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University of Toronto - ENV221 - ALL LECTURE NOTES

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Course
ENV221

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University Of Toronto (U Of T )

University of Toronto - ENV221: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on the Environment - ALL LECTURE NOTES - fall 2018 - Karen Ing

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Uploaded on January 25, 2023
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Env221
Sept 18, 2018: LECTURE 4
● Religious tradition:
○ Christianity, judaism and islam have been critiqued for such teachings, that make
humans more important than nature
○ Traditionally there were many passages that have a negative attitude towards the
environment
● The pope sets the standards on how catholics should behave, the pope in 2015 sent out
an encyclical that dealt with the environment:
○ He was very particular about humans attitude towards nature
○ Critiques “irrational confidence in progress and human abilities” and the
“throwaway culture of unbridled consumerism”
● At the core its a moral question about how we should treat the environment
● Conservation and preservation:
○ conservation ethic: humans should put natural resources to use but we have a
responsibility to manage them wisely, gifford pinchot, clifford sifton
○ Preservation ethic: should try to protect the natural environment in a pristine,
unaltered state
■ Nature deserves protection for its own inherent value-john muir, james
harkin
● Ethical consideration to whom?
○ Anthropocentrism: extend my ethics to other humans
○ Biocentrism: i extend my ethics to not only humans but all living things
○ Ecocentrism: extend ethics not only to living things but also the rocks and earth
● Peter singer and tom regan
○ We should extend moral standing to other species of animals
○ Becuz they possess a form of consciousness
● Mahatma gandi:
○ “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its
animals are treated”
● The land ethic: aldo leopold: describes how he wanted to kill a wolf in the woods but he
looked into his eyes and saw that it has a consciousness, and couldn't kill it, he evolved
his attitude
○ The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community not only to
humans but also to the animals and the land, soil and water and plants aka the
land
○ A thing is right when it tends to preserve the beauty, stability and integrity of the
biotic community. It is wrong otherwise
● Deep ecology:
○ Developed by norwegian philosopher arne naess
○ All living things have equal intrinsic value and that becuz we are truly inseparable
from our environment we should protect all living things as we protect ourselves
● Social ecology:

, ○ Environmental problems are directly related to social problems
○ Humans must recognize they are part of nature not distinct or separate from it
○ Relationships are mutualistic and interrelated, non-hierarchical
● Environmental justice:
○ Based on the principle that all people-regardless of race, color, national origin, or
income-have the right to:
■ Live and work in a clean healthy environment
■ To receive protection from the risks and impacts of environmental
degradation
■ Be compensated for having suffered such impacts
■ habe equitable access to environmental resources of high quality
● Ecofeminism:
○ Evolved alongside social movements of 60s and 70s
○ Connections btwn the oppression of nature and of women
○ Patriarchal society tends to try to dominate and conquer what they hate, fear or
do not understand
○ Vandana shiva
ENV POLICY
● Policy specifically pertaining to our interactions w the environment
● Regular input from science, ethics and econ
● Policy: formal set of principles to address issues, guide decision making
○ Public policy: made by governments to control/ influence public behavior, laws,
regulations, orders, incentives, and practices

OCT 2, 2018: Climate Change

● Human-made problem is climate change and it needs to be addressed
● carbon dioxide has a natural fluctuation
● Earths climate is chaotic, we could have a year that's v cold from now or v warm, its v
sensitively balanced anything could throw it off
● Its called threshold-laden, anything could push it off the edge
● Best estimates project a change of 1.4 -5.8 degrees over the next century
● The rate at which we're reaching high temps is high
● Such a change could cool down selective areas, since the warming may not be uniformly
all over the globe it may cool down by 3 to 5 degrees
● The current pattern and rate of warmth is unique in that it cannot be explained by
any natural forcing mechanism as we currently understand
● Cooling temperatures support climate change, because weather is going kinda crazy

distance/angles btwn earth and the sun
● The earth position and orientation relative to the sun varies, bringing us closer and
farther away in predictable cycles, the so-called milankovitch cycle
● The cycles stretch the elliptical orbit around the sun

, ● This cycle happens over a lot of years
● Periodic shifts in earth orbit and tilt
○ Changing distribution and intensity of sunlight reaching the earth
● The tilt of the earth happens due to Milankovitch cycle and this tilt changes over time, we
are at an angle 23 for now
● Percession, so the earth wobbles a bit has a cycle of 19-24 hundred years
● Precession wobble cycle: 19-23,000 years
● Obliquity (tilt) cycle: 41 000 years
● Eccentricity cycles: 100,000 years
● Milankovitch cycles go a long way to explain at least some past ice -ages and from pic
● But it doesn't explain why the earth is heating up this fast
● Changes in atmospheric composition can explain overall patterns in earth climate and
account for the changes of the last 150 years
○ Understanding and predicting how atmospheric co2, levels, and climate may
change in the future means we need to understand where carbon is stored and
how it moves

CARBON CYCLE
● Coal is a natural gas and so is oil, they're fossil fuels, it burns and the carbon is released
into the atmosphere
● 5 significant pools in the carbon cycle:
○ 1. Atmosphere (827 gt in 2011 or 390 ppm) amount of carbon in the air
○ 2. forests/soils (610 gt/1580 gt) carbon is in the leaves and in the bark, an
increasing amount of carbon in the soil more than the atmosphere
○ Ocean:
■ 3. Surface ocean: has attractions w the atmosphere (1020 gt)
■ 4. Deep ocean: no attractions w atmosphere and when carbon is stored
there it stays there for a v long time (38,100 gt) the largest pool of carbon
on earth
○ 5. Fossil fuel (5,000 gt)

CARBON FLUXES
● photosynthesis/respiration: takes co2 from the air and gives it to plants
● Changing land use/ deforestation: forest regrowth if u burn the tree w carbon in it u
release carbon in the atmosphere it depends on the decisions u make
● Surface ocean flux: there's a lot of carbon in the ocean of the surface how to make
the surface of the ocean to take up more carbon
● Flux to the deep ocean: they want to pump carbon into the deepest part of the ocean
● Fossil fuel: can't we just leave it in the ground and find alternative energy sources

The highlighted parts r the natural ways for which co2 to leave the atmosphere

IPCC

, (internation panel on climate change)
● Leading international body for the assessment of climate change
● Estblished in 1988 by the world meterologiucal organization and the united nation sif the
env programme
● Pur[pose to provide clear sciemtific view on current state of knowledge in climate change
and its potential enviromental
● Its a scientific body reviews and assesses does not conduct all over
● The goal is to inform policy
● They're not paid lol
\
SUMMARY FINDINGS OF AR5
● Warming of the climate system is unequivocal (as strong as certain as u will get) and
since the 1950s many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to
millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed the amounts of snow and ice

IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE
● Temp increases
● Changes in precipitation
● Melting ice and snow
● Rising sea levels, coastal erosion
● Increase extreme weather events
● Organisms and ecosystems
● Societal
○ Agriculture, forestry, health, economics
○ Can have drought conditions can encourage pests
○ Can have diseases
○ Gdp of nations, insurance claims and flooding claims

CHANGES IN ARTIC AND ANTARTICA
● Polar amplification impact is greater in polar regions
○ Exacerbated by feedback mechanisms:
■ Change in albedo (reflection) associated w ice and snow cover to ocean
and land
■ The release of methane and co2 stored in permafrost
● The Arctic temps increasing close to twice the rate as the rest of the world
● The region is experiencing the most rapid and severe climate change on earth

ECOLOGICAL IMPACTS:
● Once the temps increasing the blooming might happen more rapidly but the insects dont
know that
● Check the posting

Classes that i missed pray for me dude!

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