JGE 331 - Final Essay

Weight: 35% of final grade

2000 words (excluding bibliography, including quotes)
Submission: Blackboard on-line submission (please put your name in the file-name please
e.g. JGE331finalessayJamesNugent.doc).

Fireside Chat - Draft Outline: February 23rd-27th

*Students will meet with the Instructor in groups of 2-3 for 15mins
to go over the outline of their essay and chat about the course
(worth 5% pass/fail).

5%

Essay Draft: Due On-line March 18th, 2pm

5%

Peer Reviews (x2): Due by March 25th, 2pm

5%
(2.5% each)

Final Essay: Due April 1st, 11:59pm

20%

Checklist:
2000 words, nothing more and not much less (use up as much of the word limit as you
can since you don't have very many words)
*Indicate the word count after the very last sentence of your paper *
1.5 spacing, 12point font, Arial or Times New Roman, Typed
*Please put your name and student number onto your document
Include a well-thought out and creative title (start with a working title, and then change
this after your final draft is complete when you have a final sense of your overall
essay).
Your final essay can be on any topic of your choosing so long as it is related to one or more of
the major themes in this course. This essay is not meant to be an extensive research paper.
Rather, I am expecting you to do a close reading and engagement with the articles listed
below as well as those on the syllabus. You must use at least six of the readings from the list.
You can use chapters from the textbook but only up to two chapters can count as part of the
six required readings for this assignment.
Some examples: You may decide that you want to compare and contrast environmental
economics with ecological economics. Or you might want to contrast ecological
modernization with eco-marxism. Or eco-marxism with ecological economics. Within these
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debates, you might want to focus on ONE of the following debates that cut across all these
theoretical approaches, for example:
-is a steady state or 'zero-growth' economy possible? Is it desirable?
-is resource scarcity a pressing issue? Can we find substitutes through technoinnovations?
-how do social and environmental justice considerations fit into these debates, with
specific examples?
-to what extent can all 'externalities' be incorporated into the market? Are there any
undesirable effects of this internalization?
-contemporary examples of enclosure for the sake of environmental regulation
-an assessment of an example of common-pool resource management (NOT covered
in the textbook)
-putting a price on nature: is it really possible? What are the social, political, ethical and
ecological considerations (with reference to one or more specific examples of pricing
mechanisms)
-how do questions of democracy and governance factor into various approaches to
solving environmental problems (e.g. how is or isn't the question of democracy taken
up by environmental economics and ecological economics or free-market
environmentalism vs. Eco-socialism?)
-debates over the calculation of the discount rate, in relation to its application for a
specific environmental problem
-explore an example of the tension between jobs vs. the environment: who are the
actors on the different sides of this debate? What shapes their interests around the
issue? What are the social, political, economic and environmental aspects of the
problem? What might be a solution to the tension?
-etc.
*Take a look over some of the reading guide questions for further inspiration. And please
feel free to come talk to me in office hours if you have an idea.
*I would suggest STARTING your essay by thinking about which themes or readings you want
to cover. Then consider what real-life topics or environmental issues would be a good case
study for engaging with that debate. The readings themselves reference some examples, but
you should not simply use the examples or case studies already presented in the readings.
It's fine to find a similar example or an altogether different example that provides for an
interesting contrast to the examples in the reading.
Your topic can be be a specific geographically situated case study (e.g. Lobster-fishers'
common-pool resource management in Maine) or a specific policy (e.g. carbon cap-and-trade
system). You may find it easier to ground your discussion using a contemporary or historical
case study (e.g. environmental conflict; example of commodification; contemporary debate
around resource scarcity; etc.). Look here for some suggestions if you are really stuck for
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ideas: http://archives.cbc.ca/environment/ But keep in mind, that you are not required to do
extensive research. You may find it helpful to closely compare and contrast the ideas of
authors within one paradigm or topic listed below with another paradigm or topic.
One word of caution: Do not try to do too much with this paper. You only have 2000 words
to make your argument. So while there might be a hundred different arguments you could
make about the debates and topic you choose, you will need to be strategic. Writing well is
also about choosing what NOT to write. You might use your introduction to introduce the
broader debates in the literature or the full scope of your case study, and then be explicit
about what you will and will not be discussing for the rest of the paper. Maybe then try to
come back to that broader debate or issue through your conclusion.
Grading
Your paper will be marked according the Faculty of Arts and Science marking scheme:
http://www.artsandscience.utoronto.ca/ofr/calendar/rules.htm
You will be graded on the basis of:
Writing (25%): writing style, organization or structure of paper, grammar,
clearly-stated thesis, smooth flow between sentences and paragraphs, creative
title and introduction
Critical analysis (75%): quality of your thesis statement, the degree to which
supporting arguments and claims are properly backed up by evidence (in this
case, most if not all of your evidence will be coming from secondary sources).
Part of this mark also comes from an assessment of how challenging your topic
was to do.
A failure to substantially engage with at least six readings will result in a poor mark. Papers
that do not meet, or that exceed, the word length limits will be deducted marks.
Late Penalties:
**Because other students need to read your draft, draft essays (due March 18 th, 2pm)
will NOT be accepted late unless there is an extenuating circumstance.
**Late assignment will not be accepted past April 1 st , which is the last day of classes.
Except for medical or emergency circumstances**
You will conduct two peer reviews, both due March 25 th. We are setting up an electronic
system for doing this. Instructions to follow. Late peer reviews will incur a 3% per day penalty
off the final paper mark, including 3% for each weekend day.
If circumstances arise which cause you to legitimately miss any of these deadlines, please
contact me by email (james.nugent@mail.utoronto.ca) as soon as you can. In this case, you
3

will need to provide me with appropriate documentation.For medical exemptions, only an

official U of T form signed by your physician will be accepted. For non-medical emergencies,
please contact your college registrar, which may be able to provide a letter documenting your
situation. Be aware that submitting a note that has been altered or obtained under false
pretences is considered a very serious offence by the University.
Writing and Plagiarism:
There are many tools to help you improve your writing. Please make an appointment with
your college's writing centre and check out the following website: www.utoronto.ca/writing .
Plagiarism is a extremely serious academic offence and we will be taking measures to identify
plagiarized assignments. It is your responsibility to u
Note: Do NOT email me your papers. Please submit directly to Blackboard.
Submitting your Assignment with Blackboard and Turnitin.com:
PLEASE READ CAREFULLY
**Note: It is YOUR responsibility to ensure you have uploaded your assignment to Blackboard
correctly. Failing to upload your assignment properly is not an excuse for not submitting an
assignment, and late penalties may be deducted if we do not receive your assignment
properly.**
**Treat your electronic submission seriously, as you would a hard-copy submission. Please
only take one attempt to submit your assignment electronically. A second attempt is
permitted by the system if you make a mistake. But before you submit it, be sure to read it
over and include the bibliography, etc.. You must submit your assignment as either an .rtf,
.odt, or .doc (NOT an .docx) document. Do NOT submit your document as a .pdf.**
**Most importantly, be sure to cut and paste the text of your assignment into the Visual Text
Box Editor when you are able to do so (see below). We will not mark this version, so don't
worry about formatting. It is only a back-up in case there is a problem opening your attached
document. Again, it is your responsibility to follow these instructions and failure to do so may
end up costing you severe late penalties.**
To submit to Turnitin.com, login and then use:
Class ID:9276086
Password: whatisvalue
Submit your draft under: JGE331 (2015) Draft Essay (Your final paper will be submitted under
the same, as a revision).

List of Readings
Note: You must use at least six readings in your final essay. Two can be from the
textbook, meaning that at least four have to come from the below list. Some additional
research may be needed to find a specific issue/event/socio-ecological problem. But
this is NOT an extensive research essay. The point is for you to do a close reading of a
smaller number of texts.
Overpopulation and Limits to Growth?
Malthus, T. R. (Thomas Robert), 1766-1834 . An essay on the principle of population, as it
affects the future improvement of society. With remarks on the speculations of Mr.
Godwin, M. Condorcet, and other writers. Electronic Text Center, University of
Virginia Library. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/MalPopu.html
Preface
Chapters 1,2,4,5, and 10
John Bellamy Foster. 1998. Malthus Essay on Population at Age 200. Monthly Review.
Vol.50, No.7. Available on-line at: http://monthlyreview.org/1998/12/01/malthusessay-on-population-at-age-200
Kitzes, Justin, Mathis Wackernagel, Jonathan Loh, Audrey Peller, Steven Goldfinger, Deborah
Cheng and Kallin Tea. 2008. Shrink and Share: Humanity's Present and Future
Ecological Footprint. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences . Vol.
363. No.1491. pg:467-475
Meadows, Donella, Jrgen Randers and Dennis Meadows. 2004. Limits to growth : the 30year update. White River Junction, Vt: Chelsea Green Publishing Company.
Arneil, Barbara. John Locke, Natural Law And Colonialism. History Of Political Thought. Xiii:
4. Winter 1992.
Dasgupta, P. (2008). "Nature in economics." Environmental and Resource Economics 39(1):
1-7

Critiques of Malthusian and Neo-Malthusian Perspectives

Boserup, E. (1987). "Population and Technology in Preindustrial Europe." Population &
Development Review 13(4): 691-701
*Huber, Joseph. 1991. Ecological modernization: Beyond scarcity and bureaucracy. In
Technologie en milieubeheer: Tussen sanering en ecologische modernisering., eds. A.
P. J. Mol, G. Spaargaren and B. Klapwijk, 167-183. Den Haag: SDU. Reprinted in:
Mol, Arthur, David Sonnenfeld, and Gert Spaargaren, eds. 2010. The ecological
modernisation reader: Environmental reform in theory and practice. New York:
Routledge.
Leach, M. and J. Fairhead (2000). "Challenging Neo-Malthusian Deforestation Analyses in
West Africa's Dynamic Forest Landscapes." Population and Development Review
26(1): 17-43.
Simon, Julian. 1996. The Ultimate Resource 2. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press.
Tragedy of the Commons? Property, Enclosure and Common-Pool Resource
Management
Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons, Science 162: 1243-8
Denevan, W. M. (1992). "The pristine myth: the landscape of the Americas in 1492." Annals of
the Association of American Geographers 82: 369-385
Jones, Laura. 2001. A Different Kind of Environmentalist. Fraser Forum. [The Fraser
Institute]. April. Pp.4-6.
http://www.fraseramerica.org/Commerce.Web/product_files/A_Different_Kind_of_Envir
onmentalist.pdf
Smith, Fred. 1993. The Market and Nature. In Ecology, Liberty and Property: A Free Market
Environmental Reader. June 5th, 2000. http://cei.org/op-eds-and-articles/marketand-nature
*Yandle, Bruce. 1997. Chapter 4: Common-Law Protection of Environmental Rights.
Common Sense and Common Law for the Environment: Creating wealth in
hummingbird economies. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield. pp.88-118
*Ostrom, Elinor. 1990. Chapter 1: Reflections on the Commons. In, Governing the
Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge University
Press. pp.1-28.

Tietenberg, T. H. (1980). Transferable discharge permits and the control of stationary source
air pollution: A survey and synthesis, Land Economics 56(4): 391-416
John Locke Of Property from C.B. MacPherson 1978 (Ed) Property, University of Toronto
Press, pp. 15-27.
Feeny, D., F. Berkes, et al. (1990). "The tragedy of the commons: twenty-two years later."
Human Ecology 18(1): 1-19
Bumpus, A. G. and D. Liverman (2008). "Accumulation by decarbonization and the
governance of carbon offsets." Economic Geography 84(2): 127-15
Mansfield, B. (2004). "Neoliberalism in the oceans: rationalization, property rights, and the
commons question." Geoforum 35: 313-326
Harris, Cole. How Did Colonialism Dispossess? Comments from an Edge of Empire (2004)
Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 94:1, 165-182.
Putting a Price on Nature: Introduction to Environmental Economics (Contingent
Valuation, Cost-Benefit Analysis, Discounting, Payment Schemes and Market-Based
Mechanisms)
*Cato, Molly Scott. 2011. Chapter 3: Neoclassical Economics. Environment and Economy.
Routledge: New York. p.35-51.
*Jaeger, William K. 2005. Chapter 24: Valuing the Environment. In, Environmental
Economics for Tree Huggers and Other Skeptics. Washington: Island Press. pp.217236
Costanza, R., R. D'Arge, et al. (1997). "The value of the world's ecosystem services and
natural capital." Nature 387(6630): 253-260.
*Nathaniel O. Keohane and Sheila M. Olmstead. Chapter 10: Market-Based Instruments in
Practice. In, Markets and the Environment. 2007. Washington, DC: Island Press.
pp.182-206.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2007). The State of Food and
Agriculture 2007. Rome, FAO, United Nations. Report available at
http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a1200e/a1200e00.htm
Read chapters 1,2,3 (pp. 3-50)
Critical Perspectives of Market-Based Mechanisms and Payment Schemes
*O'Neil, John. 2007. Chapter 1: Markets and the Environment: The Solution is the
7

Problem. In, Markets, Deliberation and Environment. New York: Routledge. pp.21-46.
Sullivan, S. (2010). The Environmentality of 'Earth Incorporated: On contemporary primitive
accumulation and the financialization of conservation. Paper presented at the
conference An Environmental History of Neoliberalism, Lund University, Sweden, 6-8
May 2010. Available at
http://www.worldecologyresearch.org/papers2010/Sullivan_financialisation_conservatio
n.pdf
Naughten, Austen . 2010. Trading Carbon: How it works and why it is controversial.
Moreton-in-Marsh: Fern.
http://www.fern.org/sites/fern.org/files/FERN_designedtofail_internet_0.pdf
Auld, G., L. H. Gulbrandsen, et al. (2008). Certification schemes and the impacts on forests
and forestry. Annual Review of Environment and Resources. 33: 187-211
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2005). Effects of eco-labeling
schemes: Compilation of recent studies. Environment Directorate and Trade
Directorate. Paris, OECD
Mutersbaugh, T. (2004). "Serve and certify: paradoxes of service work in organic coffee
certification." Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 22: 533-552.
Chilvers, J. (2009) Deliberative and Participatory Approaches in Environmental Geography, in
A Companion to Environmental Geography (eds N. Castree, D. Demeritt, D.
Liverman and B. Rhoads), Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK. doi:
10.1002/9781444305722.ch24
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/book/10.1002/978144430
5722 [*note: you may have to be on a university computer to access this reading]
Common, Mick & Sigrid Stagl. (2005). Ecological economics: an introduction. Chapter 1:
An Introduction to Ecological Economics. Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge
University Press, 2005, Available on-line through the UofT library system:
http://simplelink.library.utoronto.ca/url.cfm/131054
Ropke, Inge. (2005). Trends in the development of ecological economics from the late
1980s to the early 2000s. Ecological Economics. 55: (read pp.266-283 only)
Eco-Marxist Perspectives: Is Capitalism Sustainable?
*O'Connor, James. 1998. Chapter 8: The Second Contradiction of Capitalism. Natural
Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism. p.158-177.
Foster, John Bellamy. 1999. Marx's Theory of Metabolic Rift: Classical Foundations for
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Environmental Sociology. American Journal of Sociology 105, no. 2: 366-405.

You only need to Read pg. 373-390
*OConnor, Martin. (1993). On the misadventures of capitalist nature. Capitalism, Nature,
Socialism. 4(3):7-40.
Vlachou, Andriana. 2005. Environmental regulation: a value-theoretic and class-based
analysis. Cambridge Journal of Economics. 29(4): 577.
Benton, Ted. 1989. Marxism and Natural Limits: An Ecological Critique and Reconstruction
I, no. 178 (November-December).