Study Guide For Exam 1

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Exam drawn from even-numbered quiz questions... highlighted

(Quiz 08-29)

1. (preface) What's the author's goal?

2. When did the term "anthropocene" first appear in print? 2

3. What is "the basis for marking new intervals of geologic time" (and thus the rationale for dubbing our time the anthropocene, the "age of humans")? 3

4. What was Archbishop Ussher's errant calculation? 5

5. How did Darwin birth a new origin story, and what did it imply about life? 9

6. When did homo sapiens appear, on the cosmic calendar? 11

7. What's the IPCC? 13

8. Who wrote The End of Nature? 14

9. Who was the first scientist to propose that the Earth's functioning as a system was transformed by the emergence of the biosphere? 18

10. What is the Gaia Hypothesis? 18

11. What changed everything? 21

12. What did Charles Keeling publish in 1960? 25

13. Who was Rachel Carson, and what did she document? 29

Quiz (09-05)

1. Who will ultimately decide the fate of the Anthropocene as an interval of earth history? 35

2. Who was William Smith? 36

3. What "allowed evolutionary changes in fossil organisms to be observed"? 37

4. What are the different chronostratigraphic units? What do they organize?39

5.What are "golden spikes"? 43

6. What's the difference between isochronous and diachronous units? 43

7. What's Earth's most recent period? When did it begin? 44

8. What does "Holoene" mean? 47

9. Name an instance of the "hyper-abundant" data on recent earth changes capable of leaving stratigraphic records. 49

10. Data showed a dramatic jump in the rate of human and environmental changes when? 52

11. How much of the terrestrial biosphere remains free of direct human impacts? 56

12. Name an environmental consequence of human use of land. 57

13. Earth is now hotter than it's been in how many years? 68

Quiz     (09-10)

1.     What's the archaeological perspective on when to mark the onset of the Anthropocene? 

2. Why are humans the "ultimate ecosystem engineers"? 

3. What's another name for knowledge gained by social learning? 

4. Why were American and Australian megafauna "not so lucky"?
   increasingly recognized as the bio-cultural legacies of long histories of prior human land use?

5. What are increasingly recognized as the bio-cultural legacies of long histories of prior human land use?

6. What controversial hypothesis by Ruddiman remains under serious consideration, and is supported by multiple lines of evidence?

7. What "discovery" created the first truly global system of exchange?

8. From an archaeological point of view how long has the human world been anthropogenic?

9. What's the etymology of ecology?

10. What is the Pristine Myth?

11. Current extinction rates exceed the historical baseline by what factor-range?

    
12. What is the Homogocene?

13. What are anthromes?

Quiz (09-12)

1. Some worry that recognizing the Anthropocene might serve as the political equivalent of what statement and dismissal?

2. Failing to recognize the Anthropocene, according to Erik Swyngedouw and others, is to deny what?

3. What Titanic analogy is offered by James Scourse?

4. How has human agency with regard to the environment changed, according to Chakrabarty?

5. The human way of living on earth is shaped far more by what?

6. What are the comparative emissions rates of average Chinese and Americans, and of the wealthy/urban and rural/poor ?

7. According to Jason Moore and others, what caused Earth's transformation by producing massive social inequalities?

8. What is the Chthulucene?

9. What's the benefit of recognizing the Anthropocene, according to the editors of Nature?

10. What is the noosphere?

11. Why might Icarus be a better metaphor for the Anthropocene than Prometheus?

12. What are some things that "raise the prospect of a better planetary future"?

13. What does the Anthropocene call on us to do, and how is that symbolized by the Long Now clock project?

Quiz (09-17)

*1. What does Klein think is the goal of Trump and his top advisers?

2. What "frenzy" does Klein call a pillar of Trump's project?

3. What does Klein think "mov[ing] to a yes" may bring about?

4. What were Klein and her colleagues trying to build through the Leap Manifesto project?

5. What was the electoral college originally designed to protect?

6. What ground were we on before the election?

7. What simple fact does the Trump cabinet represent?

8. Trump's first secretary of state's company did what for decades?

9. What was happening before Trump's election upset that's easy to forget?

10. What was the model of the new kind of corporation pioneered by Nike and Apple?

11. What did the Trump brand have in common with Celebration, FLA?

12. How does Trump's presidency violate conflict-of-interest rules?

13. Trump's political career would have been impossible without the degradation of what?

Quiz (09-19)

1. What  "reality-TV" pretext did Trump's Apprentice eliminate?

2. What traditional capitalist pretense was [is?] absent from Trump's show?

3. What percentage of global assets are owned by the wealthiest 10%?

4. What was the "distinctly WWE quality" of Trump's campaign?

5. Trump's empire is built on what (in contrast with one of his central campaign promises)?

6. What did Obama say that challenges his claim to having been a climate hero?

7. What's Trump's "obscure modern illness"?

8. From the seesaw dynamic of what two trends does Klein take solace and find hope?

9. What's Klein's parenting philosophy, with respect to sharing her Environmental concerns with her young son?

10. How much did temperature rise, resulting in the mass bleaching event of the Great Coral Reef? What are some other results of that rise that we are already seeing?

11. What's Beckett's Dictum, and why doesn't it work for climate?

12. What's one of the prongs of Trump's rescue plan for the fossil fuel sector?

13. Why is cheap gas good news, from a climate perspective?

14. What is neoliberalism?

Quiz (09-24)

1. Why can't Klein forgive Paul Krugman?

2. Klein says we should never underestimate what?

3. What "basest of insults" was Trump's response to questions about his previous sexist comments?

4. A vote for Trump might not betray active hatred, writes Klein, but it does reflect what?

5. What has increased by 500% in the past 40 years?\\

6. What tragic and troubling trend of failed expectations dates back to 1999?

7. What groups tripled in 2016?

8. What's Hillary Clinton's economic philosophy, according to Klein?

9. Who were the Central Park Five?

10. What's intersectionality?

11. What single issue drew union support to Trump?

12. What's a "better" deal, Trump?

13. What trade policies did Klein and her friends in the '90s object to?

14. How did environmentalists and trade unions succeed in defeating bad trade agreements?

15. What is the Davos class?