Transcript PowerPoint Notes for Class 5

Senior Seminar Winter 2009
ISP 4860
Section 002 (Bowen)
Class 5, February 11
Course web site: www.is.wayne.edu/drbowen/SenSemW09
Agenda
• Tonight in 12 Manoogian
 Rest of semester, too
• Pictures
• Late / returned / future assignments
• Research
 Searching research databases
• Content:
 The credit crunch
 Ecosystem services
• Writing: organization; sentences and
grammar
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Late Assignments
• Still people without a firm topic choice.
 If you chose a specific country for your topic
(e.g. US, Ethiopia), add an explanation of
your approach.
 Will you be interdisciplinary? How?
 Is your country typical of some aspect?
• Also people without Moodle accounts.
• Reminder – a component of the course
grade comes for getting assignments in on
time
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New Course resources
• www.is.wayne.edu/drbowen/SenSemW09
 Under “Other sites of interest” – links to:
• Article estimating $ value of Ecosystem Services
• UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC)
• Moodle (tools.comm.wayne.edu/moodle)
 Forum topic on searching – place to leave
(and get) tips, suggestions, etc.
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Finding the publication date
• We went over this last class, and I said I
would write it down
• To find the publication or update date for
any web page,
 View the page normally
 Right click in any empty space in the page
 On the pop-up menu, choose “View Page Info”
(Internet Explorer) or “Properties” (others)
 See “Date modified”
• “Dynamic” pages always have current date
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Assignments Coming Up
• This week (February 11)
 Paper Planner for Draft of Chapter 1
• Copy of Section Planner passed out last week, or
go to the course website if you missed this
• Next week (February 18)
 List of references
• In a word processing file, turned in via Moodle
• Two weeks (February 25)
 Draft of Chapter 1 (overview)
 Word processing file turned in via Moodle
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Choice of Subtopic
• Most people who have described a topic
on Moodle so far have chosen a specific
country.
World
• But either:
Region (Africa)
 Choose a region
Country (Chad)
OR
 Describe in more detail why your country is
representative, or assure me that you will still
be interdisciplinary
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Research portfolio
• Everyone got an A on this one
• Self-assessment will be repeated two
more times during semester
 March 4 (self-assessment)
 April 8 (self-assessment and Instructor
assessment)
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MLA Reference Practice
•
We need more practice

•
Repeat, maybe next week
These graded on the curve – raised one
letter grade
Goal:
•
1. Quote with citation (author page) (Kennedy
3) [mostly missing]
2. Works Cited [present but not 100% right]
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Another word on overview
• Is there a “human footprint” crisis?
 We do have some time
 You can read commentators who say there is
no problem
• If everyone in the world has ten feet by ten feet,
everyone will fit in Arizona so no land problem
• If everyone becomes a vegetarian we have no
food problem
 That’s my point – we can get through, but
there will be BIG changes
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Searching
• Discussion:
1. Have you been finding enough good
references?
2. What searches have worked so far?
3. Other keyword ideas, search ideas
4. Do you need help on this? Describe what
help.
5. Do you want to schedule another day in the
Library?
 Only after everyone has their topic settled
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Valerie Wade: Plan B Link
• Plan B by Lester Brown is a good resource
for ideas and projects for sustainability
• The book is online, site found by Valerie
Wade
 She posted a link in Moodle Forum
 I have copied the link to the course website
• Downloadable (chapter by chapter)
• Searchable online – find the section you
need
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Content: Recovery/”Bailout”
• Two parts of economic crisis
1. Banks are afraid to lend, so credit dries up,
economy slows down
• credit moves much faster than cash
2. Consumers are afraid to consume
• Spending is ⅔ of US economy
• Retailers and manufacturers cut jobs so
consumers are more afraid
• Result: (money) wheel slows down
• Economy is getting worse, and getting
worse faster all the time
• Must solve 1 and 2 at the same time
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Why do we need to fix the crisis
before fixing other problems?
• If economy declines further, we will not
have economic resources to fix the other
problems, such as
 Excessive debt
 Consumers who don’t earn enough to
consume
 Exporting jobs
• Be careful: this is how poor countries will develop
• Also: domestic manufacturers get fat and lazy
• Fix the crisis, then fix the other problems
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Analogy for Crisis Plan
1. Imagine you have liver disease
 Can be fatal over years: treatment needed
2. Now on top of that you get cardiovascular
disease, fatal within days
 Cardio – heart (like consumer spending)
 Vascular – the pipes (like banks)
 Must fix both for the cure to work
• Which one (1 or 2) do you treat first?
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Why Are Banks Afraid to Lend?
• Banks have two reasons for not wanting to
lend
A.Not sure that anybody will pay loans back
B.They own “toxic assets” that do not have a
clear value any more
 “Toxic asset”: stock with a mortgage as security
 Mortgage lender sold these, gave lender money
to sell more mortgages
 But value is now uncertain – no one wants to buy
 Investors won’t invest in the bank either
 So: bank doesn’t know if it is rich or poor
 So: bank is “frozen”
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How do banks work?
• Bank gets money from depositors and
investors
 Loans that money out and invests it, pays
depositors and investors
• Long term loans Vs short term loans Vs cash
• Must keep some cash (“reserve”) on hand to pay
depositors and investors who want their money
• If they do not have enough reserves, result is a
“run on the bank” (everyone demanding their
money now) that drives the bank out of business
• With toxic assets in the bank, bank does
not know if it has enough reserves or even
if it is solvent, can’t get more investment
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Banks are funny that way…
• Any sign that a bank may be insolvent
(“sign of weakness”) can start a run
 Therefore, banks usually do not admit that
they need help, or even that they have toxic
assets
• “Accountability:” public wants to know who
got the money, what did they did with it
 But: banks (especially those which need help)
may then refuse government help
 In this case, problem #1 does not get solved
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But wait there’s more…
• If banks foreclose on mortgages, more
houses for sale
• Supply & demand: housing prices go down
• More mortgages fail – people walk away
• Result: value of mortgage-backed securities
(“toxic assets”) goes down
• Therefore: mortgage relief/renegotiation
may help to reduce number of foreclosures,
stabilize banks
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“Geithner Plan” for banks
• Get private investors to buy toxic assets
 Government role: insure against large losses?
• TARP 2: More capital (money) to banks to
increase reserves
• Encourage more consumer lending
 Credit card limits back up
 More student and auto loans
• Financial world wants more details
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Fixing Part 2
• Part 2: consumers afraid to consume
 Government can force spending – stimulus
 Debt relief & tax breaks don’t work – they don’t
get spent
 Must last until confidence returns
• Two rules from David’s work on idle speed:
 Start early before problem gets bigger
 Do too much rather than too little
• This means you will have to take stimulus away in
time, later
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Dangers for Recovery
1. If stimulus continues too long, problem
•
Creates too much demand, leads to extreme
inflation, lack of investment
2. If stimulus is not long-term economically
productive, problem
•
•
Then we cannot pay back the loans
Will not have resources to fix other problems
3. If we get used to government being in
charge, problem
•
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We lose initiative and innovation
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A Favorite Guess of Mine
• One of my guesses is that “agency” is
important in our economy
 “Agency:” we can change things ourselves
• Result 1: if we don’t like the stuff we can
buy, we make new stuff
• Result 2: we end up with stuff we love
• Result 3: we buy lots of it
• Result 4: the money wheel spins really fast
here
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Why is the economic crisis in this
course?
1. Illustrate that there are complex systems
that are critical to our well-being but that
we do not understand
•
Like the ecosystem
2. Important for economic development of
less-developed countries
•
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How do we advise or help other countries to
expand their economies if we do not
understand how ours works?
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Content: Consumption and Waste
• Money wheel spins one way
• “Stuff” spins the other way
 Packaging becomes waste immediately
 Some stuff is not used, becomes waste quickly
(food)
 Everything that was in the package also
becomes waste – just more slowly
• Running out of places to put the garbage
• Can we find another way to spin the wheel?
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Sovereign Wealth Funds
• Another effect of US economic unbalance
• Sovereign Wealth Funds – the accounts
built up by our international creditors who
are not market-based
 China
 Saudi Arabia
 Russia
• Will they use that wealth against us?
 Probably more subtle effects
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Content: Ecosystem Services
• Ecosystem services
 In SOP, “Prospects for Biodiversity”
 E.S.: emphasize what the natural world does
for us and put a dollar value on it
• Not 100% precise: do we include aesthetic values
such as beauty and relaxation, and what are they
worth in $?
 One estimate (link on course website) $1654T, when world GDP was $18T
• Much of estimated value outside of markets
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Ecosystem Services
• One list (Ecological Society of America, Union of Concerned
Scientists):
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moderate weather extremes and their impacts
disperse seeds
mitigate drought and floods
protect people from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays
cycle and move nutrients
protect stream and river channels and coastal shores from erosion
detoxify and decompose wastes
control agricultural pests
maintain biodiversity
generate and preserve soils and renew their fertility
contribute to climate stability
purify the air and water
regulate disease carrying organisms
pollinate crops and natural vegetation
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Ecosystem Services
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Another list (Science article)
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Atmospheric gas regulation
Climate regulation
Disturbance regulation
Water regulation
Water supply: Storage and retention of water
Erosion control and sediment retention
Soil formation
Nutrient cycling
Waste treatment
Pollination
Biological regulations of populations
Habitat for resident and transient populations
Food production
Raw materials (e.g. lumber)
Genetic resources
Recreation
Cultural
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Ecosystem Services
• Biodiversity
 Importance: indicates how reliable that
service is
• Biodiversity is the raw material for adapting to
changes
• If biodiversity decreases, extinction gets closer
• Without biodiversity, cannot genetically adapt to
changes
• Humans can adapt in other ways than genetic but
natural world cannot
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Ecosystem Services
• Biodiversity
 We are in the midst of large wave of
extinctions – one of biggest ever
• May be due to us
• Deforestation pressures to gain farmland
o We don’t even know what most of the species are
• Fresh and saltwater overfishing, loss of diversity
o Fish are adapting: stay small, propagate early
» May not be healthy in long run
• Cropland - monoculture
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Ecosystem Services
State of the World 2008
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Ecosystem
Services
• Not a food chain
but a food web
• Many of the links
we don’t even
know
• Yet increasingly,
we are in charge
because we are
so dominant
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Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
• UN project to do a comprehensive
assessment of all ecosystems
 Years before and after 2000
 Four areas of Ecosystem Services
• Provisioning (water, food, fiber, etc.)
• Regulating (air and water purification, flood control,
etc.)
• Cultural (Aesthetic, spiritual, recreational, etc.)
• Supporting the other three (nutrient recycling, soil
formation, etc.)
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Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
• General findings that are worse than
previously thought
 Unfamiliar ecosystems in trouble also
 Interactions between ecosystems
 Unsustainable use
• Examples: overfishing, overgrazing, overlogging
(Michigan)
 Gap between world rich and poor is
increasing
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Biodiversity
• Pretty sure species are disappearing at a
high rate
• Suspicion we might be a big cause (not
that we are evil, but that we are ignorant)
 We can adapt to change quickly, and the
species we tend to we can help
 But wild species take thousands of
generations (insects and pests do well!)
 Forests, coral reefs, wetlands all shelter the
young of many species from predation
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Biodiversity
• We need to become smarter about this
• Until then we probably need to be more
cautious
• Is there a risk to us?
 We don’t know, but maybe
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Back to Recovery Plan
• Recovery money should go to
economically productive uses
 Grow the economy or we will not be able to
pay for the Recovery Plan
• It’s borrowed money
• But we expect/want economy will change
 What is economically productive will change
 Try to guess about future economy, put
money in those activities
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#1 Reason for Writing
• To organize your own thinking
#1 Way to Good Writing
• Have something you want to say
 Pretend if necessary – it works!
#1 Way to Find Mistakes
• Read your Essay out loud to yourself, and
listen
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More Examples and Details
• www.is.wayne.edu/olgt then link to Writing
Guide, or use The Everyday Writer
• Writing Center in 2310 UGL
 313-577-2544
• Many of you have heard this before, but
the problem is applying this stuff
• More in the next slides
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Common Writing Problems
• Functional grammar
 Rules of grammar have a purpose – to
transmit meaning
 Rules of grammar are always changing
 Different grammars for different groups
 Get too far from the group’s grammar and
you are not understood (must change with
changes)
 The further you get from the group’s
grammar, the harder it is to understand you
 Being able to use good standard grammar
is like dressing well for a job interview
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Organization
• Many possibilities for organization
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Historical
Logical
Specific to general, or general to specific
Combination
• Signal transitions from one topic to
another
 Paragraphs help here
• New topic  new paragraph
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Quick-and-Easy Organization
• Write body first
• One you have figured out what you are
going to say (the Body), write the
Introduction and Conclusion afterwards
• Body should have general statements and
specific examples and quotes
• Deal with topics one at a time, then move
on to next (usually)
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Organization Exercise
• Groups
• Get packet of cards
• Put cards in the best order you can figure
out
• Group Report (separate piece of paper):
 Names
 Order of sentences (by number)
 Which model of organization did you use?
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Sentences
• A sentence:
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Verb (action)
Subject (did the action)
Complete thought
(starts with capital, period at end)
• (Y/N) Because he hit the ball.
• (Y/N) John hit the ball.
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Sentences
• Is it a sentence? Consider it all by itself.
(Read it out loud)
• Common sentence problem #1:
 Sentence fragment – something that starts
with a capital and ends with a period but is not
a sentence
• Because he hit the ball. John ran to first base.
• Fix by joining to main thought with a comma (,)
o Because he hit the ball, John ran to first base.
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Sentences
• Is it a sentence? Consider it all by itself.
• Common sentence problem #2:
 Run-on sentence – two or more sentences
written as one
• John hit the ball he ran to first base.
• Fix by breaking into two sentences
o John hit the ball. He ran to first base.
• Or by joining with semicolon (;) to show causality
o John hit the ball; he ran to first base
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Number (singular/plural)
• Both subject and verb have number
 If these are not the same, signals conflict
• Members join the club
• A member joins the club
• “One s”
• Without a reason, do not change number
from sentence to sentence
 (Bad) People should take care of their health.
You should take your vitamins.
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Tense (past, present, future)
• Without a reason, do not change tense
from sentence to sentence
Citations
• “Scientific investigation is not, as many
people seem to suppose, some kind of
modern black art.” (Huxley, 1)
• Cite the source even if you are paraphrasing
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Punctuation
• Apostrophe (‘)
 Possession (‘s or s’)
• Some words inherently possessive, no ‘ (e.g. theirs)
 Never for pluralization
 Contraction (don’t use contractions in the essay)
• “Should of gone” incorrect, from “Should’ve” for “Should
have”
• Lists
 Separate list items with commas (last one is
optional)
 If any list has a comma inside, separate items with
semicolon
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Wrong Word
• Some words are commonly confused –
memorize or use list or dictionary
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its Vs it’s
whose Vs who’s
their Vs there
too Vs to
accept Vs except
Many, many more – see Online Writing
Tutor
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Applying This
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•
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Groups (earlier groups OK)
Get a set of cards, go off together
DO NOT WRITE ON CARDS (please)
Make choices, decide why that is the right
choice
• Turn in group report:
 Names
 Choices
 Explanations
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