Discussion Board Instructions
In this Discussion Board, we will be placing special focus on the following questions that address our Course Learning Outcomes. The Recommended Readings for this unit address issues raised by these questions. After thinking through the issues and reviewing the Recommended Readings for this unit, write a concise but substantive response to one of these questions for your DB post. Also, for this DB assignment, we are going to incorporate an additional element that brings in additional peer interaction. You are asked to draw on one of your peers' Field Trip Reports to find a specific example of an environmental issue or situation that illustrates the points you make in your discussion of the particular views or environmental approaches you discuss.
1) Which among the political, economic, and ecological positions of free market environmentalism, traditionalist conservative environmentalism, natural capitalism, liberal environmentalism, deliberative ecological democracy, socialist ecology, social ecology, ecofeminism, bioregionalism, and radical ecology is the best one for a country like the United States to embrace in today's world?
2) What is meant by the term ecofascism? How might it be connected to the concerns and goals of deep ecology?
3) Is it possible for free-market capitalist economies like the U.S. to fully promote widespread environmentalist policies? Why or why not?
4) What is the significance of the relationship between nature and society as seen by social ecologists such as Murray Bookchin?
5) How do the ecological stances of socialist philosophies compare to the views political "Green Parties"?
6) What does David Watson both fear and predict as inevitable in his image of the "Megamachine"?