Describe the system of gold production in terms of the conditions of production, the

Describe the system of gold production in terms of the conditions of production, the means of production, the relations of production, surplus value, exchange value, and commodity.
How does gold production generate the first and second contradictions of capitalism?
Who is exposed to mercury and other toxins associated with gold production?
What are the environmental problems associated with the production of gold?
What role does gender play in the production of gold?
What is fair trade gold, and how could it help alleviate the social and environmental problems associated with gold production?
How is the concept of uneven development related to gold production?
In what ways could the production of gold become an environmental justice issue?
500 words in total

What is the cost of bottled water over municipal tap water?
What is “Manufacturing Demand” for bottled water? What are its elements?
Can you rearticulate the elements of “Manufacturing Demand” in terms of:
The political economy of water: what is water as a commodity; how is it an instance of primitive accumulation; and how is it an outcome of a crisis of overproduction?
The social construction of water: how is demand produced through the social construction of bottled water?
What can be done?
500 words in total

You will write a 150 to 200-word topic statement that provides a brief summary of the issue, the controversies surrounding it, and the research questions that you expect to analyze in your paper. This should be completed in the following steps:
Select one of the following environment-society issues to examine: 1) genetically modified crops; 2) electronics and e-waste; 3) hydraulic fracturing; 4) solar energy; or 5) water and drought in the US.
Select one or two of the following perspectives from which to draw your analysis: 1) political economy; 2) risk perception; and/or 3) social construction.
Conduct Internet research, and then write a 150 to 200-word topic statement that includes: 1) a summary of the issue; 2) the main controversies surrounding it; 3) the theoretical framework(s) that you plan to apply to the issue; 4) the geographic scope of the project, if relevant; and 5) the research questions that you intend to guide your analysis (e.g., ask yourself: what do I want to find out by undertaking this research paper?). Please provide a list of your Internet sources.

Assuming that climate change is real, what should be done about it? What steps should or should not be taken to address climate change and its impacts? You must adopt one of the perspectives we have discussed in class and debate about the causes of and solutions to climate change-related problems from this position. You may support your arguments and counterarguments with outside information.
500 words

You will turn in a project outline. The outline should be a (very detailed) standard outline of the way you intend to format and write your paper. A typical format would be introduction, thesis statement/research question, literature review, study area if relevant, body/findings (the questions you posed in Part 1 and those listed in Part 4, and, perhaps, more of your own devise), discussion, and conclusion. It helps to think of an outline being composed of a bullet point for every paragraph, where each paragraph represents one idea. I will provide comments on this as well.
What were your thoughts on climate change before reading the article? Have your ideas shifted or changed since watching it?
We could describe any kind of shift in thinking as a process of re-evaluating our ideas based on new information. In what way can this process be explained through the Risk Perception framework?
Have you experienced climate change? How so and what kinds of risks are involved moving forward?
After reading the article, and seeing how the planet is changing, what kind of responsibility do we have as individuals to take action? What kind of responsibility do organizations, such as our university, have?
Do we have an obligation to future generations (including to humans and non-humans) to change the way we are impacting the planet? Why or why not?
The US is a major contributor to greenhouse gases that cause climate change, but the US is only one of 195 countries. What role should the US have in international climate action, like the Kyoto Protocol?
There are many reasons that even well meaning and informed people don’t act in accordance with their intentions and beliefs. How can this discrepancy be explained through Social Construction and Political Economy approaches? How could these approaches be employed to reverse this tendency and lead to positive action?
500 words

Drawing on conceptual tools previous modules, especially from market environmentalism (green consumption and green certification, for example), as well as evidence provided in the film, craft a defense of US Department of Agriculture organic food certification.
500 words

Trans fats became popular in the United States in the twentieth century as a healthy food alternative to dietary fats from animals, especially butter and beef tallow. Now we know trans fats to be potentially very harmful. Indeed, a wide variety of foods that were considered healthy or at least benign several decades ago are now considered to be very unhealthy or even ‘risky’, ranging from sugary soft drinks to gluten to meat and dairy. At the same time, a new wave of green consumption has swept through the market for food, in which advocates taut the benefits of eating ‘local’, ‘organic’, or otherwise prescribe specific food sources due to their perceived benefits to individual health, the environment, workers, or some other interest. Please write a short essay that responds to the following:
Provide an example of risk communication with a food or drink that you’ve encountered. This can be either a food you have been encouraged to consume for its benefits or a food to avoid due to its risks (whether those benefits/risks accrue to your health, the environment, workers, or all of the above).
How was the risk associated with this food communicated? Describe the way the issue was framed and explain who you believe benefits or is burdened from this framing.
Did you find the means of communication effective, to the extent that you changed your own risk perception? Why or why not?
Did this information lead to changes in your diet? Why or why not?
Given that health information is always changing and being updated in the face of new information, how do you think people ought to assess risk in foods and make healthy, environmentally sound consumption decisions?
Do you believe that providing information is enough to change the sorts of consumption decisions people make? Why or why not?
What sources of information do you feel are most reliable? Why?
What are the strongest influences on the kinds of information that are available to people?
When faced with competing claims about food-related risks (from internet sites, for example), what is the most rational way to reconcile them
500 words