Deck 15: Populations, Cities, and the Environment

Question 1

Thomas Malthus would be most worried about

A) the movement of upper- and middle-class white residents out of cities and into suburbs.
B) new diseases for which antibiotics are ineffective.
C) the U.S. government refusing to fund international agencies that provide family planning services.
D) child labor laws that prohibit children from working.

Answer 1

C

Question 2

A country has a population of 1,231,994 as of December 31, 2017. On December 31, 2018, you are tasked with calculating the growth rate over the year. The country experienced 128,240 births and 103,412 deaths. The net migration was 12,388. What was the growth rate?

A) 2.0 percent
B) 3.0 percent
C) 10.4 percent
D) 55.4 percent

Answer 2

B

Question 3

________ is the study of the size, composition, distribution, and change in a human population.

A) Environmental sociology
B) An ecological paradigm
C) Conservationism
D) Demography

Answer 3

D

Question 4

In which year did the first United States Census take place?

A) 1780
B) 1790
C) 1850
D) 1890

Question 5

________ contributed to the rapid population growth in Europe around the time of Thomas Malthus in the eighteenth century.

A) The potato
B) Penicillin
C) The automobile
D) Better methods of contraception

Question 6

The population in the United States is growing even though fertility rates have dropped below the level needed to maintain the population level because

A) there has been a decrease in life expectancy.
B) the mortality rate is increasing.
C) there have been considerable advances in modern medicine.
D) immigration rates have risen.

Question 7

The globe will have two billion more people living on it by the year 2050, according to the United Nations estimates. At that point, the population may actually shrink because, although life expectancy may continue to rise, the average number of children each person gives birth to is poised to drop below 2.1. What demographic variable might make the global population drop?

A) a return to agrarianism
B) fertility
C) race
D) immigration

Question 8

In the past seventy years, the Earth's population has

A) shrunk slightly.
B) peaked around twenty-five years ago and has been shrinking ever since.
C) increased by around 25 percent.
D) nearly tripled.

Question 9

North Dakota has experienced one of the highest population growth rates in the United States in the recent past due to an oil boom. Which demographic variable explains this?

A) fertility
B) migration
C) mortality
D) life span

Question 10

Which of the following is an example of a way to collect demographic data?

A) voluntary simplicity and recycling
B) organizing environmental activist groups to engage in direct actions
C) the U.S. Census Bureau sending out surveys
D) the Malthusian theorem

Question 11

Which of the following would you expect to see happen in the future if the pattern of demographic transition that followed the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the United States is repeated in Africa?

A) increasing infant mortality rates
B) increasing mortality rates
C) decreasing immigration rates
D) decreasing mortality rates

Question 12

Japan has one of the world's highest life expectancies. However, it has experienced a net loss of population for many years, which is the result of declining birth and immigration rates. The population did rise in both 2008 and 2009, largely due to Japanese citizens abroad returning home. This data was likely analyzed by a

A) demographer.
B) social ecologist.
C) environmental sociologist.
D) nongovernmental organization.

Question 13

What is the net migration rate?

A) the number of deaths that can be expected per one thousand people in a given year
B) the average number of births per one thousand people in the total population
C) the average age to which a person can expect to live
D) the number of emigrants subtracted from the number of immigrants

Question 14

Garrett Hardin believes that "a 'just' sharing of the world's wealth among all the inhabitants, without coercive control of individual reproduction, would result in a continual, exponential growth of the human population" and much more suffering. This means Hardin is a

A) grassroots organizer.
B) believer in sustainable development.
C) neo-Malthusian.
D) mainstream environmentalist.

Question 15

Before the United States invaded Iraq, about 5.5 people out of every thousand would die each year, according to a controversial study published in the British medical journal The Lancet. After the invasion, that number rose to over 13. This study was attempting to measure

A) immigration.
B) suicide.
C) morbidity.
D) mortality.

Question 16

Huge numbers of dispossessed U.S. farmers left places like Oklahoma and moved to California during the Great Depression of the 1930s. This is an example of

A) mortality.
B) internal colonization.
C) internal migration.
D) emigration.

Question 17

According to demographers, Milwaukee is a ________ because it has over 500,000 inhabitants.

A) megacity
B) global city
C) metropolis
D) metropolitan statistical area (MSA)

Question 18

Which of the following net migration rates would indicate that an equal number of people entered and left a country in the same year?

A) 0
B) -1
C) 1
D) None of the above-a net migration rate cannot measure this.

Question 19

________ is a basic demographic variable.

A) Agglomeration
B) Dystopia
C) Pluralism
D) Migration

Question 20

Will the world population continue to grow, or will it eventually stabilize?

A) It will continue to grow until a disaster strikes that reduces the population.
B) It will continue to grow indefinitely, but new solutions for overpopulation will be found.
C) It will eventually stabilize, but not for many years.
D) We may not know the answer for many years.

Question 21

If a sociologist believes that urban sprawl creates largely white, upper- and middle-class suburbs whose residents have access to resources that urban dwellers do not, what theoretical perspective do they represent?

A) symbolic interactionism
B) conflict theory
C) structural functionalism
D) modernism

Question 22

Some urban planners are working hard to make sure their communities use the same land for multiple purposes. In particular, they advocate for using land "vertically," such as having apartments on top of retail space. This type of planning is called

A) smart growth.
B) urban sprawl.
C) suburbanization.
D) edge city development.

Question 23

In which type of community would Georg Simmel believe individuals are LEAST likely to have friendly relationships with their neighbors?

A) a rural area
B) a suburb
C) an exurb
D) a large city

Question 24

During the rise of suburbanization in the 1950s and 1960s, ________ were MOST likely to move away from the urban core to the suburbs.

A) Single mothers
B) Senior citizens
C) Racial and ethnic minorities
D) Whites

Question 25

The Industrial Revolution made cities necessary, as large numbers of people were needed to work in factories. Why have many people found city life to be attractive ever since?

A) Cities offer a profound sense of security.
B) Cities bring people together and help to develop community.
C) Cities offer a high degree of personal freedom.
D) Cities help people develop deep and intense relationships.

Question 26

Under what circumstances are bystanders LESS likely to attempt to help a stranger who appears to be in danger?

A) when the bystander could also be in danger
B) when there are lots of bystanders
C) when the danger comes from a natural rather than a human source
D) when the danger might lead to legal liability for a bystander who intervenes

Question 27

An edge city is different from a suburb because it

A) is primarily a bedroom community.
B) has its own centers of employment and commerce.
C) is smaller than a suburb.
D) tends to be located far from major highway intersections.

Question 28

What is the shift of large segments of the population away from the urban core and toward the edges of cities called?

A) social ecology
B) urban deforestation
C) civil inattention
D) suburbanization

Question 29

In the past, the vast majority of people lived in rural areas and small towns, where it was surprising to encounter an actual stranger. Today, most of us live in cities, where we are constantly surrounded by total strangers. This leads directly to

A) suburbanization.
B) a demographic transition.
C) social atomization.
D) increased divorce rates.

Question 30

According to law enforcement, you should request assistance from an individual, even a stranger, if you are in trouble or injured, rather than yelling for help in general or appealing to a group. This strategy would help to defeat

A) the broken windows paradigm.
B) alienation.
C) the bystander effect.
D) street crime.

Question 31

________ is one of the categories of urbanites identified by Herbert Gans in his ethnography Urban Villagers.

A) Bohemians
B) Cosmopolites
C) Roma
D) The dispossessed

Question 32

Chris McCandless lived on his own in the wilderness because he felt constrained and betrayed by a society that cared so little for its individual members. What term describes the attitude to which McCandless objected?

A) suburbanization
B) urbanites
C) edge cities
D) social atomization

Question 33

The city of Mumbai, India has 14,000,000 people, which makes it the second-largest city in the world. In addition, the city handles the majority of India's maritime commerce. These facts help to explain why Mumbai would be called a(n)

A) metropolitan statistical area.
B) global city.
C) agglomeration.
D) agrarian area.

Question 34

Urban density is measured by

A) the number of square miles occupied by a city.
B) the number of adults in a given metropolitan area.
C) the number of people per square mile.
D) the number of people in an economically and socially integrated area.

Question 35

According to Georg Simmel, city dwellers relate to one another

A) through restrictive constraints on personal behavior.
B) through family connections.
C) in terms of class-based loyalties.
D) in objective and instrumental terms.

Question 36

What has happened if a blighted urban neighborhood has suddenly developed an assortment of upscale restaurants, coffee shops, hip boutiques, and art galleries?

A) It has changing patterns of gender relations.
B) It is becoming gentrified.
C) It is experiencing smart growth.
D) It is growing into an edge city.

Question 37

________ are associated with an increase in social atomization.

A) Rural areas
B) Frontier counties
C) Suburbs
D) Cities

Question 38

The process by which members of a group individually conclude that nothing is wrong because they observe that no one else seems to be worried is called

A) alienation.
B) community feeling.
C) pluralistic ignorance.
D) the bystander effect.

Question 39

According to Herbert Gans, you would be considered ________ if you move to New York City because you love theater.

A) a cosmopolite
B) an ethnic villager
C) single
D) a student

Question 40

When did cities become the prevalent residential areas?

A) seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
B) eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
C) nineteenth and twentieth centuries
D) twentieth and twenty-first centuries

Question 41

What do we call resources, such as coal and oil, that CANNOT be replaced except through very slow geological processes?

A) nonrenewable resources
B) social problems
C) renewable resources
D) environmentally friendly

Question 42

Ecologist Aldo Leopold wrote about his home state of Wisconsin in The Sand County Almanac. In one moving section, he described a triangular cemetery founded in the nineteenth century that, because of its unusual shape, contained a tiny patch of prairie that was unmowed and undisturbed. Every year, Leopold would watch a single silphium plant bloom there sometime in July. It was the only one he had found in that part of the state. He used this example to discuss the many plants native to the prairie that have been replaced by a few commercial plants grown by farmers. Leopold is observing a change in

A) pollution.
B) suburbanization.
C) social ecology.
D) biodiversity.

Question 43

A man sexually accosts a young woman on the New York subway while three onlookers watch. The woman pleads for help and the man jumps off as the doors open for the station. None of the three onlookers say or do anything. What sociological term best fits this example?

A) social atomization
B) pluralistic ignorance
C) civil inattention
D) diffusion of responsibility

Question 44

A sociologist who examines how cities are organized or the migration of human populations is studying

A) renewable resources.
B) environmental attitudes.
C) the new ecological paradigm.
D) environmental justice.

Question 45

How are environmental sociologists understanding the environment when they study the problems of waste and consumption?

A) as a source of meaning
B) as a resource to be used for development
C) as a place of recreation and leisure
D) as a social problem

Question 46

What sort of pollution is responsible for global warming?

A) water
B) light
C) groundwater
D) air

Question 47

What is the name of the subdiscipline that studies the social causes and consequences of environmental problems?

A) transformative environmentalism
B) sociobiology
C) environmental sociology
D) biological ecology

Question 48

What problem will result from even slightly higher global temperatures?

A) rising sea levels
B) loss of sites to store garbage
C) larger islands
D) gentrification

Question 49

The Environmental Protection Agency claims that the United States has one of the safest supplies of drinking water in the world, but

A) 10 percent of U.S. water systems do not meet EPA standards.
B) the EPA has covered up systematic contamination of the water supply.
C) most Americans still complain of waterborne disease.
D) most of the U.S. water supply comes from desalinization plants.

Question 50

The once sleepy suburb of San Jose became a center of high-tech industry during the dot-com boom of the 1990s. San Jose has its own centers of employment and commerce. San Jose is an example of what?

A) gentrification
B) urban renewal
C) edge city
D) smart growth

Question 51

Which of the following facts might a sociologist be interested in if they are studying the problems associated with resource depletion when investigating the way our society uses paper?

A) It requires more than three pounds of tree pulp to make one pound of paper.
B) Making paper pumps acid into rivers and streams.
C) Paper products are useful for storage.
D) Paper products are used to spread information.

Question 52

Modern economies require constant growth, and with that growth comes an ever-increasing need for resources called

A) edge cities.
B) economic modernization.
C) the treadmill of production.
D) the new ecological paradigm.

Question 53

Which sociological term best fits the original reporting of Kitty Genovese's murder and the response of her neighbors?

A) alienation
B) social atomization
C) civil inattention
D) altruism

Question 54

To what are environmental sociologists referring when they use the term "environment"?

A) wilderness and other areas that have not yet been developed by humans
B) only renewable and nonrenewable resources
C) those elements of the world that were not constructed through human effort
D) both the natural and the human-made environment

Question 55

A government continues to privatize once public environmental resources, such as forests. This government does so to grow its revenue stream while the private companies who gain ownership of the forest continue deforestation at exponentially higher levels, permanently eliminating most of the country's trees, all in the name of greater profit margins. What is this an example of?

A) new ecological paradigm
B) global dimming
C) greenhouse effect
D) treadmill of production

Question 56

The study of human populations and their impact on the natural world is called

A) the new ecological paradigm.
B) biodiversity.
C) conservationism.
D) radical environmentalism.

Question 57

Few people today know that the Milky Way is a spiral arm of our galaxy that contains a dense cluster of stars. In the past, it appeared not as individual points of light, but as a splash of light across the night sky. Why is it no longer visible this way?

A) the greenhouse effect
B) light pollution
C) urban sprawl
D) air pollution

Question 58

Why is the "water grabbing" of developing countries possible?

A) Water is a transboundary resource.
B) Developing countries sell their water to wealthier countries.
C) Developing countries have more water.
D) No one owns the water.

Question 59

Which of the following is a major area of concern within the four analytic frameworks of environmental sociology?

A) demography
B) attitudes about the environment
C) incarceration rates
D) biodiversity

Question 60

Damage to tropical rain forests is causing the extinction of many species, but it is also detrimental to human life. Why?

A) Rain forests provide vast amounts of food for the Western world.
B) Rain forests absorb carbon dioxide and provide valuable plants.
C) Rain forests provide much-needed water for people.
D) Rain forests are home to much of the world's population.

Question 61

Flint, Michigan is a majority African American city dealing with contaminated water. Flint, Michigan has been pointed to as an example of

A) corporate welfare.
B) environmental justice.
C) climate justice.
D) environmental racism.

Question 62

During what era did the environmental movement focus on citizen participation and change at the local level?

A) mainstream environmentalism
B) the conservation era
C) the modern environmental movement
D) grassroots environmentalism

Question 63

Earth First describes itself as a global organization, but its website contains links to local chapters in Montreal, the Netherlands, and Humboldt and Santa Cruz, California. What does this suggest about the organization?

A) It believes in grassroots environmentalism.
B) It came out of the modern environmental movement.
C) It primarily cares about sustainable development.
D) It works for conservation of wilderness areas.

Question 64

What environmental activist is credited with organizing the first Earth Day?

A) Rachel Carson
B) Gaylord Nelson
C) Ralph Nader
D) Iona Frisbee

Question 65

Nature writer Barry Lopez spent time with the Inuit of the Arctic and concluded that hunting societies had different attitudes about the land than industrial ones because "the focus of a hunter in a hunting society was not killing animals but attending to the myriad relationships he understood bound him into the world he occupied with them." What kind of attitude do hunting societies have?

A) Judeo-Christian
B) the new ecological paradigm
C) human exceptionalism
D) anthropocentric

Question 66

The belief that humans will find ways to overcome any problems posed by pollution and waste is consistent with what attitude?

A) conservation
B) the modern environmental movement
C) the Malthusian theorem
D) human exceptionalism

Question 67

According to the text, which of the following is one of the four major eras of environmental activism?

A) Earth Day
B) postmodern environmentalism
C) climate justice
D) the conservation era

Question 68

Many parents today are worried about the bottles out of which their babies drink, because many contain plastics made with Bisphenol A (BPA). This is a compound that helps to make hard, clear, shatter-proof plastics, but it might also be a neurotoxin to which children may be especially vulnerable. Science has yet to fully explore this issue, but what era of the environmental movement does this concern MOST closely follow?

A) the conservation era
B) mainstream environmentalism
C) grassroots environmentalism
D) the modern environmental movement

Question 69

Why are the poor and members of ethnic and racial minorities more likely to suffer health problems that result from exposure to pollution?

A) They are disproportionately exposed to pollution.
B) They are poorly educated about the risks of pollution.
C) Slumlords are not required to maintain their properties at the same level as they would be in other communities.
D) Members of these communities simply do not care about the dangers of pollution.

Question 70

Environmental racism occurs when

A) environmental groups avoid hiring or recruiting members of racial minorities.
B) people use violent or criminal methods to achieve their goals of protecting the environment.
C) an environmental policy or practice negatively affects individuals, groups, or communities as a result of their race or ethnicity.
D) people believe that humans are exempt from natural ecological limits.

Question 71

How do people with an anthropocentric relationship with the environment perceive nature?

A) as something to be preserved
B) as a place to find spiritual truth
C) as something to be conquered
D) as something to be studied and examined before it is tainted by human activity

Question 72

Theodore Roosevelt signed legislation on July 1, 1908 that created forty-five national forests. Roosevelt was a passionate hunter and believed that all animals in America would soon be gone unless something was done to preserve some wild areas. To which era of the environmental movement does this goal belong?

A) grassroots environmentalism
B) the conservation era
C) mainstream environmentalism
D) the modern environmental movement

Question 73

Factories that produce noxious levels of pollution and toxic waste dumps are often located near areas where minorities and the poor reside. Which of the following terms could be used to describe this situation?

A) corporate welfare
B) resource environmentalism
C) climate justice
D) environmental racism

Question 74

The Environmental Protection Agency has a department with a mandate to work for the "fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies." What is this department MOST likely to be called based on your reading in Chapter 15?

A) the Environmental Justice Department
B) the Cooperative Environmental Management Department
C) the Environmental Education Department
D) the Policy, Economics, and Innovation Department

Question 75

The federal government plans to store nuclear waste under a mountain in Nevada, but many people who live in Nevada are trying their best to have it housed elsewhere. This is a classic example of

A) conservation.
B) mainstream environmentalism.
C) human exceptionalism.
D) NIMBY.

Question 76

Which political party made social justice, community-based economics, feminism, and diversity central to its platform?

A) the Green Party
B) the Republican Party
C) the Libertarian Party
D) the Natural Law Party

Question 77

What was MOST environmental activism focused on during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries?

A) the protection and conservation of wilderness
B) environmental justice
C) grassroots activism to involve individual community members
D) lowering the ecological footprints of both individuals and society as a whole

Question 78

An environmentalist named Aldo Leopold believed that we need to develop a "land ethic" that "changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it." What sort of attitude is Leopold trying to move our society away from?

A) the new ecological paradigm
B) grassroots
C) conservation
D) anthropocentric

Question 79

The Environmental Defense Fund hires scientists, economists, and lawyers to lobby the government and to educate the public about the environmental consequences of modern life. They brag that they had a part in passing important elements of the Clean Air Act, California's emissions rules, and a treaty to phase out CFCs. With what era of the environmental movement is this sort of organization MOST commonly associated?

A) the modern environmental movement
B) conservation environmentalism
C) Earth Day
D) mainstream environmentalism

Question 80

An industry dumps waste in an area adjacent to where members of racial and ethnic minorities reside. What is this practice called?

A) corporate welfare
B) resource depletion
C) NIMBY
D) environmental racism