Final Exam Study Guide for MAE 124 / ESYS 103: Environmental Systems and Sustainability - , Study notes of Mechanical Engineering

Download Final Exam Study Guide for MAE 124 / ESYS 103: Environmental Systems and Sustainability - and more Study notes Mechanical Engineering in PDF only on Docsity!

MAE 124 / ESYS 103

Final Exam Study Guide

Objectives of the course:

1. Introduce interaction of human activity with the “environment” in broad sense.
2. Demonstrate importance of embedding environmental dimension into industry, planning, design, economics, and politics.
3. Explore methodologies and look at case studies for accounting for environmental impacts and costs of human activity, while enabling the objective of “sustainable development” (i.e. development that meets the need of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.)
4. Evaluate the severity and urgency of environmental problems and potential solutions from a variety of perspectives using knowledge and critical thinking skills developed in class.
5. Use methodologies and perspectives developed in class to quantify trade-offs for both the status quo (i.e. “business as usual”) and proposed alternatives.
6. Make informed decisions in your design for the future that account for and document the trade-offs in an objective manner.

Weekly Topics and Goals

Week 1: Tragedy of the Commons

1. Societal Collapse examples, causes
2. Tragedy of the Commons (inevitable for communal resources? Bad behavior drives out good?)
3. Tragedy of the commons applied to air quality (3 types of air pollution CFC, GHG, traditional), Mexico cross-border example

Week 2: Water Issues for San Diego and the World

1. Apply knowledge of the natural hydrologic cycle, California’s water history and population, and California’s water delivery infrastructure to assess vulnerabilities in present and future water supplies
2. Speculate and characterize future challenges water access and availability issues (San Diego and the world) based on historical incidents
3. Speculate and characterize future challenges for clean and consistent water resources (San Diego and the world) based on understanding of the mechanisms and pathways of freshwater degradation and contamination
4. Critically evaluate the pros and cons of agriculture to urban water transfers from the perspective of various stakeholders

Week 3: Peak Oil and Energy Resources

1. Evaluate proposed plans – including “business as usual” – for meeting future energy needs of the US. Describe the challenges, proposed solutions, and the potential consequences of various solutions
2. Describe the pros/cons of all major non-renewable energy sources

Week 4: Global Warming

1. Explain the greenhouse process, how humans are enhancing the greenhouse effect, and the important feedback processes
2. Based on projections of global average temperatures in the near future (i.e. your lifetime), explain the likelihood and severity of a broad range of impacts for natural systems, humans, and the environment.

3. Apply your understanding of the scientific method, scientific reasoning, and the IPCC process to gauge the credibility of current and projected consequences of global warming
4. Find flaws in the reasoning and/or methodology for typical global warming skeptics’ arguments
5. Predict the consequences for various sea level rise scenarios for the California and the world (i.e. beyond a simple increase in ocean volume).

Week 5 : Population, Food, Agriculture, Failed States

1. Sustainability and design for the future
2. Comprehensive understanding of environmental challenges facing our society from multiple, objective view points
3. Develop and demonstrate scientific reasoning and critical evaluation skills
4. History of the Green Revolution: why Malthus’ predictions haven’t yet come true
5. Beyond the Green Revolution: GM crops and future agricultural goals
6. Potential revenge effects associated with the Green Revolution
7. Land degradation worldwide and in San Diego
8. Consider environmental impact of meat consumption (and on food prices)
9. Death, famine, and all around gloom and doom…

Week 6: Strategies for Sustainability

1. Sustainable development: framework for ensuring survival
2. Triple bottom line, 3 E’s
3. Life cycle assessment (LCA) = Evaluation of a product system through all stages of its life cycle, usually with respect to its environmental impact
4. LCA -conceptual: qualitative discussion by identifying sates of life cycle and potential environmental impact of greatest significance; qualitative or obvious data
5. LCA-simplified: look at most important environmental impact but perhaps with generic or not precisely measured data. Three stages: screening, simplifying, assessment
6. LCA-detailed: see handout passed out in class
7. Examine and relate ecological footprint to other class concepts

Week 7: Land Use, Building, Urban Planning

1. Characterize green building strategies and the obstacles and benefits to their implementation
2. Evaluate benefits of LEED certifications (for the environment, builders, owners, and occupants)
3. Evaluate criticisms of carbon wedge mitigation strategies proposed by Pacala and Socolow

Week 8: Climate Change Mitigation A. Critically evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of climate mitigation strategies to reduce accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and to make a reasoned judgment about the effectiveness and desirability these strategies. B. Synthesize understanding of the science and potential solutions to climate change to evaluate the merit and practicality of a proposed solution (i.e. “Wedges” described in Pacala and Socolow paper in Science magazine). Compare the merit and practicality from a global perspective to local interests. Evaluate potential impacts of proposed solutions on a local stakeholder and speculate on the preferences of the local stakeholder.

Week 9: Transportation and Transportation Systems

1. Apply sustainability and LCA principles to consider true costs of personal vehicle transportation
2. Articulate and explain past and current fleet fuel efficiency standards
3. Discuss improvements in efficiency and alternatives to ICE cars

“The challenge is to redesign communities, making public transportation the centerpiece of urban transport and making streets pedestrian and bicycle friendly. This also means replacing parking lots with parks, playgrounds, and playing fields.” -- Lester Brown p. 212 in “Plan B 3.0”

• Do you agree? Why or why not?
• What are the challenges he refers to? If we want to, wow do we overcome them? At what cost? To what benefit?
• The goal of today’s class is to understand why the author of your textbook (or anyone) would make such a statement and to address some of these questions.

Week 10: What you can do Evaluate the severity and urgency of environmental problems and potential solutions from a variety of perspectives using knowledge and critical thinking skills developed in class. Through group collaboration, further develop understanding of scope, consequences, and issues involved in the population problem. Learn your role in effecting change and how you can do it (personal actions, community actions, influencing US actions, becoming a leader).

Guest Speakers Some speakers provided their slides (visit our class Webct, under “Guest Speakers”) and some are podcast (visit http://podcast.ucsd.edu under course name “ESYS 103”). If you missed a speaker, be sure to get the notes and discuss what the speaker had to say with one of your classmates.