REL 222 GUIDE

According to Thompson, why did the Greek poet Hesiod see farming as having religious significance? (36)

God is integrated into nature, thus caring for it is important. Farming is the way humans can justly occupy a place in the divine (that is natural) order and its god’s intention that this place be fraught with work toil and risk.
A key message in Hesiod’s poetry is that only farmers dependent on seasons, soil, and water can hope to attain piety or show proper respect to these divinities. Farming is the way human beings justly occupy a place in the divine (that is natural) order, and it is the gods’ intention that this place be fraught with work , toil, and risk, Warfare, violence, and trickery, in contrast, are unjust in Hesiod’s poetry because they short-circuit the gods’ intended route to material rewards.

According to Thompson, what value did Thomas Jefferson see in Agriculture for America’s future?

Jefferson believed that the small farmers would make the most “valuable citizens” because of their investment into the land and thus their country, he believed that agriculture was way for citizens to make long term and stable decisions that also promoted patriotism.

Hamilton: believed that the future of the new republic lay in trade and industrial development.
Jefferson favored the strategy of filling the heart of N.American continent with freehold farmers and delaying the creation of an indigenous industrial plant as long as possible. It was in the context of this debate that Jefferson described farmers as “the most valuable citizens” and “the chosen people of god, if ever he had a chosen people.” (page 44-45)
Jefferson is recognized as a wise man who understood farming in a deep way and as the founder of a cultural tradition that set the U.S on the road of prosperity.
Jefferson and Madison intended to curtail human tendencies that create inherent weaknesses in democratic society.
Jefferson: “ Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of god, if ever….”

How did this vision differ from Alexander Hamilton’s interest in industrialization and manufacturing? (44, 158, 186)

Alexander Hamilton believed that America needed to industrialize and focus on trade in order to become a dominant economic force like England was doing.

According to Thompson, what were the founding fathers’ concerns with democracy, and why did agrarianism address this issue for Jefferson? (45, 53, 158)

The founding fathers concerns with democracy were the idea of a mob rule and that democracy would get out of hand. Agrarianism dealt with this idea because Jefferson believed in the Central Agrarian Tenant in that farmers make the best citizens. He believed that farmers being in charge of their own wealth and land would make them be more socially responsible and that they think more carefully especially regarding their political decisions and ideals.

What do CAT, PAL, and GAG refer to respectively, and what do they each contribute to notion of agrarianism? (53)

CAT: The Central Agrarian Tenant-Farmers-make the best citizens, in that due to their obligations of private wealth regarding their land they will make social and sustainable decisions. The idea is that agriculturally based economy with dispersed landholdings would moderate some pernicious tendencies of democracy.

PAL: Principle of Agrarian Localism- The principle of the need for community and solidarity and the enduring value of face-to-face loyalties. Localism can also refer to a systematic approach to organizing a national government so that local autonomy is retained rather than following the usual pattern of government and political power becoming centralized over time.
Farm families valued their independence , but independence should not be understood as lacking the need for ties to a broader community.

GAG: Great Agrarian Goal-To be as good of a person that one can be, to live virtuously, and to always strive for self-improvement open ended and inexhaustible. The choices we make today are important as they affect our ability to make better virtuous choices tomorrow. presumes that some form of self- realization is the driving force behind all forms of voluntary human action and that individuals realize their potential by most fully performing the unique roles that fall to them in the cousre of life.

According to Thompson, how can agrarianism support social solidarity? (82)

Agrarianism supports social solidarity because even self-reliant stewards will face setbacks and failures, which would often cause for relocation and abandonment, but the agrarian is committed to their land and thus cannot leave it and relocate which creates a social solidarity amongst an agrarian society. It forces them to realize that they have a mutual self-interest in solidarity itself.

social solidarity: what holds people together.
It makes humanity’s dependence on nature more obvious. Stewardship of nature throughout society. means using nature for human flourishing rather than preserving it in a museum, but it also implies a fine appreciation of the constraints implicit in the ecosystems where human life exists. It’s not human-centered or instrumental valuation of nature. Through stewardship you give meaning to life.

Why does Thompson draw on the novel Grapes of Wrath in chapter 4????

He draws on the Grapes of Wrath as a way to explore how political events like the great depression and political philosophies relate to the moral significance of the land. He wants to connect the issues of land and labor policies to fundamental philosophical arguments.

What message does he hope to convey?

He hopes to convey that the moral complexity of agrarianism as seen in the Grapes of Wrath will push people to think about sustainability in a new way looking beyond the basics of it.

***Why was the tractor driver in the novel disliked by the farmers?

*He was taking their jobs with a machine.

What is the technological treadmill, and why does it result in farms that are more specialized, larger, and fewer in number? (96)

Treadmill: is that improved farm technology, often portrayed as a blessing to farmers, doesn’t benefit farmers at all. Rather, each new innovation upsets the existing structure of agriculture brings about a new round of foreclosures and consolidation. the logic goes like this: agricultural technology increases farm productivity. more production lowers prices and farm profits.

This is the idea that small diverse local farmers will never be able to catch up or “out-run” the constant stream of new technology that larger one crop farms utilize to mass produce. There are fewer of them because this treadmill only benefits a few farms, and only for a short amount of time, no one can stay on the treadmill long enough for the technology to be truly sustainable. The treadmill is ever going as new competitors and such are always up and coming. Produce more and more, prices drop, competitors don’t let up.

***Define the following ideas: libertarianism, egalitarianism, utilitarianism (93).

Libertarianism: Liberty as its principal objective. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and freedom of choice, emphasizing political freedom, voluntary association and the primacy of individual judgment. Human freedom let them do what they want except hurt people.
Egalitarianism: or equalism—is a trend of thought that favors equality for all people.[4] Egalitarian doctrines maintain that all humans are equal in fundamental worth or social status. Everything is equal.
Utilitarianism: holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes utility, usually defined as maximizing total benefit and reducing suffering or the negatives. This theory is an economic analysis that is human-centered (or anthropocentric) and has a moral foundation. Pain versus pleasure. greatest good for greatest number of people.

What are focal things and focal practices, as discussed in chapter 5, and why does Thompson feel they are important?

A focal thing is something that has a commanding presence, engages your body and mind, and engages you with others. Focal things and the kinds of engagements they foster have the power to center your life, and to arrange all other things around this center in an orderly way because you know what’s important and what’s not. A focal practice results from committed engagement with the focal thing.
For example, a guitar is a focal thing -- it commands from me a certain kind of engagement of my body and mind. As I learn to play it(a focal practice), it engages me with the larger tradition of music and the community of musicians. The meal is a focal thing and its preparation is a focal practice. The wilderness is a focal thing and hiking a focal practice. The stream, or the trout, is a focal thing -- fly fishing the focal practice. In the life of the Christian community, the bread and the cup are focal things and the Eucharist the focal practice. Focal things and our engagement with them orient us and center us in time and space in ways that technological devices do not. A focal thing is not at the mercy of how you feel at the moment, whether the time is convenient or whatever; you commit yourself to it come hell or high water. It helps, of course, if it’s a shared commitment, because when one person weakens, the other person can make up for that weakness. Two weak persons, each expecting the other to be strong, will be strong together.

Preparing and sharing a meal together constitutes a focal practice that has the power to reorient the life of a family. To establish the conditions for such a practice to flourish, there must exist a firm agreement among those in the household -- especially between parents.

Focal Thing: A focal thing is something of ultimate concern and significance, which may be masked by the device paradigm, and must be preserved by its intimate connection with practice. "Focal things require a practice to prosper within." Borgmann is distinguishing among technologies of various sorts, their operational logic, and the sort of engagement that they require or invite.

We do something to survive but it brings us together. ***How can farming and the “culture of the table” be a focal practice? (118)

Farming and eating locally brings people together, for farming and eating is needed but through farming allows people to eat together and bond, and come together to produce the food and consume it.

According to Thompson, what are three goods that come from shopping at a farmers market?
(121)

-Provide face-to-face interactions with people who produce food
-Helps farmers enhance their economic stance. Spread the family dollar on their farms.
-Run into someone who is actually living out of a premised on self-reliance and stewardship.
-At minimum you learn what is in season and will most likely lead to better nutritional values.

Create awareness and appreciation, and lessen the alienation through participating and involving in preparation and consumption.

How does commodification do away with focal practices? (112)

Human capabilities such as skills, labor itself, or more recently courteous or friendly behavior can become more or less values and traded through market relations.

EXAMPLES OF THE STOVE. ( you put a price tag, and you sell it as a furnice) by commodifying you cheeping, you lose the deeper significance. ( communication) + now you spend more time on trying. human affection, bodily organs should not be bought or sold.

According to Thompson, how can nature be said to have intrinsic value? (139)

Sagoff’s last person argument is the idea that it would be wrong for the last person on earth to destroy the Mona Lisa and it would be wrong to destroy natural things that have qualities of beauty, dignity, or nobility. Nature has intrinsic value because of the communities of nature lovers, environmentalist who can appreciate the intrinsic value of things.

Intrinsic value is based on atheistic values of nature. Goes to behaviorism is that you can’t know people have in mind, you can only observe their actions or words.

What are the four reasons for thinking that agriculture matters, and which of the four, in Thompson’s view, is the only one with the ability to unite us? (166)

-Livelihood
-Health
-Security
-Beauty- This has the ability to unite us. As symbolic and cultural components are what will keep a community committed to sustaining their community.

What is the difference between the Brundtland Report and the Brandt Report in terms of what is important in sustainability? (197)

The difference regards who is in charge of managing sustainability, and how it should be accomplished, via one group versus another or a collective action. retype: According to Thompson, what is the difference between strong and weak sustainability? (250)

Strong sustainability: Thinks of future generations right to use the same amount of natural capital that we use.
Weak sustainability: Concerned for our current use of natural capital in moderation but to our full extent.

Strong: insists that capital should not decline over time weak: insists that human well-being must not decline over time differences: weak sustainability presumes that one means for maintaing human well-being is as good as any other.+ they believe that it is possible to maintain well-being by substituting human for natural capital. strong sustainability presumes that future generations have a right to the same amount of capital as we do., we should protect the rights of future genrations * different approaches in ecosystem development * different perspectives for evaluating agriculture * weak sust: sees agricultural science as a way to compensate for declining soil fertility, water quality and genetic variability * strong: violates the rights of future generations.

What is the difference between the resource sufficiency and functional integrity approaches to sustainability? How does Thompson connect the functional integrity approach to his argument for agrarianism? (229)

Resource sufficiency takes a more calculated and mathematical approach to measuring sustainability. The basic principle behind this method is that a practice is sustainable if the resources need to continue it is foreseeably at hand. Resource sufficiency basically is just accounting and estimating the amounts of certain resources available in the various ecosystem processes. The functional integrity model looks at how whole ecosystems reproduce or change within a series of natural cycles. It looks at how a large class of sustainability problems can be understood in terms of threats to or failures in maintaining the integrity of the functional systems they depend on.

Thompson concludes that the concepts of sustainability have evolved 2 broad paradigms now characterize: resource sufficiency and functional integrity.
Resource sufficiency encompasses an approach, common in economics text-books, that defines sustainability in terms of the ability of manmade capital (technology), human capital ( knowledge), or social capital ( institutions) to substitute for natural capital ( soil fertility). ( wise use and preservation). + is concerned with the rate at which a given production or consumption practice depletes a resource. + it implies some measurement of how long certain practices will continue to promote well-being is enhanced.
Functional integrity encompasses many of the non market values that are associated with ecosystem functioning and emerged in the second half of the 20th century to complement the paradigm of resource sufficiency. It focuses on the capacity of a system to reproduce itself over time. It refers to whole systems, such as human-dominated ecosystems, and their ability to regenerate themselves.

Attfield: World Citizenship in a Precarious World

What are the characteristics of globalization, and how to they stand in contrast to communitarianism (Class lecture).

-The global approach is world dependency, exogenous development, global economy based on trade, democracy rights (freedom, education, health care) technology, consumerism
-Communitarianism: Self-sufficiency, involve local population, sense of place, build personal relationships, decentralized, pluralistic communities (diverse).

How did the documentary about Jamaica (Life and Debt) challenge the globalization model of development?

It displayed how globalization doesn’t work for all countries and it not how countries need to develop.

What are the different ways of thinking about global citizenship, according to Attfield? (197)

“Global Citizenship” is the idea that every citizen is aware and takes responsibility for their actions that are detrimental to the environment. In other words everyone in society has to accept that they have a global obligation, or responsibility for the environment. In addition to accepting this global obligation, people also must acknowledge that we are a part of a shared global environment, a shared trusteeship to maintain it and a shared responsibilities for those species that are a part of it. According to Attfield it is also important to recognize that global citizenship and globalization are related concepts, but not to be intertwined or mistaken for each other. For globalization has helped to create more global citizens, but they are ones that do not care for the global environment or understand the trusteeship. several conceptions of global citizenship:
1) assumes a strong notion of citizenship, for which a citizen necessarily bears the rights and duties of a member of a state which is politically sovereign. Hence global citizenship could only be fully present if the present plurality of states were replaced by a sovereign global state. Global environmental problems are sometimes perceived as requiring nothing less but such World gov-t, possibly through pulling of sovereignty in the United Nations Organization. + global citizenship. Would solve environmental problems, would unlikely to solve local problems or preserve cultural diversity.
2) 2nd conception mentioned by Falk, , citizenship is conceived neither in terms of political affiliation nor of local loyalty, but of participation of global culture, such as the culture of global business

What are the limitations of thinking about global citizenship as participation in a global culture? (198)

Global citizenship as participation in global culture lacks a sense of local roots with actually being concerned. It has people going through a routine without actually being committed to it.
Global citizenship as membership of a “ homogenized elite global culture” thus involves being as agent of globalization; this kind of citizenship is a matter of apolitical club-membership rather than of loyalties. whether patriotic or internationalist.

What are examples of civil society? (201)

Civil society in current usage incorporates associations independent of the state, such as trade unions, churches, NGOs, political parties and societies for neighborhoods, hobbies or sports.

***Why would Paul Thompson, author of the Agrarian Vision, disagree with Attfield’s hope for global solidarity as means to addressing sustainability?

He believes that smaller communities and individuals efforts are the roots of making sustainability happening, not making it a global effort and then people loose a sense of morals and personal responsibility.

Agrarianism values will motivate people to care and take responsibility.

Daly and Cobb: From Individualism to Person-in-Community

According to Daly and Cobb, what is wrong with the individualism of modern economic theory? (159)

They state that the current economic model that our world follows today is purely based on self-interest behavior. It has no real place for fairness, malevolence, and benevolence, nor for the preservation of human life or any other moral concern. It causes people to not be invested in the success or failure of others around them.

What is a “Gandhian” approach to development? (166-168)

It attaches supreme importance to moral values and gives primacy to moral values over material conditions. It is also more community based, concerned with how communities as a whole grow not just individuals.

Involves hollistic approach to the village rather than the individual. Community development as applied to village development in general involves taking village rather than individuals, or the nation as the unit of development. One then asks how the village can better meet its needs. a community character. still has to have political units and economic. sometimes help from outside is needed, such as World Neighbors).Individual decision might not be as wise, however the number and seriousness of problems that arise from this kind of community development is far less.
Economics for community supports this essentially Gandhian approach to development. If India has adopted this approach, there would be far less slums, middle class would be smaller, but poor class would be smaller as well.
Urban industrial “development” has been purchased at an expense of rural communities.
The damage has been increased by misguided ideological imports, liberal and Marxian, and by the town’s success in buying off part of the rural elite, thus transferring most of the costs of the process to the rural poor ( lipton). Some leading western thinkers on development have agreed that Lipton is right , that the urban bias, based on indifference to existing communities , has made the development process needlessly slow and unfair.
Gandhi sought to strengthen the villages as villages, emphasizing the shared community of Hindus and Muslims.

According to the authors, when can a society be considered a community? (172)

1) When there is extensive participation by its members in the decisions by which its life is governed. 2) The society as a whole takes responsibility for the members 3) This responsibility includes respect for the diverse individuality of these members
A society contributes to the identity of its members.

How do daly and Cobb define the term “subsidiarity”? (174)

“power should be located as close to the people as possible, that is in the smallest units that are feasible…Political power that cannot affect the economic order is ineffective.” In general though subsidiarity can be defined as a principle of social organization that originated in the Roman Catholic Church. Subsidiarity is getting local people involved.

Michal Fox Smart: Foundations for a Jewish Ethic Regarding Consumption

According to Smart, though North Americans make up only 6% of the human population, how much of the world’s energy do we consume? (137)

40%

Why does Smart believe that consumption is not always seen as bad within the Jewish tradition? (138)

Consumption is not always seen as bad within Jewish tradition because it goes beyond physical sustenance, and includes celebration and religious ritual. They believe we are supposed to enjoy the gifts that God has provided especially to celebrate or for religious purposes. God wants you to be gracious and enjoy his gifts given.

When does it become a problem?

It becomes a problem when people are excessive in their consumption and there is a hoarding of goods. That is seen as self-indulgent and gluttonous. There needs to be a balance between enjoying Gods gifts and hoarding Gods gifts.

How might Judaism respond to the belief that in the Garden of Eden, God have the earth to Adam and Eve to do as they please?(139)

They believe that God is the Creator which traditionally implies that the world does not belong to human beings to exploit but rather it still belongs to God. Thus they would not believe that God would allow Adam and Eve to do what they please.

How much of one’s income does the Halakhah require to give to the poor?

One tenth (10%) of its income to those in need, even those who receive public assistance. Halakhah is Jewish law. But do not give away more than one fifth of income.

According to Smart, why does nature have value? (140)

Nature has value because God created the world therefore anything on the planet created by him deserves respect and thus has value. Humans should have humility when deciding the fate of Gods other creations, humans have a duty to maintain the Creation.

What does “bal tashchit” mean? (142)

“Do not destroy”, they are a set of laws explicitly address the cutting down of trees.

Emmanuel Clapsis: A Greek Orthodox Perspective

What does it mean to say that we should perceive the natural world as a “sign and a sacrament of God”? (148)

We no longer see the natural order as a sign and sacrament of God but rather as an object of exploration. But “when we become sensitive to God’s world around us we grow more conscious also of God’s world within us. Beginning to see nature as a work of God we being to see our own place as human beings within nature.”
Sacrament: Encounter with God, bring you closer to God.

According to Clapsis, what three changes are necessary to sustain the environment that sustains humanity? (150)

We must change our values, our lifestyles, and spiritual attitudes, or our understanding of what brings authentic human fulfillment and happiness.

What does Christian asceticism aim at? (152)

The subjection of individual, biological desires to the absolute importance of personal relationship and intimacy.

Garrett Hardin: Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor

According to Hardin, why should the earth be see as a lifeboat rather than a spaceship?

Hardin believes the world should be seen as a lifeboat rather than a spaceship, because he believes the spaceship ethic does not suffice as a way to deal with our resource distribution and population issues. He believes that his lifeboat ethic is more realistic and applicable the world’s actual situation. The lifeboat theory is a simulation of putting wealthy nations in a lifeboat and poorer countries swim in the ocean around the boat. This is to show the true inequality and dispersion of our nations, in that not everyone is equal such as in the spaceship theory.

Spaceship assumes there are infinite resources and no population problems, but that is not realistic.

When it comes to taking care of the world’s populations, why is complete justice a “complete catastrophe”?

Not everyone can be equal there must be a group of people who are considered “lesser” in order for the world to survive. If everyone was equal and received the same then no one would be truly satisfied. i.e. letting everyone in the boat would cause the boat to sink and no one would be happy. everyone is going to suffer, the lifeboat is going to sink. Poor people don’t have enough food aid, help etc, and the number of poor people is way beyond the number of rich nations, thus if rich people help the poor, both going to suffer.

What is the tragedy of the commons?

“Tragedy of the commons” is the idea that when a public resource, say a pasture or shared corn supply, is not privately owned, and instead left to the general public it will become unkempt and ultimately deteriorate, because people would not value.

When resources are commonly shared.
Not to overload the carrying capacity.
In such a system, individual interests would be to maximize the use and consumption of public resources, since the all gains belong to that person and all responsibilities and costs are shared among the community.
The only way is through restraining ourselves, which is unrealistic and one person can ruin it all.

What is “population control the crude way”?

Essentially stop helping other lesser-developed nations and let them try to survive on their own, which would fail and then their population would start to die out. human population decrease.

What is Hardin’s position on immigration?

He believes there should be no immigration people should not be able to leave their country just because its not doing well and come to a country where it better conditions for them. Richer nations accept immigration to for cheap labor. “But generous immigration means that, over time, we prefer to benefit the children of immigrants, because they will take over the commons”

Holmes Rolston III: Feeding People versus Saving Nature?

Why does Rolston declare that nobody accepts the general rule that the poor ought to always come first? (249)

“If one were to advocate always feeding the hungry first, doing nothing else until no one in the world is hungry, this would paralyze civilization…Eradicating poverty may be indispensable but not always prior to all other cultural values. It may not always be prior to conserving natural values either.”

Don’t we choose things over giving to the poor all the time like going to college instead of giving that money to the poor? Would chapels have organs?

What policies or practices have we approved that ultimately cause people to die? (251)

Increasing the speed limit, not hiring more police men, congress doesn’t pass a new health care plan, increasing military budgets, taking away school lunch programs.

Humans are sacrificing the nature that is their life support system. Humans win by conserving nature- and these winners include the poor and the hungry. “In order to achieve sustainable development, environmental protection shall constitute an integral part of the development process and cannot be considered in isolation from it”. After all, food has to be produced in healthy natural system, and clean water that the poor need. don’t we chose things over the poor? we can give money to the poor instead: we choose over nature, why not now.

Rolston says that when a couple has two children it is a blessing; but the tenth child is a tragedy. Why is this? (259)

When that tenth child is born the quality of human lives lessens, the poor get poorer, Natural resources are further stressed, ecosystem health and integrity degenerate and this compounds the losses again.

Why does Rolston feel that nature can, at times, come before humans? (261, 265)

We must put nature first at times when it starts affecting people going hungry and dying. Also when there are clear imbalances within our social construct and values.

When earths natural systems that lead to biodiversity, evolution etc. start becoming destroyed then we need to constrain human life.

* developed countries protect what they value over feeding the hungry ( gifts, education) Yes…the extinction of rhinoceros in Africa. * no immigration * unequal and unjust distribution and redistribution is refused * 1/5 consumes 4/5 of the production * population increases and no real gains in alleviating the poverty, only larger numbers of poor in the next generation * low productivity on domesticated lands continues, and if the natural lands to be sacrificed are likely to be low in productivity * extinction of species and natural values are at stake

***Does choosing nature over humans at time violate human rights? (264)

Yes because environmental policy should monitor how people treat the environment and the land they ”own”, so some may believe that is infringing on their rights but must be done to help the environment.

Human rights are never absolute so by choosing nature we should constrain human rights to an extent.
No rights are absolute: all rights are constrained, if its something that endangers nature than human rights should be constrained. To qualify human rights. within limitations.

Daly and Cobb: Population & Agriculture

****What are the various models to look at population growth (lecture)?

Exponential Model
Increase Infinite Model
Logistic Model
Demographic transition model

According to the authors, what is wrong with the demographic transition theory of population? (243)

-Belief of capitalism that will pull every country out of 2 is not realistic.
-Some of the countries going through this transition are unable to get out of the second stage and are unable to to meet the economic and social achievements needed.
-Also what happens when the 3% growth rate starts to really overwhelm the countries current life support system, and our natural world, it will become worse. 1)Birth rates vs Death rates high/high ( low life expectancy) 2)Birth rates vs Death rates ( rapid population growth and industrialism)
3)Birth rates vs Death rates ( social and economic conditions cause people to have smaller families)
4Birth rates vs Death rates
( reasoning behind it, that industrialism that expanded birth/ death rates can go the other way eventually).
Problems:
1) if developing countries get stuck in 2nd stage, unable to achieve socioeconomic gains.( does not explain) 2) if an increase in stage two is going to overwhelm life-support systems. 3) the policy is to buy more goods, and less babies.

What is the transferable birth quota plan that they prefer? (244-245)

-This proposes that scale and distribution of the rights to bear children be determined by the community at large, but these rights then be traded in the free market. This plan is based on the perception that the right to reproduce can no longer be treated as a free good. It must be seen as a scarce good in a full world. It is based on equal distribution of a total amount of reproduction that would guarantee replacement fertility.

-Each family has 2.1 Birth Credits, so you can have 2.1 Children, sell that .1 credit or buy more to have another child. Keeping a moderate population and a steady replacement rate.

According to Daly and Cobb, what should be the four aims of an economics for community? (Agriculture article)

1) Agricultural self-sufficiency: Beyond family farming
2) The self-sufficiency of agriculture should be indefinitely sustainable. For example land should be as productive a century from now as it is presently.
3) Rebuild and preserve rural communities in the US.
4) Answer and debunk the objections and myths of improving agriculture.

What are the four objections that people raise about returning to family farms, and how do the authors respond? (277-279)

1) That it would re-impose backbreaking labor on those who are blessedly free from it. It would be less capital and energy intensive and more labor intensive. Solution: There is no banning of machinery or use of technology, instead it just asks to focus more producing in smaller amounts and at a better quality. But there of course will hard work involved just like large scale farms have to do now. 2) Would reduce the food supply and lead to hunger. Solution: We have more than enough to fed the world now but the way we distribute it, produce it, and sell is why there is global hunger. 3) The price of food will rise. Solution: This is true if present trends continue mindlessly. But if we sell food locally and to the amounts needed. There would be no need for an increase in price. 4) The quality and variety of food available to the consumer declines. Solution: There is some truth to this but less than others may think. The decline would mainly be in appearance. Also as for variety it is true that things would be grown seasonally but there are ways to overcome this, such as using certain technologies to prolong a certain crops season.

GAME REVIEW
-Population is at 7.3 Billion and increases at 80-85 million a year

-Hardin: Sharing technology with poor countries, he does not support it, as if he give them that technology then they will take over.

***-Demographic transition model: There are 4 stages. The first stage is predevelopment, death rates and birth rates were both high and fluctuated rapidly according to natural events, such as drought and disease, to produce a relatively constant and young population. The second stage: Decrease in death rate, birth rate the same This is when people are beginning to industrialize. Stage three: Decrease in birth rate. Civilized society. Stage Four: This occurs where birth and death rates are both low, leading to a total population which is high and stable. Death rates are low for a number of reasons, primarily lower rates of diseases and higher production of food. The birth rate is low because people have more opportunities to choose if they want children; this is made possible by improvements in contraception or women gaining more independence and work opportunities

-Attfield: People will participate in civil societies on larger global scale. We are going global, so there is no point in stopping it now. Hope for a global environment ethic.
Daly Cobb: We need smaller communities
Thompson: Agrarianism will bring people together
All three state that nature and community are key.

-Both Rolston and Hardin compare the human population to cancer

-Why do certain nations like Brazil want to focus on the North’s development and over consumption?
It takes away from looking at their own internal problems. The south points fingers at the north to steer away from their own environmental issues. 253.

-Thompson says the agrarian approach offers a practice and actually gives actions. The real practice is where people are going to change not just talking philosophically about an idea. You come to learn the value and virtue through practice.