ESRM 200 Quiz Qs

In the interview with Jack Turner, the interviewer asks: "What exactly do you mean by "wild"? Turner replies:

"I mean something that is self-willed, autonomous, self-organized. Basically it's the opposite of controlled."

Aldo Leopold wrote which passage:

"In short, a land ethic changes the role of homo sapiens from a conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such."

Aldo Leopold wrote which quotation:

"Perhaps the most serious obstacle impeding the evolution of a land ethic is the fact that our education and economic system is headed away from, rather than toward, an intense consciousness of land."

E. O. Wilson wrote which statement:

"The only way to make a conservation ethic work is to ground it in ultimately selfish reasoning - but the premises must be of a new and more potent kind."

In my email from Tuesday evening (2/2/22), I shared a paragraph that Botao had written in his intellectual journal, and I asked you to read it. In his paragraph, Botao writes:

"There is no reason to do conservation anymore since we can just sink into a virtual world where things go as our wishes effortlessly. Who cares about the birds dying outside? I can build you an army of dinosaurs right away; just let me plug in my brain-computer interface."

In Jared Diamond's chapter about Easter Island, he writes: "Easter's isolation makes it the clearest example of a society..."

"that destroyed itself by overexploiting its own resources."

It would be fair to say that while the move The Social Dilemma did a good job of interviewing tech-savvy experts, what they really missed the mark on was that there was not a single interview with one of the creators of the technologies.

False

One of the limitations of the Nature and Health field is that there are so few empirical studies out there. It would be fair to say that no more than 50 empirical articles have been published on this topic.

False

Who wrote: "We are survival machines - robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes"?

Richard Dawkins

In Elizabeth Marshall Thomas's account of the Ju-Wasi Bushmen from the 1950's, in her chapter on hunting, she says:

The person who provided the arrow that killed the animal distributes the meat.

In Jared Diamond's article The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race, he argues that this worst mistake was:

The rise of agriculture

In "A plasma display window? - The shifting baseline problem in a technologically-mediated natural world", there were three conditions in the experiment. What were they?

(i) a glass window that afforded a view of a nature scene, (ii) a plasma window that afforded a real-time HDTV view of essentially the same scene, and (iii) a blank wall.

In Chapter 8 ("Gathering") of her book, The Old Way, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas says that the Ju/wasi ate about:

80 different kinds of plants.

In Smith's article "Counting the Dead," he argues that for the entire United States from 1492 to the present, the total number of Indigenous deaths can be estimated to be around.

13 million lives

In her chapter Defeating Windigo, what does Robin Kimmerer mean by the term Windigo?

A destructive evil force or power.

Who wrote that environmental education will continue to fail until we help people develop a "love, respect, and admiration for land, and a high regard for its value." "No important change in ethics," this person wrote, "was ever accomplished without an internal change in our intellectual emphasis, loyalties, affections, and convictions."

Aldo Leopold

Who wrote: "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."

Aldo Leopold

In my email Thursday evening (1/27), I quoted a long section from the World Wildlife Fund about Water Scarcity. In it, the WWF said:

At the current consumption rate, this situation will only get worse. By 2025, two-thirds of the world's population may face water shortages. And ecosystems around the world will suffer even more."

In Audryana's research, they concluded that which groups of people had the least amount of access to urban natural spaces in Seattle?

Black/Latino

In the short article you read by Jennifer Roberts, she focuses on her experiences in one urban park in particular:

Central Park in New York City

In the video interview with Robin Kimmerer, Kimmerer said that publishing peer-reviewed scientific articles about mosses felt ________ to her.

Dishonest

Who wrote the following: Our sense of wonder grows exponentially: the greater the knowledge, the deeper the mystery and the more we seek knowledge....Humanity is exalted not because we are so far above other living creatures, but because knowing them well elevates the very concept of life."

E. O. Wilson

Who wrote: "The only way to make a conservation ethic work is to ground it in ultimately selfish reasoning - but the premises must be of a new and more potent kind."

E. O. Wilson

Which is NOT one of Michael Pollan's food rules?

Eat Whoppers at Burger King but definitely don't have bacon on top (pig, not good for you).

Along with interviewing tech experts, the movie The Social Dilemma includes interviews with three former Presidents of the United States - President Clinton, President Bush, and President Obama (but not President Trump) - on their views of social media.

False

Back in the early 1900's, when Pinchot wrote his principles of conservation, he basically foresaw and described the problem we currently have with wildfires today. In other words, he was arguing to let the natural forest fires burn themselves out.

False

Deb Haaland is now the first Native American Woman to head the National Association of State Foresters.

False

Deb Haaland is the first Native American Woman in United States history to head up the National Rifle Association (NRA).

False

In Elizabeth Marshall Thomas's account of the Ju-Wasi Bushmen from the 1950's, the Bushmen would not eat a dead animal unless it was killed by one of them. She found this particularly striking because several times she witnessed the Bushmen who were hungry but they walked right past the uneaten remains of antelopes recently killed by lions. She attributed this behavior to their religious beliefs.

False

In Frumkin et al.'s article Nature Contact and Human Health, the authors identify 7 domains of research in this area. The authors explain that these domains do not include any of the medical sciences - such as biomedical studies or epidemiological studies - as these domains lay outside the expertise of the authors

False

In Jared Diamond's article The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race, one of Diamond's critiques of hunter-gatherer life is that there was very little leisure time, given the demands of that life-way, compared to more modern times.

False

In Jared Diamond's chapter about Easter Island, he argues that Easter Island never actually had moai - and that these monolithic carved human figures are part of the myth of Easter Island that he debunks with archeological evidence.

False

In Smith's article "Counting the Dead," he argues that based on actual numbers it is a mistake to call the loss of Indigenous lives a "Holocaust."

False

In her article "Casting a wide net and making the most of the catch," Usha Varanasi describes her experiences as a young girl growing up along the Yukon River and Norton Sound region in the western part of Alaska. She opens with some vivid descriptions of the Salmon fish racks, smokehouses, and fish camps of her youth.

False

In our first class on Tuesday (1/4), and in my subsequent email, I mentioned a study published in the journal Science, conducted by Roger Ulrich, where he found that patients after gall-bladder surgery needed more pain medication and healed slower if they were in a hospital room that had a view of nature, as compared to a view of a brick

False

In reading Michel Pollan's writings, it would be fair to say that he offers a forceful critique of the food industry and food science, but unfortunately he offers few solutions.

False

In the Hartig and Kahn article, "Living in Cities, Naturally," the authors actually come to the opposite conclusion: that cities are unnatural and unhealthy. They end their article about cities by writing: "Leave them if you can."

False

It would be fair to say that while Frumkin et al. (in Nature Contact and Human Health) put forward interesting hypotheses for how nature might impact human health, and propose possible mechanisms, what is lacking in their article are actual references to empirical studies to back up their ideas.

False

When Robin Kimmerer writes of "The Counsel of Walnuts" she makes this analogy: that just as the walnut tree grows strongest alone in the field, so do her native people now need to learn (given modern times) that they can grow strongest though embracing individual rights to land and to property.

False

In my email to you yesterday (2/7), I shared various excerpts from some of your intellectual journals. One entry was from Zijie who wrote about experiencing environmental generational amnesia growing up in Guangzhou. In my response, I suggested that he experienced a possible solution to the problem of environmental generational amnesia:

Have people experience nature a little cleaner, a little more beautiful, a little more diverse, a little more wild, so that they can recalibrate on a more accurate "normal."

Which is a sociobiological explanation for why people find flowers aesthetically pleasing?

In our ancestral history flowers indicated sources of food, and thus were indicators of that which benefitted individual and group survival. It's in this way that E. O. Wilson suggests that "beauty in some fashion can be said to lie in the genes of the beholder."

In the interview with Jack Turner, the interviewer asks: "You've called wildness 'an endangered experience.' What do you mean by that? If we're steeped in wildness, is it just a matter of perception? What is Turner's answer?

It has to do with scale. On one scale you've got the Orion Nebula, which is twenty-six light-years across and two thousand times the mass of the sun. At the other extreme is the scale of quantum physics and subatomic particles. The scale that Henry David Thoreau and the American conservation movement focus on is that of voles and coral reefs and redwoods and whales. I'm particularly interested in wildness at that scale, and it's at that scale that wildness is disappearing.

Who wrote: "For now, during this time of our country's unrest, my black body will continue to enjoy and seek peace in the beauty and serenity of public greenspaces and I hope you do too."

Jennifer Roberts

It would be fair to say that Jack Turner's views are most aligned with those of:

John Muir

Who wrote: "Bears are made of the same dust as we, and they breathe the same winds and drink of the same waters. A bear's days are warmed by the same sun, his dwellings are overdomed by the same blue sky, and his life turns and ebbs with heart pulsing like ours. He was poured from the same first fountain."

John Muir

Last class (1/11), I began by drawing on Theo's writing about invasive species, and then Theo discussed the dilemma of:

Loving eucalyptus trees but knowing they are invasive.

In the Li and Bell (2018) article - The great outdoors: Forests, wilderness, and public health - the authors discuss Gibson's ecological theory of perception" and the idea of nature affordances. Which is an example of a nature affordance from this perspective?

On a hot day, an old growth redwood affords people the opportunity to sit down alongside it, lean one's back against its trunk, and find a little respite in the shade.

What type of nut did the young boys collect in Robin Kimmerer's chapter The Council of the ________ from her book Braiding Sweetgrass?

Pecans

In class on Tuesday January 18, and in my follow-up class email that evening, I said that this person stopped by the land that I'm part of. We talked together. We looked out onto the land that we both love. We spoke of days past. We spoke of forests gone. Who was this person I was speaking with?

Richard Wilson

Who wrote this quote: "An abundance of documentation shows blacks, lower-income groups, and working-class persons are subjected to a disproportionately large amount of pollution and other environmental stressors in their neighborhoods as well as in their workplaces. However, these groups have only been marginally involved in the nation's environmental movement."

Robert Bullard

Robin Kimmerer says she "was raised by strawberries". What does she mean by this?

She grew up in close proximity to wild strawberry fields. The strawberries reared her and taught her life lessons.

In class on Tuesday January 18, I spoke of the Trail of Tears, which refers to the forced relocation of Native American tribes from the Southeast to Oklahoma in the 1830s. More than 4,000 Native Americans died during this forced march. I said that one of the things I had not known, until about 6 years ago, was:

Some of the Native Americans brought with them African American slaves, which explains why there is a sizable Black population in Oklahoma today.

In your preparation for class today, I asked you to reflect on Mike's journal entry that I copied into the email from last Thursday. In his writing, Mike writes:

Studying ESRM has made me exceptionally good at computer skills and has only marginally increased my awareness of the richness and nuance of the natural world. If I love the natural world, will I spend my life modeling ki or viscerally experiencing ki? If the natural world loves me back, which would ki rather I do?

In Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We're in without Going Crazy, Joanne Macy and Chris Johnstone speak of Three Stories of Our Time. The first is Business as Usual. The second is the Great Unraveling. The third is called:

The Great Turning

The first part of the title of the article about Ron Griswell is: "Ron Griswell Has a Message for Black College Students." The second part of the title (and Griswell's message) is:

The Outdoors Are For You Too

In my class email of 1/6/2022, I wrote of talking with the naturalist Robert Michael Pyle. He's a fabulous nature writer. Butterfly expert. He told me that when he grew up here in Seattle as a kid, he used to play in Ravenna Creek. But now he can't access that area of the creek. Why?

The creek is covered up by the University Village Shopping Mall.

According to Robin Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass, from her people's perspective if something is purchased it cannot be viewed as a gift.

True

According to Rosenbaum, in his chapter 635 Million Acres of Politics, the public domain has been divided by Congress into different units committed to different uses and administered by different executive agencies, including: National Wilderness Preservation System, National Park System, National Wildlife Refuge System, National Forests, and National Rangelands.

True

E. O. Wilson believes that humans can gain material benefits from further studying plants in diverse regions on our planet.

True

In "A plasma display window? - The shifting baseline problem in a technologically-mediated natural world", one of the central results focused on heart rate recovery from low level stress across the three conditions.

True

In Food Rules, Michael Pollan writes: "People who get off the Western diet see dramatic improvements in their health."

True

In Gifford Pinchot's principles of conservation, it would be fair to say that he is for development.

True

In Jared Diamond's chapter about Easter Island, he argues that Easter Island was deforested sometime after human arrival by A.D. 900 and must have been completed by 1722.

True

In Polyface Farm, Pollan writes that nearby forests are important to the farm's agricultural lands.

True

In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan visits Polyface Farm to show in detail, "on the ground" so to speak, an example of a healthy farm that seeks to mimic a natural ecosystem in its diversity and interdependence. Animals are killed on this farm.

True

In our first class on Tuesday (1/4), and which I summarized in my subsequent email, Camille in our class spoke about adaptation. Camille argued that we can't adapt our way out of most of the environmental problems of today - such as climate change/havoc/destruction - because human evolution moves slowly compared to the exceedingly fast planetary changes humans are causing.

True

In the Li and Bell (2018) article - The great outdoors: Forests, wilderness, and public health - the authors conclude: "In comparison with urban environments, forest and wilderness can decrease indicators of sympathetic nervous activity, such as blood pressure, heart rate, and levels of stress hormones."

True

In the short 5-minute film I asked you to watch by Ross Harrison, it would be fair to say that I speak about the problem of environmental generational amnesia.

True

In your reading of Rosenbaum, in his chapter 635 Million Acres of Politics, it would be fair to say that the different agencies that manage public lands are not well coordinated, and even individual agencies sometimes embody conflicting mandates.

True

It would be fair to say that Robert Bullard believes that black people, lower-income groups, and working-class persons are subjected to a disproportionately large amount of pollution and other environmental stressors in their neighborhoods.

True

Last class, Chaja presented on the olfactory pathway that monoterpenes might enter in the human body and potential health outcomes following monoterpene exposure. Correct!

True

Richard Dawkins ideas draw on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and natural selection.

True

Which of the following agencies is NOT in the U.S. Department of the Interior?

United States Forest Service

In my class email to all of you on Tuesday (1/11) I discussed at length a question that one of you had asked me after class. The question was:

What do our recent readings and discussions on indigenous life and the historical holocaust of indigenous people have to do with a class titled: Society and Sustainable Environments?"

Aldo Leopold:

argues for a form of an "extension of ethics" to cover not just all people, but the land itself. In developing his position, he goes back to the time of Odysseus, and shows how slaves and wives back then were considered property.

In the video interview you watched of Richard Wilson, the former Director of the California State Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Wilson made which distinction:

between environmentalism and conservation

According to Kellert and Heerwagen, biophilic design

emphasizes the necessity of maintaining, enhancing, and restoring the beneficial experience of nature in the built environment.

According to Kellert and Heerwagen, biophilic design can be related to which biophilic design element(s)?

environmental features natural shapes and forms natural patterns and processes place-based relationships

In Frumkin et al.'s article Nature Contact and Human Health, the authors say that contact with nature can

reduce stress lead to better sleep improve post-operative recovery reduce obesity improve eyesight improve immune function

Last class (and reiterated in my email from 3/1), Josephine spoke of:

the harms incurred by people forced into climate migration, and who are unwelcomed at borders.

According to E. O. Wilson, biophilia refers to:

the innate tendency to focus on life.

In class last Thursday, I presented on one of my studies in human-robot interaction that involved the robot Robovie. In the 5 minute video clip you watched, one of the experimenters put Robovie in the closet. The reason this was done was:

to set up an experimental situation where a human being inflicts a moral "harm" on a social robot to assess whether people thought of a social robot as "social" and/or "moral."

In the video interview you watched with Richard Wilson, Wilson discusses:

when he was on the California Coastal Commission, and there was the Oxnard Plains in Southern California that had some of the finest soil you'll find in the world, but which succumbed to development.

In "A plasma display window? - The shifting baseline problem in a technologically-mediated natural world - the idea of "environmental generational amnesia" was discussed. The crux of this idea (of environmental generational amnesia) is that

with each ensuing generation, the amount of environmental degradation can increase, but each generation tends to take that degraded condition as the nondegraded condition - that is, as the normal experience.

Last class (2/1/2022) and in my email, I developed the idea of what I call "environmental generational amnesia." The crux of this idea (of environmental generational amnesia) is that:

with each ensuing generation, the amount of environmental degradation can increase, but each generation tends to take that degraded condition as the nondegraded condition - that is, as the normal experience.