D/C Blocks Social and Environmental Sciences - We start with Young in 115, I'd like to start with this question...What Happens to a Town’s Cultural Identity as Its Namesake Glacier Melts? From the Smithsonian article...
So...my discussion question is should we grant nature our ecosystems – including trees, oceans, animals, mountains – rights just as human beings have rights? If mountains and glaciers are "beings" then shouldn't they be afforded the same rights as humans? Is Queenesh a being? Can we give Queenesh the same rights we have? Would that help with protecting its right to exist in a changing climate?
We'll use the Whanganui River in New Zealand as an example.
Environmentalism’s Next Frontier: Giving Nature Legal Rights
The Rise of the Rights of Nature
I am the River, and the River is me: Legal personhood and emerging rights of nature
What is Rights of Nature?
We'll take a brief look at the United Nations
Most people in the Comox Valley know the Queneesh narrative, with its curious resonance to the biblical story of Noah. One detail from (Andy) Everson’s telling, however, is often left out: Queneesh didn’t just save the K’ómoks—it anchored them in place. “You almost can consider this an origin story,” Everson says...The critical fact is that glaciers were, and to varying degrees still are, seen in First Nations’ cosmologies as beings, just as Queneesh is in the K’ómoks story.
It’s one thing to read about Greenland in the news, or to lose some lovely part of the local scenery. It’s quite another to lose your spiritual anchor or a lodestone of your identity. “People in the community are wondering what it means if the glacier goes,” Everson says. “If there is no glacier, is it still Queneesh?”
We'll use the Whanganui River in New Zealand as an example.
Environmentalism’s Next Frontier: Giving Nature Legal Rights
The Rise of the Rights of Nature
I am the River, and the River is me: Legal personhood and emerging rights of nature
What is Rights of Nature?
Why the first river in Canada to become a legal person signals a boon for Indigenous Rights
After, we head to the Library/Learning Commons to get ready for our interview project...Remember you need to be ready for Tuesday (a week from yesterday). Benton and I asked you to find out as much as you can about a local environmental issue or group. The goal of this assignment is for you to find solutions to the local environmental issue you have defined by either discovering what a local group is doing to address the issue or through researching about community action regarding your issue. Benton and I will conduct an interview with you structured around a W5H approach (who, what, when, where, why, how). Remember you're looking at groups who are trying to solve an environmental issue. Consider the following questions:
1. Which do you think is the best way to address this issue in your community, community action or public policy
2. What are the advantages of this solution? What are the disadvantages? You will need to be able to address the disadvantages, as well.
3. List some influential individuals or groups who might be willing to support your proposal.
4. How might you be able to win the support of some of these individuals or groups?
You may also finish up your Hawaii ecosystems questions or Mount Arrowsmith map activity for Benton and/or your Mauna Kea questions for Young.
B Block Human Geography - Today, we'll look at the Key Issue "Where Are States Distributed? “Old School” geography often required you to memorize countries and their capitals. Human geographers now emphasize a thematic approach. We are concerned with the location of activities in the world, the reasons for spatial distributions, and the significance of those arrangements. Despite this change in emphasis, you still need to know the locations of countries. Without such knowledge, you lack a basic frame of reference—knowing where things are. From the 90's (including countries that don't exist anymore):
We'll take a brief look at the United Nations
Then three examples of places that test the definition of a state:
Korea (North and South)
China (Taiwan/Chinese Taipei)
and Western Sahara (Sahrawi Republic)
Finally we'll examine Arctic sovereignty.
You'll have some questions to answer for me
A Block Legal Studies - Why is Personal Injury/Tort Law important? Seinfeld mocked it. Letterman ranked it in his top ten list. And more than fifteen years later, its infamy continues. Everyone knows the McDonald’s coffee case. It has been routinely cited as an example of how citizens have taken advantage of America’s legal system, but is that a fair rendition of the facts? Take a look below to see what really happened to Stella Liebeck, the Albuquerque woman who spilled coffee on herself and sued McDonald’s.
In the case of Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants (1994), 79-year-old Stella Liebeck spilled McDonald’s coffee in her lap, which resulted in second- and third-degree burns on her thighs, buttocks, groin, and genitals. The burns were severe enough to require skin grafts. Liebeck attempted to have McDonald’s pay her $20,000 medical bills as indemnity for the incident. McDonald’s refused, and Liebeck sued. During the case’s discovery process, internal documents from McDonald’s revealed that the company had received hundreds of similar complaints from customers claiming that McDonald’s coffee caused severe burns. At trial, this led the jury to find that McDonald’s knew their product was dangerous and injuring their customers and that the company had done nothing to correct the problem. The jury decided on $200,000 in compensatory damages, but attributed 20 percent of the fault to Liebeck, reducing her compensation to $160,000. The jury also awarded Liebeck $2.7 million in punitive damages, which, at the time, represented two days’ of McDonald’s coffee sales revenue. The judge later reduced the punitive damages to $480,000. The case is often criticized for the very high amount of damages the jury awarded. Your textbook states: Many Canadians regard civil suits like Stella Liebeck’s as frivolous (silly or wasteful). What do you think?
Today's Fit...
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