RPTM 220 Exam 2

Types of Malnutrition

- Chronic Hunger - Hidden Hunger - An Abundance of Food and Obesity

What do you think people paid for a gallon of gas in 1900?

- Eventually, we see that it was just $0.11 per gallon

What proportion of people aged 25 years or older had at least four years of education back in 1900?

- It is not uncommon to overrate this very highly, and as a result, many folks are pretty shocked to find out it was just 3% of the American population over the age of 25 that had four or more years of a college education at that time. Just 3%!!

At what age did people commonly leave home for the first time?

- Just a little over 20 years old!

2 Primary Reasons to be Concerned about Planetary Boundaries

1. First, these are what "bounds" the safe operating space for humanity (i.e., the human species, or homo sapiens sapiens) on this planet. If any of these conditions move outside the safe operating space for humanity, our own species will join the list of millions that have come and gone on this planet. Fortunately, we are aware of the importance of maintaining our own activities within these boundaries. 2. We are not keeping our activities within these Planetary Boundaries!!

3 Primary Categories of Education

1. Formal Education 2. Vocational Education 3. Informal Education

Origin of Ideas About Inclusion

3 philosophers and their ideologies: · In South and East Asia, we have Buddha. · In what is now the European region, we have Aristotle. · In Northeast Asia and the China area, we have Confucius. Buddha is most associated with this term of compassion, Aristotle is associated with what it takes to be good citizens and good citizenship. Confucius is often associated with the term humaneness. -Inclusion Ideas about virtue ethics espoused by all three of these thinkers have to do with this notion that including others has value. These thinkers drew attention to the fact that the inclusion of others in society has collective value for society as a whole. So what are some of those values? The fact of the matter is the consequences of inclusion, or the lack of (i.e., exclusion), can result in mild discomfort to severe damage, personal risk, danger, violence, and even death in some situations. The "othering" of people of outside one's own identity groups, that is, their exclusion, has been the basis of some of the most despicable and deadly human actions in history, from the institution of slavery to the Holocaust, to name but a few particularly prominent examples. Social Inclusion is a serious topic!

Tragedy of Commons Example: Pizza

A simple example of this idea might be helpful. · Imagine yourself attending a Super Bowl party. At this Super Bowl party, you may find yourself at a friend's house watching the game. · You show up and say hi to all your friends. · You look around to see what is going on - who all is there, and also what kind of food or snacks are on offer. · That is when you see a pizza sitting on the table. · You realize you haven't had pizza in a while and that pizza sounds really good. And so you make a mental note that you're going to eventually circle over and get yourself a piece of pizza. You get caught up in conversation with friends, and maybe some exciting stuff is going on in the game, so you haven't quite made it over the pizza just yet. When you look over, there's still plenty there so you're not worried about it. A little later when you look over at pizza, it has started to dwindle and now you feel yourself getting a little anxious to get over there while there is still enough left to satisfy your craving. But it's okay because there is still half a pizza, so you're not rushing, you're not getting too uncomfortably anxious about it, but you are aware that the pizza is dwindling over there and maybe you starting to keep watch on it out of the corner of your eye. You are caught up in the game or a conversation and by the time you circle back around to the pizza, it's on the very last piece. Now the anxiety sets in- you're practically pushing people out of the way to get over to that table and get that last piece because if you don't get it before it's gone, somebody else is going to. That is what happens as environmental resources get scarce!

Who Is Being Excluded Here? - Executive Position

And again this exclusion could extend to certain types of positions within a given company. We have seen in a video earlier in the semester about how gross the inequality of wealth in the US has become. In that video, we saw how CEOs of companies make much higher salaries versus their average workers. And we see a little bit of that here in Figure 7.6 about how the ratio of CEOs compensation to average worker compensation has been changing over time. Up to the 1990s, CEOs tended to make less than 100% more than their average worker. As we can see in the graph, in recent decades, that ratio has grown to nearly 400% more than what the average worker makes!! The basis for exclusion here could be considered the executive positions within a company. Access to these positions could be education-related, but there is often much more at work than merely educational achievements. It could be related to family connections or nepotism. It could be related to blatant corruption, as well. Certainly, when we see this discrepancy of wealth, we know that people are going to have very different opportunities based on that wealth difference. They are going to have entirely different experiences in life. They will be exposed to entirely different sets of opportunities. Thus wealth can be a major exclusion factor.

The Privatized Health Care System

As it turns out, the belief that the market system improves quality and keeps the marketplace competitive is flawed. Our health outcomes in the US are not better than these other countries. · In fact, or life expectancy is not only lower than many European countries, it has also been dropping in recent years! · We're being asked to pay 2 or 3 times as much and in many cases, the health of our population is worse than these other developed countries. For instance: o We have a lot more diabetes. o We have a lot more cardiovascular disease. o We have more cancers. · We're getting a very bad deal on health care in this country.

Who Is Being Excluded Here? - Language

As it turns out, there is a wealth of languages still in use on the planet. In Figure 7.4, Sachs provides a map that presents the diversity of languages still in use around the planet. This is a global map of ethnolinguistic groups. So what could be the basis for exclusion here? Again linguistics, the ability to operate in a particular language, can have critical implications for one's ability to participate in society. Individuals from less common languages might have a hard time functioning in amongst the dominant society in a country where international or effective languages are very different from their own native language. So speaking ability, reading or writing literacy, or other forms of language communication could be a basis for exclusion in some places. And certainly, we hear this discussed in the USA where there is a lot of animosities directed towards certain individuals and certain groups on the basis of a perception of being from another language group. There are those who insist that all immigrants to the US speak English and consider whether or not language limitations should be used as a basis for exclusion or for citizenship in our country!

Social Inclusion

As we have now seen several times, social inclusion is a process for improving the terms for individuals and groups to take part in society. Also noted earlier, as long as you are already taking part in society, you may not feel particularly concerned about inclusion. But if ever you were to arrive at a moment when you are being prohibited from taking part in a society or when other people come to mischaracterize you (as we imagined with the Penn State scandal), it is likely we will come to care about inclusion very quickly. Actually we might have a very visceral and emotional response to that situation. So even if we are not experiencing exclusion at the moment, we all need to be concerned about inclusion. Otherwise, we would never know when we might end up at the other end of efforts to have us excluded! In addition to helping people as individuals take part in society, social inclusion is a process for improving the ability, opportunity, and dignity of people, especially people being disadvantaged and excluded on the basis of identity.

Food Security

At what point will we reach a maximum capacity to produce food, and might that be the limiting factor for how much the population can actually grow on this planet? As it turns out, food security (or insecurity as the case may be) is experienced very differently in different parts of the planet. A number of things may depend on what type of food security we hold up as the ideal. These are issues that we have been flirting with for a couple of centuries since Malthus first wrote his essay in the late 1700s. They are more urgent now than ever!

Resistance to a Public Health Care System

So why not adopt the type of systems proven to yield better outcomes in other countries? The simple answer is that health care and pharmaceutical companies have grown accustomed to the extremely high profit margins and support from private (i.e., out-of-pocket) insurance outlays that support their activities. These entrenched financial interests are very reluctant to give us the profits currently being generated by our private health care system. One thing that helps explains why things are so different in this country is the scale and scope of both the lobbying sector and campaign finance rules in the US.

Biogeochemical Flows

Biogeochemical flows are also something highly related to agriculture. This refers to all the pesticides, fungicides, and fertilizers that we put on croplands. We often put much more than the plants actually need to grow, and in many cases, these chemicals are distributed very inefficiently or even haphazardly, just thrown anywhere near the crops. They get rinsed off and then flow into waterways and aquifers, and these chemicals eventually get downstream where they start to consolidate and get denser. These biogeochemical flows are the consequence of agriculture and our extensive dumping of chemicals onto these areas the keep up food yield. We made great gains in keeping up food yields as our population has grown, but those efforts are now having consequences of their own. Our efforts to avoid the Malthusian catastrophe have been done in an artificial and unsustainable way, and these techniques are coming back to harm us now. And ironically the same chemicals that are in use to make agriculture more efficient, such as weed killers, have now been shown to basically neuter organisms. In particular, the glyphosates common in weed killers are now known to reduce the fertility of the honeybees which are responsible for pollinating many of our agricultural crop species. From this, we can see a vicious cycle of pollination decline in our agricultural food sector putting further stress on our ability to keep up that food supply as the population continues to grow.

Biosphere Integrity

Biosphere integrity most often refers to biodiversity and endangered species. Yet in this context, we could also be talking about genetic diversity and/or ecosystem services. What is certain right now is that biodiversity loss, in terms of species, is greater right now than it's been in the past. It's up to 100 times faster than historical record rates on the planet. So we're in the midst of a big extinction phase right now on the planet. Unlike other documented extinction phases in the past that might have been caused by big volcanic eruptions or meteor strikes throwing dust and clouds in the atmosphere that blocked out the sun for periods of time, the current extinction phase is entirely a consequence of human activity on the planet. Human impact on biodiversity is currently very effective and very fast. But in some ways, these trends could be reversible if we chose to have different rules, different regulations, different decisions, different leaders, and so forth. That is if we choose to act in a collective, long-term interest vs. individual, short term interest.

Is Health Care a Basic Right?

Circling back to this lesson's topic of Health for All, one thing is clear in the United States - - health care is not treated as a right. It is not protected nor is it enforced at the government level. It is instead treated as a privilege, and as a result, many millions of Americans do not have access to quality healthcare. The situation is very different in other parts of the world, including many of the more developed countries, where health care access is treated as a fundamental human right that should be equally available to all. Universal health care is provided in an inclusive way that supports all citizens equally and thus contributes directly to their ability to take part in society. This begs the question of why do health care access and attention not qualify as a basic human right in the United States? As it turns out, our health care system is unique among developed countries.

Climate Change

Climate change is identified by Sachs as the first and most important of the Planetary Boundaries. The most important thing to remember in this lesson is that climate change is occurring because of the greenhouse gases that human activity puts into the Earth's atmosphere. Climate change is not global warming, but rather it is more appropriately conceived of as climate disruption. The climate and associated weather systems are becoming more unpredictable and more intense. Storms have started becoming more severe, rainfall patterns now have less pattern and thus disrupt agricultural efforts. The climate has the potential to disrupt food production and thus food security -- something that has the potential to create much in the way of human conflict in the future. We must work to act in collective, global ways to move away from critical climate thresholds and keep human activity within a safe operating space for our species. Until we do so and until the impacts on the atmosphere become more regulated, our impact on the atmosphere may be a tragedy of the commons where people just continue to degrade the atmosphere with greenhouse gases at faster and faster rates!

Education & Inclusion

Education is associated with both more earning potential and thus with gender equality. These remain big challenges in different parts of the planet where access to good educational opportunities is different for people that are rich or poor or for people that are male or female. And there are many discrepancies that vary dramatically around the planet. And these discrepancies would be targeted in Sustainable Development Goals and other efforts to improve educational access and inclusivity. Most of you folks are probably here to get these upper-level degrees because you want to improve your earning potential. Overall student debt is increasing in the US yet outcomes are not better than other countries. Interestingly, in other very well developed and educated countries, including the Netherlands, university education remains free to citizens. Yet, in the US we have provided the mechanism and means for more people than ever to get educated, but this is often through loans of different types that leave students relatively high debt burden when they get out of school. The hope is that their future earning potential will more than offset that level of investment and credit at the time. Consequently, more people than ever are getting educated and the more they require loans to do so, the more the overall student debt burden in this country will rise. Yet our outcomes are not better than in other countries. Just look at where the US falls in relation to other countries around the planet with respect to average math, science, and reading scores.

2. Vocational Education

If you take another moment to consider some of the places where you or others have acquired information or skills designed to improve your future quality of life, it may become clear that there are other settings and places where learning occurs. A distinction is often made between the formal learning pathways represented by typical schools, colleges, and university, and this second primary category of learning which involves vocational or technical skill development. This category should correspond to the image of the guys working on the circuit board there above. Rather than pursuing a broad range of general education objectives, as is often the case in the formal education sector, this type of learning typically focuses on skillsets that are linked to highly specific employment or livelihood opportunities. Technical/vocation education is thus often promoted on the basis of improving one's employability or work performance. Vocational education includes technical schools, institutes, workshops, and skill-based trainings. Perhaps you or someone you know has experienced very specific skill-based, technical, or vocational trainings? You may very well obtain such trainings (e.g., PGA certifications, Wilderness First-Aid/First-Responder, Scuba, licensed interpretor, etc.). These skillsets are much more specific to particular career paths within RPTM, and they are an example of formal and vocational learning pathways being intertwined within an applied degree program like RPTM!

how much money would need to be transferred from rich countries to poor countries to close the gap in healthcare and create basic healthcare access for all people on the planet?

First, review the recommendations provided by Sachs in the textbook on p. 301, and revisited later on p. 302 in his first recommendation for achieving health for all in the poorest countries. · Here he notes that it would take just $40 per person to close health care gaps between poor and rich countries. o This is actually a very negligible amount -- it comes out to less than $0.10 for every $100 in circulation in the developed world. · After all, preventing death from conditions like pneumonia and diarrhea is not expensive! o This means if all of us in more developed countries were willing to spend the same amount of money on what we might spend in one night out to eat or what we might spend on a new pair of jeans (around $40), we could change the face of healthcare permanently! We could essentially wipe out these chronic diseases that are affected by U5MR and DALY across other parts of the planet! Sachs is really good at putting in perspective how easy it would be to solve some problems we currently have, if we just change the political will/desire or if we simply transferred some funding from certain things to other things. A second example is presented in his sixth recommendation for providing health for all in the poorest countries. Here he discusses the aim of eradicating tuberculosis, something that's already essentially eradicated in places like the United States but that is still affecting millions is lesser developed countries. In the specific case of eradicating tuberculosis for good, it has been estimated that $3 to $4 billion dollars a year would be needed. As it turns out, if this burden were shared equally among all residents in the more developed countries, it would equate to only about $3 to $4 per person. That's not even the cost of the fanciest coffee at Starbucks (which considers itself the home of the $4 latte)!! Wouldn't you be willing to give up one fancy coffee each year to ensure tuberculosis could be eradicated and millions of lives lost? As Sachs notes, these are bargains! The health care challenges are not overwhelming challenges at all! It is just a matter of finding the means and political will or desire to transfer wealth from one place to another and direct resources where they're most needed. That is why the issue of governance and decision-making cuts across all spheres of sustainability. It is one thing to know what solutions are, and another thing to get entrenched powerful actors to act on behalf of others. As long as health care is not considered a universal human right, this governance challenge will remain.

What is Food Security? What has been happening on Earth?

Food security has much more to do with secure access to quality food. The idea of food security and food-related concerns, and certainly inclusive of malnutrition, is not a topic that is relegated to the third world, lesser developed countries of the global south. As we move towards a discussion of that type of food security, it is worthwhile to look at the prices of the key commodities that support basic diets around the planet and how they have fluctuated over recent decades.

Who Is Being Excluded Here? - Gender

Fortunately, across all sectors, the gender gaps have been slowly reducing in size. This is depicted in Figure 7.11, where we see Global primary school enrollments. Here, female enrollment is catching up very quickly to male enrollment. This indicates a trend for increased inclusion of women in these educational attainment levels, and by proxy, increased opportunities for women to participate in society (which is our working definition of social inclusion). Sometimes through targeted efforts, we can see clear examples of inclusion being promoted and achieved.

Who Is Being Excluded Here? - Nationality

Here's yet another map presented by Sachs this week (Figure 7.8) showing how unequal the UNDP Gender Inequality Index is in different countries. This index accounts for income differences based on gender, and the map shows where these differences are most severe around the planet. Clearly gender can be a basis for exclusion, and this difference is more severe in some areas than others. It seems particularly pronounced in several of the developed countries. Yet Figure 7.10 provides further graphing of this gender pay gap. The countries listed are all part of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which are among the most developed countries on the planet. These are some of the most equal countries in terms of gender gaps, and yet even here we still see pretty significant differences in the gender pay gap. It approaches 20% and even beyond in many of the countries in this graph, including South Korea, Japan, Israel, and Canada. The US is still hovering between 15%-20%. Whereas a few of the European countries have lowered the pay gap to below 5%.

Biophilia

In 1993, sociobiologist E.O. Wilson (who provided the endorsement on the cover of our main text!) published a book called "The Biophilia Hypothesis." His position was that humans have a strong genetic predisposition to prefer natural environments over built, man-made environments. He and others have taken this idea further to claim that there are particular environments that humans prefer most of all, those that were important the early survival and thriving of the human species. Many of these environments had the features that are today associated with African savannahs, as it is believed that these were the regions where our species, homo sapiens sapiens, originated. These locations have trees with large, wide canopies to provide shelter. The surrounding ground cover is low so that approaching predators can be spotted. Oftentimes, water sources are nearby. Interestingly, if we think about it, what other places tend to have these characteristics? Yes, in urban settings, the design of municipal parks often include these types of settings. It is because humans feel good in these settings -- our genes have millennia of positive associations with these environments, and thus exposure to these environments creates positive feelings, emotions, and in some cases, medically and scientifically demonstrated health benefits!

Inclusion & Exclusion in Sports

In recent years, we have had sports figures stepping out to protest U.S. government policies about inclusion and exclusion in the voting process, or in the military, or about other forms of social and racial justice issues, including police brutality. Even though these protests may seem like a new phenomenon for this time, and receive a lot of media attention, the fact of the matter is people in sports along with other types of celebrities have been in positions to make these types of statements throughout history. These popular figures have brought inclusion and exclusion issues to public attention for many decades.

Commonly Shared / Common Pool Resource

In situations like this where there's not really specific ownership regimes over each slice of pizza (where it's considered as fair game for everybody). - The Atmosphere Certainly, the atmosphere has been treated as a common pool resource that we've mistreated and abused. Historically, nobody has been held accountable for degrading the atmosphere. It is only recently that we're starting to draw attention to how much degradation to the atmosphere we've been doing and to the impacts this has on humans (e.g., climate change, impacts on food production, sea-level rise, storm intensification, etc.). We are now making our first efforts to try to account for that degradation.

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)

Increasingly, we are using the learning pathways described above to educate people specifically about sustainability. This course, in fact, is an example of a formal educational effort to teach students about sustainability and sustainable development! Many university majors will expose students to sustainability thinking at some point, and increasingly universities are creating general education requirements related to sustainability. Given the state of the world, we certainly need it! Though in other cases, particular certifications or skill sets may be acquired via vocational/technical pathways that allow individuals to work on sustainability issues. What these skills look like will differ depending on your own career interest areas, but could include skills needed for sustainable turf grass management for golf courses, sustainable destination planning for tourism, or even Leave No Trace outdoor recreation certifications! As we saw above, though, it is in the informal educational sector where most learning takes place, especially once you complete your final university degrees. It is through these informal channels where RPTM-related activities can make significant contributions to education for sustainability across broader segments of the population, including those who have had less exposure to sustainability thinking via formal and vocational education channels. What kinds of exciting opportunities to do this kind of sustainability outreach exist within your RPTM interest areas? The United Nations has a program devoted to promoting Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). See the image below, taken from Chapter 4 of that document, entitled, "Shaping the Future We Want." This is the core document outlining the UN perspective on ESD, and in that Chapter 4, we can readily see the same distinctions being made between these three categories of education we've just reviewed: · Representing formal education are the headings Early childhood care and education; Primary and secondary education; and Higher education · Representing the second category of education are the headings Technical and vocational education and training and Capacity-building and training · Representing informal and free-choice learning is the heading Non-formal education, public awareness campaigns and media

Free-Choice Learning

It is actually in the personal life where all the informal learning takes place. This category of informal education is therefore sometimes called free-choice learning because it is learning that we seek out ourselves. It is anything that you have ever tried to learn out of self-driven curiosity or because you have been a fan of something. Other than professionals working in such industries, most people's knowledge of sports or movies or music has resulted from their own free-choice, informal learning -- it did not happen in classrooms or colleges. Just think of all the song lyrics, or movie actors you could name! You have sought out and you have done all kinds of informal, free-choice learning in the various realms of your personal life. That form of learning is rarely part of your formal educational background, but it is a form of education nonetheless. And this informal education is where the bulk of our learning occurs --through these informal settings. A major reason for this is that formal schooling has start and endpoints. You will eventually graduate and move on from the university setting. That may be the end of your formal and/or technical training for the rest of your life. Yet informal education, through free-choice learning, will continue for the rest of your life! And since most of that learning is taking place outside of work, and outside of sleep, it is taking place in the realm of leisure.

Food Insecurity at Penn State - Lion's Pantry

It turns out, many universities have students that experience food insecurity at some point in time. In fact, most universities have students that are experiencing food insecurity. Recognizing this, a few years ago Penn State students led an initiative designed to address the food insecurity that Penn State students may experience. Their efforts led to the creation of what is called 'Lion's PantryLinks to an external site.', an organization and food collection center on the Penn State campus. Specifically, the Lion's Pantry aims to directly address food insecurity for students, and provide a place where people can go if they are feeling insecure about their lack of access to food. The organization provides access to products that are made available, and a place where people can donate food products anytime they want. The group is well organized, and they publish lists on their websiteLinks to an external site. of what is available and what is requested. Lion's Pantry will take donations anytime, which provides a good option for students when they are moving, between apartments, leaving out of town, and do not want to transport that food elsewhere! Keep it in mind whenever you need to offload otherwise safe foods. Lion's Pantry is also a good place for students to work, as it is an entirely student run operation. In addition to addressing food insecurity, students can gain service experience by working here. Students can volunteer here and can even take on officer/leadership roles here. There is a listing of the current officers for the Lion's Pantry here on campus on the website. Additionally, this food pantry also organizes on campus events and it is worth keeping an eye out for many of their current events. For folks who are not in the University Park area, it is worth looking into what types of analogs for this exist in your community, in your home neighborhoods, and in your cities that are designed to address food insecurity for folks in those areas.

Freshwater Use

Just like land-use change, critical tipping points related to freshwater use are being reached primarily as a result of agriculture. Sachs indicates that 70% of fresh water is used for agricultural production! Human use is by far the dominant water usage, freshwater usage, activity on the planet. We are moving through our freshwater supply so quickly, that many regions of the planet experience extreme water stress throughout the year. Water stress is becoming increasingly common in places that have not traditionally had concerns about a lack of fresh water. It is very possible that clean, fresh water could become a luxury commodity in the future!

Food Insecurity at Penn State - Student Farms

Lastly, another initiative related to food began at Penn State a few years ago. A student farm was organized specifically with the leadership of Leslie PillenLinks to an external site. who is a staff member with the Sustainability Institute at Penn State. This is a largely student run farm which also has a community-supported agricultural program that people can buy into for fresh produce at different times of the year. And of course, they host occasional events featured locally grown produce! This is a very popular place for students to get some practical experience to learn basic farming and gardening techniques, and students can obtain this experience as paid interns or as credit-bearing internship. Look into theStudent Farm ClubLinks to an external site. for ongoing openings!

Pathways to Education

Now that we have identified the three main categories of education, let's think about their specific contributions and the ways they can interact and intersect. You are likely to already be familiar with the role of the formal education that often occurs in classrooms, schools, colleges, and university settings. Technical or vocational learning can also take place in specialized facilities, schools, or campuses, though skill-based training and workshops can take place almost anywhere. Both formal and vocational educational pathways are often used to get people to better places in life. The Pathways to Skills illustrated here can act as a tool for understanding skills development needs and the areas where policy action should be targeted. The illustration shows the three main types of skills that all young people need — foundation, transferable, and technical and vocational skills — and the contexts in which they may be acquired. One side shows formal general education and its extension, technical and vocational education. The other side shows skills training opportunities for those who have missed out on formal schooling, ranging from a second chance to acquire foundation skills to work-based training, including apprenticeships and farm-based training. Those lacking even foundation skills, represented at the base of the illustration, often have to make do with subsistence-level work, for wages that trap them in poverty. The uppermost level represents those whose accumulated skills enable them to advance to better-paid work, including entrepreneurial opportunities, and to higher education. That better place in life is represented by the top of the pyramid in the image here. You can get your education via the typical formal primary, secondary, and more advanced tertiary level schools and universities. Occasionally, because of different circumstances in life or to acquire specialized skills outside of the formal pathway, one may make a transition over into the more skill-based, vocational, or work-based training reflected on the right-hand side of this pyramid. And as this image is intended to depict, you can move back and forth between these to pathways over the course of a life span en route to improved economic opportunities or a more fulfilling livelihood. The differences between a vocational and formal education, which again are often done in particular institutional contexts, are focused and dedicated to learning that is often done with a particular strategy in mind. The strategy can include getting certain credentials (e.g., diplomas, degrees, certifications) that provide employment and livelihood opportunities related to a category of work or to professional capacity building. Yet you are also continuously learning in your personal life.

3. Informal Education

Now we get to what is perhaps the most interesting and important category of education. This category accounts for all the learning you've done that did NOT take place in a formal or vocational educational setting. This category accounts for all the learning that has occurred within your family and social world as you grew up (e.g. cooking, fishing, manners, language, riding a bike, etc., etc.), it accounts for all the learning that you pursue because of your own personal interests (e.g., music and song lyrics, sports knowledge, visiting museums, etc.), and it accounts for much of the learning you will continue to do across your lifespan once you emerge from your formal university studies. Informal learning happens at home, it happens with family members, and it happens throughout one's life. Informal learning takes place from family, friends, and others who are not necessarily formal instructors or teachers. Informal learning takes place in aquariums, zoos, nature centers, parks, and other interpretive experiences. Given all the contexts that this form of learning occurs in over the course of your life, this category of education accounts for where most of what we learn occurs! In other words, this is a BIG category of learning! This category of learning has particular relevance to RPTM because it tends to happen in our leisure time. People "choose" this form of learning, often leading its characterization as "free-choice learning." For these reasons and more, informal learning is the category of education that is most linked to opportunities in the recreation, park, and tourism fields!

Ocean Acidification

Ocean acidification is another one of the planetary boundaries being affected all over the planet. Acidification has to do with the warming of the oceans, but it's not just about that. It's actually ocean waters absorbing all the carbon that's ended up in the atmosphere. So while carbon is warming the atmosphere, as just discussed on the preceding pages, that carbon is also absorbed by the oceans. We're essentially carbonating the oceans -- turning them into carbonated water!! This results in the oceans becoming slightly more acidic, and as it turns out, this does a lot of harm to the calcium carbonate that makes up much of the structure and skeletons of organisms like shellfish and coral. The calcium carbonate that is part of these organisms is dissolved in the acidic waters created when the oceans absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. So clearly ocean acidification has dire consequences for ocean organisms, as here we can see in the all-too-common images of coral die-offs or the reductions in shell sizes (this can be seen in Figure 10.12 of Chapter 10). Thus ocean acidification doesn't just affect organisms in the ocean, it can affect the entire food web of organisms that depend on shellfish and corals for their own ecological processes or food supplies, including people living in coastal regions whose diets depend on shellfish or fish that spawn and feed in coral environments. Ocean acidification also influences the growth of smaller organisms, like algae and plankton. This matters because the oceans are the lungs of the planet despite rainforests being characterized as such. The lungs of the planet are actually the oceans and the phytoplankton and zooplankton growing there. The coral reefs in the ocean support huge amounts of our global food supply, especially on the protein side. The acidification is undermining the abilities of these systems, in the marine context to remain functional and productive.

Land-Use Change

Our efforts to offset the Malthusian catastrophe by increasing our food supply alongside a population that has exploded in recent decades has led to an extraordinary amount of land being set aside for food production -- land for crop areas, grazing lands, forest and timber products, and so forth. Land-use change is largely a result of agriculture. Food production has been the big driver of land-use change on the planet. It is also responsible for the massive conversion of wildlife habitats, and thus like many of these planetary boundaries, is closely linked to our ability to keep other boundaries within the safe operating zone (e.g., biodiversity in this case). While land-use change has historically been almost exclusively about the changing of landscapes to support agriculture, increasingly it is also about accommodating the vast amount of people on the planet through increasing the development of urban areas.

Who Is Being Excluded Here? - Education

Sachs later draws attention to economic inequalities, including here in the US. The graph in Figure 7.5 shows the difference between college and high school wage premiums. In this case, the exclusion represented here may refer to good-paying, high-wage positions based on the level of education. Sometimes certified levels of education, such as diplomas and certificates, appropriately represent someone's educational level. But in other scenarios, we may not be able to equate someone's knowledge level or someone's skill level with whether or not they have processed through a sequence of formal steps to attain such certifications. It is not always accurate to presume that people who have not been through formal educational channels are less capable. But across the board, collectively, we can see there is a distinct difference in wages between those with a high school level education and those with college-level education. And this gap has been widening in recent decades, reducing the ability of those with a high school education (but not a college education) to participate as actively in all aspects of society. This is probably a reason many of you are currently seeking your college degrees.

Engel's Law

Sachs presents us with something known as Engel's Law. The idea behind this law helps put into sharp relief what this idea of food security is. Let's look at the interesting graph 10.8 on p.327 in the textbook. · It has two different y-axes. o On the left-hand side, we see household expenditures in dollars ranging from $0 up to about $35,000. o And then on the right side, we see the percentage of overall household expenditures that are being spent on food. · The blue bars correspond to the amounts on the left-hand column while the red bars correspond to the percentages on the right. · We can see that in the United States, the average expenditure for a household is over $30,000 per year. · In contrast, in Brazil, India, South Africa, and Kenya, the overall household expenditures each year are $5,000 or less. Already we see very dramatic differences exist between countries, especially in places like India and Kenya where the graph barely registers the number of household expenditures in dollars. · And then, if we look at the red bars, what we see is a total inverse relationship. o The exact opposite trend is seen in this set of red bars, which again, represents the percent of household expenditure that is spent on food. · What we therefore see is that as average household expenditures go up, the percentage of a household's expenditures that are spent on food comes down dramatically. In the case of the United States, as our household expenditures have moved up and surpassed $30,000 per year, the percentage that is spent on food is now hovering just above 5%. In relation to other countries, this is a comparatively small percent. · And if we look at some of the other countries represented here, where less overall household expenditures exist, such as in India and Kenya, those blue lines are barely registering here. o So we might only have a few hundred dollars, and maybe not even a full $1000 of expenditure on household goods. o Yet unlike the US, the percentage of that total amount that is being spent on food is now up to 25% in India, and it is approaching 45% in Kenya! o That is almost half of all the expenditures in a household -- 45% -- is being spent on food there. o So, this is the relationship that is called Engel's Law. Engel's Law: When overall household expenditures are low, a large portion of those expenditures is incurred by the acquisition of food. When overall household expenditures go up, as it does in wealthier countries, the proportion of those expenditures that are due to food acquisition is much lower. Food is a fundamental expense. It is one of the first things people spend their money on, so it is always going to be an expense. If income goes down, sometimes consumption can come down a little bit, but food consumption can not be eliminated. There is always a minimum amount of money -- in absolute dollars -- being spent on food consumption. When your income comes down, the percentage of your income that you are spending on food goes up. When money is low, a higher proportion of it is spent on food. And the opposite is true as well as incomes improve. As countries become more developed, households have more money, and the amount spent on food now represents a lower percentage of the total money in the household. It is not that they are spending less absolute dollars. In fact, there could even be more spending in terms of absolute dollars on food, but if income overall has gone up, then the potential increased amount spent on food now represents a smaller percentage of the overall income. If what is spent on food remains more or less stable, the additional income can be spent on other things. And this idea is getting us closer to what food security is. · If your food supply is secure, you can use your money for other things. · When your food supply is not secure, you have to spend a larger portion of your money just getting access to food. · And in the most unfortunate circumstances, you may not even have enough money to acquire enough food. · In such cases, the proportion of your overall money needed to acquire food would approach -- or in the case of famine -- exceed 100%!!!

Who Is Being Excluded Here? - Identity

So there's something to be said for identity as a contributor to life satisfaction when those identities are protected or socially supported in some ways. We could even consider Penn State students for this category. We might ask people across the United States if they want to have them as neighbors. In some circles, we might come across responses from individuals like this, "Hell no, they're all pedophiles!" Whoa, we would probably be very uncomfortable being characterized that way because we know none of us had anything to do with a child molestation scandal that rocked the Penn State football program in the past. But, because that scandal occurred here at Penn State, there is still occasionally a type of stereotyping, a negative attitude or perception of Penn State in general, as a place that allowed such horrible things to occur. At the time, some people thought the Penn State football program should be eliminated permanently. This is a good example because it involves other people applying identity to us that we would not likely espouse for ourselves. This example also illustrates what is true across all of these exclusion ideas -- that exclusion is almost always based on stereotypes, mischaracterizations, misrepresentations, and cherry-picked examples of what supports a particular argument for excluding people. Rarely does exclusion occur on the basis of actual reality across the broad population of individuals that are being excluded? This relates to what the three philosophers pointed out centuries ago, that providing everyone with equal

Dr. Carter Hunt shares 2 experiences with healthcare outside of the US! - Emergency Health Care in Rural Central America

The Nicaraguan highlands experience a lot of migratory bird activity and have a significant amount of biodiversity in primary and secondary dry tropical forests. The coffee plantation Finca Esperanza Verde, is a small but highly charismatic little eco-tourism project. I spent six months working down there in 2005. One day during a day off, I was in town and not up at the ecolodge in the woods but down in the local village of about nine thousand people, I was invited to play basketball with the local youth league. The young team was very enthusiastic, energetic, and eager to play against a tall gringo! After having played several games with them over a few nights, during one fateful game I was going up for a rebound at the same time as somebody else was and their elbow managed to come down and just smash the lower part of my eye socket! The eye socket skin split right open on the top of that sharp orbital bone, and I didn't realize it at first. I continued to play basketball until the opposing player stopped and said, "hey you're bleeding." At that point, I realize that I'm in the middle of a rural Nicaraguan village, and I became a bit concerned about how I'm going to be effectively treated given the remote location. I even began wondering if I was going to end up with a really gnarly, gaping scar on my face because the laceration was a result of the skin getting mashed against the bone and splitting open. It wasn't a clean-cut at all. When I brought this to the attention of the lodge administrator, it turned out she had been a former field nurse during the Sandinista revolution of the late 1970s and 80s. She was very calm under duress, so to speak. She also had a hysterectomy the year before that was performed by a surgeon in another town about an hour's drive away. It was a pretty sizable town called Matagalpa in the highlands. I was also fortunate that the eco-lodge project had its own vehicle, which is not commonly owned in rural Nicaraguan. So, she fired up the vehicle and called ahead to let the surgeon in the town nearby know that we were coming over, and got me to his house within the hour that night. We got to the doctor's office and house around 10:30 at night, he came down having been awoken from his sleep to treat me! He gave me some anesthetic on the cheek, took out his scalpel, and cut the skin really nice and clean on both sides of my really gnarly gashed cut. He then sewed these clean lines together with several stitches. Afterward, he gave me some antibiotic ointment to put on it, handed me some bandages, and told me to come back in a week to get the stitches removed. I went home and very judiciously applied that cream because I didn't want to have a big scar on my face. I then later went back to have the stitches removed and was instructed to use a cocoa butter with a lot of vitamin E to help the healing of the skin. And now, if you were to look at my face, you'd have to look really close in good lighting or wait around for me to get a little sunburn on that part of my face, for that scar to be visible at all. It really could not have turned out better, and I felt very lucky. Now, imagine if I'd had to go through those treatments in the US! First of all, it's almost inconceivable that you could get a doctor to wake up in the middle of the night to provide treatment -- out of his home no less! You'd have to go to an emergency room. You might sit there for several hours (highly likely). The actual treatment might have been comparable, but the experience would not be. And we know the expense of an emergency room visit and the associated treatment would be quite high. It would be at least hundreds of dollars, and it is not outside the realm of possibilities for the total charged expenditures totaling more than $1000 (though deductibles and/or out-of-pocket expense would be a bit less, insurance companies would be charged the remaining amount). There would be charges for the hospital visit, and there would probably be another bill for the follow-up visits, and there would certainly be charges for the gauze pads and the ointments provided. Now, guess how much the treatment I received in Nicaragua cost me? I paid $25 for all the treatment I received, the supplies, and the follow-up visit to get my wound treated and so well healed up that is it barely visible today. Did this significantly lower cost mean I received lower quality of care in Nicaragua? Absolutely not. I might have even gotten better urgent care, and certainly more personalized care, than I would have in the US. $25 versus $1,000.

The Unique Situation in the US

The US is thus in a very unique situation, and not just in relation to other lesser developed African or Asian countries, but in relation to other developed countries with really high-quality health care systems with populations that in most cases are much healthier than ours are spending a lot of money without getting better health outcomes. Sachs continues to present evidence of the uniqueness of the US system. · The percentage of the health costs that are paid for out of pocket, so to speak, is as little as 10, 12, 15, or occasionally up to 20% of overall healthcare expenditures. · Whereas in the US it's up above the 50% line! · And there are only four countries beyond us (e.g., Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, and India). · We are thus paying more out-of-pocket than the vast majority of other countries. · We're the only high-income country where private payments are more than half the total outlays. · We can also see how much more we are spending per hospital discharge in later figures in the chapter. The point that Sachs is making abundantly clear is the US has one of the most expensive health care systems on the planet. This is because it is private, and it is not just market-driven, it is profit-driven!

Common Bases for Inclusion or Exclusion

The World Bank data in the table discussed above reveals the perceptions that lead to exclusion of individuals and in what domains of life, of society, that individuals from these groups are excluded from. We have seen some of these issues at the front and center in a lot of campaign rhetoric and political rhetoric in recent years. Whether or not foreigners or migrants of different backgrounds should be allowed in or out of the US, and a lot of concern about securing borders is often a point of contention. As the larger Inclusion Matters document makes clear, these issues occur not just in the US but across other parts of the world, and migration is a growing issue as a world becomes more globalized, and as more people flee environmental, social, and political conflicts to seek better quality life elsewhere.

How do we resist the urge to overuse resources? How do we avoid tragedies of the commons when we know they lead to overuse and degradation of the resources on which we depend?

The answer involves transitioning the focus from individual interest to collective wellbeing.

Antibiotics in the US vs. Tanzania

The cost of certain medicines can vary dramatically between countries. There is an antibiotic called Cipro (full name: Ciprofloxaino) that I have taken occasionally when I have acquired stomach illnesses or bacterial infections during my travels. I've even taken Cipro in the US for certain conditions along those lines, and it is commonly used to treat infections and foodborne illnesses when they become severe. After successfully treating myself to great effect with Cipro in Costa Rica several years ago, I now try to travel with a little bit of this medicine in my toiletry bag for emergencies while I'm abroad. At one point in time when I was traveling in Tanzania while leading a student group, I discovered that two of our students had picked up a stomach bug. We'd managed to trace the illness to some salad they'd eaten (that we specifically told them not to eat because that can be the type of thing that carries a lot of bacteria!). Both students got sick, and after monitoring them for a couple of days, we decided that it was probably time to pull the trigger and get them on some antibiotics. And of course, we contacted the parents and got their approval to do just that. Unlike the US, in most other places of the planet, you just go to the pharmacy and request antibiotics when you need them. You don't have to go to the doctor's office and get "shaken down" for a doctor's fee. So, there's already less expense right there. To buy a course of Cipro in the US, which is ten pills (i.e., one pill is taken twice a day for five days), one would have to pay something like $60 or $65, and this would be after insurance coverage. That's because the Cipro brand is a Bayer brand that is maintained and is trademarked in the US, and this type of antibiotic is thus not available in generic form. In most other parts of the planet, those trademark rules don't exist, and you can buy generic versions of nearly any medicine. Other countries don't try to generate profits off of illness, they instead try to make health care as affordable as possible. So, we sent off our Tanzanian research assistant to check if the nearest pharmacy that had Cipro, and if so, to pick us up two courses of pills for our sick students. And indeed our assistant managed to find Cipro! However, instead of finding two courses, what he found was a whole box that included ten courses. When he returned with that many pills, at first we were like 'Oh no ten courses! That's going to be a fortune!' We were concerned about how much we were going to have to pay because we only needed two. And now we had eight extras. Remember, in the US, at $65 a pop, we could have been looking at a $600- $700 bill for that box of ten courses of Cipro. What do you think we were charged in Tanzania? What we ended up being charged in Tanzania was three dollars. THREE DOLLARS!!! A total of $3 for ten courses of Cipro! With this box of ten courses, we were able to cure both students for essentially pennies. And now we can carry around those extra eight courses just for backup. So, we're ready for future conditions to deal with students and/or ourselves should the need arise. This just one more example of the dramatically different costs associated with health care in the US, and the health outcome, in this case, would be no different. The trademarked version of Cipro does not cure any better than a generic version. It could have been hundreds of dollars in the US, and probably even more than hundreds of dollars if our private insurance was not at play! The antibiotics were just something that we were able to pay cash for in a local pharmacy with just a few dollars. So, we can see that the profit models of pharmaceutical companies have a lot to do with discrepancies and costs between countries. In a lot of cases, these companies enjoy monopolies and trademark laws that generate profits for them and in the process make them much more expensive for us here in the US. It does not have to be this way, and other countries have provided several alternative models of health care, including both cheaper and more effective systems!

Overall US Health Care System Expense

The debate about whether healthcare should be a right and be provided by the government has been ongoing for over two decades. Many politicians have advocated for fundamental changes to the US healthcare system, including the former administration of former President Barack Obama. He felt strongly enough about universal citizen access to healthcare that he signed into law the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that made healthcare publicly available to all. Despite this being the model advocated by essentially every other well-developed countries, the ACA has since been contested in the US by those who believe privatized health care remains a better system because of the competition it promotes. As we'll see, despite its continuing support, the market-based healthcare model that characterizes the US has particular consequences, including higher costs per capita and lower life expectancy across the population. These numbers speak for themselves.

Who Is Being Excluded Here? - Ethnicity/Culture

The different colors in the graph in Chapter 7: graph 7.3, identify whether people are from Indigenous groups or not. So the basis for inclusion or exclusion here could be largely ethnic in nature, though likely cultural as well. And as the graph demonstrates, being Indigenous in these countries (those countries of the Americas with the highest proportion of their overall population comprised of Indigenous peoples) has economic repercussions. In some cases, the distribution of Indigenous peoples could even be geographically oriented, which may or may not correspond to current national jurisdictions. If we give this graph even more thought, there is as good a chance that the ability of Indigenous people to participate in society is also disadvantaged on the basis of their use of traditional languages versus the language of more dominant cultures.

- Chronic Hunger

The first type of malnutrition discussed in our chapter is chronic hunger, or undernourishment, which is what most people tend to think of when they hear the word malnutrition. Malnutrition often makes many of us think of people that are consistently lacking in access and consumption of basic food. Without foodstuffs, people are lacking in nutrition and not having their nutrition or caloric needs met. Chronic hunger and undernourishment are prevalent in some areas, while virtually non-existent in other places, as we can see in Figure 10.1 on p.320 in our textbook. Particular health consequences of undernourishment/chronic hunger described by Sachs include the different types of growth-related consequences for children such as stunting (low height for age) and wasting (low weight for height).

What Are Basic Rights?

The issue of what constitutes basic human rights has stirred people to great action over the course of human history. In this lesson, we'll begin by spending some time reflecting on basic rights, how universal they may (or may not) be, and what all might be included among them. We likely know that a "Bill of Rights" helped provide a foundation for civic life in the United States, and as a result of the creation of our Constitution and the associated Bill of Rights, there are legal protections for these rights in the United States. As it turns out, far more rights have been articulated at the global level than we've seen included in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and subsequent legislation here in the United States. To the extent that rights have been legislated into laws and policies, they are (in theory) protected within a country. In some cases, rights may not exist in formal laws but they may be protected or enforced socially. Unfortunately, the opposite can be true as well, where laws have been enacted to protect certain rights yet enforcement does not occur. This can lead to intense debate, conflict, and even violence as different interest groups come to different conclusions about what constitutes fundamental human rights.

Stratospheric Ozone Depletion

The ozone layer is a part of the atmosphere that helps blackout harmful UV rays. This layer of the atmosphere is critical for maintaining temperature and for regulating life on the planet, including photosynthetic activities among others. In the 1980s, one of the primary environmental issues of the day -- before climate change was as front-and-center as it is now -- was the depletion of the ozone layer. When Time Magazine chose to feature climate concerns on the cover of one of their issues in 1987, what they were really pinpointing is why a hole in the ozone layer was growing and what the consequences of that growing hole were going to be. At that time, scientists began to urgently study what was causing the depletion of the ozone layer. They came up with a set of really strong recommendations of what was needed to be done to reduce the growth of this ozone hole, namely the elimination of the use of hydrofluorocarbons as propellants in spray cans and coolants in refrigeration systems. What makes this Planetary Boundary particularly important is the way that it demonstrates how concerted and collective human action on the basis of mutual and reciprocal understanding of the problem and the solution let to a very effective retreat from the tipping point of ozone loss. Scientists were successful in getting politicians and global leaders to agree to outlaw the particular chemicals that were causing the problem. There was widespread global support for shifting our activities and eliminating the causes of this ozone hole growth.

What is the most responsible for supporting quality life on the planet?

The planetary boundaries:

- Hidden Hunger

The second type of malnutrition discussed by Sachs is called hidden hunger. Hidden hunger occurs when there is food available, but it is just not particularly nutritious food and thus leaves people with nutritional deficits. Even though there is food and calories are being consumed, nutrient needs are often not being met and thus health can still be jeopardized. Essentially hidden hunger really means poor nutrition, not just a lack of nutrition. Figure 10.4 on p.322 in our textbook maps the geographic distribution of hidden hunger around the planet. Notice that hidden hunger is more geographically pervasive than chronic hunger, though in the worst cases, both conditions exist in the same regions (especially Africa and Asia).

- An Abundance of Food and Obesity

The third category of malnutrition is a bit more counter-intuitive for some people. It is not about hunger at all, nor about lack of food or lack of nourishing food. This third category actually relates to an abundance of food, though often still food of poor nutritional quality. This third category is obesity. Figure 10.5 on p.323 in the textbook shows the global prevalence of obesity. We now see this condition present in all countries, and levels of obesity are highest in the more developed countries, chief among them is the United States! Malnourishment, while manifesting in different forms in different places on the planet, is something that occurs everywhere.

Urgency

There are also very familiar, non-resource examples that play on this psychological feeling or sensation of the need to act as resources get scarce. People want to get stuff before it's gone. Nowadays you're likely to see products on Amazon, or tee times, or campsite requests, or airfare and hotel rooms, or even seats in a class when you're booking your classes, accompanied by some text along the lines of, "only 2 left!" It's not uncommon to get these little notices that say this is the last product or booking left, or that this tee time or campsite or airfare is about to be gone, or that there are only two or three seats left in a class. You can "feel" your psychology enacting and urging you into action when you know that things will get scarce. These companies know that too, and they capitalize on that psychology to use those messages to get you to pull the trigger on their airfares, their hotel rooms, their products on Amazon, and so forth.

Models of Education

There are models of education that are working well in other countries. · In the US, the increasing privatization and corporatization of tertiary (i.e., university) education creates a unique system that is more costly and that results in more debt burden while not necessarily being better in quality or in accessibility. · As noted previously, these are challenges that are handled in dramatically different ways in other parts of the world especially in parts of Europe where even college levels of education are free for citizens and supported by taxpayer dollars. · The quality of education in Europe remains quite high as well, and in many cases, is comparable to what is available here in the United States. So this begs the question of why have some educational institutions decided to do it one way while other educational institutions have decided to do it another way? · A lot of that has to do with the amount of money that can be generated. · So in some cases, like in the US, education is pursued as more of a business. · In other countries, education is pursued more as a right of the citizenry. These differences relate back to that discussion of basic human rights that we have talked about in our lesson on social inclusion. As it turns out, we will see a similar difference between the US and other developed countries when discussing Health for All in the next lesson. In both cases, our situation could all change with different decision-making and governance around education in the coming years.

What are some of the perceptions and negative attitudes associated with migrating individuals when they arrive in new areas?

There is concern that they are going to commit illegal acts and that they all will refuse to assimilate and learn local languages, or that they represent other religions and worldviews that might contaminate dominant local culture. Others worry that they can affect re-elections and become a drain on welfare systems or otherwise take jobs away from longer-standing residents. And so foreigners and migrants are often excluded from just about everywhere -- all spaces and all markets. Homosexuality or different sexual identities continue to be a basis for exclusion in some places. A lot of times, this exclusion is based on arguments of morality that are often underpinned by religious worldviews. So spaces are places where these individuals will be excluded from, though state and national laws in the US, and elsewhere, have often restricted certain legal rights as well, including for same-sex marriage. Individuals with certain types of diseases or disabilities have also faced significant exclusions from society. In the past, as we occasionally see in movies, it might have been lepers who were cast away from society and forced to live in involuntary isolation. While that seems like ancient history, nowadays this type of exclusion continues to occur in a more subtle fashion. Things like HIV/AIDS, as listed in the table, has been used as a basis for exclusion, again, often based on misrepresented stereotypes. There can be some religious and moral undertones to these bases for excluding individuals with disease or disability, but there are also some concerns that they could be infectious and unhealthy. So they are excluded from spaces, and in particular services, like health care services. As we saw in the COVID-19 pandemic, there was even an effort on some people's part to exclude others on the basis of wearing a mask to protect society from the disease! Politicalization of mask-wearing led to a set of negative attitudes that underlaid people's refusal to do what was common sense medical advice for slowing the spread of that disease - putting on a mask -- and doing what was in the collective interest of all society. The last entry in Table 5.2 is women. As we see in the survey results, women are still perceived by some individuals to be subordinate, or weaker, and thus not able to serve in certain roles. Here again, there might be moral or religious reasoning to arguments about where women should be restricted in terms of a private home or public market spaces. And there are clearly cultural values embedded with these ideas that it is the man's role to be the breadwinner, that men have natural leadership qualities. I see these types of stereotypes increasingly being challenged in many parts of the planet, but they certainly still exist, as we saw in the gender wage-gap graphs on earlier pages in this lesson.

Food Systems and Sustainability

There is one way of thinking about each of our lesson themes related to sustainability that has been revisited throughout the semester. Whether we are covering themes of education, health, or inclusion, we have seen how each of these themes are impacted by other sustainability themes and activities, and we have seen how each of these themes influence other realms and sectors of sustainability. Each theme has an influence on, and is influenced by, other aspects of sustainability. The same is true with the theme of food security. For instance, the production of food is influenced by changes that are happening in other realms. Population growth creates more demand for food. When we try to grow more food, we use technology to make food production more efficient, creating more yield. Yet land use change and biogeochemical flows affect the environment and the climate, and these changes in turn influence growing cycles, temperatures, floods, and droughts. Rising sea levels can also reduce the amount of arable land. Ocean acidification will affect extraction of food from the oceans and the coastlines. Changes in biodiversity distribution can result in invasive species outcompeting crop plants and agricultural products in some cases. The things happening elsewhere relate to and influence our ability to grow good food. But our efforts to grow good food also has big impacts on the environment. As we heard about in our lesson on the Planetary Boundaries, agriculture has been the largest source of human-induced environmental change. It is the largest consumer of freshwater, and it is the largest source of biogeochemical flows in the environment. Agriculture releases lots of greenhouse gases and carbon. An extraordinary amount of land conversion from natural habitats to agricultural croplands is occurring daily to meet food demand.

Planetary Boundaries

These are the operating limits of the planet that support human wellbeing. If these critical boundaries are crossed, there will be dramatic implications for our ability to continue meeting our own needs as a species. In the pre-industrial time, we were nowhere near the thresholds of any of the Planetary Boundaries. Human activity occurred well within the safe operating zone of these boundaries. By the 1950s, we had begun to impact the integrity of the biosphere. By the 1990s, stratospheric ozone depletion had also became a major concern. Yet, as of recently, we have been able to move away from that particular boundary while we've begun to approach several others (e.g., biogeochemical flows, land-use change, and climate change). It is clear, as we'll continue to see, that human action -- and inaction -- is linked to how close we get to these Planetary Boundaries. Looking at the case of ozone depletion as a prime example, the concerted action in the collective interest has proven successful at moving ourselves away from critical tipping points associated with these Planetary Boundaries.

1. Formal Education

This includes the primary, secondary (i.e., high school), and now tertiary (i.e., higher education/colleges/universities) institutions where your formal learning has taken place. These are usually the first settings that comes to mind when people think about education. This form of education often involves high levels of organization, very structured curriculums and learning plans based on a consensus about what information and skills are important to have, and result in diplomas that represent a broad level of educational accomplishment. While these forms of education are critical and highly associated with improved quality of life across all cultures, one interesting thing to remember about formal educational institutions is how much of what you know has actually been learned outside of these settings. Everything you've learned from parents, family, and friends would largely fall outside the formal education category.

"Malthusian catastrophe." - An Essay on the Principles of Population

Thomas Malthus drew a lot of attention to the issue of population growth in the late 1700s because of an essay he wrote. His concern was that population growth might eventually lead to the human species outstripping its own food supply. To this case, much of the concern about population growth continues to center on the food supply failing to keep up with growing demand. This concern is so associated with Malthus that is often referred to as the "Malthusian catastrophe." His name has become an adjective that is synonymous with concerns about population growth outstripping food supply.

Intergenerational earnings elasticity is a measure of ______________________.

a. Social mobility

U5MR stands for:

a. Under five mortality rate

- The Green Revolution Revisited

We have already spent a little time in this course talking about the green revolution and the scientific efforts that were put in place to improve the yields of basic grains through different genetic modification and cross-breeding techniques that Norman Borlaug and others innovated in the 1960s. And in a lot of ways we have seen graphs reflecting the period of the 70s and into the 80s with key food commodities. Most especially, this was seen with rice and soybeans where prices decreased and leveled off in the 90s. Then we also see around the 2007 period and onward a return to form -- an increase in prices per metric ton for these basic world commodities such that they comprised kind of the basic grains, the basic breadbasket for most of the world's population. So food prices are beginning to elevate again. Technologies have been introduced that improved food supply and that offset that Malthusian catastrophe, pushing it further into the future as food supply grew. For this reason, prices of these basic grains came down in the 1970s and 1980s. But now we see them beginning to rise again. And this suggests that perhaps population growth is now caught back up to the food supply and perhaps if without technological innovation that somehow improves food yield or reduces food waste we might see prices continue to grow. And that is where we might start to see a big increase in insecurity of access to good, nutritious food. As referenced in an earlier lesson, we may in fact be reaching a "planetary boundary" in terms of how much food can be produced given the existing limitations of land use, freshwater availability, biodiversity loss, and biogeochemical flows. And while everyone may eventually experience these threats to food security, some places are experiencing this acute crisis already, as we are about to see.

Who Is Being Excluded Here? - Social Inclusion

What's interesting to note is our tendency to think that wealth is the big influence on happiness and life satisfaction, and perhaps the ability to be included in those activities and social spheres that often contribute to life satisfaction. But in some cases, as we see in some business groups, certain specialized social spheres, like cloistered nuns, have some of the highest life satisfaction scores. These scores tend to be much higher than other US-based populations like nurses and college students, and certainly higher than homeless individuals and fringe populations, and compared to other parts of the planet.

Education Metrics for Lesser Developed Countries - Literacy

When it comes to education levels, one of the most basic and fundamental metrics used to track educational objectives is the illiteracy rate. Ideally, a country would have a low illiteracy rate, and indeed some countries have been successful at eliminating illiteracy among their populace. This is often strongly associated with economic indicators, like GDP per capita, but there are also examples of relatively poor countries like Cuba prioritizing education and largely eliminating illiteracy among the country's population. In any case, the presence of a high degree of illiteracy is often a clear signal of poor educational opportunities or investment in a given country. 1. Almost three-quarters of adults who are illiterate, live in just ten countries. Of the global total, 37% live in (blank). § India 2. In (blank), the number of illiterate adults has increased by 10 million over the past two decades, to reach 35 million. § Nigeria There are actually several main points of emphasis in this little show/hide question above. · First, notice that in 2010 there were still 775 million people on the planet that could not read! That's over three-quarters of a billion people. Clearly, eliminating basic illiteracy remains a very persistent challenge on the planet. · The second point of emphasis regards the conditions where illiteracy continues to thrive. Three-quarters of all adult illiterates lived in just ten countries. And of those, 34% lived in just one country. More than one-third of all illiterate people on the planet lived in just one country! Because this country has a particularly large population, it is not surprising on one level that it is India. And yet there are other countries with very large populations that have nowhere near that level of illiteracy. Thus, there are specific educational challenges in places like India. This graphic above also references another country in a separate question about where the number of illiterate adults is increasing. The example cited by Sachs is Nigeria, which in this case has seen the number of illiterate people increase by 10 million people over the last few decades, to now include a total of 35 million illiterate individuals in that country. We are so far removed from illiteracy that it can be hard for some students to conceptualize the degree of illiteracy that continues to persist -- and is growing -- in some parts of the planet. And this is despite all our efforts to improve the development of different parts of the planet through efforts like the Brundtland Report and the Millennium Development Goals. We do not have 100% literacy in the US, so that means some illiterate individuals are out there.

How Does Food Insecurity Manifest in the U.S.?

While few people in North American have to deal with the level of food insecurity we saw in the family from Chad, there are many things that contribute to a relative amount of food insecurity here in the US. Given the wealth that exists in the US, there is really no reason there should be any food insecurity at all, but the rates of food insecurity have actually grown in recent years! - Pennsylvania Here in Pennsylvania, there are around 1.1 million people in the state considered as food insecure according to this report on the information on the Feeding America website. That is the equivalent of 1 in every 11 people in the state, and 1 in every 8 children! We also see the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) referenced on that page. That is an example of a program that can support summer meals, free or reduced school meals, or food stamp programs. A few others might be less familiar with such as childcare food programs and food distribution programs. These are all mechanisms for addressing food security in the US. And so, some of you may have heard of the food security issues being dealt with in their hometowns and in their state without even realizing what this theme of food security/insecurity fully entails and how it relates to sustainability.

Biophilia Symptoms & Benefits of Nature

With ideas about biophilia being so compelling, it should not be surprising to learn that prolonged exposure to urban, built, and man-made environments with little or no nature content is actually associated with several negative health outcomes. These include, but are not limited to, the following: · Attention problems · Stunted academic growth · Obesity · Anxiety · Depression · Fear of the natural world · Disregard for life Obviously as our world continues to urbanize, we will be likely to see these types of conditions become more common, as they have over recent decades. There is good news, though. By promoting activities outdoors, exposure to natural environments, and positive experiences outside of built and urban settings, RPTM careers by their very nature (pun intended) help address these important health issues! All of the conditions that are associated with nature-deficit disorder are directly reversed when we are exposed to nature. Even short-term exposure can measurably reduce the conditions listed above, while longer-term exposure and lifestyles associated with increased time in nature can have even more pronounced health benefits. In the following clip, meant to be tongue-in-cheek parody of all the prescription medication advertisements that are now commonplace as we are encouraged by those private health care and pharmaceutical companies to medicate all issues in our lives, we see a fictitious add for a nature prescription, hence the name Nature Rx. What is most interesting about this humorous video, is that the scientific evidence is extremely strong that nature exposure improves attention, reduces anxiety and depression, provides restoration from stress, and increases connection with both the natural world as well as other people. Instead of pharmaceuticals, many folks could improve their neuro-psychiatric condition by simply spending more time in nature. Pretty cool, huh?! Now, if you recall, cardiovascular disease and neuro-psychiatric conditions were two of the primary influences on the DALYs in developed countries like the US. RPTM activities play a direct role in addressing both primary conditions. Way to go RPTM!

Under-five Mortality Rates (U5MR)

a common indicator to assess health conditions in places where little health care or access is available. · Upon closer inspection, here we can see the under-five mortality rates expressed as the number of individuals per 1000 live births who did not live to the age of 5 years old. · You may not be used to hearing about this particular indicator since in the US, there are very few children who do not live to the age of five. · Based on this map, we are well below 10 death per 1,000 live births in the US. · The actual U5MR in the US usually stays below 4 per 1,000 births. In fact, in some regions, the U5MR can be higher than 100 deaths before the age of five for every 1,000 births. That's more than 1 for every 10 births!!

Sachs says there are around 1 billion people in need of basic health care, and there are also 1 billion people living in high-income countries capable of helping. How much does Sachs say it would require per person from the high-income countries to meet these basic health care needs of those from low-income countries?

a. $40/person

How much is spent on health care per capita per year in the US, including public and private spending?

a. $8000

Which of the following best approximates the current percentage of GDP dedicated to health care spending in the U.S.?

a. 18%

On average, every ton of oil equivalent energy used in the world releases about _____ tons of carbon dioxide.

a. 2.4 tons

To obtain a statistical model of future growth that adjusts for two factors; incomplete catching up and continued economic growth in high income countries, Prof. Sachs discusses a "simple rule of thumb" for finding an average converging growth rate. If the United States has an income level of $50,000 per person per year, then a country with an income level of $12,500 per person per year is approximately growing ______.

a. 3.8 percentage points

In order to raise the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere by 1 molecule part per million (ppm), 7.8 billion tons of CO2 must be put into the atmosphere. According to L06 reading, how many tons of carbon were released in 2010?

a. 31 billion

Let's explore the concept of DALYs more. The WHO gives a descriptionLinks to an external site.. Make sure to consult this WHO list of disability weightsLinks to an external site. for the DALYs questions. For simplicity, we will have life expectancy for DALYs be 80 years. If a person develops Alzheimers at age 70, but lives to be 80 years old, how many DALYs would this last ten years of life be?

a. 6.7

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted in 1948, shortly after the United Nations was formed. What is the UDHR?

a. A document stating that if the basic rights of all people in the world are met, then one could not only ensure their dignity and improve their economic well-being, but also help to prevent another global war.

Sachs cites two troubling implications of the high tuition costs in the U.S. university system. Select the statement below that does NOT reflect one of those implications.

a. An increasing percentage of GDP is dedicated to offsetting educational expenses.

According to _____, the idea of virtuous living was key to social stability.

a. Confucius

DALYs is an acronym for:

a. Disability adjusted life years

All the categories in the UNDP Gender Inequality Index:

a. Female empowerment, labor force participation of women, and reproductive health

Excessive pollution flows of nitrogen and phosphorous are a result of heavy use of __________________.

a. Fertilizer

The percentage of females enrolled in primary school in low income countries has __________________________ the overall world average.

a. Has caught up too.

When the market signals that an activity has a __________________, we would expect more people to pursue that activity. In the United States, this is directly affected by high tuition costs that limit the supply of university education and cause many not to pursue a university education to completion.

a. High return on investment

According to Chapter 8 of the Age of Sustainable Development, which perspective reflects Sachs' approach to human development?

a. Life Cycle Approach

What are some of the planetary boundaries we are facing?

a. Overuse of fresh water, human caused loading of nitrogen and phosphorus, ocean acidification, change in land use pattern, ozone depletion

The human rights philosophy states that every human being in the world has basic human rights. These rights are categorized into:

a. Political rights, civil rights, economic rights, social rights, and cultural rights

Prevailing science holds that humanity is now causing the Earth's ______ great extinction wave.

a. Sixth

Consider a historical perspective for how the intergenerational dynamics of income factor into inequality, and then fill in the blanks. [Help: Refer to the "Divided Societies" section]: Even when [ _____ and ______ ] ended in the United States, [ _____and _____ ] continued. This continues to play a huge role in the persistance of social discrimination, racial discrimination, ethnic discrimination, gender discrimination. 1. Slavery 2. The legacy of poverty, poor health, and discrimination against Native Americans 3. The legacy of slavery 4. Massive brutality against the Native Americans

a. [1,4], [3,2] - Even when [slavery] and [massive brutality against the Native Americans] ended in the United States, [the legacy of slavery and the legacy of poverty, poor health, and discrimination against Native Americans] continued.

Tragedy of Commons

an important conceptual frame designed to illuminate the ways that humans come to degrade the environments they depend on It is an example of what happens when resources get scarce and how quickly they can sometimes get used up concept is often applied to discussions of resource use that is relatively unregulated (easy or open access, difficult to exclude) and whose use degrades the resources (known as subtractability). Some bigger picture examples could include various types of fisheries, especially deep-sea fisheries that are well offshore and thus generally are incapable of being regulated.

Exclusion

is often done on the basis of certain identities.

Planetary Boundaries Factors

climate change, novel entities (not yet qualified), stratospheric ozone depletion, atmospheric aerosol loading (not yet qualified), ocean acidification, biogeochemical flows, fresh water use, land-system change, bill (not yet quantified), and biosphere integrity

DALYs

disability-adjusted life years. · The idea is that a normal lifespan is 80 years according to the calculations of DALYs. · If an adult dies at age 60, this is 20 lost life years. If that adult is sick between age 55-60, then they are not enjoying healthy years in those final five years of life. · In actuality, that disability is an added "penalty" of sorts that reduced quality of life for those final five years. · When thinking of disability, we often think broadly about obvious conditions like paralysis, blindness, loss of a limb, or loss of ability to be mobile (such as after breaking a hip in old age). · Yet other kinds of disabilities can also be translated into a partial loss of (quality of) life by making an assessment of how much healthy life is affected by a given disability or condition. · What DALYs calculate in a given population is, on average, the number of life-years actually lost due to a given condition (i.e., shortening of the actual life expectancy) plus the number of lost years to disability (i.e. shortening of the "quality-of-life" expectancy). The result of that calculation is the Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs). · DALYs are used to further inform and provide understanding about the impact that varying disease burdens create in different places across the world.

Major Cause of Death in Children Under 5 With Disease-Specific Contribution of Undernutrition, 2004

injuries: 4% pneumonia: 17% diarrhoea: 17% measles: 4% malaria: 7% other infections: 12% nutritional deficiencies: 2% severe neonatal infections: 11% prematurity: 11% birth asphyxia: 8% non-communicable: 7%

Atmosphere Aerosol Loading

is a kind of a long-winded way of referring to various types of air pollution. In most cases, these aerosols come from the burning of fossil fuels, though there is also a portion that comes from the burning of biofuels. Most of the time we associate air pollution with urban or highly industrialized areas. There's a lot of places around the planet that are known to have quite severe and chronic air pollution issues, including several cities in China. In some cities, standards can become 60 times higher than what's recommended by most health officials. But it's not just in lesser developed parts of the planet where air quality issues happen. Air quality issues aren't just a challenge on other parts of the planet. There are also affecting the United States, in both chronic and acute ways. For instance, during the major outbreak of fires that occurred in California in 2018, the air quality in the San Francisco Bay Area was temporarily as bad, or worse, than any city on the planet! Whether such a situation is acute or chronic, the presence of high levels of aerosols has a direct influence on the prevalence of lung disease in the local population. Fortunately, aerosol loading is something the responds immediately to changes in human behavior. Here we see a side-by-side comparison of air quality in major cities before and during the coronavirus pandemic, which severely restricted many of the human activities directly responsible for air pollution.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)

is a milestone document in the history of human rights · The UDHR was originally drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world. The Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on the 10th of December, 1948. · The UDHR sets out, for the first time, the internationally recognized set of fundamental human rights to be universally protected. It has been translated into almost 500 languages. · It was drafted by individuals from all different types of legal and cultural backgrounds in different parts of the world. And it is interesting to look closely at this list of rights. This is a particularly visual-friendly graphic that depicts the list of rights. And if we look, what we see initiated in the top left is -- no one has the right to hold you in slavery! · We then see other rights that are familiar to us in the US. For instance, everyone is innocent until proven guilty. You have the right to a fair and public trial. Everyone has the right to gather for peaceful assembly, and everyone has the right to belong to a religion. These things all seem like very basic and fundamental rights that don't necessarily need additional protections. One reason we feel that way is that in our country (the US), these rights are generally very well protected. The fact of the matter is, this document continues to exist. The rights represented in it continue to be important to highlight, for the simple reason that these rights are not well protected everywhere around the planet. This UDHR document set out for the first time, at a global level, what are widely considered to be fundamental human rights that should be protected for everyone on the planet. It remains extremely relevant because somewhere on the planet, these rights are not supported -- either socially, legally, or politically. There are places on the planet where slavery is still occurring, and places where you do not have the right to belong to certain religions. Some people do not enjoy the right to own property, or to be recognized as a person before the law. Some people may not even have the right to not be tortured. These are all things that still occur somewhere on the planet! And while it may seem to be a radical situation for these particular rights not to be protected, it turns out some of these rights are not fully protected here in the US either. We continue to see public challenges to the limits of free speech, to the right for peaceful assembly, to not be tortured, and to receive a fair and public trial.

Social inclusion

is about the process of including and involving people in society and giving them better opportunities to have a dignified and good quality of life.

Two Major Causes of Under-Five Mortality

pneumonia and diarrhea. Yet these two perfectly treatable conditions, pneumonia, and diarrhea combine to account for over one-third of all under-five mortality deaths

Education & Income Education Leads to Greater Earnings and Less Unemployment

unemployment rates are higher for folks that have not gone through college than they are for the national averages of all workers. As people get more educated, their unemployment rates drop off dramatically to be far less than the average of all workers. And the same is true with earnings! While an associate's degree can elevate someone beyond the unemployment rate, everybody educated up to an associate degree level still actually makes fewer earnings than average across all workers in the country. It is only once people get bachelor's degrees and beyond that their earnings cross the average of all workers out there! This is a bit of good news for you as you work towards completing a bachelor's degree at Penn State -- it will pay off in the long run in terms of earning potential! We can think about sustainability in the educational context as improving educational standards and access so that people become more educated and thus make more informed life decisions, but so that they are able to participate more responsibly in society! Bringing sustainability education into the classroom and making it a part of the educational experience is a relatively recent development within education systems. This course is a perfect example of such changes occurring within Penn State, and more specifically, within the RPTM major. This course is designed to inform and equip you to better address sustainability challenges in future coursework, in your current and future careers, and in your personal lives.

Collective Interest

where there's a lot of trust, reciprocity, and strong relationships between people, they are more likely to act in collective interest rather than just their own individual interests

Change in indicators in the US: 1900-2015

· We see that one's average life expectancy was also a bit of a shocker. In 1900, life expectancy was actually just 47 years old! That means someone in the 40s would be considered a wizened elder by 1900 standards! · Finally, we see a few additional figures there, including the percentage of Americans that owned a car. It was less than one one-hundredth of a percent. Take a look at the other values that correspond to the situation in the US at the time. · We see that one's average life expectancy was also a bit of a shocker. In 1900, life expectancy was actually just 47 years old! That means someone in the 40s would be considered a wizened elder by 1900 standards! · Finally, we see a few additional figures there, including the percentage of Americans that owned a car. It was less than one one-hundredth of a percent. Let's skip ahead to see how these values changed up to the year 2000, over the course of the 20th century. · Look how a gallon of gas rose dramatically -- to $3.39. · And how many millennials still live at home? 36%. Circling back to education, the next figure is quite important. · Look at the percentage of people 25 years of age or older who now have four years of college education in the US in 1900. While the US has progressed over the past 100+ years, they have remained with low life expectancy, low levels of educational access and attainment, and other dramatically different conditions.

What are the barriers to achieving more recreation and leisure-based health benefits?

· there are some other social and cultural issues that make this a challenge in the United States. · And again, we are different from our peers in other more developed countries. · There are several things to note in these comparisons, among them is the lack of paid vacation in the US in relation to other developed countries (see lower left). · The US does not have any legally mandated paid vacation. o Vacations are thus not a right in the US, while they are a protected right in other countries. o And in some cases, citizens of other countries are legally provided with up to 30 days of paid, mandatory vacation every year! Let's read that again -- paid, mandatory leave. o So why are we not provided with this here in the US? It boils down to a governance issue, so let's change this in the US in the future since it is likely to improve the overall health of our populace!