Environmental Concepts Case Study
Case Study: Application of Environmental Management Concepts:
By this time in the course, you would have seen an overview of global ENMT issues, and examined integrative and international perspectives to environmental management. You would have also read about specific cases that demonstrate the need for an integrative approach to ENMT. As part of your authentic assessments, you will choose a case study on which to reflect and apply your knowledge of environmental management, integrating ENMT concepts, strategies, and perspectives, especially those covered in this course.
You may choose one of the following:
- – Events that led to the Cuyahoga River fires in 1969 up to the present
- – Mono Lake, from the 1940’s to the present
- – Donora, Pennsylvania, from the 1940’s to the present
Your case study should provide the following:
Component
Brief summary of the major events that led to the crisis
Possible points: 10
Brief summary of the scientific data pointing to the source of the problem
Possible points: 10
Social and legislative barriers to resolving the problem
Possible points: 10
Actions taken to resolve the problem, with a brief summary of the key players taking the actions
Possible points: 10
Ramifications of the case
Possible points: 10
Your recommendations on the environmental management systems and practices you think would be best to avoid such cases in the future and/or manage the case going forward. Please make sure to provide a clear argument for how your suggestions would either:
(A) Resolve the problem more effectively given the present state of the case (what has been implemented and can be further implemented)
OR
(B) Avoid future cases like the one you investigated
whichever one is the most applicable case to demonstrate your management knowledge.
Make sure to think clearly about each particular situation given time, culture, and resources in the context of your case.
Possible points: 40
References and citations from reliable sources in the American Psychological Association (APA) format
Possible points: 10
Total points possible = 100 points
Please note that you should be demonstrating application of what you have learned from class readings and discussions into each assignment.
Week 2: Integrative and International ENMT
Last week, we had an overview of global environmental issues and connected them to themes you have been exposed to throughout the ENMT program: themes such as the root causes of environmental issues (I=PAT), the different philosophical approaches to environmental management, and the technical causes for major environmental and human health issues.
This week, we will delve into the international perspective on how to manage global issues and then examine some integrative tools.
Since we live in a complex, globalized world, we need to have an overview of what it means to be in the 21st century. Please take a look at the video of Nate Hagens’ lecture: “A Guide to Being Human in the 21st Century” (2016): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EMlDuNH59c
After viewing this lecture, you might want to discuss the following questions:
• What drives our economy? How has your view of money and energy changed after viewing this video?
• What does being human have to do with environmental management? • How does this lecture provide an integration of the major themes you have
learned in your ENMT program?
After that overview on the complexity of being human in the 21st century, apply what you have learned to critically asses the open electronic resource “Our common future, Chapter 10: Managing the commons”: http://www.un- documents.net/ocf-10.htm
It is about 12 pages long and covers what appears to be the three largest commons to manage in the 21st century: oceans, space, and Antarctica. Do you agree with this assessment? Explain why or why not, linking this article to past readings and viewings.
The Hon. Tom McMillan, Minister of Environment for Canada stated: “The world’s environmental problems are greater than the sum of those in each country. Certainly, they can no longer be dealt with purely on a nation-state basis…The growing trend towards isolationism demonstrates that the current rhythm of history is out of harmony with human aspirations, even with its chances for survival.” Your thoughts on this given what you know about the state of the world with is population heading to 8 billion people, our present technology use, our overuse of many major resources, and what you see occurring in our own country and/or around the world.
The global issue of the 21st century, related to everything else we do with each other, is climate change. In order to move forward on solutions, we need to understand the problem clearly. To give you a global perspective on the problem, take a look at this 2-minutes video “How to understand the state of carbon consumption”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPS5Rqudid4
Did this 2-minutes video help you understand the state of carbon consumption around the world? How does this relate to environmental impact = PAT? What does the U.S. have a lot of in terms of “PAT” in the qualitative relationship between environmental impact and population growth, use of affluence, and technology use? In your environmental management program, you have heard about a number of international agreements such as the Montreal Protocol, the Rio Declaration on Environmental Development, and the Paris Agreement. Do you know if they are hard laws or soft laws? Do you know the difference between hard international laws and soft international laws? Take a look at this 20 slides power point “Hard and soft laws: myths and reality” to find out: https://www.slideshare.net/chandanpaswan5/hard-and-soft-law-copy After viewing those slides, can you sort out which of the various international agreements you have learned about in the past are hard laws and which are soft laws? Please explain the value of both hard and soft international laws.
Speaking of international agreements that affect environmental management, have you heard about the Global Harmonization Labeling System?
Take a look at this 16-minutes video on the GHS Labeling System: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvQNf1Y7E84
Would you consider GHS a hard or soft international law? Have you used or seen GHS at your work?
In such a complex, interconnected world, where the cost of our products does not reflect the environmental damage of that product, we need to think outside of our normal box to solve complex problems at their root. We will discuss the need to tie ecology to economy later in this course. For this unit on integrative and international perspectives, take a look at this short, four-page, article by A. Evans: “Rights of nature lawsuit seeks personhood for the Colorado River – Boulder Weekly”: http://www.boulderweekly.com/news/rights-nature-lawsuit- seeks-personhood-colorado-river/
What are your thoughts on the rights of nature lawsuit? Is this similar to the rights of future humans to live in a stable climate as in this lawsuit by Our Children’s Trust: https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/us/federal-lawsuit/
Here is a personal take on one young person’s story on why she decided to become part of the lawsuit: https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/cool-schools- 2017/why-i-decided-sue-my-own-government-over-climate-change
In addition to using courts to help change the direction we appear to be going in environmental management, work in the field of ENMT to change directions and
rethink the way we do things include use of pollution prevention, design for the environment, ecosystems-based approaches, and urban sustainability.
You have all heard that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So let’s being with this one page summary of “Ways to prevent pollution”: https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/pollution- prevention/ways-to-prevent.html
Have you used any of those seven ways of prevent pollution? Which ones and what types of pollution did you prevent?
Since our environmental crisis lies in the extent of human activities to disrupt ecosystems, it makes sense to see how we can be part of ecosystems instead of disrupting them. Below are some readings that take an ecosystems-based approach to designing products and the build environment. The basis of all the readings is an industrial ecology (IE) approach, where we try to design and operate industrial systems as living systems interdependent with natural systems as with “Indigo Development”: http://www.indigodev.com/IE.html
Part of the concept of industrial ecology is the creation of eco-industrial parks, where companies are integrated into communities and there is a clear link between industrial activities and sustainability in order to balance people, planet, and prosperity.
Take a look at this 11-slides presentation “Eco-Industrial Parks: A Foundation for Sustainable Communities?”: http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/~d30345d/courses/engs171/eips.pdf
Can you see how one industry’s waste might become another industry’s resource?
The need to imitate nature for both greater efficiencies and less pollution is clear in a resource-stressed world. Hence, it should not be surprising to you that the United Nations is planning eco-industrial parks in developing countries: http://recpnet.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Eco-Industrial-Parks.pdf
Students heading this week’s topic should investigate what has occurred to these eco-industrial projects since the writings presented in this document.
One of the subset of this IE approach is to design products for the environment, as this next power point presentation demonstrates: “Design for the Environment (DfE): What is it and how to do it”: http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/~d30345d/courses/engs171/dfe.pdf
In addition to having industrial activities imitate nature, we need to manage species and habitats in the context of economic activities, land development, and
resource extraction – the interaction of living and non-living things including humans as part of the system. This is essentially an Ecosystem-based management: http://ecosystems.noaa.gov/EBM101/WhatisEcosystem- BasedManagement.aspx
Have you heard of the Coral Reef Task Force where twelve federal agencies work together with seven different territories to coordinate coral reef conservation activities? Have you been involved with ecosystem-base management?
In such a complex world as the 21st century, we will have to incorporate adaptive management as part of ecosystems management: https://www2.usgs.gov/sdc/doc/DOI- %20Adaptive%20ManagementTechGuide.pdf
Please read up to page 17 of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s publication on adaptive management. What are some of the key points of adaptive management? How are they related to the scientific approach you reviewed last week?
Related to the need to learn from natural systems and provide decent standards of living to populations approaching 8 billion people is urban ecology. Take a look at this 5-minutes video on urban ecology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=klAGwjZEq Vo
What do you think about the need to have humans as fundamental components of an ecological system? What do you see of ecology in your cities? What about ecology of your cities? Which one is more integrative? Which one would you use to manage cities?
To provide more details on how we can integrate the environment into urban planning, please read pages 20-43 of “Integrating the environment in urban planning and management”: http://www.citiesalliance.org/sites/citiesalliance.org/files/publications/integr ating_the_environment.pdf
How do the severity of local, city/regional, and global burdens shift with increasing wealth of each settlement in the past? How can we change the graph presented below?
Do you think the changes that each of these ten cities have made in this short 4- page article along with one great 4-minutes video on TransMilenio — https://www.fastcompany.com/3016816/the-10-cities-that-are-leading-the-way-in- urban-sustainability — changes the wealth to environmental issues relationship represented by the curves above? If so, please explain how.
With populations heading toward 8 billion people, sustainable urban centers are clearly in need. Take a look at the follow two videos:
(A)First is a 15-miutes video of a sustainable city built from the ground up – can you guess where this city might be before you click on the link?:
(B) The second is a five-minutes video demonstrating some sustainable modifications made to an existing urban space: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yZYXSsWnsg
What would it take to bring any of the ideas you have read or heard about to the U.S.? What do you think of the term “hedonistic sustainability”?
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Environmental Concepts Case Study was first posted on September 2, 2019 at 8:06 pm.
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