conditions, qualified engineers resigned, and the company used underqualified, underpaid workers.

Activism in Bhopal (Morcha vs. BGMPUS)

The Morcha: A political movement seeking revolutionary change and alternative data to counter government erasure. BGMPUS: A trade union (85% women) focused on material tangibles to mitigate collective vulnerability.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Definition

It is a company's "outsourced responsibility" to environmental groups and stakeholders. Conor Woodman (Unfair Trade) labels it a "business holy grail" that is often done for "ethical" marketing while the company claims they never "knowingly" buy unethical products to avoid solving problems.

The Nicaraguan Lobster Case (CSR Failure)

Woodman explains that US companies like Darden (Red Lobster) claim they don't buy deep-dive lobsters, but it is impossible to verify because divers (completing 10 dives a day at 100-140 feet) lack depth gauges.

Enclosure (Primitive Accumulation)

Jason Hickel (Less is More) describes it as the violent privatization of the commons (forests, pastures), which forced peasants into wage labor to avoid starvation. It is a process of "artificial scarcity".

M-C-M’ (Exchange-value)

Unlike a use-value economy (C1-M-C2), capitalism focuses on Exchange-value: Money (M) is used to produce a Commodity (C) to generate more money (M’) for reinvestment and expansion.

Marx’s "Fetishism"

The phenomenon where social relationships between people (workers) are perceived as material relations between things (commodities), masking the human labor that created them.

The Productivity Trap

Hickel explains that as technology increases labor productivity, fewer workers are needed. Governments must then generate perpetual growth just to create new jobs and avoid social collapse.

I = P x A x T

Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology.

Planetary Boundaries

Hickel notes there are nine potentially destabilizing processes (e.g., climate change, biodiversity loss) that we must keep under control to avoid "danger zones" and irreversible collapse.

Nature of the Fourth Kind

Cal Flyn (Islands of Abandonment) uses this term for spontaneous ecosystems growing unsupported on wastelands (like Scottish oil bings), which act as "island refugia" for biodiversity.

The Soviet Carbon Sink

Abandoned collective farms (kolkhozy) became the largest man-made carbon sink in history, sequestering 7.6 gigatons of CO2.

The "Great Dying" & The Little Ice Age

Flyn notes that the collapse of farming following post-Columbian pandemics (killing 90% of the population) caused massive reforestation, which sequestered enough carbon to contribute to the Little Ice Age.

Clements’ Forest Succession vs. Non-equilibrial

Clements: Ecosystems develop toward a single stable "climax" community (the "balance of nature" view). Non-equilibrial: Modern science sees ecosystems in constant flux due to disturbances like El Niño and shifting rivers; there is no single stable equilibrium.

Modernization Theory (Rostow)

The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto, which proposed linear stages of development toward "high mass-consumption".

Development as a "Zombie Category"

Eduardo Gudynas (Buen Vivir: Today’s Tomorrow) argues it is dead due to its social and ecological failures but is continually resuscitated by global institutions.

Buen Vivir (Sumak Kawsay)

An "alternative to development" focused on the fullness of life in a community including nature. It rejects growth as the objective and dissolves the society-nature dualism.

The Ayllu

A social and ecological community where well-being includes persons, crops, cattle, and nature.

Oikos (Etymology)

Both come from Oikos (house). Ecology is the "logic/study" of the house, and Economy is the "management" of the house.