Powerful Disciplinary Knowledge Example

Climate Change, greenhouse emissions and consumer

stuff
TOPIC
stuff

Climate change, greenhouse gas emissions and consumer

NAME

Duncan Hawley (based on a mini-essay by Doreen Massey)

INSTITUTION

Geographical Association, Sheffield, UK.

DESCRIPTION

Most students accept that greenhouse gas in the form of carbon dioxide
emissions is a key cause of climate change but where do they think the
responsibility lies for cutting emissions?
Data displaying the bald facts of global emissions indicates some
countries make a high % contribution. Others make only small
contribution to global emissions to the atmosphere. It seems obvious
where the responsibilities for cutting emissions should be. In this context,
some countries, including the UK, have claimed substantial progress in
cutting emissions. However, a deeper geographical perspective reveals a
more complex picture. The idea of global interdependence exposes the
limitations of assigning responsibility to individual nations. Such
calculations miss the effect of traded goods: If the USA imports
manufactured products from China, who is responsible for the emissions USA or China? Recognising such link widens responsibility.
Read (or listen to) Professor Doreen Masseys mini-essay. Many of the
good guys have reduced their visible emissions output by opting for an
economy that chooses to put manufacture, and the resulting emissions,
somewhere else. This in effect exports the greenhouse emissions. She
also argues that this has reshaped internal UK geographies by widening
regional disparities - as old manufacturing areas decline but whilst the
London region, centred on global finance and other services continue to
thrive.

DISCUSSI
ON
Students could read the bald facts data intelligently and decide who
are the good guys and who are the bad guys of global greenhouse
gas emissions. Frequently they can outline green ways to reduce
emissions, such as turning off lights, based on their immediate and
direct experiences, which provide a common-sense understanding.
However, by using a framework of geographical thinking we are
encouraged to think how countries are inter-related and how they
operate interdependently in a global context.
Using the geographical concepts outlined in the description it is
possible to deepen and broaden their existing understanding.
Everyday common sense interpretation of the data is challenged
through the exposure of hidden relationships and impacts that
operate within and across the geographical spaces of individuals and
nations.
Such a perspective is crucial in enabling students to challenge what
Massey called inadequate geographies of a compartmentalised world.
It recognises the complexities of understanding contemporary climate
change and encourages the development of a more critical approach to
the question of whose responsibility is it?