Classroom presentation on Sociology of the Environment

1. The Environment
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2. A relatively stable community of organisms
that have established interlocking
relationships and exchanges with one
another and their natural habitat is called an
ecosystem.
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3. The Growing Urban Environment
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4. What Mike Davis refers to as a
Planet of Slums
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5. The City of Seoul
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6. Seoul slums
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7. Brazilia Brazil with adjacent
slums
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8. Caracas Venezuela
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9. Caracas Slum
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10. Buenos Aires Obelisco
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11. Buenos Aires Slum
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12. • In 1950 there were 86 cities in the world
with a population of over a million.
• Today there are 400
• By 2015 there will be at least 550
Davis, 2007
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14. Mumbai India
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15. Mumbai India
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16. Mexico City
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17. Mexico City
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18. • In 1800, 3 percent of the world’s population
lived in cities.
• By 1900, 14 percent of the population was
urban
• At present almost half of the world’s
population is urbanized.
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20. Pollution from cities
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21. The Killer Fog of London, 1952
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22. London at noon
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24. San Jose CA
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25. Shanghai on a bad day
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26. Deforestation
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27. Amazon Forest
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32. Global Warming at the Maldive
Islands
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These islands may disappear by 2100

33. Kiribati Islands are sinking right
now.
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34. One of the options canvassed by the Kiribati
parliament is to migrate to a floating man-made
island in the middle of the pacific. Something
like this:
ok, the more serious option is to move to Fiji 34

35. More than 160 nations forged an agreement
called the Kyoto protocol. It called for a
reduction of carbon emissions—the primary
culprit in global warming.
This agreement was not signed by the US.
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36. Copenhagen climate change conference in
2009.
Who wrecked the deal? China or the US?
Nothing was binding. Little accomplished.
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37. Politicians and Science
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38. Water!
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39. Over one billion people on this
planet do not have safe drinking
water.
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40. Global commons from space
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42. Each year thousands of children
die because of the quality of
drinking water.
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43. Eight to eleven thousand
people die every day from
water related diseases.
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44. Privatization of the world’s water
• In 1990 51 million people in the world got
their water from private companies.
• By 2002 that number had grown to 300
million people.
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45. The major water companies:
• Suez, Veolia, and Saur of France
• Thames Water of England
• RWE of Germany (now owns Thames)
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46. The three largest water bottling
companies:
• Nestlé (including Perrier, Arrowhead,
Vittel, Pellegrino, Calistoga, Ice Mountain,
Deer Park and Poland Springs brands)
• Coca Cola (Dasani)
• PepsiCo (Aquafina)
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47. In 2003, 3 million plastic water
bottles went into the trash each
day in California alone. Only 16
percent were recycled.
(Barrons in P.O.V.)
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