Ref. No:	Class Time:	Place:	Instructor:
59120 (URP4402) 59287 (URP5424)	W 6:45 - 9:30p	BEL 214	Ivonne Audirac
Description of:	Objectives Requirements	Grading	338 Bellamy; 644-9801
Readings Calendar	Module 1   Module2	Module 3	iaudirac@garnet.acns.fsu.edu
Links	On-Line Resources		Office Hours: 3-5 p, M & W

 

Background

"Sustainability" and 'Sustainable Development" are buzzwords that have permeated every profession and discipline in both the developed and developing worlds. From the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development--created to monitor the achievement of the goals advanced in the Rio's Earth Summit of 1992--to the US President's Council on Sustainable Development; from highly institutionalized environmental watch groups to the smallest grassroots NGO (Non Governmental Organization) or eco-activist community, groups and commissions are being created in all parts of the world to plan for a "sustainable future". Despite the popularity of these terms, there is considerable controversy about their meaning and policy implications. While a variety of positions on sustainable development from deep "ecocentrism" to strong "techonocentrism" span the debate in the first world, criticism from the third world has been raised about the West dominating the sustainable development paradigm.

There are many voices in the sustainable development debate--all clamoring for legitimacy and recognition. This seminar attempts to convey a road map for the journey of making sense of sustainable development (SD). The road is very bumpy, full of dead-ends and cliffs in a very vast territory of ideas and experiences that keep evolving and expanding as we speak.

Objectives and Course Description:

This course explores various dimensions of the "sustainable development" paradigm, which has local-global and national-international implications and whose legitimacy and appeal rest on the core belief that there is a global environmental crisis needing urgent and immediate attention.. The course is divided into three modules.

The first module (1-5th week) surveys several key environmental philosophies, such as deep ecology, social ecology, and Leopold's land ethic, which underscore a paradigmatic transformation from the "industrial-mechanic" to the present "ecological-organic" era. The assignment for this module involves formulating a personal environmental outlook from which to assess a student-chosen set of definitions of sustainable development.

The second module (6-10th week) focuses on the most popular approaches to planning for sustainability in North America: "building sustainable communities" and promoting "sustainable livelihoods". In this module, we look at Canadian and American planning cases in which sustainable development concepts have been applied to community planning. We also examine samples of sustainable community indicators. The term project of this module consists of a paper describing the process and content of sustainable community planning applied to a community.

The third module (12-16th week) overviews critical issues associated with sustainable development in the international arena with a focus on Latin America and the Caribbean. We will "listen" to some of the voices from the developing world gathered by WRI's Project 2050. The final project associated with this module consists of critically analyzing a case from the compilation of success stories of "environmentally-focused partnerships for sustainable development". This compilation was produced for the Summit of the Americas--held in Miami in 1994.

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Course Requirements

The instructor will provide the background discussion materials and serve as moderator. To carry a meaningful discussion and for the seminar to proceed as planned, in addition to the three projects, students are required to be current on the readings and to actively participate in class discussion

The seminar requires active student participation

1. positive attendance: adherence to class etiquette (i.e., avoid: tardiness, dozing off, doing homework or readings extraneous to this class).
2. constructive contributions to class discussion: formulation of questions, opinions, comments and other interventions with respect and camaraderie towards all members of the class.
3. oral presentation and discussion: each student is required to make at least one oral presentation and to serve as discussant of a peer's presentation. Oral presentations will be about the readings assigned for the day and will be delivered on the same day (see calendar). Weeks # 2, # 3, #4, # 6, # 7, #12, and # 13 are set aside for these presentations. Discussants will prepare a minimum of three questions related to the specific reading and pose them to the presenter and for class discussion.

Presentations should be no more than 15 minutes long and should focus on the main ideas of the chapter or material assigned for that class. Presenters are encouraged to use visual or other presentation aids. Presenters and discussants will be assigned the first week of class.

4. feedback: at the beginning of the class, each student will turn in one short question based on the readings of the week and one opinion or reaction about the previous class or presentation.

Course Grading

Grades will reflect class participation, oral presentation, and quality of projects as well as graduate and undergraduate status.

	Graduate	Undergraduate	Letter Grade
Participation	15%	10%	A 96-100	B- 80-84
Presentation/Discussion	10%	5%	A- 91-95	C+ 78-79
Projects	75%	85%	B+ 88-90	C 74-77
TOTAL	100%	100%	B 85-87	C- 70-73

 

Class participation will be graded as follows:

0 - absent or refused to participate
1 - provided written feedback but did not voluntarily participate in discussion
2 - provided written feedback and participated in discussion

Projects will be worth cumulatively 75% for graduate students and 85% for undergraduates with the following distribution:

Project 1 - 20 %
Project 2 - 30 %
Project 3 - 25 %

No incomplete grading or extensions will be granted unless severe illness or extenuating circumstances justify it. Other class assignments, job pressures or computer hardware/software failure do not qualify as extenuating circumstances.

Late projects will be penalized at the rate of 5 points per day.

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On-Line Readings and Resources
1.  Sustainable Communities Resource Package
2. World Resources Institute1996-97: the Urban Environment:  Publication on world urbanization, the environment, and sustainable development:
3. ICLEI: The International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) is the international environmental agency for local governments.
4. Audirac’s webpage: links to SD resources.
5. “Sustainable South Florida” Governor’s Task Force for Sustainable South Florida project
6. FAPA on Sustainability
7. Florida 1000 Friends:
8. US Department of Energy. Articles on Sustainable Communities and Sustainable Development Indicators from the Center of Excellence for Sustainable Development.
9. Hart Environmental Data. Indicators of Sustainability

Module 1

	Week & Month	Weekly Topics, Required Readings and Assignments
1	Jan 7	The Global Environmental Crisis and Rio's Earth Summit: Agenda 21  Introduction. The Problem?: Global Trends in Environment and Development--(World Resources Institute). The Problem?: Human Impacts on the Planet: The scientific controversy, the North-South debate *[Newsweek 1992]; [US News & World Report 1994]  "The Many Meanings of Sustainability" *[Beatley 1995]
2	Jan 14	Environmental Philosophies: Ecocentric Alternatives  Paul Taylor: "The Ethics of Respect for Nature" [Zimmerman 1998] Aldo Leopold: "The Land Ethic" [Zimmerman 1998] Arne Naess " The Deep Ecological Movement" [ Zimmerman 1998]  George Sessions "Ecocentrism, Wilderness, and Global Ecosystem Protection" [Zimmerman 1998] Oral Presentations
3	Jan 21	Environmental Philosophies: Polical Ecology  Anderson and Leal "Free Market Versus Political Environmentalism" [Zimmerman 1998] Paul Hawken "A Declaration of SustainabilityClark "A Social Ecology" [Zimmerman 1998]  James O'Connor "Socialism and Ecology [Zimmerman 1998] John Clark "A Social Ecology" [Zimmerman 1998]  Oral Presentations
	Jan 26	Environmental Philosophies and Sustainable Development  Ariel Salleh "Working with Nature Reciprocity or Control?"[Zimmerman 1998] Merchant "The Death of Nature" [Zimmerman 1998] Warren "the Power and the Promise of Ecological Feminism." [Zimmermam 1998] Oral Presentations Environmentalisms and Sustainable Development  "Frameworks for Choice: Core Beliefs and the Environment" *[O'Riordan 1995] "Environment and Ethics." *[Turner R.K., D.W. Pearce and I.Bateman. 1993]  Chapter 2 "Concepts and Poliicy" and Chapter 3 "Sustainability and Local Planning" [Krizek and Power]  "Interview with Herman Daly" *[Developing Ideas, IIDS, 1995] "Sustainable Growth: An Impossibility Theorem" [Daly 1993]
5	Feb 4	Sustainable Development and Planning  "Achieving Sustainability, Reform or Transformation?" *[Rees 1995] "Ecological Foot-Prints and the Imperative of Rural Sustainability Rees 1997 in Audirac 1997--& Strozier Reserve]  Zero Emissions * [ Pauli 1995] Bioregionalism * [Frenay 1995] "Sustainable Communities Planning for the 21st Century" *[Rees and Roseland 1991 ] "Sustainable Environments" [ Video]  Project 1: due

* for photocopying & on reserve

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Module 2

6	Feb 11	Sustainable Communities:  Marcia Nozick: No Place Like Home: Building Sustainable Communities  Chapter 1 " For the Sake of Community" Chapter 2: "Confronting the Global Economy" Chapter 3 "Working Toward Self-Reliance" Chapter 4: "Harmonizing with Nature" Chapter 5: "Attaining Community Control" Chapter 6: "Meeting Individual Needs" Oral Presentations
	Feb18	*Chapter 7: "Building Community Culture" and *"Conclusions" Assignment 4: Oral Presentations Sustainable Livelihoods  "Sustainable Livelihoods and the Global Social Crisis" *[Korten 1994] "Principles of Sustainable Livelihoods" *[Developing Ideas 1995] "Sustainable Development--Views from the Community in New York City" *[Concepcion 1995] "Chapter4. Bringing it all Together: Sustainability at the Local Level {Krizek and Power] Guest Speaker  Project 2: Monticello, FL Visit 1: Saturday Feb. 21
8	Feb25	Applying Concepts of Sustainable Development and Community Planning: Case Studies from North America  Bamberton, British Columbia, Canada *[Gurstein and Curry 1993]; Town of Aurora, Toronto, Canada * [Yip 1994] Guide to Sustainable Community Indicators; Seattle, WA, Chattanooga TN, Cambridge, MA, Upper Valley, NH, Sta-North NH *[Hart 1995 pp 30-47] Sustainable Community Indicators Guideposts for Local Planning:: Seattle, WA, Santa Monica, CA and Cambridge MA. *[Zachary 1995 pp. 1-54] & Chapter 5. [Krizek and Power] Guest Speaker
9	Mar 4	A New Consensus for Prosperity, Opportunity, and a Healthy Environment for the Future.  & PCSD 1996 President's Council on Sustainable Development Chapter 4.. and 5  Environmental Back Lash: Determined Opposition: The Wise Use Movement Challenges Environmentalism *[Brick 1995] Community Project Update
10	Mar 11	Spring Break
11	Mar18	. work on project. Project 2 due Mar 20

* for photocopying & on reserve

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Module 3

12	Mar 25	The North/South Debate A Critical Assessment with Focus on Latin America & the Caribbean  Hellen Collinson (1996) Green Guerillas  "Capitalism and ecological crisis: legacy of the 1980s" [Dore] & "Social pressure for environmental reform [Kaimowitz] " Native peoples and sustainable development" [Gedicks] *"How sustainable were pre-Columbian civilizations"[Dore] "Debating "indigenous" agricultural development: indian organizations in the Central Andes of Ecuador " [Bebbington] "Pionner women and the destruction of the rainforests" [Townsend]    Project 3: Partnership Analysis Project Proposal
13	Apr 1	The North/South Debate A Critical Assessment with Focus on Latin America & the Caribbean  Hellen Collinson (1996) Green Guerillas"New Harvests, old problems: the challenges facing Latin America's agro-export boom " [Thrupp]. "Green Crime, green redemption: the environment and ecotourism in the Caribbean [Patullo]  Enligthened cities: the urban environment in Latin America" [Davila] "Colombia's independent recycler's union: a model for urban waste management [Pacheco] Curitiba: towards sustainable urban development [Rabinovitch]    Oral Presentations
14	Apr 8	The North meets South: Debate over Sustainable Development     Cities and The Environment and Overview *[White and Whitney 1992] from Sustainable cities : urbanization and the environment in international perspective / edited by Richard Stren, Rodney White, and Joseph Whitney. Boulder, Colo. : Westview Press, 1992    Progress Toward Sustainable Development" *[Tanvi Nagpal 1995]    Sustainable Cities or Cities that Contibute to Sustainable Development? *[Satterwaite, David 1997]
15	Apr 15  APA National Planning Conference	Voices From the Developing World: Project 2050 &  Read at least 2 "voices" from the following :      "Abdiel Adames on Panama" pp. 7-9  "Maristela Bernardo(with Fabio Feldman) on Brazil pp 20-25  "Graciela Diaz Hasson on Latin America" pp. 33-36  "Joseph O. Palacio on Central America" pp. 69- 74  "Marla Munoz on Cuba" p. 152  New Partnerships in the Americas: The Spirit of Rio [USAID & WRI 1994]  Read Chapter Relevant to Project  Ch1: "Building Consensus for Environmental Planning and Management"  Ch2. "Financing Environmental Activities"  Ch3. "Upgrading The Urban Environment"  Ch4. "Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Use of Natural Resources"  Ch5. "The Business of Sustainable Development"  Ch 6 " Information Exchange and Capacity Building".
16	Apr 22	Project 3 due

* for photocopying & on reserve

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