* The grade looker-upper is currently off-line, so here is an Excel spreadsheet with final grades (listed by the last 4 of your student ID). Also, here is the final exam, with a draft answer key in the footnotes. IF YOU WANT YOUR EXAM BACK, you have two options. Option #1 is to email Yoram before 3pm today (Monday) and then go pick up your exam at your convenience at the POE front desk, MGH 274. Option #2 is to wait until Yoram returns to campus in early May and pick it up then. Grade changes and other such matters will also have to wait until early May, but please don't hesitate to email me reminders.

* The natural science librarians (who did the library tutorial) are going to display some of your posters during spring quarter in the natural science library, first floor of Allen Library South!

* ENVIR 100 is not being offered spring quarter, but it is being offered summer quarter and during the 08-09 school year. If you enjoyed the class tell your friends, and whether or not you enjoyed the class we're looking forward to reading your class evaluations so that we can work to make the class better in future.

* Thanks for a great quarter, and have a great break!

* Here is a review sheet for the final exam. (There is no answer key, but it will be a focal point for the final quiz section. Note also that previous midterm and final exams are linked below under "Grades", and that the final is comprehensive but will have an emphasis on material covered since the midterm.) Happy studying, and see you on Friday in MGH and at the final exam next Thursday at 8:30am! PS #1: The posters from Wednesday were great! PS #2: Anybody who missed class feedback (or has additional feedback for the teaching team) is encouraged to use the anonymous feedback form that can be found below under "Help"---thanks for your comments and suggestions!

* Below are the readings for the next few classes. A full list of readings and PDFs of class presentations (when available) are below in the Readings and Lectures section. We will try (but cannot guarantee) to make PDFs of future class presentations available ahead of time, so you can check for those too. Also note that podcasts and screencasts of lectures are available under Basic info.

* For Mon Mar 10: Read these two recent op-ed pieces in the Seattle Times ("Living closer together doesn't mean we have to step on each other's toes" and "We must howl to Congress to keep the green fire glowing"). Summarize the main point of each op-ed and relate them to the following class topics: (1) trophic cascades; (2) food webs; (3) environmental ethics; (4) transferable development rights; and (5) market-based instruments.

* Wed Mar 12 and Fri Mar 14: Poster syposium in the MGH foyer.

• Thursday Jan 17: First outside seminar. (Here's the grading rubric.)
• Thursday Jan 24: Poster proposal due (part of the memo/poster assignment). Here's the grading rubric for the memo and for the poster.
• Thursday Jan 31: Special no-assignment day because of UW Focus the Nation.
• Thursday Feb 7 or Thursday Feb 14: Oral presentation and op-ed for Town Hall assignment. (Here's the grading rubric.) These are both due on whichever day is scheduled for your Town Hall.
• Thursday Feb 21: Second outside seminar. Also, a paragraph on your memo and poster is due (part of the memo/poster assignment).
• Thursday Feb 28: Your memo is due (part of the memo/poster assignment).
• Thursday Mar 6: Draft poster is due (part of the memo/poster assignment).
• Wednesday Mar 12 or Friday Mar 14: Your poster (part of the memo/poster assignment) is due on whichever day you are scheduled to participate in the poster symposium.

Note #1: Reading assignments do not become official until they show up in the Announcements section above. However, we will work hard to get the official reading assignments to match up closely with the assignments below for at least three weeks into the future.

Note #2: Optional readings are exactly that: optional. They are readings we've used in past quarters, or readings we thought about using but decided not to. If you're curious, take a look, but these readings will not be fair game for the exam or otherwise be in any way required reading for the course. (Translation: optional means optional.)

Post-midterm readings (pre-midterm readings are below)

* For Fri Feb 15: (Lecture PDF and PPT.) Guest lecture from Dan Morgan (UW geologist) on petroleum. The required reading is Deffeyes 2001. You should understand the graph on page 6; think about what "the impending world oil shortage" means for human quality of life, both in terms of economics and in terms of environmental quality; and think about the economic incentives that would be (and are being!) generated by rising oil prices.

* Mon Feb 18 there is no class.

* For Wed Feb 20: (Lecture PDF and PPT) In all the discussion about climate change, we tend to forget about the direct effects of air pollution on the health of humans, crops, and ecosystems. This is a huge topic and we have included a large list of optional readings, of which the primer (BC 2004) primer is probably the best for quick visuals and definitions. This list is provided so that those of you interested, for poster purposes or otherwise, you might find additional reading material). There is however, one required reading: Percy and Karnosky 2007 ("Air quality in natural areas: interface between the public, science and regulation." Environmental Pollution 149: 256 – 267). Questions: (1) What is meant by air quality in natural areas? (2) What about Olympic, Mt. Rainier and North Cascades in Washington State vs. Glacier in Montana (see Figure 2)? (3) What are exposure–plant indices and how do the authors proposed that these be used? (4) Where in the US would one expect to find the greatest decreases in growth of aspen?

Here are optional readings:

1. Nature (2007). Questions: Why might increasing ground-level ozone have a positive effect on global warming (i.e., cause it to increase)?
   
2. Pollution Probe (2006). Questions:(1) How does acid rain form? (2) How does it impact terrestrial, aquatic and the built environment including human health? (3) Eliminating or reducing SO_2x have benefits in addition to their direct impacts on air pollution and acid rain; what are these? (4) What is the Sudbury success story?
3. BC (2004). Questions: What are point and non-point sources of pollution? (2) what are the sources of ground level ozone and what is its impact on health and the environment? (3) Do pollutants change form once they get into the air? (4) What are the environmental benefits that resulted from the use of recycled vs. virgin fiber in the printing of this primer?
4. Law and Stohl 2007 ("Arctic air pollution: origins and impacts." Science 315: 1537 – 1540.) Sample questions to help you if you decide to read this article (this is a tough article, but see if you can extract some of the major points): (1) what causes arctic haze (list the long-, medium- and short-distance sources of air pollutants involved in arctic haze)? What role (as a positive or negative force factor) do these pollutants play in terms of climate change?
5. Karnosky et al. 2007 ("Perspectives regarding 50 years of research on effects of tropospheric ozone air pollution on US forests." Environmental Pollution 147: 489 – 506.) Sample questions to help you if you decide to read this article (1) What are the differences between tropospheric and stratospheric ozone. (2) Summarize the history of our knowledge about ozone. (3) What is the story about ponderosa pine? (4) How do people study ozone effects on trees? (5) What effects might ozone have on forest ecosystems?
6. McLaughlin et al. 2007a ("Interactive effects of ozone and climate on tree growth and water use in a southern Appalachian forest in the USA." New Phytologist 174:109–124. Question: What is the implication of the increase in water use by trees following ozone exposure?
7. McLaughlin et al. 2007b ("Interactive effects of ozone and climate on water use, soil moisture content and streamflow in a southern Appalachian forest in the USA." New Phytologist 174: 125-136.) Question: What happens to streamflow in this article? Is this a positive outcome of ozone and climate change?
8. Felzer et al. 2007. ("Impacts of ozone on trees and crops." C.R. Geoscience 339:784–798.) Question: How might ozone and NOx affect the carbon uptake abilities of trees and crops? What happens if ozone levels are capped?
9. Miller 2006. (Assessment of forest sensitivity to nitrogen and sulfur deposition in Maine." Report submitted to Maine Dept. of Environmental Protection.) Question: Why are some of Maine's forest projected to be very sensitive to acid rain and others not?

* For Fri Feb 22: (Lecture PDF and PPT.) Carbon taxes and cap-and-trade. The required reading is Sightline 2007. Think about which of the three policies you favor (or maybe you don't like any of them) and think about the political aspects of passing this sort of climate policy.

* For Mon Feb 25: (Lecture PDF and PPT.) Lecture on regional and global impacts of climate change, with special guest lecturer David Battisti, a UW climate scientist (recently on 60 Minutes!). The required reading is Lobell et al. 2008 ("Prioritizing Climate Change Adaptation Needs for Food Security in 2030", Science 319: 607-610). Questions: (1) How might agricultural systems adapt to climate change? (2) How were the 12 food insecure regions identified? (3) How do crops respond to changes in temperature and rainfall? (4) What are the predicted changes in this paper given climate change? (5) Which crops were identified to be in the greatest need of adaptation investments?

Optional readings include the UN Environmental Programme's Global Environment Outlook Year Book 2006 ("Crop production in a changing climate") and the following papers, which can be tracked down through the UW library system using the skills you learned about in quiz section.

1. Demessie A. 2008. Effects of climate change on agriculture, particularly in semi-arid tropics of the world. Epidemiology 19: S230-S230.
2. Easterling WE. 2007. Climate change and the adequacy of food and timber in the 21st century. PNAS 104: 19686-19686.
3. Howden SM, Soussana JF, Tubiello FN, Chhetri N, Dunlop M, Meinke H. 2007. Adapting agriculture to climate change. PNAS 19691-19696.
4. Lobell, D.B., M.B. Burke, C. Tebaldi, M.D. Mastrandrea, W.P. Falcon, and R.L. Naylor. 2008. Prioritizing climate change adaptation needs for food security in 2030. Science 319: 607 – 610.
5. Morton JF. 2007. The impact of climate change on smallholder and subsistence agriculture. PNAS 104: 19680 – 19685.
6. Tubiello FN, Soussana JF, Howden SM. 2007. Crop and pasture response to climate change. PNAS 104: 19686-19690.
7. Meleux F, Solmon F, Giorgi F. 2007. Increase in summer European ozone amounts due to climate change. Atmos. Envir. 41: 7577 – 7587.

* For Web Feb 27: (Lecture PDF and PPT.) The required readings are Carson 1962 (excerpt from Silent Spring) and Rosenberg 2006 ("The revival of a notorious solution to a notorious scourge", New York Times, Oct. 5, 2006). Think about their perspectives on DDT and how they relate to environmental justice. An excellent optional reading is the longer Rosenberg 2004 ("What the world needs now is DDT").

* For Fri Feb 29: (Lecture PDF and PPT.) Guest lecture from Dan Jaffe (UW atmospheric chemist) on international transport of air pollutants. The required readings are this EPA website and Keating et al. 2005 ("Air quality impacts of intercontinental transport," Air and Waste Management Association October 2005, pp. 28-30.)

1. For the EPA website, (1) define PM2.5, (2) describe the health risks associated with PM2.5, and (3) give two reasons children are most sensitive.

   For the Keating et al. reading, (1) What are some concerns about the addition of 52,000 metric tons of PM2.5 into the U.S. boundary layer? (2) What about ozone and how is PAN (peroxyacetyl nitrate) related to ozone? (3) What is the future likely to hold in terms of foreign contributions of air pollutants to the US? (4) How do we get a driver aboard this bus?

Optional readings including the following, all but the first you'll have to dig up from the UW library:

1. Jafee et al. 1999. "Transport of Asian air pollution to North America," Geophysical Research Letters 26: 711-714.

   Selin NE, Jacob DJ, Park RJ, Yantosca RM, Strode S, Jaegle L, Jaffe D. 2007. Chemical cycling and deposition of atmospheric mercury: Global constraints from observations. J. of Geophy. Res.-Atmos. 112: D02308.
   
   Weiss-Penzias P, Jaffe DA, Swartzendruber P, Dennison JB, Chand D, Hafner W, Prestbo E. 2006. Observations of Asian air pollution in the free troposphere at Mount Bachelor Observatory during the spring of 2004. J. of Geophy. Res.-Atmos. 111. D10304.
   
   Weiss-Penzias P, Jaffe D, Swartzendruber P, Hafner W, Chand D, Prestbo E. 2007. Quantifying Asian and biomass burning sources of mercury using the Hg/CO ratio in pollution plumes observed at the Mount Bachelor Observatory. Atmos. Environ. 41: 4366 – 4379.
   
   Wolfe GM, Thornton JA, McNeill VF, Jaffe DA, Reidmiller D, Chand D, Smith J, Swartzendruber P, Flocke F, Zheng W. 2007. Influence of trans-Pacific pollution transport on acyl peroxy nitrate abundances and speciation at Mount Bachelor Observatory during INTEX-B. Atmos. Chem. And Physics 7: 5309 – 5325.

* For Mon Mar 3: (Lecture PDF and PPT.) Required readings are Soule 1985 ("What is conservation biology? A new synthetic discipline addresses the dynamics and problems of perturbed species, communities, and ecosystems", BioScience 35: 727 – 734) and Meine et al. 1996 ("'A mission-drive discipline': the growth of conservation biology", Conservation Biology 20: 631 – 651). When reading these articles, try to trace the history of ideas about conservation, resource management and ecology over time and how ideas and approaches have changed over time. Is conservation biology a fad, as one critique suggested, or will it continue into the future? What issues does it currently focus on?

* For Wed Mar 5: (No PDF or PPT, but you can view the Screencast from the link in Basic Info.) Go to the websites for (1) Cascade Land Conservancy and (2) Nature Conservancy of Washington. For each website, please record the following:

1. What are the mission and vision statements of each organization?
2. What is the current hot topic (based upon your review of the website) for each organization? What are the issues? Who are the possible (or identified) stakeholders?
3. For the Cascade Land Conservancy, make sure you look at the agenda, conservation and stewardship pages.
4. For the Nature Conservancy of Washington page, how does the local mission dovetail or differ from the mission of the parent non-profit, the Nature Conservancy?

* For Fri Mar 7: (Bolivia PDF and PPT, China PDF and PPT.) Go to the websites for (1) Engineers without Borders (UW Chapter) and (2) UW Worldwide. For each web site, please record the following:

1. What is the vision statement of each organization?
2. Are undergraduate and graduate students involved and how?
3. Find one interesting project from each site.

* For Mon Mar 10: Read these two recent op-ed pieces in the Seattle Times ("Living closer together doesn't mean we have to step on each other's toes" and "We must howl to Congress to keep the green fire glowing"). Summarize the main point of each op-ed and relate them to the following class topics: (1) trophic cascades; (2) food webs; (3) environmental ethics; (4) transferable development rights; and (5) market-based instruments.

* Wed Mar 12 and Fri Mar 14: Poster syposium in the MGH foyer.

Pre-midterm readings

* For Mon Jan 7: (Lecture PDF and PPT) No readings.

* For Wed Jan 9: (Lecture PDF and PPT) Required readings are National Academy of Sciences 2001 ("Grand Challenges in Environmental Sciences", executive summary), the King County Environmental Services website, and the King County Sims Global Warming Initiative website.

1. For the NAS reading: What are the environmental challenges listed in this summary?
2. For the Environmental Services website: (1) What major environmental issues, in your opinion, that are highlighted on this page are similar to the grand challenges cited by the National Academy article? Select no more than six. (2) What is meant by stewardship? (3) What is a ‘green' building? (4) What are biosolids? (5) What is a watershed and what is the Cedar River Watershed?
3. For the global warming website: What is the history of Ron Sims' leadership in understanding and addressing global climate change? What is meant by adaptation to climate change? Based upon the response of western Washington to the floods of December 2007 (see, e.g., this Jeep Patrol video) and your readings for Monday, do you think western Washington is prepared (adapted)?

* For Fri Jan 11: (Lecture PDF and PPT) The required readings are the UW Climate Impacts Group website and Service 2004 ("As the west goes dry", Science 303: 1124 – 1127). Optional readings are Hamlet et al. 2007 ("Twentieth-century trends in runoff, evapotranspiration, and soil moisture in the western United States", Journal of Climate 20: 1468 – 1486), Graves and Chang 2007 ("Hydrologic impacts of climate change in the Upper Clackamas River Basin, Oregon, USA", Climate Research 33(2): 143 – 157), Hamlet et al. 2005 ("Effects of temperature and precipitation variability on snowpack trends in the western United States", Journal of Climate 18: 4545-4561), and Carpenter et al. 2007 ("Understanding regional change: a comparison of two lake districts", BioScience 57: 323 – 335).

1. For the CIG website, answer the following questions with regard to the Pacific Northwest Over the last 100 years, what has happened to (1) temperatures, (2) precipitation, (3) snowpack, and (4) spring? (5) What do the red and blue dots in Figures 1a, 1b and 1c mean? (6) What does dot size tell you?
2. For the Service 2004 reading: Take the information from the CIG and other reading assignments and integrate them with what Service points out in his article. What is the future of water in the west? Think about winter and summer. What is water used for in the west? What are the big issues and will what you have learned from Monday through Friday make the issues less or greater in the future? How?

* For Mon Jan 14: (Lecture PDF and PPT) Same as above.

* For Wed Jan 16: (Lecture PDF and PPT) The required readings are Economist 1997 ("Plenty of gloom", Dec. 18) and Economist 2006 ("The heat is on", Sept. 7).

1. For the 1997 article: (1) What does the (anonymous) author think about environmental issues? [Note that almost all Economist articles are written anonymously.] (2) Do you think the author is just a cranky jerk, or do you think that one or more of the authors' critiques are valid? If so, which ones and why? (3) How well has the article held up now that 10 years have passed since its publication?
2. For the 2006 article: (1) How does this article compare with the 1997 article on the subject of climate change? (2) Does the author argue that scientific uncertainty argues for taking action or not? Why? (3) What does the second-to-last letter to the editor suggest about the author's biases? (This will come in again next week when we do environmental ethics, and note that it's not just the author's biases---the last letter to the editor indicates that one of your instructors read this article many times, and he has to confess that he didn't pick up on this problem either :)
   

* For Fri Jan 18: (Lecture PDF) We will have a guest lecture on climate change from Marcia Baker, a UW professor of atmospheric physics. The required reading is the IPCC Working Group 1 FAQs (2007). Please read all of the italicized blurbs that provide short responses to the FAQs, and then read the detailed responses to the following FAQs:

• 1.3 ("What is the greenhouse effect?")
• 3.1 ("How are temperatures on earth changing?")
• 5.1 ("Is sea level rising?")
• 6.1 ("What caused the ice ages...?")
• 8.1 ("How reliable are the models...?")
• 9.1 ("Can individual extreme events be explained by greenhouse warming?")
• 10.2 ("How likely are major or abrupt climate changes?")

Optional readings include additional materials about climate change, either from this FAQ document or from other documents from the 2007 IPCC reports or elsewhere. (Note that the IPCC reports represent the consensus of the scientific community.)

* Mon Jan 21 there is no class. Consider signing up for the UW MLK Jr Day of Service!

* For Wed Jan 23: (Lecture PDF and PPT) The required reading is Hardin 1968 ("The tragedy of the commons", Science 162: 1243 - 1248), which is short but difficult. Try to follow his main points, try to understand the overgrazing example, and think about whether you agree with his argument about the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

* For Fri Jan 25: (Lecture PDF and PPT) The required readings are Read 1958 ("I, Pencil", The Freeman, December 1958, reprinted May 1996 with comments by Milton Friedman, winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize in economics); Durning and Ryan 1997 (excerpts from Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everday Things); and this Stuff quiz. Questions: (1) How does Read's story relate to the "invisible hand" idea? (2) List one way in which the two readings are similar and one way in which the two readings are different?

* For Mon Jan 28: (Lecture PDF and PPT) Guest lecture on Bhopal and environmental justice from Aquene Freechild, International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal. The required reading is an excerpt from Lapierre and Moro 2002 (Five Minutes Past Midnight in Bhopal). Answer these questions: (1) How was DDT viewed when it was first discovered, and why? (2) Give three examples of the difficulties facing the Nadar family (the family described in the text). (3) The book begins with a quote by Albert Einstein: "Concern for man himself and his safety must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations." To what extent (if at all) do you think the researchers, salesmen, and politicians involved in the production of Sevin failed to remember this?

* For Wed Jan 30: (Lecture PDF and PPT) Guest lecture from Andrew Light (UW philosophy) on environmental ethics. The required readings are Grist 2004 ("Trip the Light Fantastic", an interview with our guest speaker) and Singer 1991 ("Environmental Values").

1. For the Grist article: (1) What does Professor Light do on a day-to-day basis? (2) Name one benefit of urban density. (3) What does Professor Light think about Bjorn Lomborg, who is author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and has taken over from Julian Simon in promoting the optimistic viewpoint captured in "Plenty of Gloom"?
2. For the Singer article: The article opens with a discussion of whether or not to build a dam in a wilderness area, but goes on to discuss many other "moral situations". Give three examples and give one argument for each side.

* For Fri Feb 1: We discussed Focus the Nation.

* For Mon Feb 4: (Lecture PDF and PPT) Cost-benefit analysis. The required readings are Solow 1991 ("Sustainability: An economist's perspective", reprinted in Economics of the Environment: Selected Readings, 5th ed., edited by Robert Stavins, 2005) and the Larry Summers Memo. (Note that the memo is from the "Whirled Bank" website that parodies the World Bank, but the memo itself is real, although arguably taken out of context.)

1. For the Solow article: Think about how you would answer his challenge to "invent for yourself how you are going to explain to the Chinese that... even living at their standard of living they shouldn't burn [their] coal, because the CO2 might conceivably damage somebody in 50 or 100 years."
2. For the Larry Summers memo: This memo came from somebody who was U.S. Treasury Secretary and also President of Harvard University. Can you understand his argument? Do you agree with it?

* For Wed Feb 6: (Lecture PDF and PPT) The required readings are McKibben 1998 (Maybe One, excerpts) and the first 2 pages of Lutz et al. 2001 ("The end of world population growth", Nature 412: 543 - 545). Pay particular attention to the graphs.

1. For the McKibben article: How many children would you like to have? What role (if any) does the state of the environment play in your answer to that question, and how (if at all) do you think the environment affect the childbearing decisions of most people? Also: give an example of how social science has changed over time. (Was it really a science 100 years ago? Is it really a science now?)
   
2. For the Lutz article: What is likely to happen by the end of the century? What are current and projected human populations (roughly speaking)? How does what is happening compare with Garrett Hardin's argument that "freedom to breed is intolerable"?

* For Fri Feb 8: (Lecture PDF and PPT) The required reading is Ripple and Beschta 2004 ("Wolves and the ecology of fear: Can predation risk structure ecosystems?", BioScience 54: 755 – 766). Optional readings are Ripple and Beschta 2006 ("Linking a cougar decline, trophic cascade, and catastrophic regime shift in Zion National Park", Biol. Conserv. 133:397 – 408), Ripple and Beschta 2007 ("Hardwood tree decline following large carnivore loss on the Great Plains, USA", Frontiers in Ecol. And the Environ. 5: 241 – 246), Kauffman et al. 2007 ("Landscape heterogeneity shapes predation in a new restored predator-prey system", Ecology Letters 10: 690 – 700). Here's a summary of last article: Wolves have not eliminated the elk because the elk are now using their habitat differently (taking advantage of landscape heterogeneity. Therefore postage stamp reserves or large reserves with lots of human presence will likely not work.

1. What is the history of wolves in Yellowstone? What does Ripple and Beschta mean by the ecology of fear? What responses have occurred in Yellowstone as a result of the re-introduction of the wolf and are there any ‘benefits' from these responses?

* For Mon Feb 11: (Lecture PDF and PPT) The required reading is Powledge 2006. ("The Millennium Assessment", BioScience 56: 880 – 886). (1) What happened at the Earth Summit? (2) When was the MEA report released? (When was the last IPCC report released?) (3) What are the key assumptions behind the MEA reports? (4) How do ecosystem services related to human well-being (be able to define terms as well as give an example). (5) What is the modeling framework or foundation of the MEA? (6) Are their different spatial scales to the model and if yes, what are they? (7) What are the four scenarios that the MEA developed and what purpose did they serve? (8) What appear to be some of the positive and negative outcomes of the report?

* Wed Feb 13 is the midterm.

Writing help: The Odegaard Writing & Research Center offers free, one-one-one help with all aspects of writing at any stage in the writing process. To make an appointment or browse the center's online resources, please visit: http://www.depts.washington.edu/owrc. Located on the third floor of the Odegaard Library, the OWRC is open Sunday through Thursday from 1:30-4:30 p.m. and 6:00-9:00 p.m.. To make the best use of your time there, please bring a copy of your assignment with you and double-space any drafts you want to bring in. The OWRC will not proofread papers or talk with you about grades.

Missed a lecture? Check out the screencast (linked below under Basic Info), or combine the podcast (also linked below) with the PowerPoint or PDF files available on the Announcements section of this website.

Help us make the class better by giving us feedback. If you don't want to be identified, use UMail to send us anonymous feedback, but please note that since we won't know who you are we won't be able to send out an individual response.

Syllabus: Click here. Lecture is MWF 12:30-1:20 in JHN 102.

Course discussion page: Click here.

Screencasting and podcasting information: Use your UWNetID to log in here to access screencasts (video streams of audio, PPT, and lecture shots) and podcasts (audio only). For tech support, your best bet is to talk to the folks in the UWired computer labs. Screencasting info: To watch a Screencast, right-click the Screencast link. Adobe Flash Player is required. (Download it here.) Podcasting info: You can listen to the lectures by clicking on the "audio recording" links, or you can subscribe to the lecture series by using the RSS feed. You will need a podcast aggregator or podcacher such as iTunes if you are going to subscribe to the lecture series. More info is available from the on-demand audio service FAQ page, from the Terms of Use page, and from the page with subscription instructions for iTunes.

Quiz sections: Section AA meets Th 10:30-12:20 in BAG 106 with Jason Scullion. Section AB meets Th 1:30-3:20 in JHN 026 with Claire Beyer. Section AC meets Th 10:30-12:20 in BNS 115 with Claire Beyer. Section AD meets Th 1:30-3:20 in DEN 213 with Jason Scullion.

Office hours for winter quarter are below. We're also happy to meet by appointment or by email!

Mondays: Yoram Bauman: 9:30-11:30 in MGH 274F. Jason Scullion 1:30-3:20 in MGH 274
Tuesdays: Claire Beyer 3:00-5:00 in the coffeeshop of Gould Hall.
Wednesdays: Tom Hinckley 1:30-2:30 in WFS 204.
Fridays: Tom Hinckley 1:30-2:30 in WFS 204.

You must have a Turning Point radio-frequency "clicker" for use during lectures. (They look like this and are sold at the textbook counter in the bookstore. If you already have one or can buy an appropriate clicker that works from somewhere else--e.g., another student, or somewhere on the web--that's fine too.) You must register your clicker here. Failure to register your clicker before class on Friday Jan 11 will negatively affect your grade. If you have your clicker on Wednesday, bring it to class, and if your clicker doesn't give you a green light during class polling times then please come see us after class.

Information for the teaching team is available on a password-protected website here. (Efforts to break in will probably lead to disappointment because the login and password are non-obvious; efforts to break in that succeed will definitely lead to disappointment because you'll just find notes about the class, behind-the-scenes info about clicker registration and the grade-looker-upper, and other boring administrative information.)

* When they are available, notes from lectures will be posted here, in 6-to-a-page PDF and in PPT. (Note that the PPTs are often very large files, so start with the PDFs.) Post-midterm: Monday Oct 29 (Tom Hinckley on resources and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment): PDF, PPT. Wednesday Oct 31 was the midterm. Friday Nov 2 (Dan Morgan on petroleum geology): PDF, PPT. Monday Nov 5 (Tom Hinckley on air pollution): PDF, PPT. Wednesday Nov 7 (Jane Koenig on local air pollution): PDF, PPT. Friday Nov 9 (Yoram Bauman on pollution and Rachel Carson): PDF, PPT. Wednesday Nov 14 (Dan Jaffe on international pollution transport): PDF, PPT. Friday Nov 16 (Yoram Bauman on pollution taxes and cap-and-trade): PDF, PPT. Monday Nov 19 (Tom Hinckley on conservation biology): PDF, PPT. On Wednesday Nov 21, we had a panel on Global to Regional Conservation and Sustainability, featuring Michael Case of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), David Secord of the Wilburforce Foundation, and Jen Watkins of Conservation Northwest. Friday Nov 23 was a holiday. Monday Nov 26 (Tom Hinckley on international programs in China): PDF, PPT. Wednesday Nov 28 we had a panel on Local Conservation and Sustainability, featuring Doug Schindler of Moutains to Sound Greenway, Michelle Connor of Cascade Land Conservancy, and Kathy Fletcher of People for Puget Sound.

* Pre-midterm: Wednesday Sept 26 (intro): PDF, PPT. Friday Sept 26 (intro): PDF, PPT. Monday Oct 1 (Tom Hinckley on cycles): PDF, PPT. Wednesday Oct 3 (Tom Hinckley on cycles): PDF, PPT. Friday Oct 5 (Jeremy Littell on climate change): PDF, PPT. (Note that the PPT may not show up well on PCs because it was created on a Mac and there are compatibility issues.) Monday Oct 8 (Yoram Bauman on the optimism/pessimism): PDF, PPT. Wednesday Oct 10 (Yoram Bauman and Rina Hauptfeld on the tragedy of the commons): PDF, PPT. Friday Oct 12 (Yoram Bauman on the invisible hand): PDF, PPT. Monday Oct 15 (Devon Pena on environmental justice, note that you are only responsible for the first slide---which was as far as the speaker got---but you might find the other slides interesting): PDF, PPT. Wednesday Oct 17 (Yoram Bauman on cost-benefit analysis): PDF, PPT. Friday Oct 19 (Stephen Gardiner on environmental ethics, note that you need a UW NetID to access these files): PDF, PPT. Monday Oct 22 (Tom Hinckley on population dynamics): PDF, PPT. Wednesday Oct 24 (Yoram Bauman on IPAT): PDF, PPT. Friday Oct 26 (Susie Cassels on population and demography): PDF, PPT.

* Old announcements are below, with the most recent announcements at the top.

* Final exam grades are now posted on the grade looker-upper below. Please note that grades for memos and posters and outside seminar #2 and clicker scores have not been entered yet---stay tuned and thanks for your patience. (Grades are due Monday morning.) Also, here's the final exam and a draft answer key. Your score totals were double-checked to prevent the mistakes that occurred with some of your midterms, but you are of course welcome to pick up your finals at any time during winter quarter.

* The final exam is Wednesday Dec 12 8:30-10:20 in our lecture hall (Gowen 301). All you need to bring is a writing implement. Here are some final exam review questions. All class material from lectures, guest speakers, discussions and activities in section, and readings are fair game for the exam. This is a comprehensive final exam, but there will be an emphasis on material covered since the midterm. The questions below focus primarily on material covered since the midterm, so you should also look at the midterm review questions and at the midterm exam itself.

* Office hours: Yoram has his usual office hours Monday 10:30-12:20 in MGH 274E or MGH 278. Claire Beyer has office hours Monday 3-5pm and Tuesday 11:30-1:30 in the coffeeshop of Gould Hall. Jason Scullion has office hours Tuesday 1:30-3pm in MGH 274.

* Regarding the clickers: You might want to hang on to them for use in future classes, but if you really want to unload yours then here are three options. Option #1 is to show up in the 5 minutes before and/or after the ENVIR 100 class during winter quarter (MWF 12:30-1:20 in JHN 102, starting Monday Dec 7) and try to sell your clicker. Option #2 is to bring your clicker to the final exam on Wednesday and write down your clicker number, your name, and your email address on a piece of paper that we'll have there. We'll take your clicker and your info, do our best to sell the clicker for $20 next quarter, and email you back with info about collecting either your $20 or your unsold clicker. Option #3 is for you to become an enterpreneur and set up an online marketplace that would make everybody's life easier. (And who knows, you could be the next amazon.com :)

* You can use the grade looker-upper to see your scores: Use the login "sea" and the password "otter" and then enter your student ID on the next page. If you didn't get your midterm back, you can get it in your next quiz section. Here is the midterm exam, and here is a draft answer key (note that this is just a draft, meaning that we may have changed how we did the grading), and here is the midterm review sheet. The average (mean) was 78.5, and the median (half of the scores above, half of the scores below) was 80. If you have questions about the exam or the grading, please come see a member of the teaching team during office hours. Please total up your points to make sure we've given you all the points you deserve.

* Plugs for upcoming events: Here's some information on a student-focused climate change workshop that you might be interested. It's in Los Angeles in February, 2008, and there's info online about scholarships and internships.

* Yoram's office has been moved one door down, so instead of MGH 278 my office hours &etc will now be in MGH 274E.

* PDFs and PPTs from lectures are available (along with old announcements) at Lecture PDFs and old announcements.

* Class on Wednesday and Friday is meeting in the MGH commons for the poster symposiums. We really want your attendance (for the poster symposia on Wednesday and Friday, and for course evaluations on Monday so we can get your ideas for improving the class), so clicker attendance scores for those days will count triple in terms of making up for missed clicker points since the midterm.

* More good news about printing: Odegaard Library has a 2nd-floor printer that gives you an additional printing option: Take your poster on a flash drive to the Catalyst desk on the 2nd floor of Odegaard, and after forking over just $17 and waiting just 20 minutes you can get a 32x40 color poster! My understanding is that the hours of the Catalyst desk are the same as the library hours , except that the Catalyst desk is also closed between 2am and 7am. Please note, however, that it is still your responsibility to bring your completed poster in on-time to your poster symposium, and since printer break-downs and other last-minute problems are possible I would still recommend finishing at least 24 hours in advance. (PS. Just FYI, the difference between this printer and the one described on the webpage (which involved a printer in the copy center on the 1st floor of Odegaard, costs $25, and takes 24 hours) is that the printer on the 1st floor produces a glossy laminated-style poster, and the printer on the 2nd floor doesn't. Either style is fine for your poster.)

* More details about the poster: Here is the poster grading rubric; also, everyone should know by Friday Nov 30 if you're presenting on Wednesday Dec 5 or Friday Dec 7. (Class on both days will be in the MGH foyer; you have to show up and bring your clicker on both days to get full clicker credit for these two days.) Good news: The Odegaard print shop says that they only need 24 hours (not 72 hours) to print your poster! Bad news: In addition to printing your poster, you need to spend about $6 on a 40x32 posterboard or foam core that you can thumbtack your poster to. (We will provide the thumbtacks.) To save money and resources, we recommend that Friday groups try to purchase posterboards for $3 from Wednesday groups at the end of class Wednesday. Wednesday groups and unlucky Friday groups can purchase posterboards on the lower level of the UBookstore; make sure to follow the sign to the measuring counter before going to the check-out counter.

* FYI, Yoram is looking into options for re-selling clickers if you're so inclined. (The bookstore does not buy them back.) The clickers are used in other classes, but if you want to sell yours we will do our best to match up supply and demand.

* Three items about posters. First, don't forget that for a template you can use the revised otter poster, which also includes this references page. Second, the Natural Science librarians are interesed in displaying your posters around the library during January, so stay tuned for details. (Of course, you'd be able to opt out, and the display would not include grades or anything else other than your poster.) Third, you might find the Library collaboration studios useful: they're big computer screens that multiple people can view at once. (As an additional option, I think that if you bring one or more laptops you can even work simultaneously on the same document. It is not necessary to have a laptop, this is just an option.) Suzzallo Library has a collaboration studio near the reference area that is first-come-first-serve---enter the library from Red Square, go down the hall and turn left shortly after you go down the small flight of stairs---and Odegaard has two collaboration studios that you can reserve ahead of time: from the library home page, click on "Services >> Reserve a Study Room", then on "Odegaard >> Collaboration Studios."

* For Monday Dec 3, the short-and-sweet reading is Martin 2007 ("Big growth, big fight over water"). Here are some questions: (1) How might the west and east side of the Cascades differ with respect to water use? (2) Are there also water shortages on the west side? (3) How do we plan for these water shortages? Think about consumption, our Mediterranean-maritime climate [i.e., winter wet, summer dry], sources of stored water, and climate change...

* On Friday Nov 30, we will have a panel on UW Campus Conservation and Sustainability, featuring Cara Simon of the UW Capital Projects Office and Stephanie Harrington of the UW College of the Environment and UW Carbon Accounting. Your required reading assignment is to visit the websites of our two panelists. You should be able to identify their mission statements and one current action, activity, or recent success. It will be difficult to record three participants and there will likely be few if any Powerpoint slides, so if you miss this lecture it will be hard to catch up.

* Your memos are due at the start of quiz section on either Tuesday Nov 27 or Thursday Nov 29. Here is the memo grading rubric, which also contains the memo assignment. (You can also find the assignment and other details in the section on Assignments and Due Dates.) Make sure to read the assignment!

* Next quiz section you'll get more time to work on your posters, and the final quiz section will focus on reviewing for the final exam, which is comprehensive. (A list of review questions will be posted on Thursday Nov 29.)

* Here's information about WWF opportunities, and here's a cool Seattle Times article about an example of ex-situ conservation: a Norwegian seed bank.

* On Monday Nov 26, we will have examples of UW student research activities in China. Your required reading is to visit websites for UW Worldwide and Research in Yangjuan and answer the following questions: (1) What is the SU--UW undergraduate exchange program? (2) What are some of the different kinds of research being conducted in Yangjuan? (3) Where is Yangjuan? (4) Where is Jiuzhaigou National Park?

* On Wednesday Nov 21, we will have a panel on Global to Regional Conservation and Sustainability, featuring Michael Case of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), David Secord of the Wilburforce Foundation, and Jen Watkins of Conservation Northwest. Your required reading assignment is to visit the websites of our three panelists. You should be able to identify their mission statements (often listed in an "About Us" webpage) and one current action, activity, or recent success. For the WWF, focus specifically on what they mean by action, flagship species, and priority ecoregions.

* Readings for the remainder of class are not on EReserve but are instead linked directly from the class webpage. (You may need to enter your UW NetID to access some of these links. If clicking on the link doesn't open PDFs, try right-clicking and choosing "File--Save Link As..." or "File-Save Target As...".) For Monday Nov 19, your required reading is Meine et al. 2006 ("'A mission-driven discipline': the growth of conservation biology.") When reading this article, try to trace the history of ideas about conservation, resource management and ecology over time and how ideas and approaches have changed over time. Is conservation biology a fad, as one critique suggested, or will it continue into the future? What issues does it currently focus on? For Monday Nov 19, you also have the following optional reading: Soule 1985 ("What is conservation biology? A new synthetic discipline addresses the dynamics and problems of perturbed species, communities, and ecosystems").

* For Wednesday (Nov 14), read Jafee et al. 2007, which you can also get here---you may need to enter your UW NetID. This article is short but challenging. Note the number and diversity of authors and consider these questions: (1) Where was this air mass sampled? (2) What was measured? (3)How long did it take to get from Asia to the US? (4) What increased as a result of the arrival of this air mass?

And these

broader thought question: (5) If air pollutants and other substances are coming from outside of US borders, should we abandon our own attempts to regulate air pollution (and if so why) should we impose global regulations (and if so how)? This week's readings are still in the folder on E-Reserve called "Pollution (Nov 5 - 16)". For Friday, read Sightline 2007. Think about which of the three policies you favor (or maybe you don't like any of them) and think about the political aspects of passing this sort of climate policy.

* Quiz section this week (Thursday Nov 8 and Tuesday Nov 13): Your next quiz section will be outdoors in the Union Bay Natural Area (UBNA). You will get a short tour of the UBNA, an introduction to restoration ecology, and a hands-on project in which you get to use shovels and clippers to help remove invasive species and plant native trees! If the weather is truly miserably we'll cut short the outdoor section, but you should come prepared for it to be wet, cold, and muddy. So dress appropriately and consider bringing a change of clothes. In particular: (1) Wear appropriate footwear i.e., hiking boots or tennis shoes, NOT high heals and NOT slip-on shoes; (2) Wear appropriate clothes i.e., jeans or other work clothes, raincoats, warm layers, an umbrella, etc.; (3) Bring an extra pair of socks to change into afterwards in case your feet get wet, and consider bringing other spare items, e.g., an extra pair of shoes. In short: Be prepared for rain or shine, and think ahead about what you will need in order to have a good experience during the class period and during the rest of the day. Quiz section location (important!): The UBNA quiz sections will meet in the E5 parking lot that is behind the soccer field: . PLEASE look carefully at the map! (To get to the E5 parking lot, head down to the big parking lots on Montlake, then go past them, past the soccer field, and over a small bridge that is apparently called the University slough bridge.) Class will start 5 minutes late (i.e., either 9:35 or 12:35) to give everyone time to get to the parking lot. If you show up late, head into the UBNA (which is behind the parking lot) and look for your class. We will also end class 5 minutes early in order to give you time to get back to upper campus.

* This readings for this week are in the folder on E-Reserve called "Pollution (Nov 5 - 16)". For Monday, read Nature (2007), Pollution Probe (2006), and BC (2004). Questions for Nature (2007): Why might increasing ground-level ozone have a positive effect on global warming (i.e., cause it to increase)? What is the difference between google and blackle.com? Questions for Pollution Probe (2006): (1) How does acid rain form? (2) How does it impact terrestrial, aquatic and the built environment including human health? (3) Eliminating or reducing SO₂ and NO_x have benefits in addition to their direct impacts on air pollution and acid rain; what are these? (4) What is the Sudbury success story? Questions for the BC (2004): (1) What are point and non-point sources of pollution? (2) what are the sources of ground level ozone and what is its impact on health and the environment? (3) Do pollutants change form once they get into the air? (4) What are the environmental benefits that resulted from the use of recycled vs. virgin fiber in the printing of this primer? Optional readings here include Law and Stohl (2007) and Karnosky et al. (2007). For Wednesday, read UW (2006) and think about: (1) What factors of IPAT produced the result that "the air over Puget Sound is cleaner today than it was 40 years ago"? (2) According to the material on page 6, what is the single largest air pollution source in summer and in winter? (3) What happened to Seattle's streetcars? For Friday, read Carson (1962) and Rosenberg (2006). Think about their perspectives on DDT and how they relate to environmental justice. A more thorough article by Rosenberg is in the optional readings (Rosenberg 2004) if you're interested.

* We have decided to make a one-week extension in the due date for the 2nd outside seminar. Regardless of what you see elsewhere, then, your 2nd outside seminar is due by the start of quiz section on either Thursday Nov 15 or Tuesday Nov 20.

* The next quiz section (Thursday Nov 1 or Tuesday Nov 6) will feature a library tutorial to help you research your memos and posters. You'll also have time to work on your memos and posters (and to critique a revision of my sea otter poster, which also includes this references page :), so if you can put some thought into it before quiz section you'll be able to get more out of it. Also, here's the library page for ENVIR 100. And if you're having trouble getting off-campus access to online resources from the UW Library, the Libraries Proxy Bookmarklet might help.

* A thoughtful critique of the class was posted recently on this GoPost page, so I encourage all of you to read it and add your thoughts. Please don't hesitate to disagree with each other (or with me), but also please be respectful of other people and other views.

* Tom Hinckely and I are in the process of hiring TAs for the next offering of this class, in winter quarter 2008, so if you have any rants or raves about your TA, this would be a good time to share them with us so that we can continue to make the class better. (You are also encouraged to share your thoughts on other aspects of the class: lectures, guest lectures, readings, etc.) If you don't want to just send me an email, you can use UMail to send us anonymous feedback, but please note that since we won't know who you are we won't be able to send out an individual response. Also, please keep in mind that your TAs are full-time students and that this class is their half-time job. So I encourage you to understand their constraints and to view things like rapid email responses as going above and beyond the call of duty rather than as just par for the course.

* Here are some midterm review questions; the midterm is this coming Wednesday. You are also encouraged to take a look at questions from midterms and finals from previous quarters, with the caveat that there is not 100% overlap between previous quarters and this quarter. Fair game for the midterm exam is anything through Friday Oct 26.

* Upcoming due dates (with a 10% per day late penalty): Those of you who are representing countries in the Global Town Hall will be giving your oral presentations on either Thursday Oct 18 or Tuesday Oct 23; those of you in the Local Town Hall have your first outside seminar due on that same day. (Those of you in the Global Town Hall have your first outside seminar due on either Thursday Oct 25 or Tuesday Oct 30, the same day that Local Town Hall folks will be giving their oral presentations.) The midterm exam is Wednesday Oct 31. Your second outside seminar is due by the start of quiz section on either Thursday Nov 8 or Tuesday Nov 13. Details are in the section on Assignments and Due Dates.

* This readings for this coming week are in the folder on E-Reserve called "Resources (Oct 29 - Nov 2)". Here are some questions for the readings for Monday: For the Koh and Wilcove article: (1) What is palm oil used for? (2) What dilemma (s) is presented in this article? (3) What solution do the authors propose? (4) How do palm-oil plantations and villages improve/impact some of the ecosystem services and constituents of well-being shown in the Figure on page 881 of the article by Fred Powledge? (5) How might the partnership between the oil-palm companies and NGOs work? Questions for the Powledge article: (1) How do the 1992 UN meeting in Rio de Janeiro and the 2005 MEA reports relate? (2) Why was the report(s) from the MEA taken so lightly? (3) What were the two assumptions used in the MEA assessment? (4) Walter V. Reid received his Ph.D. from the UW (go dawgs!) (5) What did the Economist say and did Reid agree? (6) Understand the figure in the upper left corner of page 882! (7) Be able to list the positives and negatives of the MEA. For Friday, read Deffeyes (2001); understand the graph on page 6; think about what "the impending world oil shortage" means for human quality of life, both in terms of economics and in terms of environmental quality; and think about the economic incentives that would be (and are being!) generated by rising oil prices.

* This readings for this week are in the folder on E-Reserve called "Population (Oct 22-26)". For Monday Oct 22, read Ripple and Beschta (2004). If this reading interests you, there are a bunch of optional readings you should check out at the bottom of the E-Reserve folder: Binkley et al, Hollenbeck and Ripple, Kaufman et al., and three different articles by Ripple and Beschta. Here are some questions to think about: What is a trophic cascade? What is the difference between extirpation and extinction? What happened when wolves were re-introduced into Yellowstone National Park? Are there lessons for other places in North America? For Wednesday Oct 24, read McKibben (1998). Think about how many children your grandparents had, how many children your parents have, and how many children you might want to have. (We'll do a clicker exercise about this in class.) Also think about how McKibben's approach to population issues compares and contrasts with Hardin's "Tragedy of the Commons", which is also on this week's reading list because it's worth reading again. For Friday Oct 26, check out the NOVA (2004) website, which is very quick and fun, and read the first 2 pages of Lutz et al. 2001, paying particular attention to the graphs. Combine these two readings to draw a graph of human population levels (actual and projected) from the year 0 to the year 2100. If you're interested in learning more, the optional readings on E-Reserve include a cool interactive website from a Paris museum (Musee de l'Homme 1997, note that it's 10 years old and so a bit out-of-date in places), short and sweet articles by Rosenblatt and Cohen, and a longer but fascinating article by Lee.

* This readings for this week are in the folder on E-Reserve called "Ethics (Oct 15-19)". For Monday Oct 15, read the excerpt from Devon Pena's book. (He's a UW anthropologist and will be our guest lecturer on Monday.) Note that the excerpts are in 3 files to keep the individual file sizes small. For Wednesday Oct 17 read Solow (1991) and think about how you would answer his challenge to "invent for yourself how you are going to explain to the Chinese that... even living at their standard of living they shouldn't burn [their] coal, because the CO2 might conceivably damage somebody in 50 or 100 years." For Friday Oct 19 the reading is the Des Jardins article chosen by Stephen Gardiner, a UW environmental philosopher who will be our guest speaker.

* There have been lots of questions about the op-eds and what they're supposed to look like. On the assignment page you can find a newly expanded list of pointers and ideas, so please check that out. Also, to get a sense of the wide range of possible approaches, you can look at the op-eds written by ENVIR 100 students from Spring 2007 on the GoPost boards here, here, and here. Please note that these are ungraded op-eds and that some of them are good and some of them are less good. Also, if you haven't already done so, you should read this UW information on Academic Honesty. Plagiarism isn't just turning in someone else's paper; it can also be using another writer's words without proper citation, or even turning in the same paper to two different classes without getting prior approval from both instructors. (Since this is Selfishness Week, please be aware that it is in your own best interest to read and understand the information linked above.) To summarize: Take a look at past op-eds to get a sense of what they can look like, but research and write your op-ed from scratch. One good approach might be to avoid looking at the op-eds about your own stakeholder role; another might be to try to include one or more citations that are recent, i.e., within the last six months. In any case, do not copy or plagiarize the work of others, and please email your TA if you have questions.

* Your TA should have sent you the grading criteria for the op-eds and outside seminars, but you can also get them from the link above. Your op-eds are due Tuesday by 5pm on GoPost, and if for some reason you can't get access to GoPost then email your op-ed to your TA. Upcoming due dates (with a 10% per day late penalty): Your poster proposals are due at the beginning of quiz section on either Thursday Oct 11 or Tuesday Oct 16. (Your TA may also ask you to post these on GoPost.) Your op-eds are due on GoPost by 5pm on Tuesday October 16. (Your TA may also ask you to turn in a paper copy during your next meeting after that time.) Those of you who are representing countries in the Global Town Hall will be giving your oral presentations on either Thursday Oct 18 or Tuesday Oct 23; those of you in the Local Town Hall have your first outside seminar due on either Thursday Oct 18 or Tuesday Oct 23. Details are in the section on Assignments and Due Dates.

* I want to encourage all of you to make use of the office hours and other resources you have for this class. (See Help! and Basics for details.) As you hopefully learned from the sea otter poster, a fresh perspective can provide valuable feedback---the next version of the sea otter poster will be much better. So don't hesitate to come to Yoram's office hours on Monday (or any of the other office hours) to try out your oral presentation, bring by a draft of your op-ed, etc. In short: Be selfish and take advantage of us!

* Two plugs for possible outside seminars and one plug for an outdoors learning opportunity: Elizabeth Kolbert's talk on the UW Common Book (Field Notes from a Catastrophe), Wednesday Oct 17, 7pm (with a resource fair at 6pm), Bank of America Arena at Hec Edmundson Pavilion. And you can take a college class outside with the Wild Rockies Field Institute (WRFI). WRFI offers field-based, academic courses for 300-level credit in departments such as Environmental Studies, Anthropology, Forestry, Geography, Science, and Native American Studies. These courses are taught entirely outside and in the backcountry in places like Montana, Utah, Alaska, Canada and Mexico. Credit is offered through the University of Montana and is transferable to other universities.Click the links for details.

* The readings for this week are in the folder on E-Reserve called "Social Sciences (Oct 8-12)". For Monday Oct 8, read the first three articles (NY Times 2007a, NY Times 2007b, Economist 1997) and think about how the authors of these articles would respond to the other articles, e.g., what would the author of the Economist article say about the situation in China? For Wednesday Oct 10, read Hardin 1968, which is short but difficult; try to follow his main points, try to understand the overgrazing example, and think about whether you agree with his argument about the UN Declaration of Human Rights. For Friday Oct 12, read Read (1958) and Economist (2006) and think about how Read and Hardin would respond to the Economist (2006) article.

* The quote about truth and lies from Monday's class actually goes back at least 150 years and probably more: "If you want truth to go round the world you must hire an express train to pull it; but if you want a lie to go round the world, it will fly: it is as light as a feather, and a breath will carry it. It is well said in the old proverb, 'a lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on.'" From "Spurgeon, C. H. (1859) The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Ed. Elizabeth Knowles. Oxford University Press, 2003. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. University of Washington. 8 October 2007.

* The next quiz section (Thurs 10/4 or Tues 10/9) will involve a 20-minute outdoor scavenger hunt of sorts, so bring a raincoat or other appropriate attire. (If it's raining really hard we'll do an indoor activity.) In this quiz section you will also get to pick a poster topic for you to work on in groups of 3---this is your chance to learn about something that you're really interested in, so spend a few minutes thinking about possible topics. This brainstorm sheet (based on a slide from Friday's lecture) might help, and recall that you cannot do a poster that is about sea otters or that is directly related to climate change. Details on the memo/poster can be found in the Assignment section below.

* Friday we will have a guest lecture on climate change from Jeremy Littell of the UW Climate Impacts Group. The reading for Friday Oct 5 is the IPCC article (2007d, FAQ) article available in the folder on E-Reserve called "Natural Sciences (Oct 1-5)". Please read all of the italicized blurbs that provide short responses to the FAQs, and then read the detailed responses to the following FAQs: 1.3 ("What is the greenhouse effect?"), 3.1 ("How are temperatures on earth changing?"), 5.1 ("Is sea level rising?"), 6.1 ("What caused the ice ages...?"), 8.1 ("How reliable are the models...?"), 9.1 ("Can individual extreme events be explained by greenhouse warming?"), and 10.2 ("How likely are major or abrupt climate changes?"). And of course you have the option to read additional materials about climate change, either from this FAQ document or from other documents from the IPCC or elsewhere, many of which are in the folder on E-Reserve called "Climate change"; these are not required readings, but we are very lucky to have the latest IPCC reports, which came out earlier this year. Another optional reading is this article from the UW Daily about some reseach being done by our guest speaker.

* Week 2: The reading for Monday Oct 1 and Wednesday Oct 3 is the Carpenter et al. article available in the folder on

E-Reserve called "Natural Sciences (Oct 1-5)". (The Service et al. article is optional, as are the other articles listed, which are mostly ones that we've used in the past but are not requiring for this quarter.) For lecture on Monday Oct 1 you should be prepared to address these issues: (1) Why does it take many disciplines to understand these two lake systems? (2) How do the authors define system? For lecture on Wednesday Oct 3 you should be prepared to address these issues: (3) Describe the two lake districts (where are they, how are they similar, how are they different?) (4) Take each lake district and describe their time lines. (For example: When were they logged? When was the course woody debris or habitat removed? Why is this important?). (5) What happens to these two systems in the future if the present trends continue? (6) What are the external drivers?

* There is no textbook for this class, but you must go to the bookstore to purchase a Turning Point radio-frequency "clicker" for use during lectures. (They look like this and are sold at the textbook counter in the bookstore. If you can buy an appropriate clicker that works from somewhere else--e.g., another student, or somewhere on the web--that's fine too.) You must register your clicker here. Failure to register your clicker before class on Wednesday Oct 3 will negatively affect your grade.

* Week 1: The reading for the first quiz section (either Thursday Sept 27 or Tuesday Oct 2) is the Wolfs article on the scientific method, available in the folder on E-Reserve called "Introduction (Sept 26-28)".

* Week 1: The readings for lecture on Friday Sept 28 are the "Grand Challenges" and King County readings available in the folder on E-Reserve called "Introduction (Sept 26-28)". For the NAS "Grand Challenges" reading, make sure you understand the environmental challenges listed. For the King County website, do the following: (1) Identify what in your opinion are 4-6 major environmental issues that are highlighted on this page (see statements like sustain, recover, restore, plan, noxious, invasive, etc.). (2) See if you can categorize those issues under the different listings from the NAS "Grand Challenges" reading. (3) Define the following terms: stewardship, ‘green' building, biosolids, watershed. (4) Explain what the Cedar River Watershed is.

* Week 1: The outside seminar options mentioned in class on Wednesday were the Yellowstone to Yukon (Y2Y) Freedom to Roam seminar series (Tuesday evenings, Oct 9 - Dec 4), the UW Climate Impacts Group weekly seminars (Thursdays 1:30-3:00), and the Oct 17 Common Book lecture by Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change. For a full listing of these and other events, see the calendars linked from the outside seminar assignment page

From Winter 2008

* Grades for the midterm (here's the exam and draft answer key), outside seminar #1, town hall, and clickers-to-date are now posted in the Grade Looker-Upper. Enter login "sea" and password "otter" and then enter your student ID (don't forget the 0 if you have one at the beginning of your ID) to see your grades. If your clicker ID is missing and you don't see many clicker points, you probably haven't registered your ID as discussed at the beginning of the quarter. (Read here for details, and register your clicker now to get 80% partial credit.) Questions about grades should be directed first to your TA, and then if necessary to Yoram. Note to Environmental Studies Majors: You must get at least a 2.0 for this class to count towards the major. If you don't get a 2.0 you will need to retake the class. The next opportunity to take ENVIR 100 will be the upcoming summer quarter.

* This coming Thursday your draft poster is due (part of the memo/poster assignment). Here's the library page for ENVIR 100. And if you're having trouble getting off-campus access to online resources from the UW Library, the Libraries Proxy Bookmarklet might help.

* This coming Thursday Feb 21, your second outside seminar is due. Also due is a paragraph on your memo and poster (part of the memo/poster assignment). You can also pick up your midterm if you haven't already. (Grades will be posted in the Grade Looker-Upper below early next week.) Also, here's the library page for ENVIR 100. And if you're having trouble getting off-campus access to online resources from the UW Library, the Libraries Proxy Bookmarklet might help.

* Claire Beyer will not be having office hours on Tuesday Jan 22 because she'll be out of town on a class trip. Yoram Bauman will have substitute/extra office hours Friday Jan 18 2:30-4:20pm and Tuesday Jan 22 9:30-11:20am in MGH 274F.

* Your first outside seminar is due this Thursday, so check out the assignment and the calendar of Program on the Environment events as well as other events on-campus and off-campus.

* Last Wednesday (Jan 16) the clicker software didn't work as hoped, so everybody gets full credit for that day.

* Here is a midterm review sheet (there is no answer key) that should give you a good sense of the type and scope of questions that will appear on the midterm, which is Wednesday the 13th. You can also look at past midterms and finals on the class website (in the section on Grades, at the very bottom of the webpage) All class material from lectures, guest speakers, discussions and activities in section, and readings are fair game for the exam.

* Here is the grading rubric for the Town Hall, coming up on Feb 7 and 14. Global group, here is the prompt that you must respond to: Read these notes from the 2007 Bali conference. From the point of view of your stakeholder, respond to some of these policy proposals. Answer these questions: If the world community were to create a carbon cap and trade program, how would you be affected? Would you support it or oppose it? Do you agree more with the position of the American government or the European Union? What additional or alternate policies might you suggest? * Local group, here is the prompt that you must respond to: Read Governor Gregoire's policy brief. From the point of view of your stakeholder, respond to some of the policies she sets out. If the Governor were to implement a carbon cap and trade program, how would you be affected? Would you support it or oppose it? What additional or alternate policies might you suggest?

* Professor Marcia Baker (here's her lecture PDF) had two points from her lecture that she wanted to clarify: (1) "In talking about feedbacks I only mentioned positive ones. Of course there are negative feedbacks too, but it turns out in the climate system they are smaller so the net feedback is positive." (2) "I used the word 'thermals' instead of the more correct 'convection', but 'convection' includes the rising of warm moist air to form convective clouds (the ones that produce our precipitation), so it was misleading to just talk about hang gliding, etc. (i.e., to mention only the rising of dry air)."

* This coming Thursday your memo is due (part of the memo/poster assignment). Here's the library page for ENVIR 100. And if you're having trouble getting off-campus access to online resources from the UW Library, the Libraries Proxy Bookmarklet might help.

Fall quarter syllabus is here.

E-Reserve is linked from here. If you are off-campus, look for the "off-campus login" button towards the upper-right of your browser. The E-Reserve folders contain the required readings as well as optional reading, which are located below the line that says "articles below are not required reading". The optional readings are exactly that: optional. (Basically they are readings we've used in past quarters, or readings we thought about using but decided not to. If you're curious, take a look; but these readings will not be fair game for the exam or otherwise be in any way required reading for the course. Translation: optional means optional.)

* At some point you will be able to look up your scores here. (We will send out the login and password via email when scores are posted..)

* Exams can cover any of the materials from the readings, lectures (including guest lectures!), and quiz sections, and will feature a range of types of questions (true/false, multiple choice, short answer sentences, short answer problems, longer essays, etc.) FYI here are:

• Winter 2008: midterm exam (and draft answer key and review questions)
• Fall 2007: midterm exam (and draft answer key and review questions) and final exam (and draft answer key and review questions).
• Spring 2007: review sheet for the final exam, the final exam iteself, and the answer key. (There was no midterm.)
• Autumn 2006: midterm exam (and answer key and review sheet) and the final exam (and answer key and review sheet)

Please note that the overlap between past and present versions of the course is probably about 80%, so there are some questions that would not be fair game for the final in our class; taken as a whole, however, they provide a good glimpse of what you can expect on the final exam. Yes, we will provide review questions for this quarter's exams; and yes you can also expect questions based on the readings and the quiz section activities.

* If you feel that your exam was unfairly graded, please write a statement with the details and submit it to your TA or to the course instructor. We'll take a look, and as a caveat please note that we also have the option of re-examining the entire exam. This does not mean that you cannot informally ask us about the exam during office hours or elsewhere, but this policy is the best way for us to formally evaluate and respond to concerns.