PLSC 149

Green Climate Fund

Entity created by the UN to support the buildup of renewable energy in developing countries by subsidizing projects; based in South Korea, generally unideal location, leading to some political disputes that have led to an inability to produce projects in recent years

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

Established in 1988 by two United Nations organizations to assess the risk of human-induced climate change; provides policy-makers with regular scientific assessment on climate change, its implications and potential future risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation options; IPCC states that the problem is indisputable human caused

2021 UN Food Systems Summit

Event taking place during the UN General Assembly in New York on September 23; will set the stage for global food systems transformation to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030; continuation of the Decade of Action

Assimilative Capacity

Ability of ecosystems to absorb pollution without detrimental effects to the environment or those who use it

Meanings of Sustainability

Ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level; avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance

Adaptation v. Mitigation

Adaptation intends to build resilience against the emerging effects of climate change while mitigation intends to prevent additional warming; examples of adaptation include building sea walls or moving individuals inland, whereas mitigation efforts involve curbing emissions

Benchmarking

Comparing country/business performance to industry/international bests to learn of best practices; keeps track of change and absolute position in order to give a better understanding of progress over time

Compliance v. Enforcement

Compliance is conformity or obedience to environmental laws; enforcement is the act of compelling compliance with a law, rule or obligation' laws are often enforced through imposing punitive measures on those who do not follow standards

Sustainable Investing

Practice of identifying companies that can efficiently manage their financial, environmental, and human capital resources to generate attractive long-term profitability; often synonymous with responsible investing.

Sustainability Imperative

Principle championed by Esty that insists that "we must live within the safe operating space of Earth's ecological and biophysical systems and not inflict environmental damage on the planet that would threaten human development and ongoing prosperity"; legal presumption that damaging emissions must be stopped and uninternalized externalities must be ended

Regulatory Federalism

System in which the national government sets requirements that are then implemented by state and local governments; some major statutes of environmental regulation include the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Endangered Species Act

Feed-in Tariff

System whereby utilities are mandated to buy power from anyone who can generate power from renewable energy sources and feed it into the electrical grid (individual solar-panel owners, for instance); when prices are set at a premium, this can act as a powerful mechanism to promote the spread of renewable energy technologies

Multiple Dimensions of Innovation

Technology Development: Government Policies and Icentives: Public Engagement: Finance: Partnerships:

Administrative State

Term used to describe the power that the executive branch of the government has in implementing policy; Gillian E. Metzger argued that the Trump administration began the deconstruction of the administrative state despite it being essential for actualizing constitutional separation of power and constraining executive power; more broadly, administrative state can be reworked, as suggested by Esty in Red Lights to Green Lights, to award innovation

Open Access (Non-Excludable) v. Excludable Resources

Excludable is a good for which it is possible to prevent consumers who have not paid for it from having access to it versus open access resources where individuals can gain access to a good without paying for it (fish stocks, timber)

Laudato Si

Papal Encyclical by Pope Francis that intended to produce momentum for the 2015 Paris Agreement; first environmental encyclical that provided a moral logic for sustainability and climate change action; provided the important leadership that would help carry the world community over the line

Organic Agriculture

Approach to farming and ranching that avoids the use of herbicides, pesticides, growth hormones, and other similar synthetic inputs

Resilience

"Society's capacity to learn from and adapt to the dynamics of ecosystems in ways that avoid preventable harms, promote the flourishing of all human and nonhuman lives" from Critical Investigations of Resilience

How to Promote a Clean Energy Transition

(1) end subsidies on fossil fuels, (2) incentives for a shift to clean energy, such as putting price on causing the harm such as carbon taxes or cap and trade programs, auctioning off the right to sell power with a clean energy foundation, supporting technologies (3) energy efficiency, using less power to reduce need for power or minimum standards for buildings, reporting on efficiency of homes to promote the attractiveness of sustainability, (4) innovation

Six Major Threats to Ecosystems

(1) fragmentation as land is developed and paved, (2) climate change, (3) biodiversity loss that changes the circularity of ecosystem interactions, including invasive species, (4) unsustainable resource harvesting, (5) hunting and fishing beyond carrying capacity, (6) pollution

Four Benefits of Pursuing a Sustainability Driven Advantage

1. Reduce Risks: risks include legal liability (product that is toxic in its disposal), risks for the supply chain (traditional car market is facing a supply chain crisis while electric cars are not), risks of public backlash therefore granting companies a greater social license to operate; Hertz signed a deal with Tesla for 100,000 cars to prevent facing the consequences of a supply chain crisis, Tesla took advantage of the high demand and offered no pricing package to Hertz 2. Costs: managing resources more sustainably can lead to saving; replacing incandescent and fluorescent lightbulbs with LEDS can lead to greater efficiency as well as savings; 3M maker of Post-Its asked employees to be part of a "pollution prevention pays" program to cut the harm they are causing, saved them millions; UPS no longer makes left turns to avoid wasting fuel 3. Drive Growth: pursuing sustainable options can raise revenue (top-line growth) and increase profits (bottomline growth) as consumers are often willing to pay a premium, a green premium, for goods they view as sustainable; Toyota Prius was seen as a totally unique product where Toyota was able to pursue a blue ocean strategy as consumers saw other cars as totally inequivalent to their hybrid 4. Intangible Value: brand, virtue signaling that causes consumers to return to a particular company time and time again; Warren Buffet says that it takes twenty years to build a brand reputation and five minutes to ruin it, some examples include BP for its oil spill and VW as they lied about the emissions control devices in their vehicles during Dieselgate

Clean Air Act

1970 statute that authorized a major shift in the federal government's role in air pollution; led to the development of regulations to limit emissions from both stationary and mobile sources; four major regulatory programs the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), the State Implementation Plans (SIPS), New Performance Standards (NSPS), and National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAPs) 1990: increased the authority and responsibility of the federal government; clean up pollution in the air from several forms focusing on chemicals that contribute to acid rain, ozone depletion, and toxic air pollution; some of these additionally regulated chemicals then include particulates, SOx and NOx, volatilized heavy metals (lead and mercury; lead was from gasoline burning; mercury came from burning coal), expanded NESHAPS to 189 hazardous air pollutants; set up market mechanism to control acid rain where emissions allowance trading system was developed so that the total amount of emissions was set to thirty million tons, extra allowances could be traded or sold, advantage to the approach is that companies are rewarded for their further reduction of emissions (providing allowances for them to sell)

Clean Water Act

1972 statute that regulates the discharge of pollutants and regulating quality standards for surface waters; made it unlawful to discharge any pollutant from a point source into navigable waters without a permit Groundwater v. Surface Water: surface water is originally included in the statute, in 2020, the Supreme Court included groundwaters in the regulation Point v. Non-point Sources: point sources are discrete conveyances such as pipes of man-made ditches, whereas non-point sources cannot be traced back to single facilities, common in agriculture; non-point sources are not directly regulated by the act but require states to develop their own regulation programs

Endangered Species Act (ESA)

1973 law that provides a list of endangered and threatened species and requires the federal government to ensure that there be no jeopardization to these species, including private parties

Safe Drinking Water Act

1974 statute imposing effluence standards; creates a best available control technology (BACT) and sets maximum contaminant levels for over 90 contaminants; system works pretty well until a city is not able to keep up the investments required to maintain standards

Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

1992 conference that established an international environmental treaty to combat "dangerous human interference with the climate system," in part by stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere; 154 signatories and established an annual forum, the Conference of the Parties, from which the Kyoto and Paris accords arose, informally known as the Earth Summit

Earth Day in 1970

20 million Americans celebrated the first day in April 1970; speeches and demonstrations spotlighted such problems as thermal pollution, dying lakes, oil spills, and dwindling resources, introducing Americans to the idea of "living lightly on the earth"; organic gardening, vegetarianism, solar power, recycling, composting, and preventive health care were popular; triggered by the first trauma of Silent Spring written by Rachel Carson, 1969 oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, and when the Cuyahoga River caught on fire

Spirituality and Environmental Protection

All of the world's religions have some connection to nature; spirituality broadly can help create values in support of the environment; obligation to future generation Pope Francis' Cyclical "On Care of Our Common Home": deeply concerned about the good of nature, troubled by the unsustainability of capitalism for both the poor and the environment; deep concern for God's creation as a common home and a mother that sustains us Buddhism: respect for all sentient beings Quran: glorifies nature as an earthly heaven that is more important than humans

Ecological Footprint

Amount of land required to sustain use of natural resources; combination of where things are made and where the harm arises; push to ensure that trade doesn't disproportionately blame producers considering that their consumption primarily takes place in well developed countries

Food Waste

Any edible food that is discarded

Frontier Thesis

Argument by Frederick Jackson Turner that the frontier experience helped make American society more democratic; emphasized cheap, unsettled land with a vast amount for unlimited resources, and the absence of a landed aristocracy; the first period of American history thus ended with the settling across the country under which big government was required to play the role of management against American currents of individualism and small government

Sixth Extinction

Argument that the world is undergoing another mass extinction as presented by Elizabeth Kolbert; current mass extinction is caused by humans, transformation of the landscape, overexploitation of species, pollution, and the introduction of alien species; phase one began when modern humans dispersed to different parts of the world (100,000 yrs ago). phase two started when humans turned to agriculture (10,000 yrs ago); first recorded global extinction event that has a biotic, rather than a physical, cause.

Fisheries Depletion

Around 85% of global fish stocks are over-exploited, depleted, fully exploited, or in recovery from exploitation; Cape Cod used to be defined by the presence of cod, but fisheries have nearly collapsed in this region; Eleanor Olstrom suggested embracing a community mindset where fishermen could meet to discuss their needs

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Atmospheric Lifetime: duration of time a greenhouse gas remains in the atmosphere before being decomposed by chemical processes Radiative Forcing/Global Warming Potential: measure of how much energy the emissions of 1 ton of gas will absorb over a given period of time, relative to the emissions of 1 ton of carbon dioxide CO2: GWP of 1 lasts 50-200 years Methane: GWP of 28-36 lasts a decade on average N20: GWP 265 and remains in the atmosphere for more than 100 years

Reverse Auctions

Auctions in which one buyer, usually an organization, seeks to buy a product or a service, and suppliers submit bids; the lowest bidder wins; done by the CT green bank

Concentrated Benefits v. Diffuse Costs

Benefits of degrading a natural resource will be shared by few but the costs of such an exercise will be shared by many; for example, the creation of a polluting power plant will benefit the company but will come to harm many in the surrounding area in a diffuse manner

Green Bonds

Bond used in green finance whereby the proceeds are earmarked towards environmental-related products.

Sources and Sinks

Carbon sources shrink in size and release more carbon, include burning fossil fuels, forest fires, and respiration; carbon sinks grow in size and store more carbon, include the oceans, plants, and soil

Climate Change Negotiation Process and Strategy

Climate change negotiations seek to involve as many parties as possible to take meaningful steps towards the reduction of emissions; often requires constructive ambiguity (Russia considers itself less developed), revisiting numbers to not set a hard limit on emissions, insertion of commas to allow countries to have a right to promote sustainable development rather than a right to sustainable development; use the preamble to offer more sweeping statements

Fossil Fuels

Coal, oil, natural gas, and other fuels that are ancient remains of plants and animals; form of "brute force" energy, as described by McDonough and Braungart

UN Sustainable Development Goals

Collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all; the SDGs were set ip in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly and are intended to be achieved by the year 2030; goals include no poverty, zero hunger, good health and well being, quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, decent work and economic growth, industry innovation and infrastructure, reduced inequalities, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, climate action, life below water, life on land, peace justice and strong institutions, partnerships for the goals

American Exceptionalism

Notion that the United States is inherently different from other nations, traced back to the American Revolution and was continued to be supported by the Frontier Thesis

CERCLA

Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, also known as superfund; 1980 statute passed in response to unacceptable hazardous waste practices that caused heightened levels of cancer in Love Canal, a neighborhood built on a former toxic waste dump; addresses abandoned toxic waste sites and searches for the potentially responsible party (PRP) to make them pay, private parties can sue under this statute; law created a tax on the chemical and petroleum industries and provided federal authority to respond directly to releases of hazardous substances that may endanger public health or the environment; can result in short term removals or long term remedial response actions

Environmental Racism

Concept in the environmental justice movement that is used to describe environmental injustice that occurs within a racialized context both in practice and policy; for instance UCC Church in 1980 had commission on environmental justice that found that many more hazardous waste facilities were located near those in poverty; pattern of racial disparity was discovered in how the EPA enforced environmental laws, heavily torqued by overriding environmental factors but certain communities nevertheless experienced better environmental conditions

Materiality

Concerns the relative size of an item and its effect on decisions

Corporate Sustainability

Concerns with possible future impact of an organization on society, including social welfare, the economy, and the environment

Conservation v. Preservation

Conservation allows for the sustainable usage of resources by humans while preservation seeks to prevent human intrusion into nature; both conservation and preservation are in opposition to dominion; famous conservationist is Pinchot who had a "cut a tree plant a tree" mentality while a famous preservation is Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club, who made a secular religion out of nature

CITES

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora; international agreement designed to ensure that international trade in animals and plants does not threaten their survival; designates a certain set of threatened and endangered species on a red list to prevent trading

Environmental Justice

Conviction that minority and low income individuals, communities, and populations should not be disproportionately exposed to environmental and public health hazards' EPA defines as the "fair and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race... income, with regards to the enforcement of regulation law and policies"; portion of environmental justice involves respecting indigenous people's expertise in the area of conservation, other efforts involve working to make the clean energy transition, such as California investing 1 billion dollars in rooftop solar for low income apartments

Sovereign Wealth Funds

Countries that have large pools of money from selling resources (often oil or gas) use money to fund innovative projects for a greener future; MASDAR in Abu Dhabi

Environmental Kuznets Curve

Curve that suggests that economic development initially leads to a deterioration in the environment but after a certain level of economic growth, a society begins to improve its relationship with the environment and levels of environment degradation decrease

Environmental Performance Index

Data-driven summary of the state of sustainability around the world, amongst 180 countries, and uses 32 performance indicators across 11 issue categories (air quality issue category contains the indicators ozone exposure, particulate matter exposure); bundles countries into peer groups to see which countries are doing well compared to their peers; provides meaningful comparisons between countries with similar standing, Norway sought overtake Finland as the most sustainable; does not make sense to compare Haiti to Finland, better comparison to the Dominican Republic

Deep v. Shallow Environmentalism

Deep ecology rejects anthropocentrism in favor of ecocentrism or biocentrism, under this framework nature is said to have intrinsic value-- it is valuable even if humans can find no use for it, often also includes the expanded self ideology which states that if we harm nature we are really harming ourselves; shallow ecology does not reject anthropocentrism as nature serves a clear instrumental value of humans

Deforestation

Destruction of forests that both removes a carbon sink and serves as a carbon source in the burning of organic matter; reducing deforestation is a goal of REDD+ that specifically seeks to prevent further forest degradation in Brazil that has compromised the forest for profitable soybean growth; China is reversing the process and is participating in aforestation

Disparate Impact

Difference in impact where one subset of the population is being harmed in a way that is different from others potentially because they are not involved in decision-making or face particular risks for their lifestyles; for example, it is recommended that individuals only consume one fish from Lake Michigan per year, but indigenous communities that rely on fish from the polluted body of water face significant health impacts

Food Miles

Distance food is transported from the time of its cultivation until it reaches the consumer; one factor used when testing the environmental impact of food, such as the carbon footprint of food

Dominion v. Stewardship of Nature

Dominion: notion that nature is here for humans; attitude maintained by the first settlers in the United States that nature was something to be conquered Stewardship: humans are responsible for caring for nature; preservation of species and the production of natural resources and ecosystem services, requires the understanding that nature is not totally fragile so long as its physical capacities are not stretched beyond their limitations

Planetary Boundaries

Ecological tipping points related to the earth's nine major systems: stratospheric ozone depletion, loss of biosphere integrity, chemical pollution and the release of novel entities, climate change, ocean acidification, freshwater consumption and the global hydrological cycle, land system change nitrogen and phosphorus flows to the biosphere and oceans, atmospheric aerosol loading; violation of these systems would cause humans to "surpass the safe operating space" of earth which would trigger a tipping point

Cumulative Impacts

Effects of an action are added to or interact with other effects in a particular place and within a particular time; individual effects although insignificant by themselves, can result in the degradation of important resources; the EPA suggests that such impacts must be assessed under the National Environmental Policy Act

Private Conservation

Emerging tactic that leverages that increasing interest of the private sector tot ake part in conservation; the Nature Conservancy, for example, works with local landowners, cooperatives, and businesses to establish groups to protect land; other groups include the Audubon Society and Ducks Unlimited

Fuel Efficiency Standards

Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 was created in response to the 1973 oil embargo; created the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the Energy Conservation Program for Consumer Products, and the CAFE Standard; the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards set the average new vehicle fuel economy that a manufacturer's fleet must achieve, intended to roughly double the average fuel economy of the new car fleet to 27.5 mpg by model year

Global Food System

Entire array of activities, input production and distribution, on-farm activities, marketing, processing, whole sale, retail, that connect agricultural goods to the mouths of consumers; provides employment for one billion people; currently facing a number of challenged created by global food security issues that are exacerbated by climate change

Greenwashing

Exploiting a consumer by disingenuously marketing products or services as environmentally friendly, with the goal of gaining public approval and sales; BP has been accused of greenwashing for its ostensible commitment to clean energy despite 96% of its company dollars being spent on fossil fuels, Starbucks was also criticized for its creation of a no-straw cap that has more plastic than previous cap and straw combination

FIFRA

Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act of 1972 governs the registration, distribution, sale, and use of pesticides in the United States

Industrial Ecology

Field of study focused on the stages of the production processes of goods and services from a point of view of nature, trying to mimic a natural system by conserving and reusing resources

CBD Conference of the Parties (COP) 15

Fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, meeting Oct. 11-15, 2021

Carbon Exposure

Financial risk to companies associated with the transition to a low-carbon economy

Commercial Property-Assessed Clean Energy (CPACE)

Financing structure in which building owners borrow money for renewable energy or energy efficiency and make repayments via an assessment on their property tax bill; arrangement remains on the property even if it is sold, facilitating long-term investments in building performance

Kyoto Protocol

First implementation of measures under the UNFCCC which was signed into effect in 1997 and ran from 2005 to 2020 but was ultimately superseded by the Paris Agreement; committed industrialized countries and economies in transition to limit and reduce GHG emissions in accordance with agreed individual targets; follows an annex-based structure and only bind the developed countries and places a "common but differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities"; overall the targets add up to a five percent emission reduction compared to 1990 levels over the five year period

Peak Oil (Hubbert's Peak)

For any given geographical area from an individual oil-producing region to the planet as a whole, the rate of petroleum production tends to follow a bell-shaped curve; peak describes the maximum rate of oil extracted, which will then be followed by declining production rates; thought to be achieved in the United States in the 1970s, ultimately appears to closer to 2025

Overseas Development Assistance (ODA)

Foreign aid, usually given from developed countries to developing countries, aimed at economic development; Northern European countries have typically been generous abroad, Norway contributed 1.3% of its GDP while US contributed only 03.% of its GDP

Nuclear Energy

Form of energy stored in the nucleus of an atom; produces zero greenhouse gas emissions in operation but there are some greenhouse gas emissions associated with the building of the facility and mining the material; other concerns involve enduring stigma following nuclear disaster, the spent fuel issue, and concerns around terrorism

Closing of the Frontier

Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis argued the frontier was "closed" as of 1890 and that the American life was thus fundamentally changed; there no longer was a frontier line where the population is fewer than two people per square mile; as a result, America required a different management with larger government which contributed to a significant amount of nostalgia for the earlier time; led to efforts to promote overseas expansion as the limitless of resources defined the US

Green Alpha

Fund that seeks to achieve long-term capital appreciation by investing in stocks in the green economy

Paradigm Shift

Fundamental change in approach or underlying assumptions; as applied to climate change, the UN warns that a major transition is needed to avert global climate crisis, particularly targeted efforts to keep temperatures form raising above 1.5 degrees Celsius

Protected Areas

Geographic spaces on land or at sea that are recognized, dedicated, and managed to achieve long-term conservation of nature; there are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the enabling laws of each country

Club of Rome

German "think tank" that applied a computer model to peak production scenarios., founded in 1967; composed of economists and scientists who work to specify the economic and population growth in relation to the earth's capacity; published "Limits to Growth" which argued that resource production could not keep up with exponential demand

30x30 Campaign to Save the Biosphere

Global campaign that seeks to protect 30% of the Earth's total surface from human exploitation by 2030; insists that while climate change mitigation efforts are important, the Paris Agreement will do little by itself to save the planet's collapsing biodiversity;

Command-and-Control Mandates

Government sets requirements to protect the environment implemented in a top-down manner; flurry of laws were created in this style in the 1970s, including the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, FIRFA, CERCLA

Harm Changes

Green light mechanism embraced by Esty that places fines on companies for causing harm and would in turn award innovation and the remaking of products to meet standards; an example is the 1990 Clean Air Act requiring electric utilities to buy emissions allowances, leading many of them to switch to low sulfur coal

Sustainable Yield

Highest rate at which a renewable resource can be used indefinitely without reducing its available supply; measures the reproductive, regenerative capacity of a resource; for example, certain number of fish must be maintained in the stock to keep the population growing, otherwise fish cannot reproduce at rate sufficient to maintain the stock size

Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)

International treaty that promotes sustainable use of ecosystems and biodiversity, signed into law in 1992 during the Earth Summit; the convention has three main goals: the conservation of biodiversity, the sustainable use of its components, and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from genetic resources; argued that bioprospecting is a reason to maintain diversity and sought to give benefits to countries protecting forests that give rise to helpful compounds, but the US would not sign the measure as it wanted American companies to retain profits

Sustainability Driven Advantage

How a company positions itself for success in the marketplace by utilizing sustainable strategies such as being more energy efficient, polluting less, or otherwise meeting public's desire

Environmental Protection as a Natural Right

Human rights represent universal claims necessary to ensure that every person can enjoy a decent quality of life-- part of the core moral codes common to all societies; done in service of dignity, have a moral basis, as described by Boyd in the Natural Rights Revolution; states ought to offer the right to an adequate environment based on the argument that al fundamental rights should be protected by Constitutions, and because environmental rights are a fundamental right, they should be protected; includes both a positive right to a healthy environment and a negative right to be free from exposure to toxic substances; if it is made a natural right, lawmakers must consider their actions more carefully which would allow for greater enforcement and fosters accountability

Transcendentalism

Humans can better self-define in nature, provides realizations about one's own self; environmental protection often defines who someone is; see nature as civilization; Walden is the sacred text of environmentalists, living in Cabin, trying to live in the forest; relationship to nature should be opportunity not threat, learning not destruction; philosophical counter to rationalism as it's a feeling, for Thoreau it is also a pushback on technology; Emerson sees nature as a pathway to spiritual freedom and says it is a "mirror of the mind", appreciation of a nature will lead to self knowledge "know the world to know yourself" where the world is the world of nature, celebrated the inherent goodness of the natural world, was an optimist compared to Thoreau's pessimism; some are against civilization "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately"; Thoreau is the first deep ecologist and does not want an anthropogenic view of nature, down on government and rejects society; Thoreau sees nature as a pathway to eutopia (set up communes, making life better, first feminists); "In wildness, is the preservation of the world"; enrich experience by simplifying human needs and avoiding wants

Steady-State Economics

Ideology promoted by Herman Daly which finds that there should be limits on economic growth, mimicking the equilibrium of nature; likely argues that sustainable development is an oxymoron and aims for a stable population and stable consumption of energy and materials at sustainable levels

Recycling Programs

Important way to conserve resources, however generally unsuccessful with paper and plastic; aluminum cans is the most successful as it is easier to make a new can from an old can, with the largest recycler being Busch

Malnutrition

Inadequate diet

Sacredness of Nature

Indigenous environmental studies exhibit a strong sense of environmental responsibility believing that the origins of life and spirituality may be found within it; nature is a source of wisdom and supports the fluorishing of humanity

Industrial Agriculture

Intensive farming practices involving mechanization and mass production; often involves using chemical fertilizers on crops and the use of harmful antibiotics in animals to promote growth

Discount Rates

Interest rate charged to commercial banks and other financial institutions for short-term loans they take from the Federal Reserve Bank

Multilateral Environmental Agreements

International agreements between three or more governments dedicated to the achievement of a specific environmental objective; can take the form of soft-law which sets out non-legally-binding principles which parties are obligated to consider when taking actions, or hard law which specify legally-binding actions; UNEP has played a key role in facilitating MEAs, including the Montreal Protocol and the Convention on Biological Diversity

Montreal Protocol

International treaty signed into law in 1987 that phased out the production of ozone depleting substances, particularly CFCs; the full implementation of the Montreal Protocol has resulted in significantly less instances, and the ozone is expected to be repaired by midcentury

Electricity Storage

Key technology in the world's transition to a sustainable energy system; increase the frequency response, reserve capacity, black-start capability, and other grid services; helps support high levels of variable renewable electricity by storing it and releasing it later

Energy Poverty

Lack of access to a regular supply of abundant electricity; more than a billion plus people live under these conditions

Resource Scarcity

Lack of availability of supplies required to maintain life, or a particular quality of life; perpetual problem for economic theory which assumes that humans have unlimited wants but must fulfill these wants using scarce resources

Locally Unwanted Land Uses (LULUs)

Land use that creates externality costs on those living within close proximity; examples include locations for landfills, incinerators, and factories; undesirable utilities ultimately end up in politically disengaged areas where communities are burdened by non-intervention

Carrying Capacity

Largest population that an area can support without significant environmental degradation

Congressional Review Act

Law empowers Congress to review, by means of an expedited legislative process, new federal regulations issued by government agencies and, by passage of a joint resolution, to overrule a regulation; revived under the Trump administration to repeal important legislation

2015 Paris Agreement

Legally binding international treaty on climate change adopted by 196 parties at COP 21 in Paris; its goal is to limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels Targets and Timetables: to limit global warming, countries aim to reach global peaking of GHG emissions as soon as possible to be climate neutral at 2050 Metrics, Review, and Verification (MRV): enhanced transparency network which requires countries, beginning in 2024, to report transparently on actions taken in climate change mitigation Five-Year Global Stocktake: five year cycle of ambition under which has countries reevaluate the contributions to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement Nationally Determined Contributions: countries communicate actions they will take to reduce their GHG emissions to reach the goals of the Paris agreement, also communicate the actions they will take to build resilience to the impacts of rising temperatures

Pollution Control Roles of the Three Branches of Government

Legislature: starting point of legislation, can override presidential burden Executive: implement the law, especially clarify technical language and are offered broad bureaucratic discretion Judiciary: assesses the whether an EPA statute was violated; potential for a penalty or fine (civil) or face the potential for charges (criminal); the Supreme Court can use judicial review to hear legal cases for individuals who say that the EPA misinterpreted the congressional statute, or that the statute themselves are unconstitutional; from Chevron, it was decided that agencies are given discretion and should receive the benefit of the doubt in the interpretation of a statute

Land Trusts

Local or regional organizations that purchase land to protect it, prohibiting future developments; one example is the NGO the Nature Conservancy; land trusts are often met with significant pushback from industry-- efforts to protect the spotted owl which reduced access to land for lumbering led to the popularity of the bumper sticker "I like spotted owls, grilled"

Geoengineering

Manipulation of Earth's climate system to counteract the effects of climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions; two examples are using solar reflectors to deflect light from the earth and using sulfurous compounds to mimic volcanic effects that will lead to cooling; significant concerns about environmental justice for such actions

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO)

Many meat or dairy animals are reared in confined spaces, maximizing the number of animals that can be grown in a small area; produce large amounts of fecal dust from manure, one large CAFO can produce 1.1 million tons per year

IPAT Equation

Master equation where the impact of different harms is a function of three variablesPopulation: through to be an overwhelming factor (Paul Erlich) causes risk of running out of critical resources; argument akin to Malthus that suggests there may be an exponential growth of population but linear growth of agricultureAffluence: stressor but not always; electric vehicle may actually lead to a reduction in harm, can cause some individuals to reduce their impact; per capita GDP is rising amongst rich and poor countries; growth trends are most dramatic in China, shift to meat consumption and greater economic impacts with wealthTechnology: electric cars, more machines for industrialization; today's lumber mill gets more wood out of the same tree

Cap and Trade

Mechanism to reduce the emission of pollutants by setting a limit on emissions and creating a market; component of California's environmental regulation laws

Green Banks

Mergers between the public and private sectors, in the form of green banks, to fund the high upfront costs of renewable energy technology thus seem appropriate; established green banks, like the Connecticut Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority, have already seen considerable environmental and economic success: the Connecticut green bank utilized $220 million to help create over 1,200 jobs and install nearly 30 megawatts of new clean energy in 2013 alone; de-risk capital by covering defaults from 2-4%, leaving private capital to only cover 1% of defaults

Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking)

Method of recovering natural gas and oil trapped in rock by injecting fluids that shatter the shales and increase the permeability; Obama administration declared that it was relatively safe, but it has been associated with earthquakes and groundwater pollution

End to Externalities

Model promoted by Elliott and Esty that requires polluters to pay for their emissions so that the public is compensated a fair value for a company's use of resources; rejects the Kaldor-Hicks principle that holds that policy change is desirable if the winners benefit enough that they could compensate the losers (compensation does not actually have to occur), in favor of Pareto efficiency describes the situation in which one is made better without making others worse off; requires a shift from shareholder primacy in exchange for stakeholder responsibility under which companies must take care of workers, customers, and society in general

Anthropocene

Modern geological era during which humans have come to define nature and the environment; has been argued to exclude wildness as all of nature's cycles and functioning have been impacted by human's effects on the ecosystem; unlike in previous areas, geology is no longer the driver of change; Jedidiah Purdy laments how the neoliberal anthropocene governed by free contract "launders inequality to the point of invisibility"

Natural Capital

Natural resources and natural services that support the economy; views nature as an asset that produces valuable flows of ecosystem services including renewable goods, often unpriced or accounted for, recent estimates suggest that this figure is quite high; reframes debate around natural resources by putting conversation in financial terms

John Muir

Naturalist, preservationist, defined himself as an outdoorsy individual; founder of the Sierra Club; launches a secular religion as a spiritually uplifting source that is purifying of the soul and the spirit; celebrates the mountains of California "nature's peace will flow into you"; origin of national parks America's best idea; has secular pilgrimages to Yosemite value and movement to create public lands held in trust for all citizens

Deep Ecology

Nature is much larger than humans; humans are just one part of the picture but not necessarily the most important part, leading to the acceptance of biological egalitarianism that rejects anthropocentric views

Intrinsic Value of Nature

Nature is not valuable because of what it provides for humans but it has a value unto itself; nature for nature's sake

Green New Deal

Non-binding congressional resolution to tackle climate change Introduced by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Edward J. Markey of MA; strives to (1) reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions through a just transition, (2) create millions of good, high wage jobs, (3) invest infrastructure and industry of the US, (4) secure clean air and water, (5) promote justice and equity; green bank to fund green tech

NIMBYism

Not in my backyard-ism; used to describe opposition by residents to a proposal for a new development close to them; examples include tall buildings, wind turbines, landfills, incinerators, power plants, prisons, mobile telephone network masts, and especially transportation improvements; if there is enough community support against the development of the project, projects will end up tied up in court

Climate Change Litigation

Not the most productive way to address environmental hazards, generally fall into categories of anti-discrimination causes of action and environmental statutory causes of action; example of a case of antidiscrimination through the Equal Protection Clause in Bean v. Southwestern WM Corp. the plaintiff contested permit granted by TDH to allow VM to operate solid waste facility in a location where 70% of the population were persons of color but not in an identical location where the majority of the population was white, it was found that a disproportionate number of waste sites were in communities of color; though the Court concluded that the placement was illogical, it did not find it to be discrimination; in an environmental law claim case, Houston v. City of Cocoa had a successul challenge as plaintiffs challenged that a revitalization plan that proposed the redevelopment of a black neighborhood into large office complexes violated the National Environmental Policy Act by not considering impact of development on the neighborhood, causing Court to agree that NEPA applied to natural and urban environments; downfalls of litigation include that large corporations and government entities can easily overpower impoverished communities in most instances

Manifest Destiny

Notion held by a nineteenth-century Americans that the United States was destined to rule the continent and that these efforts were justified, from the Atlantic the Pacific; three fundamental values that the (1) American people had special virtues, (2) mission of the United States to redeem and remake the West in the image of the East, (3) irresistible destiny to accomplish this essential duty

Intergenerational Ethics

Obligations to future generations; branch of ethics that considers if present-day humanity has a moral obligation to future generations to aim for environmental sustainability

Green Jobs

Occupations that contribute to environmental sustainability

National Parks

One form of reserve that is intended to protect natural and scenic areas of national or international significance for scientific, educational and recreational use; established by Gifford Pinchot and Teddy Roosevelt; considered to be one of the first great American ideas

Genetically Modified Organisms

Organism whose genetic material has been altered through some genetic engineering technology or technique.

Local Food Sourcing (Locavore)

Person whose diet consists only or principally of locally grown or produced food; intends to reduce food miles and increase economic vitality of an area

Precautionary Principle

Philosophical approach to innovations with the potential for causing harm when extensive scientific knowledge on the matter is lacking; (1) taking preventive action in the face of uncertainty, (2) shifting the burden of proof to the proponents of an activity, (3) exploring a wide range of alternatives to possibly harmful actions, and (4) increasing public participation in decision-making

Obama Administration Clean Power Plan

Policy aimed at fighting climate change proposed by the EPA in 2014; under this plan, each state was assigned an individual goal for reducing carbon emissions which could be accomplished as they saw fit with EPA supervision; if each state met its target, the plan was projected to reduce carbon emissions from electricity generation 32% by 2030, relative to 2005 levels; sought to using the existing Clean Air Act to push states to reduce emissions, previously tried to use Waxman-Markey bill

Trump Administration Affordable Clean Energy Rule

Policy intended to cut the regulations enforced by the Obama administration to allow greater state flexibility; proponents argued that it ends the war on coal and inspires innovation by not forcing punitive fines upon polluters; critics argue that it does not set specific greenhouse gas emissions cutoffs for each state and allows upgraded coal plants to run more often

Biden Administration "All of Government" Strategy

Policy pursued by President Biden that emphasizes environmental justice as a priority of his administration; his Justice40 Initiative that aims to give 40% of benefits of federal investments in clean energy to underserved communities; seeks to identify communities threatened by cumulative impacts of climate change and racial and economic inequality; establishes a National Climate Task Force that assembles leaders from across 21 federal agencies; also stablished the White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy, led by the first-ever National Climate Advisor, to coordinate and implement the domestic agenda

Carbon Pricing

Policy that charges emitters for their release of carbon, either by a monetary tax on the volume of emissions; in effect in the European Union, Canada, Nordic countries, and in Yale University

Transboundary Pollution

Pollution moving from one jurisdiction to another; for example, significant percentage of harm in a Connecticut river came from upstream sources, another example provided in Illinois v. Missouri when Chicago reversed the flow of the river to send waste to Missouri

Mobilization of $100 Billion Annually

Portion of Paris Climate Agreement; disagreement between countries on whether mobilization applied to private as well as public capital; fell short of goal and reached $80 billion

Ecosystem Services

Process by which natural environments provide life-supporting resources, ranging from the pollination of crops, extreme weather mitigation, clean air, and water purification; four core ecosystem services identified by Esty (1) provision of water, fiber, fuel, (2) regulatory function to prevent the spread of diseases, (3) spiritual and aesthetic value, and (4) recreational value; Robert Castanza estimated that the total global value of ecosystem services to be up to $54 trillion per year

Impact Investing

Process of investing funds with the goals of doing social good while also generating profits

Electrification

Process of replacing technologies that use fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) with technologies that us electricity as a source of energy; technologies that use electricity as a fuel source result in lower carbon dioxide emissions on average than those that use fossil fuels directly

Request for Proposals

Process through which buying organizations invite alternative suppliers to bid on supplying their required components

UN Environment Program (UNEP)

Program that monitors environmental conditions and, among other activities, works with the World Meteorological Organization to measure changes in global climate

Flint Water Crisis

Public health crisis that started in 2014 and lasted until 2019 after the drinking water for the city of Flint, Michigan was contaminated with lead and harmful bacteria; Paul Egan writes that Flint residents "have been subjected to unprecedented harm and hardship, much of it caused by structural and systemic discrimination and racism that have corroded your city, your institutions, and your water pipes, for generations"

Brundtland Report

Published in 1987, also known as "Our Common Future" was created by the Commission on Environment and Development of the UN; discusses sustainable development defined as "development that meets the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs" for the first time; publishing of the document laid the groundwork for the 1992 Earth Summit and to the establishment of the Commission on Sustainable Development, highlights that the planet faces interlocking crises Interlocking Crises: economic development in the face of persistent poverty elsewhere in the world; economic and environmental needs together; poverty is a huge source of environmental stress Ecological and Environmental Outcomes are Derivative of Other Factors: fossil fuel burning is the source of many environmental problems; clear need for an energy transition, or using carbon capture; agriculture has huge impacts, fertilizers used (runoff), animal production; transportation transition, move away from fossil fuel burning cars could be settlement patterns or electric cars Intergenerational Equity: aggregation of hundreds of millions of individually small pollution sources where emissions have long tails

Resource Productivity

Quantity of good or service that is obtained through the expenditure of a unit resource; more specific to ecology, rate of generation of biomass in an ecosystem

Triple Bottom Line

Recognition of the need for organizations to improve the state of people, the planet, and profit simultaneously if they are to achieve sustainable, long-term growth

Limits to Growth

Report issued by the Club of Rome that argued that human population is getting too large and that there are limits to the availability of natural resources, predicted crises and major changes in population; notion was supported by Erlich; explained that there was a collision between "exponential growth" in resource demand and a "finite world"; called "Malthus with a computer"

"The Bet"

Resource depletion v. technological innovation; Paul Simon tested the theory emerging in the 1960s that humans faced limits to growth; bet took place between Erlich (and the Club of Rome Analysis); Erlich said that the research crunch would arrive, leading to an increase in the price of critical goods while Simon disagrees and says that innovation will lead to the production of greater supply, including substitutes, causing prices to decrease Result: Erlich was incorrect because innovation and substitution caused individuals to pursue alternatives, resulting in decreased prices of all five resources Complication: the wrong timeframe may have been examined; Erlich may have been correct in the long run but Simon was correct in the short term

Toxic Release Inventory

Resource for learning about toxic chemical releases and pollution prevention activities, reported by industrial and federal facilities and stored in the database; created by the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act

Consumption Pressures

Resources of food, water, and energy are limited as population grows exponentially; argument that people are combining more resources than the earth can provide

Green Revolution

Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s that dramatically increased food growth due to the application of fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation to create conditions in which high-yielding modern varieties could thrive; led by Norman Borlaug, man who created a disease-resistant strain of wheat through cross-breeding techniques, earning him a Nobel Prize and the title of the "man who saved a billion lives"

Frontier (Cowboy) Mentality

Rigorous sense of American individualism that developed from frontiersmen carving out a space of themselves from a land of unlimited resources; championed independence, strength, and adventure, served as a counterpoint to urbanization and industrialization

Rivalrous v. Non-rivalrous Resources

Rivalrous goods are those whose consumption by one consumer prevents simultaneous consumption by another consumer (fish stocks, timber), whereas non-rivalrous goods can be consumed buy multiple individuals at one (air, national defense)

Business Mission

Shareholder Primacy: original thinking that holds profits above all Stakeholder Responsibility: need for businesses to take care of workers, customers, and society in general

Externalities

Side effect or consequence of an industrial activity that affects other parties without this being reflected in the cost of the goods or services involved, such as the pollution of a local stream by a factory

Market Failure

Situation in which the distribution of goods and services in the free market is inefficient, leading to a state of disequilibrium; as related to pollution, suggests that producers and consumers do not take carbon and other chemical emissions into account when they calculate their marginal private cost and benefit, making it difficult for markets to resolve the pollution problem

Collective Action Problem

Situation in which the members of a group would benefit by working together to produce some outcome, but each individual is better off refusing to cooperate and reaping the benefits from those who do the work

Tragedy of the Commons

Situation in which what is optimal for an individual is suboptimal for the community of the whole, results in the over-exploitation of a limited resource, especially of those that are open access; Eleanor Ostrom suggests that community and reciprocity can be used to overcome this problem

Global Environment Facility (GEF)

Special structure that provides an increment of funding that can shift a project towards sustainability (from fossil fuels to renewable resource); overriding idea is that there are benefits that the planet reaps when projects are done more sustainably

Habitat Fragmentation

Splitting of ecosystems into small fragments, particularly as land is developed and paved; one of the six major threats to ecosystems

Wildlife Corridors

Strips of protected land linking larger areas that allow animals to move freely and safely between habitats that would otherwise be isolated by human activities.

Food Security

Sufficient physical and economic access to food to meet the dietary needs for a productive and healthy life; 40% of the world' population is malnourished in one way or another; hidden hunger is micronutrient insufficiency, including excessive caloric intake; stunting is found by inadequate diets and chronic infections while wasting is a low weight or height where children do not grow; percentage of household budget consumed by food costs is indicative of this value

De-Risking Private Capital Flows

The government has access to low-cost capital that can financially insure private investors in the event that a borrower defaults. With this protection from the public sector, private investors are free to invest additional capital into a project. As described by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, green banks help reduce the risk premium involved in investment in clean energy technologies, thereby facilitating additional private sector investment.1

TSCA

Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976; statute that provides the EPA with the authority to require reporting, record-keeping and testing requirements, and restrictions relating to chemical substances and/or mixtures; addresses the production, importation, use, and disposal of specific chemicals and polychlorinated biphenyls, asbestos, lead-based paint

Land Ethic

Theory that humans are part of an ethical community that includes not only other human beings but all elements of the natural environment; it implies an ethical duty towards both nature and humanity, suggests that individuals' self interest cannot be relied upon to achieve society's goals; idea proposed by Aldo Leopold who envisioned a harmony between humans and land where humans should practice caution to avoid uprooting the balance present in nature, rejected the idea that nature could be controlled by people as a form of biotic ignorance

Tipping Points

Threshold that, when exceeded, leads to large and often irreversible changes in the systems; some examples include collapse of large ice sheets, large scale changes in ocean circulation that would result in enhanced warming in the long run, would potentially cool the North Atlantic relative to the rest of the world; related to planetary boundaries as once the safe operating space is surpassed, tipping point is triggered

Toxic/Hazardous Waste

Waste that is "harmful or fatal to living organisms when absorbed or ingested"; hazardous waste is the lower level of potentially harmful substances while toxic is higher; four established waste characteristics: ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity, and toxicity

National Environmental Policy (NEPA)

U.S. federal act that mandates an environmental assessment of all project involving federal money or federal permits; most significant outcome is that all federal agencies must prepare environmental assessments and environmental impact statements that state the potential environmental effects of the proposed federal agency actions

Market Mechanisms

Use of the market to provide the public with incentives to make choices or correct problems; opposite of the old-school command-and-control policies; fundamentally the polluter pays which drives innovation and provides a mechanism by which consumers can exercise interest in sustainability; the Clean Air Act of 1990 set up this mechanism where an emissions allowance trading system was developed to set the total number of emissions to be set to thirty million tons, advantage of this approach is that companies were rewarded for further reduction of emissions rather than only doing the bare minimum to reach a top-down goal

ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) Metrics

Used to assess a company's exposure to a range of environmental, social and governance risks; these metrics can be used for a range of ESG integration approaches, such as benchmarking and scenario analysis

Energy Efficiency

Using less energy to perform the same amount of work; smart urban design is helpful for energy efficiency as heat and air conditioning are shared

Biodiversity

Variety of life in the world or in a particular habitat or ecosystem; required for the maintenance of ecosystems which provide essential services, the most biodiverse regions on earth are tropical forests as 10% of the earth's land has 90% of its species; having a name has proven important for protecting against biodiversity loss; strategies to prevent loss also include policy interventions like a land trust that protects critical species habitat

Crisis of Capitalism

When the economy fails, living standards fall and workers protest

Wilderness v. Wildness

Wilderness is land of undeveloped habitats where human influences are absent, offering inspiration for humans who seek it; wildness is the basic ability of anything living to renew itself, as defined by Aldo Leopold, or the quality of being wild or untamed; transcendentalists touched on wildness, "calling it the "preservation of the world"; Bill McKivett, founder of 350, argues that nature no longer exists in terms of wildness, "nature has died and we are responsible for killing it"

Renewable Power

Wind, solar, geothermal, wave power, tidal, biofuels