About the exam

The exam will consist of a combination of multiple choice and short answer questions.  You should expect a greater proportion of multiple choice questions on this exam.  Be prepared to connect topics studied in the last section of the course with earlier topics. 

Questions will test your understanding of concepts and ideas from the course (definitions), how they apply to the case studies we have discussed, and how they relate to the major themes of the course (relationships).  In addition a few questions will test your understanding of concepts by asking you to apply them in contexts that may be different from those we have discussed up to this point to test whether or not you have really learned them. 

A Strategy for studying

• Spread your studying for the exam out over the exam period. 
• For the first four days spend one to two hours focusing in depth on each of the four major topics that we have discussed: Hazardous Waste, Climate Change, Ozone Depletion, and Environmental Justice and Sustainable Development.  
• Jot down short answers to the questions below as you study.
• Circle questions that you had difficulty answering.  Cross out questions that you answered easily.
• Test yourself.  At the end of your studying session, create a series test questions for yourself focusing on those questions that you had difficulty answering.  Put away your notes and try to answer them in writing.  Check your answers. Repeat if you wish.
• Before you begin studying each day review what you studied the day before by taking the test you created for yourself the day before. 
• In the days before the test go back and look at the questions that you circled earlier and test yourself on those questions.  
• Do not assume that because you studied something once that you have mastered the concept.  Be sure to test yourself later.
• Use the lecture outlines and your notes to figure out what is important.  Use your textbook to fill in the details and to confirm the accuracy of your notes.  Don’t forget to review the discussions (especially the discussion questions) and the Annual Edition articles.  Note the articles that we focused most of our attention on in class and focus your attention on those.
• Limit your studying each day and take breaks.  After too long a period of time you may experience diminishing returns on your ability to retain knowledge. 
• Come see your professor with questions.

Regional and Global Environmental Problems

One big question we have focused on in this section of the course is: What is scale and why is it relevant to understanding and solving environmental problems?

For each of the global environmental problems you can ask three general questions:

1.  What physical processes and chemical substances are involved?
2.  What is the problem and how did it become a problem?
3.  What is the history of regulation/mitigation and what can be done to mitigate the problem in the future at local, regional, and global scales?

Depending upon the global environmental problem, your answers to each question above may be more or less extensive. Answers to the following specific questions provide details to fill in these more general questions.

Hazardous Waste

RCRA (Regulation and physical processes)

• What is the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)?  How did it define hazardous wastes? What is excluded as hazardous waste under RCRA? What did RCRA require individual industries and organizations to do with regard to hazardous waste? How does the tracking system under RCRA work?
• What are some of the causes of contamination from hazardous wastes?
• What are techniques for treatment of hazardous waste?
• What are techniques for disposal of hazardous waste?

Woburn Mass. and Love Canal (What is the problem?)

• What happened in the Woburn Massachusetts case study? What happened in the Love Canal case?  For each case answer the following questions:
• Who was involved? Who was responsible and who suffered?
• When did it happen?
• Where did it happen?
• Why were these cases significant?  What changes did they generate in policy?
• How are RCRA and Superfund related to these cases?

Superfund (History of regulation/mitigation)

• What was Superfund (the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liabilty Act or CERCLA)? (note that it has three names—a nickname, a formal name and an acronym).
• Write a 3 sentence summary of what it required?
• How did SARA Title III alter the superfund? (what does SARA stand for?) Instead of focusin on the specifics, first create a summary for yourself. 
• What is the National Priority List? How are sites placed on the list?
• What is risk assessment?
• What are brownfields? 
• What local superfund/hazarous waste sites exist? What is their history?

Recycling

• How does solid waste recycling work in Chicago and how does it compare to your hometown?  What strategies might be used to improve Chicago’s recycling program?

Climate Change

Physical Processes/Greenhouse Effect

• How does the greenhouse effect work?  What are the three wavelengths of solar radiation involved in the greenhouse effect? Draw a diagram (like that on pg. 249) and label it.
• What is radiative forcing?
• What is a greenhouse gas?
• What is the most important naturally occurring greenhouse gas?
• What are the 5 most important anthropogenic greenhouse gasses? (make a table and for each gas fill in the following information: Natural Sources, Human Sources, Sinks (if any), it’s level of importance/potency for global warming, significant regulations affecting the gasses).
• What does the word anthropogenic mean?
• How might aerosols counteract global warming?  What are their sources?
• What effect might stratospheric ozone depletion have on global warming?  How is this different from the effect that increasing levels of tropospheric ozone might have?

What is the problem?

• How have global temperatures changed over time? How do we know?
• How have levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses changed over time?  How do we know?
• What most likely causes global warming?
• What variables are involved in projections of global warming?  How are positive and negative feedback mechanisms relevant to discussions of global warming?
• What might the possible impacts be of global warming?

What is the history of regulation/Mitigation and what can be done?

• What efforts have been made on a global scale to minimize global warming? What is the Kyoto Protocol?  What are its advantages and disadvantages?
• What efforts are being made at local and regional scales to minimize global warming?
• How does our discussion of global warming and climate change relate to other topics discussed in class? 

Stratospheric Ozone Depletion

What are the physical processes?

• What are the three different types of UV radiation and what are their properties?
• How is ozone formed in the stratosphere?
• How does ozone depletion occur? What conditions have to be present for it to occur?  At what time of year does ozone depletion occur the most in the southern hemisphere?
• How do CFC’s deplete ozone (pg. 270)? 
• In general what are the sources of ozone depleting substances?
• What are the four most important ozone depleting substances (see Insight 13.1 pg. 268-9)? 

What is the problem?

• What are the potential impacts of increased UV-B radiation?

History of Regulation and Mitigation?

• What is the history of international agreements to reduce ozone depletion (What did the Vienna convention the Montreal Protocol, the London agreements, and the Copenhagen Agreements do)?
• How is the history of international ozone agreements different from that of global warming?

Environmental Justice and Sustainable development

General Questions

Can you satisfactorily answer the following questions?  Can you provide examples from the case studies presented in class that illustrate answers to these questions?

• Given the fact that most people would say that the natural environment is valuable, why have humans destroyed and disturbed the environment to such a large degree?
• Who disturbs and destroys the environment?
• Who is affected by environmental disturbance? Is every person and every organism affected in the same way?
• Geographic Question: Are those people who make decisions about disturbing the environment the same people that are most affected by environmental disturbances?

Why are the answers to these questions important and how are they connected with issues of environmental justice, ecofeminism, and environmental racism?

• What is environmental justice? 
• What is ecofeminism?
• What is environmental racism?

War

• What were some of the impacts of the first Gulf War? (look at the outline and organize your answer based on the categories shown)
• How might the second war in Iraq differ from the first in environmental impact (both positive and negative)?
• How environmental destruction a tactic of war?
• What reasons might militaries have to reduce their impact on the environment?

Sustainable Development

• What is sustainable development?
• What are some of the advantages of using the concept and what are some of its disadvantages?
• How are the ideas expressed about sustainable development today similar to and different from those expressed by Muir, Pinchot, and Marsh more than 100 years ago?

Important Concepts

The following are the concepts to know before coming to class with a few additions here and there.  Place an X through concepts that are familiar to you. Underline those that you know something about but need further studying.  Circle concepts that you are mostly unfamiliar with.  Target your studying towards those that you have underlined and circled. 

Hazardous and solid Waste

1976 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA); The 1980 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund Act); SARA Title III, Brownfields, Recycling, minimizing, Woburn, Mass case study, cluster, epidemiology, superfund, National Priority List, Minamata Bay, Love Canal.

Climate Change

The greenhouse effect, visible light, ultraviolet radiation, infrared radiation, radiative forcing, greenhouse gasses including: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, chlorofluorocarbons, ozone. Aerosols and anti-greenhouse gasses; possible effects of climate change, low-carbon energy system, sequestration, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), Kyoto Protocol, scale, thinking globally acting globally, uncertainty

Stratospheric Ozone Depletion

UV-A, UV-B, and UV-C radiation, processes of ozone formation and depletion, ozone depleting substances including CFCs, Halons, Methyl Choloride, Methyl Bromide. biological impacts of UV-B radiation, The Vienna Convention, The Montreal Protocol, London Ozone Agreements, Copenhagen Ozone Agreements

Environmental Justice and Sustainable Development

Environmental Justice, Ecofeminism, Environmental Racism, environmental consequences of war, Sustainable development, eco-economy, environmental indicators and targets, human modification of the environment.

Discussion Topics

• Recycling
• Climate Change
• Sustainable Development

Important Case studies

• Woburn, Mass.
• Love Canal
• Minamata Bay
• Local Climate Change Activism (REEP)
• Global Warming
• Ozone Depletion
• War in Iraq