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ENV222 Take Home Exam Winter 2023 1. Discuss the Anthropocene. How is it useful as a concept? How is it limited? a. The Anthropocene is a suggested term used to define the current geographical era marked by the significant human environmental impacts on the globe. Its rapid gain in popularity within academic and social spheres is linked to conversations about climate change awareness and education. While the Anthropocene can be a helpful concept used to convey the starkness of the global changes that are occurring in our world (like increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations, erosion and sediment transport, sea-level rise, ocean acidification, biosphere perturbation, and ‘technofossils’, to name a few (Waters et al., 2022)) and generate urgency in our response to those changes, it comes with plenty of limitations as well. The creation of the term brought with it debates about which stratigraphic signature would define the start date of this time period, and it should be noted that these types of discussions often reveal key ideas about valued voices and dominant narratives within human colonial and racial histories (Baldwin & Erickson, 2020). The general consensus within the Anthropocene Working Group is that the Anthropocene should start in the mid-20th century which aligns with the post-war period (Baldwin & Erickson, 2020). However, significant environmental changes can be observed from countless other earlier colonial, imperial, and capitalistic events like the histories of the spike in CO2 sequestration from the decimation of Indigenous peoples and their cultivation practices in the years following 1492, or the mining of coal fuelled by the American plantation economies built on slavery in the 18th century (Baldwin & Erickson, 2020). In these ways, the Anthropocene is dictated by the ways that whiteness and Western epistemologies of stratigraphy and Earth systems science are made central to scientific discourse on the term (Baldwin & Erickson, 2020). The exclusionary nature of these discourses contributes to the creation of what scholar Zoe Todd calls the “white public space” (Todd, 2015). This describes the space that is structured around Eurocentric values and experiences that often make Indigenous and racialized groups feel invisible and unwelcomed. b. Words: 325 2. Why does pedagogy matter to sustainability? a. Pedagogy, which is the study and practice of learning and knowledge transfer (Classens, 2023a), has an essential role to play in sustainability. Educational institutions like universities are greatly inﬂuential within the

scope of their communities and within the global academic, political, public and private spheres. They have served as grounds for clubs, organizations, students, and faculty to coalesce and arrange public events like protests and marches that have catalyzed and propelled social movements for equity, justice, sustainability, and reform (Toth, 2017). They are also critical points of knowledge creation and transfer; the types of knowledge that are being taught and learned and the ways in which it is being taught and learned contribute to the structuring of society. Current and previous dominant pedagogies have been fashioned from the frameworks and values of structures like neoliberalism and industrialism. These ideologies have created a centralized education system that upholds authoritative power dynamics (between teacher and student), that severs the contextual socio-ecological, political, and cultural environments from the curricula, and that works to segregate disciplines (Classens, 2023a). Because of the role that educational institutions have in world-changing, movement-making and consciousness-raising, an institution that upholds these conventional characteristics are effectively working against ideological growth and sustainable practices (M. Classens, personal communication, January 31, 2023). In order to move towards a more ecologically harmonious and socially just (and therefore sustainable) world, teaching must also move towards being more ecologically harmonious and socially just (sustainable). This can be done using emergent pedagogies that centre intersectionality, transdisciplinarity, collaborative learning, values-based pedagogies, decentralization of power and authority, improving working conditions for faculty and staff, exposing the context and conditions of learning, and an openness to new ideas (Classens, 2023a). b. Words: 281 3. Why does equity matter to sustainably? a. Equity can be described as the “numerous disciplinary and philosophical traditions rooted in the common dignity and transcendence of the human person and associated human rights” (Leach et al., 2018, p. 3). Equity ensures that everyone is provided with what they need to be well in a given context (Leach et al., 2018). Because of its nature, equity must be used with careful consideration and examination of socio-ecological, historical, and political experiences of a given group or person. The role that equity has in sustainability is evident when we acknowledge the role that inequity has had in unsustainability. The systems and structures set in Canada by colonialism have worked to strategically suppress Indigenous culture, food systems, and sovereignty (Classens, 2023b). Colonial agricultural food

systems built in their place have worked to maximize yields and profit on land that was stolen from Indigenous peoples; most crops grown in these systems were destined for export, and this is a continued legacy, as most food grown now is still exported (M. Classens, personal communication, February 7, 2023). Built into Indigenous traditional knowledge through culture, language, practices and spirituality is the integral connection to land that provides the moral basis for how Indigenous people and Tribal Nations relate to the ecosystem, to food and to the land in a reciprocal partnership (Goldtooth et al., 2021). This responsibility for the well-being of the land, the water, and all other beings is what drives so many Indigenous-led movements and protests that fight for social and climate justice. The efforts that Indigenous land defenders have in challenging, slowing, and stopping harmful projects like fossil-fuel extraction (oil fracking) and construction (piplines), and the promotion of more regenerative food systems have been incredibly inﬂuential and impactful in the fight for a more sustainable world (Goldtooth et al., 2021). With these considerations, there is no surprise that focusing on building an equitable world through progress in Indigenous reconciliation and sovereignty is effectively also going to create a more sustainable world. b. Words: 330 4. What is the energy transition? What are some of the barriers and opportunities? a. The energy transition describes a shift from a reliance on fossil-fuel based energy sourcing towards more renewable energy sources like hydroelectricity, solar photovoltaic, geothermal, etc. (Classens, 2023c). It is a strategy that scholars and policy-makers are focusing a lot on currently with the intention of creating more sustainable energy systems that will help reduce the amount of atmospheric CO2 and, therefore, work to mitigate the ever-worsening effects of climate change (Markard, 2018). Many barriers present themselves when discussing energy transitions, and the complexity of the problem and potential solutions create many of these barriers. Climate change issues and solutions are often ill-defined and not well understood nor communicated, which leads to societal preferences for energy transitions to be unsettled and varied, political processes then become uncertain and bring about unpredictable challenges, consequences, and resistances (Markard, 2018). Another major barrier to the energy transition is the lack of infrastructure to support the transition, and this is especially relevant for many remote and Indigenous communities that have been forced to rely primarily on diesel-generated power due to available or unavailable infrastructure (Rondon et al., 2021). The high costs that come

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with renewable technologies compared to the competitive fossil-fuel energy prices also create barriers to accessing clean energy (Classens, 2023c). With the countless ways that energy problems and transitions can create winners and losers in the economy and in society, agreeing on what to do, when to do it, and how fast to do it seems to be an impossible task (Markard, 2018). However, some opportunities do exist with the energy transition. The obvious opportunity created is the projected mitigation of harmful climate change impacts (Classens, 2023c). Another significant opportunity is the creation of more jobs within the renewable energy sectors which would also lead to greater energy independence and security (Classens, 2023c; Rondon et al., 2021). b. Words: 305 References Baldwin, A., & Erickson, B. (2020). Introduction: Whiteness, Coloniality, and the Anthropocene. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space , 38(1), 3–11. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775820904485 Classens, M. (2023a). ENV222 – Sustainability Learning [PowerPoint slides]. University of Toronto, Pathways to Sustainability: An Interdisciplinary Aproach. Canvas: https://q.utoronto.ca/ Classens, M. (2023b). Indigenous resurgence, decolonization, and sustainability [PowerPoint slides]. University of Toronto, Pathways to Sustainability: An Interdisciplinary Aproach. Canvas: https://q.utoronto.ca/ Classens, M. (2023c). The (unequal) energy transition [PowerPoint slides]. University of Toronto, Pathways to Sustainability: An Interdisciplinary

Aproach. Canvas: https://q.utoronto.ca/ Goldtooth, D., Saldamando, A., Gracey, K., Goldtooth, T., Rees, C., & Falcon, J. (2021). (rep.). INDIGENOUS RESISTANCE AGAINST CARBON . Oil Change International. Retrieved from https://www.ienearth.org/irac-indigenous-rights-and-responsibilities-frame work/ . Leach, M., Reyers, B., Bai, X., Brondizio, E., Cook, C., Díaz, S., . . . Subramanian, S. (2018). Equity and sustainability in the Anthropocene: A social–ecological systems perspective on their intertwined futures. Global Sustainability, 1 , E13. doi:10.1017/sus.2018.12 Markard, J. (2018). The next phase of the energy transition and its implications for research and policy. Nature Energy , 3(8), 628–633. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-018-0171-7 Rodon, T., Nachet, L., Krolik, C., & Palliser, T. (2021). Building energy sovereignty through community-based projects in Nunavik. Sustainability, 13(16), 9061. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13169061 Todd, Z. (2015) Indigenizing the Anthropocene. In: Davis H and Turpin E (eds) Art in the Anthropocene: Encounters Among Aesthetics, Politics, Environments and Epistemologies. London: Open Humanities Press, pp.241–254.

Toth, E. (2017). Teaching contested University Histories Through Campus Tours. Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy, 27(1), 104–112. https://doi.org/10.1353/tnf.2017.0010 Waters, C. N., Williams, M., Zalasiewicz, J., Turner, S. D., Barnosky, A. D., Head, M. J., Wing, S. L., Wagreich, M., Steffen, W., Summerhayes, C. P., Cundy, A. B., Zinke, J., Fiałkiewicz-Kozieł, B., Leinfelder, R., Haff, P. K., McNeill, J. R., Rose, N. L., Hajdas, I., McCarthy, F. M. G., … Jeandel, C. (2022). Epochs, events and episodes: Marking the geological impact of humans. Earth-Science Reviews, 234, 104171. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2022.104171

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