L13- Revision + Exam Info

Themes-

Exceeding planetary limits:

• Cumulative greenhouse emissions from the last two and a half centuries have caused a climate crisis. Effects of the climate crisis are being felt now, and are especially acute in countries of the Global South.

• To avoid dangerous climate change, immediate action is needed in the form of deep and lasting cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, especially from fossil fuel use. The success of these depends on political engagement with the Paris Agreement, which has started but needs to go further to be successful

  • land use change is important but majority of emissions are in the energy system

• Sustainability means living within planetary limits for resource renewal on land and in the oceans. However, there must be sufficient access to resources to ensure a good life for all

  • there is planetary limit→ ocean perspective too

• The oceans are increasingly an economic frontier, exploited for food and materials, and leading to claims on space and inequality of access. Planetary boundaries can be defined for sustainable use of the seas

  • oceans are an economic frontier for resources

• Theoretically it is possible to achieve a good life for all within planetary boundaries (there is a doughnut), but no country yet achieves this, with changes needed to economies, public services, and inequality

  • doughnut economics→ needs to be a minimum resource consumption to meet needs, meets fair access principle

  • there is nowhere right now where restrictions of the doughnuts are met

  • the right provision of provisioning services theoretically can get us to within the limits

Inequalities in causes and effects:

• There are deep structural inequalities, including racial inequalities, in both causes and impacts of the climate crisis and air pollution. Consequently, social justice should be a fundamental component of mitigation and adaptation

  • causes and impacts of climate change e.g. local perspective on air pollution, Maria Van Martin

  • social justice is an important part of this

• Consumption via the globalised economic system enables high income, urban populations to have global footprints. Those footprints embody environmental damage via resource extraction from the land and sea, and the exploitation of other people via poor labour conditions.

  • accompanied by embodied social injustice

• The globalised food system, overconsumption of food and processed foods are damaging for health as well as the environment. A sustainable diet richer in plant and blue proteins and lower in animal products would improve health, the environment and food security.

  • planetary health diet- needs to be applied in a regionally, culturally way, level same kind of critiques from the anthropocene- discussion session with Giana

• There are major inequities in access to marine food. Improving access to marine resources, and ensuring nutrients derived from blue food are accessible to the populations that are most at risk from micronutrient deficiencies, are important strategies for improving food security.

• The impacts of colonialism and inequalities of climate change are not only strongly felt in the Global South but also by peoples living in the world's most northerly lands 

  • roots of inequalities in colonial histories

• Arctic communities face the greatest rates of climate change, and issues are particularly acute for indigenous peoples whose traditional knowledge (important to health, wellbeing and economies) increasingly no longer applies to the emerging new environment. A key tool for improving this situation is indigenous self-determination in research.

  • inequalities in high latitudes as a detailed case study that can be drawn on in the exam→ Gareth

Historical roots of overexploitation:

• The roots of the globalised system of resource extraction and human exploitation lie in European empires of the last 500 years. This is still seen in vast claims on marine space based on remaining overseas territories and dependencies.

  • role of european empires

  • territorial claims on the ocean perpetuate this history of colonialism

• There are some direct links between today’s globalised institutions and those born in the colonial era (e.g. some multinationals)

  • e.g. rubber

  • capital from this was important in starting the industrial revolution

• Entrenched inequalities between nations and within nations may trace their roots to past colonialism and racial segregation.

• Agriculture and domesticated crops arose from the evolutionary and ecological interactions of ancient peoples, with lasting consequences for limiting crop diversity and resilience.

  • palaeoanthropocene- Giana

• Human impacts on the Earth System can be traced back to the origins of agriculture, which had measurable effects on atmosphere and biosphere. The extent of these is debated.

• People have had significant impacts on the natural world for millennia, with historical consequences for landscapes that persist today. Understanding these may help design strategies for greater sustainability in land-management and agriculture.

  • strategies e.g. organic matter amendments

Strategies for sustainability:

• Scientific and technological approaches to climate change mitigation are important, since industrialisation started the climate crisis, energy use needs to be uncoupled from emissions, and carbon dioxide capture is necessary.

  • need technological solutions e.g. carbon capture lecture

  • one root is industrialisation→ decarbonisation is important→ lecture

• Scientific work on sustainability in the climate and food systems shows that transformations are needed to the ways in which land and oceans are used for fuels and foods. These changes necessarily involve trade-offs.

  • multi functionality in landscapes but there’s only so much you can do

• Climate change and food insecurity are problems that can’t be resolved by science alone, since they are inherently political in nature, and solutions must involve social and cultural changes.

  • not just a technological problem→ social and political dimensions too

• There are important cultural differences in how appropriate different mitigation strategies would be. Food cultures and contexts are particularly variable internationally.

• Joining up strategies on food, environment, and public health at both national and global scale is important.

• Intersectionality is an important lens for viewing the impacts of environmental problems and appropriate solutions.

• Traditional or indigenous cultural perspectives are valuable in reorientating human relationships with the natural world. In particular, a rights of nature approach has been advocated for environmental protection.

• Rights of nature approaches are being applied internationally, particularly to protect rivers.

  • value of these that Western societies take for granted

• Democratic and participatory approaches are necessary to ensure that strategies are appropriate for the communities they target. e.g. citizens’ assemblies → lecture, involving communities rather than a top down approach

• Successful policies for increasing sustainability require: authority and ability to make changes, coupled with acceptability from affected populations → lecture

Causes of the Anthropocene:

• there are overlaps between each cause, none in isolation would be sufficient, highlight different facets of the problem

• applying these questions to each cause:

Agriculture-

• Attribution – climate change caused by agriculture, global dietary transition is increasing emissions

  • focus on land management, what they eat as they move into cities and populations become well off

• Mitigation – healthy eating, limiting meat, stop land conversions for agriculture, sustainable farming

  • diets, sustainable farming

• Responsibility – national governments accounting for local cultural and social contexts

  • planetary health diet needs to be locally implemented

Colonialism-

• Attribution – exploitation of natural resources and people for profit, origins of globalized economy

  • challenges today are embedded in this globalised economy

• Mitigation – social and racial justice, compensation, redistribution of resources and land ownership

• Responsibility – governments of European nations and settler colonies (e.g. USA, Australia)

  • former colonial powers

Industrialisation- production side focus

• Attribution – climate change caused by industrialisation

  • industrial revolution in britain and europe, still see it today in china and india- building coal fire power stations

• Mitigation – decarbonize energy and industry

  • technological approach to decarbonising the energy industry

• Responsibility – early industrial nations lead, while later industrializing nations benefit from cheap fossil energy

  • historical producers of greenhouse gases, front and centre in treaties

Consumption-

• Attribution – consumption by globally wealthy urban pops within a globalized economic system

  • allows embodied environmental damage to be exported to where it is consumed

• Mitigation – account for embodied emissions, limit consumption, clean-up production and supply chains

  • harder to account for these emissions

  • addressing how you limit consumption in the first place

• Responsibility – governments of nations with wealthy consumers, manufacturing companies

  • many governments and manufacturers

→ commonalities across different aspects, each one focuses on a facet of the problem, multi-dimensional issue with no simple solution

Exam-

• in-person, 90 minutes, hand written essay

• example questions on blackboard, all ask similar things, can focus revision on one topic

• suggests focus on 2/3, do extra reading and thinking around it- deeper into reading from lectures or additional reading- extra reading on blackboard can be used as this- indicate when this is used in the essay (external reading)

• question will be focused on a specific aspect of the topic

• Tips:

  • synthetic answers that draw on different elements of the module, think about own perspective, prepare rather than revise

  • need to use diagrams- can draw figure from a paper- cite paper or write ER, own synthetic diagrams to illustrate points

  • need to balance a big picture argument with specific examples that illustrate the points (breadth and depth)

• discussion board on blackboard for questions and links you want to share

3 themes:

1. Social justice in responses to the climate crisis or food insecurity

• Explain why social justice is considered important for effective responses to food insecurity.

• Who is responsible for the climate crisis, and what does this mean for equitable responses to it?

• To what extent would addressing global inequalities help to make a more sustainable future?

• How should the rights of people to access food and energy be balanced with the rights of nature?

2. Historical causes of unsustainable resource use and food system

• Explain how human impacts on natural resource use and the Earth System have changed through history.

• What are the causes of the Anthropocene? Consider ancient and colonial impacts in your answer.

• Discuss the rationale for placing the start of the Anthropocene in the 15th century. Consider alternative perspectives in your answer.

• To what extent do the roots of the Anthropocene lie in past technological innovations?

• How could an understanding of how agricultural systems evolved help to make future food production more resilient?

• To what extent does an understanding of ancient history help us to recognize vulnerabilities within the modern food system, and develop approaches to address these?

3. Sustainability as an environmental, societal, cultural and political challenge

• Explain how effective responses to food insecurity must resolve both technological and social problems. Give examples of trade-offs that need to be considered when balancing food security with wider environmental goals.

• To what extent is climate change a social and political problem rather than a scientific one?

• To what extent will cultural changes be needed to address today’s sustainability crises?

• How is unsustainable resource-use causing crises in the climate and food systems, what policies are needed to mitigate these effects and what trade-offs will be involved?

• What is the current state of the world’s food system (including terrestrial and marine sources), and what changes are needed to reduce its environmental damage, increase its resilience, and improve food security in the future?

• What’s needed to achieve a fair life for all within planetary limits?

• Can a globalised market economy be sustainable?

More questions:

• How have major historical developments in food production led to sustainability issues for modern societies?

• how historical, social, cultural and political factors have influenced the sustainability of food production and natural resource management on land and in the sea.

• Climate change→ how consumption has caused climate change? the mitigation steps needed to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions? the roles and limitations of nature-based mitigation strategies?

• major historical developments in the global food system, including the origins and spread of agriculture, the globalisation of crops, production systems and food products, and their consequences for diets and health and how these have led to sustainability issues for modern societies?

• indigenous people- systems used before colonisation and the impacts of colonialism on this and the global exploitation of natural resources

• inequities in access to marine resources, and the challenges of rebuilding marine ecosystems in a socially just manner?

• the social and political challenges of achieving environmental sustainability, and a diversity of cultural perspectives on how to achieve social and environmental justice?

• how has humanity carried out unsustainable exploitation of the natural world from historical, social, cultural and political perspectives?

food, climate or oceans

L1-L5→ human societies in the Anthropocene

L6-L9→ natural resources on the land

L10-L12→ natural resources on the ocean

L14-L16→ equitable solutions to environmental problems

Module aims:

• critically evaluate humanity’s unsustainable exploitation of the natural world from historical, social, cultural and political perspectives

• focus on food production and natural resource management on the land and in the oceans

• how major historical developments in food production have led to sustainability issues for modern societies

• how modern geopolitics and injustices perpetuate unsustainable interactions with the natural world

• how an understanding of these issues can help us to develop more sustainable ways to live in future

1. develop a critical understanding of how historical, social, cultural and political factors have influenced the sustainability of food production and natural resource management on land and in the sea.

2. critically evaluate how consumption has caused climate change, the mitigation steps needed to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions, and the roles and limitations of nature-based mitigation strategies.

3. detail major historical developments in the global food system, including the origins and spread of agriculture, the globalisation of crops, production systems and food products, and their consequences for diets and health and how these have led to sustainability issues for modern societies

4. review the agricultural and land management systems used by indigenous peoples before European colonisation, and colonial impacts on these ways of life and the global exploitation of natural resources.

5. discuss inequities in access to marine resources, and the challenges of rebuilding marine ecosystems in a socially just manner.

6. introduce you to the social and political challenges of achieving environmental sustainability, and a diversity of cultural perspectives on how to achieve social and environmental justice.