Ess exam

• Environmental value systems (EVS)

  A worldview that shapes the way in which an individual, or group of people perceives and evaluates environmental issues
• Historical events affect the development of environmental value systems and environmental movements
• Historical influences on environmental value systems


  • Literature
  • Media
  • Environmental disasters
  • International agreements
  • Technological developments
• There are a wide range of value systems with their own focuses
• Environmental value system (EVS)


  • It is influenced by cultural, religious, economic, and political contexts
  • It can be considered as a 'system' in the sense that it can be influenced by education, experience, culture and media (inputs), and involves a set of values and arguments that can generate consistent decisions and evaluations (outputs)
• Main environmental value systems

  • Ecocentric
  • Anthropocentric
  • Technocentric
• Ecocentric


  Puts ecology and nature as central to humanity, emphasises the importance of education and encourages self-restraint in human behaviour
• Anthropocentric


  Humans must sustainably manage the global system, the law is responsible for the sustainability of the environment
• Technocentric


  Technological developments can provide solutions to environmental problems, research is encouraged to form policies and understand how systems can be controlled
• Environmental value systems vary greatly with culture and time
• Environmental movement officially began

  1960s
• Evidence shows humans have been concerned about the environment for longer than the 1960s
• Historical events that have caused concern over the environment

  • Romans reported on environmental problems
  • Between 14-16 century, human waste was linked to the spread of European epidemics
  • China, Peru and India practiced soil conservation
• Historical events have sparked response/action from individuals, governments and groups
• Who is involved in the environmental movement

  • Influential individuals through media and publications
  • Independent pressure groups through campaigns
  • Corporate businesses involved through supply and consumer demand
  • Governments make/enforce policy and decisions
  • Intergovernmental bodies highly influential, holding earth summits to unite governments
• Influential individuals


  • Aldo Leopold (A Sand Country Almanac)
  • Rachael Carson (Silent Spring)
  • Al Gore (An Inconvenient Truth)
• Independent pressure groups


  • Greenpeace (Arctic exploration)
  • WWF (Saving animals e.g. tigers)
• Governments


  • Planning permission for land use
  • Manage emissions and controls over factories
  • Meet with other governments
• Intergovernmental bodies


  • UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme)
  • United Nations
• DDT, Silent Spring publication, An Inconvenient Truth publication, Hat makers exposed to heavy metals, Mercury poisoning in Japan, Bhopal disaster, Chernobyl, Fukushima Daiichi are case studies
• Classification of environmental value systems

  • Ecocentric (nature first, respect the right of nature and the dependence of humans on nature)
  • Anthropocentric (humans must manage the global system through taxes, environmental regulation and legislation)
  • Technocentric (technology can provide the solutions to environmental problems)
• Anthropocentric and technocentric worldviews believe that there will always be more resources to exploit, we will control and manage these resources and be successful, we can solve any pollution problem that we cause, economic growth is a good thing and we can always keep the economy growing, whatever we do, we can solve it
• Ecocentric worldview believes that the earth is here for all species, resources are limited, we should manage growth so that only beneficial forms occur, we must work with the earth not against it, we need the earth more than it needs us
• Communists in Germany claimed that their system could produce more wealth and distribute it more evenly, but in the process caused environmental degradation
• After the fall of the Iron Curtain and Berlin Wall in 1989, journalists reported on the polluted state of East Germany, with mercury being dumped into local waterways and cars producing 100 times more carbon monoxide than Western cars
• Native American environmental worldview

  • Tend to hold property as a community, subsistence economy, barter for goods, use low impact technology
  • Laws handed down though words
  • Religion: polytheistic (worship many gods) and believe that many animals and plants have a spirituality
• Worldviews of Christianity and Islam

  Notion of domination over earth, are called to 'replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over it'
• Buddhist worldview


  Teaches that everything is interdependent
• Model


  A simplified version of reality that can be used to understand the process of a system and predict how it will respond to change
• System


  A set of inter-related parts working together to make a complex whole
• Open system


  Exchanges both energy and matter across its boundary
• Closed system


  Exchanges only energy across its boundary
• Isolated system


  Hypothetical concept in which neither energy nor matter is exchanged across the boundary
• Ecosystems are open systems
• Models involve loss of accuracy
• Thermodynamics


  Govern the flow of energy in a system
• Positive feedback


  Brings systems towards tipping points
• Negative feedback


  Stabilizes systems
• Conservation of energy: energy in an isolated system can be transformed, but not created or destroyed
• Entropy of a system increases over time, entropy is a measure of disorder in a system, entropy increases due to energy transformations in the system