Understanding Environmental Value Systems

Study Notes

An EVS is a worldview that influences how individuals or groups perceive and evaluate environmental issues.
Cultural, religious, economic, and sociopolitical contexts significantly shape EVSs.
Inputs to an EVS include education, experience, culture, and media, leading to outputs like consistent decisions and evaluations.

Ecocentric: Emphasizes ecology and nature as central, integrates social and spiritual dimensions, promotes less materialism and self-sufficient societies, prioritizes biorights, and encourages self-restraint in behaviors.
Anthropocentric: Advocates for sustainable management of global systems through regulation and taxation, encourages debate for consensus on solving environmental issues.
Technocentric: Optimistic belief in technological solutions to environmental problems, favors scientific research for policy formation, promotes a pro-growth agenda for societal improvement.

A systems approach visualizes complex ecological or societal interactions and emergent properties.
Systems consist of storages and flows; flows can be transfers (relocation) or transformations (changes in state, chemical nature, or energy).
System diagrams depict storages as boxes and flows as arrows, representing the magnitude of inputs and outputs.

Open System: Exchanges both energy and matter across boundaries (e.g., ecosystems).
Closed System: Exchanges energy only; exists experimentally.
Isolated System: Hypothetical with no exchange of energy or matter.

Models provide simplified versions of reality to understand system functions and predict changes.
Governed by the laws of thermodynamics, focusing on energy flow and efficiency.
Systems can exist in stable states with tipping points influenced by feedback mechanisms.

Negative Feedback Loops: Stabilizing, reduce change by counteracting deviations in processes, maintain system equilibrium.
Positive Feedback Loops: Destabilizing, amplify changes and can drive systems to tipping points leading to new equilibria.

Resilience refers to the capacity of ecological or social systems to avoid tipping points and maintain stability.
Diversity and storage size enhance system resilience and response speed to changes (time lags).
Human activities can undermine system resilience by diminishing storages and diversity.
Feedback delays complicate predictions related to system behavior and stability.