26) Structures given a LEED platinum ranking are ________.
A) inefficient and need to be renovated
B) especially high in heavy metal content
C) exemplary in sustainable design
D) constructed to function without electricity
E) free of lead-containing materials
27) In the study of the level of happiness among Americans ________.
A) happiness was inversely proportional to wealth
B) respondents underestimated how much more happy rich people really are
C) increasing average income did not increase the level of happiness
D) the increase in happiness was proportional to the increase in income
E) the data were too noisy to form any conclusions
23.5 True/False Questions
1) The environmental bottleneck is defined as the reduction of economic competition because of
the environmental sustainability of a company’s products.
2) Continued population growth is not sustainable, but continued consumption is.
3) The current government subsidy structure is helping Canada attain the goals of sustainability.
4) To be sustainable, a solution must work in the long term.
5) Populations are stabilizing in many developing nations because of urbanization, wealth,
education, and the empowerment of women.
6) Green campuses have reduced the size of their ecological footprint.
23.6 Essay Questions
1) Describe some of the actions being taken by colleges and universities to promote
sustainability.
2) Why is it imperative that humans convert their consumptive behaviours and practices to more
sustainable ones?
3) What accounts for the view that people’s needs cannot be provided for and the environment
protected simultaneously?
4) How can consumption be reduced while maintaining one’s quality of life?
5) Why are short–term solutions often offered to achieve sustainability? Why must sustainable
solutions work in the long term? Why does the current political system inhibit our ability as a
community to work on long–term solutions, and how can citizens change this?
6) Why is the movement to become a sustainable institution, demonstrated by the many
universities and colleges discussed in the textbook, so successful? How might the successes at
these institutes of higher education translate to society as a whole?
7) Why don’t the phrases “humans and the environment” and “people and nature” properly reflect
the relationships between their respective terms, and why may this language be an obstacle for
sustainability?
8) Our consumption has ecological implications. Illustrate this using an example of the
ecological footprint of a banana split that you might eat in your university cafeteria.
9) In 2012 the Conservative government undertook a massive overhaul of Canadian
environmental law by proposing time limits on the environmental assessment of industrial
projects, downloading the assessment whenever possible to the provinces, and limiting who can
participate in the process, as well as weakening environment protection of the Fisheries Act and
the Species at Risk Act. The minister of the natural resources, Joe Oliver, defended these changes
by saying that they are necessary to speed up the approval of the big resource extraction projects:
“We must seize the moment. These opportunities will not last forever.” Can you use what you
have learned in this course to point out fundamental flaws in this argument?
23.7 Scenario-Based Questions
Read the following scenario and answer the questions below.
Northeast of Australia and northwest of Fiji lies the isolated tropical island of Tikopia. With less
than 5 km2, it supports 1200 people and has been continuously occupied for nearly 3000 years,
with the population holding steady for much of that time. It has a two–month dry season every
year and lies in the Pacific’s cyclone belt, which destroys homes and gardens on an
unpredictable, but regular basis. Tikopia is too far away from other islands to have any regular
contact; the islanders must be self–sufficient.
1) Tikopia’s heavy rains and moderate climate help the people ________.
A) increase population levels easily
B) perform economically valuable work indoors
C) accomplish sustainable food production
D) attract a great many tourists
E) learn to use technology
2) As you approach Tikopia, it appears to be covered with rainforest, with several layers of trees
of various sizes. Close inspection shows that from the tallest trees to the smallest yam plants
growing in the shaded gardens, the plants are all either edible or used for other purposes. It is
probably true that ________.
A) the inhabitants are extremely lucky to have such a wide array of useful plants
B) the heavy rainfall is responsible for the wide array of useful plants
C) three thousand years of breeding experiments led to the wide array of useful plants
D) the Tikopians traded with other islands over centuries to obtain this carefully selected variety
of plants
E) visitors brought these non–native plants, which became invasive species
3) There are food taboos on Tikopia. To catch and eat fish, a citizen must obtain permission from
a clan chief. The purpose of this taboo is that it ________.
A) prevents the tragedy of the commons
B) helps spread the wealth
C) keeps people from gaining too much weight
D) ensures that everyone eats the same things
E) requires the population to be obedient
4) Archaeological evidence shows that, in a manner similar to Easter Island, the first settlers
cleared forests by burning them and feasted on the birds, fish, turtles, and bats. The
archaeological middens (trash piles) show that the settlers extirpated numerous species of plants,
birds, and bats; that the fish and shellfish numbers declined dramatically; and that the average
size of these organisms was drastically reduced. By the end of the first 1000 years of residency,
the initial food resources were gone and Tikopians began to raise pigs as a major protein source.
Suddenly, about 500 years later, the people killed every pig on the island. This is most likely
because they ________.
A) were having a huge celebration of some event, such as a victory over an enemy
B) realized they were better off eating vegetables than feeding vegetables to pigs and eating pigs
C) had a serious problem, such as a prolonged drought, and sacrificed the pigs to their gods
D) were tired of pork
E) chiefs made it taboo to eat pork
5) People live in clans on the island. Within the clan, individual families are probably
encouraged to ________ in order to ________.
A) have as many children as possible; wage war on other clans
B) have as many children as possible; grow crops to feed the clan
C) have as many children as possible; care for their parents and other older clan members
D) have very few children; concentrate the clan wealth among only a few people
E) have very few children; avoid food shortages
6) One major problem Tikopians have faced and solved is how to ________.
A) conduct trade with far distant groups
B) maintain a sustainable society over a long period of time
C) organize an educated community
D) use technology to increase population size
E) find and exploit economically valuable resources
,
e