Deck 15: City and Country: the Social World and the Natural World

Question 1

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) Marxist.
E) mainstream environmentalist.

Answer 1

C

Question 2

The birth rate in Italy is much lower than it was in the past, with the average woman now expected to bear about 1.3 children, far fewer children than are needed to replace two parents. What might this lead to?

A) higher emigration rates
B) lower mortality rates
C) increases in pollution
D) a demographic free fall
E) a Malthusian dilemma

Answer 2

D

Question 3

The study of the size, composition, distribution, and change in a human population is called:

A) environmental sociology.
B) an ecological paradigm.
C) conservationism.
D) demography.
E) social ecology.

Answer 3

D

Question 4

Which of the following would be an example of a "positive check" on population growth?

A) family planning
B) emigration
C) cloning
D) famine
E) contraception

Question 5

Which of the following is a basic demographic variable?

A) agglomeration
B) dystopia
C) pluralism
D) sustainable development
E) migration

Question 6

According to a controversial study published in the British medical journal The Lancet, before the United States invaded Iraq, about 5.5 people out of every thousand would die each year, but after the invasion, that number rose to over 13. Right or wrong, this study was attempting to measure:

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

Question 7

Given that fertility rates in the United States have dropped below the level needed to maintain the population level, why is the population here growing?

A) life expectancy
B) fertility
C) mortality
D) advances in modern medicine
E) immigration

Question 8

Will 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.
E) It will stabilize in the near future.

Question 9

If the pattern of demographic transition that followed the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the United States is repeated in Africa, which of the following would you NOT expect to see happen in the future?

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

Question 10

In 1987 the emigration rate in Ireland was 40.0 and the immigration rate was 19.0. What was the net migration rate?

A) 29.5
B) 21.0
C) 59.0
D) -21.0
E) -9.0

Question 11

The net migration rate is:

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 added to the number of immigrants.
E) the number of emigrants subtracted from the number of immigrants.

Question 12

Anti-Malthusians believe that Thomas Malthus couldn't have envisioned the many modern developments that impact population demographics. What is it that the anti-Malthusians worry about?

A) Populations will begin to decline.
B) Populations will spiral out of control, far outstripping the supply of food.
C) Populations in the industrial world will grow faster and faster.
D) Populations in the less industrialized world will continue to grow quickly.
E) Food production grows arithmetically.

Question 13

The "green revolution" refers to a major transformation in agriculture that occurred in the twentieth century and resulted in an explosion in food production. For example, plant biologists bred wheat that had much shorter stalks and carried more wheat on top without falling over. What effect would you expect this to have on global demographics?

A) The number of people living in rural areas will increase in a rural rebound.
B) There will be more pressure on edge cities.
C) There will be no effect whatsoever.
D) The population will increase.
E) The amount of pollution will decrease.

Question 14

Although Japan has one of the world's highest life expectancies, it has experienced a net loss of population for many years, the result of declining birth rates and very low immigration rates. However, the population rose in both 2008 and 2009, largely due to Japanese citizens abroad returning home. This data was collected by a:

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

Question 15

Even according to the lowest United Nations estimates, the globe will have two billion more people living on it by the year 2050. After that, the population may actually shrink because, while life expectancy may continue to rise, the average number of children each woman 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
E) emigration

Question 16

During the Great Depression in the 1930s, huge numbers of dispossessed U.S. farmers left places like Oklahoma and moved to California. This is an example of:

A) mortality.
B) internal colonization.
C) demographic restructuring.
D) internal migration.
E) emigration.

Question 17

Which of the following is an example of a study of demography?

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
E) trying to get more citizens involved at the grassroots level

Question 18

Which of the following would most worry Thomas Malthus?

A) using public funds to support poor senior citizens
B) an aggressive U.S. foreign policy
C) new diseases for which antibiotics are ineffective
D) the U.S. government refusing to fund international agencies that provide family planning services
E) child labor laws

Question 19

Which of the following helped lead to rapid population growth in Europe in the eighteenth century, around the time of Thomas Malthus?

A) the potato
B) penicillin
C) the automobile
D) better methods of contraception
E) increasingly destructive wars

Question 20

How has the earth's population changed in the past fifty years?

A) It has shrunk slightly.
B) It peaked around 25 years ago and has been shrinking ever since.
C) It has increased by around 25 percent.
D) It has more than tripled.
E) It has seriously decreased.

Question 21

How is urban density measured?

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
E) the number of people in a city

Question 22

In the early 1900s, what percentage of Americans lived in cities?

A) 90 percent
B) 10 percent
C) 6 percent
D) 40 percent
E) 99 percent

Question 23

What do demographers call urban areas with at least 50,000 inhabitants?

A) megacities
B) global cities
C) communes
D) global density centers
E) Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA)

Question 24

In the past, the vast majority of people lived in rural areas and small towns where it was truly shocking to encounter a genuine stranger, but 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.
E) international travel.

Question 25

According to Herbert Gans, if you move to New York City because you love theater, you are:

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

Question 26

What sorts of places are associated with an increase in social atomization?

A) rural areas
B) frontier counties
C) suburbs
D) edge cities
E) cities

Question 27

How is an edge city different from a suburb?

A) An edge city is primarily a bedroom community.
B) An edge city has its own centers of employment and commerce.
C) An edge city is smaller than a suburb.
D) An edge city tends to be located far from major highway intersections.
E) An edge city is part of the problem of urban sprawl.

Question 28

The city of Mumbai, India, has fourteen million people, making it the second-largest city in the world, and Mumbai 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) sustainable living area.
D) agglomeration.
E) agrarian area.

Question 29

What sort of rural areas are most likely to experience a "rural rebound"?

A) areas that are especially far from large cities
B) areas that are near urban areas
C) areas with especially low housing costs
D) areas with lots of ranching, as opposed to farming
E) areas where the population per square mile is especially low

Question 30

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 McCandless objected to?

A) suburbanization
B) the rural rebound
C) edge cities
D) social atomization
E) smart growth

Question 31

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

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

Question 32

What group was most likely to move away from the urban core to the suburbs?

A) recent immigrants
B) single mothers
C) senior citizens
D) racial and ethnic minorities
E) whites

Question 33

If the California legislature passes a bill designed to make people live in tighter, denser spaces, what problem is it attempting to combat?

A) gentrification
B) low levels of mobility
C) the Malthusian trap
D) racial segregation
E) urban sprawl

Question 34

Which of the following is NOT one of the categories of urbanites identified by Herbert Gans in his ethnography Urban Villagers?

A) bohemians
B) cosmopolites
C) singles
D) ethnic villagers
E) the deprived

Question 35

If a blighted urban neighborhood were to suddenly develop an assortment of upscale restaurants, coffee shops, hip boutiques, and art galleries, then the neighborhood is:

A) changing patterns of gender relations.
B) becoming gentrified.
C) experiencing smart growth.
D) growing into an edge city.
E) reacting to the rural rebound.

Question 36

In countries where ____________ has happened, there no longer is a "natural increase" in population.

A) extreme water pollution
B) human exemptionalism
C) the demographic free fall
D) the Industrial Revolution
E) the demographic transition

Question 37

Which of the following does NOT happen to a neighborhood during gentrification?

A) Buildings are converted or remodeled.
B) Property values increase.
C) Poorer residents are displaced.
D) Old neighborhoods are beautified.
E) Tacos are only served from food trucks.

Question 38

Some urban planners are working hard to make sure their communities use the same land for multiple purposes, especially by using the land "vertically"-that is, 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.
E) the exurbs.

Question 39

According to Georg Simmel, how do city dwellers relate to one another?

A) through restrictive constraints on personal behavior
B) by constantly monitoring one another in order to detect violations of norms and values
C) through family connections
D) in terms of class-based loyalties
E) in objective and instrumental terms

Question 40

The Industrial Revolution made cities necessary, as a large number of people had to be brought in to work in factories, but ever since then many people have found city life attractive. Why?

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.
E) Cities provide an opportunity for getting closer to nature

Question 41

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.
E) altruism.

Question 42

What are environmental sociologists referring to when they use the term "environment"?

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

Question 43

The "Asian Brown Cloud" is the name given to:

A) a layer of pollution that hangs over China and India.
B) an endangered species of tree that grows high on the hillsides of the mountains between China and India.
C) the fallout of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
D) a disastrous weather pattern, like El Niño, that brings floods and storms to Southeast Asia several times each decade.
E) a type of mushroom that is now nearly extinct due to overdevelopment.

Question 44

Which of the following is NOT true of rain forests?

A) They cover about 6 percent of the earth's landmass.
B) They contain close to 50 percent of the plant and animal species on earth.
C) Previously unknown forms of life are still being discovered there.
D) They play a key role in global climate control.
E) They only exist in tropical regions

Question 45

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 don't 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.
E) excess use of fluoride in water is likely the cause of the high cavity rates among Americans.

Question 46

Aldo Leopold, an ecologist, 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, unmowed and undisturbed. Every year, sometime in July, Leopold would watch a single silphium plant bloom there, the only one he 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. The disappearance of native plants is an issue of:

A) pollution.
B) the rural rebound.
C) suburbanization.
D) social ecology.
E) biodiversity.

Question 47

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

A) social ecology.
B) biodiversity.
C) NIMBY.
D) conservationism.
E) radical environmentalism.

Question 48

According to law enforcement, if you are in trouble or injured, rather than yelling for help or appealing to a group, you should pick out an individual-even a stranger-point to them, and request assistance. This strategy would help to defeat:

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

Question 49

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
E) when the source of the danger is a mugger or a rapist

Question 50

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
E) ecotheology

Question 51

If Georg Simmel is correct, in which type of community would you be LEAST likely to have a friendly relationship with your neighbors?

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

Question 52

If a sociologist is studying the problems associated with resource depletion, which of the following facts might he be interested in when he investigates 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.
E) Most recycled e-waste disposal is recorded by hand on paper in developing countries.

Question 53

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

A) renewable resources.
B) environmental attitudes.
C) social ecology.
D) environmental justice.
E) grassroots environmentalism.

Question 54

What sort of human activities does not pose a threat to biodiversity?

A) pollution
B) the introduction of nonnative species of plants and animals
C) the overuse of resources
D) the destruction of natural habitats
E) the grassroots organizing efforts of environmental movements

Question 55

Damage to tropical rain forests is causing the extinction of many rain forest 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 major vacation destinations.
E) Rain forests are home to much of the world's population.

Question 56

What sort of pollution is responsible for global warming?

A) water pollution
B) light pollution
C) air pollution that reflects the sun's rays away from the earth
D) nuclear waste
E) greenhouse gases

Question 57

If a couple were fighting, which of the following statements would make bystanders more likely to intervene?

A) "Get away from me. I hate you."
B) "Get away from me. I don't know why I ever married you."
C) "Get away from me. I don't know you."
D) "Get away from me. I never want to see you again."
E) "Get away from me. I can't talk to you when you're like this."

Question 58

Resources like coal and oil that cannot be replaced except through very slow geological processes are called:

A) nonrenewable resources.
B) social problems.
C) renewable resources.
D) environmentally friendly.
E) semi-renewable resources.

Question 59

What problems will not be the result of even slightly higher global temperatures?

A) rising sea levels
B) melting polar ice caps
C) islands losing landmass to the sea
D) changing weather patterns
E) gentrification

Question 60

When environmental sociologists study the problems of waste and consumption, how are they understanding the environment?

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
E) as a source of comfort and renewal

Question 61

Today, many parents are worried about the bottles their babies drink out of, because many contain plastics made with Bisphenol A, a compound that helps to make hard, clear, shatter-proof plastics but that might also be a neurotoxin, especially for children. Though science has yet to fully explore this issue, what era of the environmental movement does this concern most closely follow?

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

Question 62

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

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

Question 63

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. What era of the environmental movement is this sort of organization most commonly associated with?

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

Question 64

Some types of air pollution cause less sunlight to reach the earth, a phenomenon known as:

A) global warming.
B) global dimming.
C) the treadmill of production.
D) exemptionalism.
E) the ecological footprint.

Question 65

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.
E) It sees resource depletion as the most important issue in the world today.

Question 66

Few people today even know that the Milky Way is a spiral arm of our galaxy, containing such a dense cluster of stars that 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) global dimming
D) air pollution
E) the breaking of the Hubble telescope on the International Space Station

Question 67

What book sparked the modern environmental movement in the 1960s?

A) Walden by Henry David Thoreau
B) Earth Day by Gaylord Nelson
C) Unsafe at Any Speed by Ralph Nader
D) Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
E) Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

Question 68

Although the federal government plans to store nuclear waste under a mountain in Nevada, many people who live in Nevada are trying their best to have it housed elsewhere, a classic example of:

A) conservation.
B) mainstream environmentalism.
C) human exemptionalism.
D) NIMBY.
E) ecoterrorism.

Question 69

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) smart growth
E) human exemptionalism

Question 70

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

A) global dimming.
B) economic modernization.
C) the treadmill of production.
D) the new ecological paradigm.
E) mainstream environmentalism.

Question 71

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

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

Question 72

What classic sociological theorist has most influenced the study of the political economy of the environment?

A) Emile Durkheim
B) Talcott Parsons
C) Erving Goffman
D) Karl Marx
E) Harriet Martineau

Question 73

According to the text, which of the following is NOT one of the four major eras of environmental activism?

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

Question 74

The 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 exemptionalism
D) anthropocentric
E) androcentric

Question 75

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

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

Question 76

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) the pre-environmental era
E) grassroots environmentalism

Question 77

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, most environmental activism was focused on:

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.
E) the protection of endangered animal and plant species.

Question 78

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 the ultimate source of meaning
E) as something to be studied and examined before it is tainted by human activity

Question 79

Which of the following is not a major area of concern within environmental sociology?

A) the political economy of the environment
B) attitudes about the environment
C) environmental movements
D) sustainable development
E) incarceration rates

Question 80

Aldo Leopold believes 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) NIMBY
E) anthropocentric