1. Is it more important to be a good person or to perform good acts (virtue ethics vs. action ethics)?

I think it’s more important to be a good person. In other words, we should be a good person virtually. If a person is virtually good, then it’s very hard to act badly. What I mean is virtue is somewhat connecting with action. What you think can influence what you are going to do. For example, if you think you should be helpful at first, then you will help others. It’s true that sometimes, people may be too shy or something else to help others or do what they think they should do, but that is not consistent with the virtue. Thus, they are not thinking in they should be helpful. My point here is virtue ethics can influence action. After you become a good person, your actions will be good as well. You will do good things to the society. Therefore, I think it’s more important to be a good person.

2. Do the pleasure and pain of non-human animals matter as much as the pleasure and pain of humans (speciesism)?

I think the pleasure and pain of non-human animals matter as much as the pleasure and pain of humans. All the species are equally live. We think human can control more of other species, because human are more powerful than other species, but it does not mean that human beings are more important or more noble than others. Each live is rare and invaluable. Actually, many countries have laws that protect animals right and prevent them from human-hurting. It is the law that proves non-human animals are as important as human beings. Their feelings are the same important as human’s. Life is equal. The possibility to be non-human animals and human is equal. You have pleasure and pain is not because you are human or not, just the way you are. For example, I used to have a pet dog. I was caring about his feeling. If he is hungry, I will feed him. If he is sad, I will play with him. If he is tired and sleepy, I won’t force him to play with me. The dog has feelings. Therefore, I think the pleasure and pain of non-human animals matter as much as the pleasure and pain of humans.

3. Is my own life worth more than the lives of others, the same, or less (selfishness vs. altruism)?

The lives of everyone are equal. I won’t initially put other’s life on risk. Similarly, I won’t let others to threaten my life. In real life, laws, religious doctrines, self-control, and etc. are all the things that can ensure equal life. However, we usually think that it’s more important to keep our lives safe instead of others’ lives when facing dangers, such as terrorist attacks, natural disasters, or other catastrophe. That’s a special case. We need first to keep ourselves safe, and then we can help other people. There is also one extreme case, parents and their children. Generally, parents can put their lives on risk in order to keep their children safe. In this condition, lives of others are worth more than our own lives. In conclusion, I think everyone’s life is equal. Only in special cases, our lives can worth more and less than others’ lives. We should respect others, and try our best to help others.

The core idea behind my diagram is to show the connections between each element in the social and ecosystem. I want to combine the two systems into one complete feedback. In the video, social system and ecosystem are closely connected. That’s why traditional cooking method (using field wood), can affect women’s and children’s daily life intensely. After new technology, Biogas plant, comes up, the waste of cooking is different, and people’s life changes as well. This case best explains how the Human-Environment system operates. In the diagram, women &children, tank, and cooking are the three components in the social system. Wood, smoke, biogas plants, organic compound, and compost are the key elements in the ecosystem. Other things like school & entertainment are the relative elements for the case.

Compared my work with the example diagram, the components in social system and ecosystem are different. The example diagram illustrates 8 components in the social and ecosystem. It combines small elements mentioned in the video into one group. For example, biogas generator includes all its outputs, like methane gas, organic compound, and compost. It shows these outputs in the interactions (above the arrow lines). For me, I just separately count them as three different components in the ecosystem. However, the way I draw the diagram and the ideas about how the social and ecosystem interacts with each other are the same. The two diagrams are different due to the different opinions for the video, and abilities to summarize the elements. From these differences, I know how other people think of the social and ecosystem interactions. Besides that, I learn that I need to summarize and separate components in a complete system and feedback loop.

Hello everyone. My name is Yuying Ren. I live in State College now, and I grew up in Beijing, China. I’m Sophomore, and majoring in Geography general option. I also plan to minor Economics and Geoscience. I take this course not only for my major requirements, but also for my personal interests. After I graduate, I hope I can work to dealing with environmental issues and natural hazards, or maybe urban planning. I hope I can travel around the world to visit different cities and regions, and to see how are the urban plannings and how the people live in there. Climate changes, environmental pollution, natural hazards, social problems, urban planning, these are the topics I’m interested in. I’d like to learn examples of solving environmental issues, and how much human can impacts the ecosystems. I will take advantage of GIS knowledge learned from other courses to help me better analyze sustainability and environmental issues.

After reading module 1, I’m thinking about urbanization. Urbanization is a kind of process that how much city or urban area develops. It is usually presented in the size of city or urban area, which is in regional scale. Urbanization is not a “bad” thing, but it can carry out issues, such as traffic jams, urban heat island effects, air pollution, unequal developments, poorness and richness, etc. For geography, these problems can be addressed on maps. For example, I can come up with a map showing the temperatures in an urban area and its surrounding rural area to analyze the urban heat island effects. By showing the map of land cover changes over a period of time, urbanization can be seen from the map. It’s important for people to know urbanization, because surrounding environment is changed by human activities. That’s anthropocene. From social science perspectives, that’s how human impacts on the environment.