(source)
Big honkin’ fish.
Chapter 15explores the issues surrounding the history of tuna, including overharvesting and bycatch. Tuna are particularly known for the issues related to dolphin bycatch, the consumer boycott of tuna, and the eventual “dolphin safe” labels that now appear on the vast majority of tuna products. This chapter will address the advantages and disadvantages of green consumerism, the political economy of the tuna industry, and the ethics of marine species and ecosystem management.
Tuna slides here.
Paul Robbins, John Hintz, and Sarah A. Moore, Environment & Society: A Critical Introduction (3rd edition), Chapter 15.
Notes & Links:
- “…Like most animal products, tuna arrives in our kitchens with little visible evidence of its natural history of the human labor that got it from sea to table.” (225)
- Bluefin Tuna Migration Patterns (map)
- Cooperative Management of Tuna Fisheries (article)
- Bycatch Intensity (map)
- Dolphin Safe Tuna Lawsuits (2019): “The lawsuits allege that each of these companies has deceived consumers for years into believing their tuna was captured through dolphin-safe, sustainable fishing practices, when the truth is that the companies utilize more cost-effective fishing techniques that indiscriminately kill or harm dolphins.”
- Marine Stewardship Council: Sustainable Fishing | MSC (organization)
- Charasmatic Megafauna
We love our lawns.
Chapter 16 takes the modern lawn as its object of concern. This chapter explores why people use lawn chemicals are harmful for humans and environmental systems, even when they are aware of the threat, by understanding their use as a calculated risk (Chapter 6), a social phenomenon (Chapter 8), and a response to a particular set of political economic structures (Chapter 7).
Lawn slides here.
Paul Robbins, John Hintz, and Sarah A. Moore, Environment & Society: A Critical Introduction (3rd edition), Chapter 16.
Notes and Links:
- Paul Robbins: Lawn People: How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are (2007) (Amazon)
- “Studies Have Linked Lawn Pesticides with Canine Malignant Lymphoma“
- Beard, James B. Origin, biogeographical migrations and diversifications of turfgrasses. East Lansing, MI, USA: Michigan State University Press, 2012.
- Where Our Crops Come From (maps, diagrams)
- “The Lawn Is the Largest Irrigated Crop in the USA” (study with maps)
- Campus lawns: “Landscaping Alternatives – Chapman University” (PDF)
- “Don’t live where you feel obligated to use lawn chemicals”
- “Are our lawns biological deserts?” “Researchers found that higher-income households had lawns with significantly less plant diversity than those of lower-income homes.”
- Pull Marketing: “He found a ‘lawn shaming’ sign in his crabgrass. Thousands avenged him.“