Week 1 Assessment

1. The traditional scientific method does not include values in the problem statement. The goal of traditional science is to be as objective and free of bias as possible. Environmental science (and other applied disciplines) focus on problems that are defined by a mismatch of values and possibilities.

2. The I=PAT relationship includes Population, Affluence and Technology. Pollution is not the
"P" in this relationship.

3. A common pool resource is when the community must decide the rules for determining resource use.

4. Environmental traps are characterized by taking more effort to get out of than it took to get in. Once a threshold is crossed the situation deteriorates drammatically. The idea that if there is a little problem it will only take a little effort to reverse, may work in some cases, but not in traps.

5. This question confused you. Embedded water would be the water not counted in the meal itself, i.e. the water involved in the life-cycle of preparing the food except in the meal itself. I thought the best answer was the water in coffee - it's in the meal not in the preparation. However, I can see that washing the dishes might be considered not invovled in the meal at all. (Maybe because some of you don't wash your dishes at all?)

6. List four reasons to use multiple approaches:

Here are four from the lecture notes for week 1

• we get into trouble when we don't consider all the viewpoints and time scales
• some of the limitations of our normal human cognitive patterns can be over-ridden by intentionally looking for and trying to understand different perspectives
• we need innovation to solve our problems and this can come from mixing different approaches
• multiple cognitive tools help us connect with multiple value systems

7. Give an example of a large lifetime consumption and what can be done about it. How would you balance the environmental benefits of reduction to the value to you.

This is an example of the form of the question where you are supposed to give an example of positive and negative and give an evaluation.

The focus should have been on the environmental costs or impact vs. the value to you personally.