Browsing by Author "Cafaro, Philip, committee member"
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Item Open Access Abundance, survival, and breeding probabilities of the critically endangered waved albatross(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Street, Phillip A., author; Doherty, Paul F., advisor; Huyvaert, Kathryn P., advisor; Cafaro, Philip, committee memberTo view the abstract, please see the full text of the document.Item Open Access How does death harm the person who dies?(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2012) Bzdok, Andrew John, author; McShane, Katie, advisor; Cafaro, Philip, committee member; Canetto, Silvia, committee memberThe objective of this thesis is to identify the most persuasive justification for the common intuition that death is a harm for the person who dies. This goal is achieved by examining the Deprivation Theory and the Desire Thwarting Theory, which are the two most popular theories that explain how and why death harms the person who dies, and identifying what one must theoretically accept to make each theory tenable. The Desire Thwarting Theory claims that death harms the person who dies when it frustrates certain forward-looking desires, and the Deprivation Theory states that death harms the person who dies when death deprives an individual of certain goods she would have received had she not died. I argue that although the Deprivation Theory provides the most persuasive justification for the intuition that death harms the person who dies, it still requires a number of contestable theoretical commitments to make it defensible. I conclude that the Deprivation Theory provides a convincing justification for the common intuition that death is a harm for the person who dies only if one accepts the following claims: (a) that death can result in a genuine loss of future goods for the person who dies, (b) that the fact that the theory cannot provide a single evaluation of whether death is a harm for the person who dies isn't a problem for the theory, and (c) that we can either identify the time when the person who dies is worse off as a result of her death or defend the claim that the harm of death is a timeless harm.Item Restricted On the corner of Forest and Broadway(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2012) Rasmussen, Marcus, author; Campbell, Sue Ellen, advisor; Calderazzo, John, committee member; Cafaro, Philip, committee memberI have always been empathetic to beings other than humans. When I was a young boy, natural landscapes and wild animals captured my imagination. By taking me into the wilderness and nurturing my interests, my parents taught me to respect and appreciate the beauty and wonders of the natural world. These essays demonstrate my continuing passion and love for nature but they also reflect the complexity and inherent difficulties of trying to live in a changed and changing world, while recognizing my complicity in that change. This work grapples with some of the ethical choices I have to make as an educated, compassionate human. How does someone who loves and seeks to protect the natural world also honor and protect his own species' role in this world? Is human flourishing compatible with the flourishing of the wild world? By exploring my intimate personal connections to wild nature, I seek to raise and sometimes answer ethical questions such as these. But at the heart of my writing lies a boy who is still in awe of the natural landscape and the wild beings he shares it with.Item Open Access Pedagogical processes and ethnobotanic knowledge on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Glenn, Kristina, author; Sherman, Kathleen, advisor; Leisz, Stephen, committee member; Cafaro, Philip, committee memberWhile observing the processes of engaging participatory-based methods in developing a culturally appropriate approach to environmental education on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, this paper seeks to understand the current perceptions that Lakota youth have of their relationship to traditional ecological knowledge and their local ecosystems, and to understand the role that traditional knowledge serves for the participants today.Item Open Access Tiny house communities: a model for sustainability(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Mangold, Severin, author; Roberts, Anthony, advisor; Mahoney, Patrick, committee member; Cafaro, Philip, committee memberAt a time when the human population faces extreme environmental risks from the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, a search for environmentally sustainable solutions is necessary. A recent iteration of the cohousing movement in the United States is pushing for more sustainable lifestyles by developing communities of 'tiny houses'. Tiny house communities offer a plausible solution to climate change due to their reduced carbon footprint, increased focus on living with less, and overall escape from debt. More importantly, recent research shows tiny house enthusiasts embody environmentalist tenets within their drive to live with less in a smaller space. However, little research examines how living in these communities promotes pro-environmental behaviors and attitudes. This study addresses this gap using two original surveys to examine (1) the motivations, philosophies, and socio-demographics of tiny communities and (2) the effect of community integration on pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors in these communities. I argue that community integration plays a key role in increasing the environmentalism of tiny house community residents. Tiny house community members' levels of pro-environmental behaviors increase as a result of being highly integrated into their communities. While members tend to already exhibit high levels of environmentalism prior to joining a tiny house community, being in the presence of others and forming relationships with other community members creates a synergistic effect that specifically increases levels of pro-environmental behaviors. The more socially integrated members are the more exposed they are to new pro-environmental behaviors that they might not been aware of prior to joining the community. The first survey identifies the motivations, philosophical influences, and socio-demographics of tiny house enthusiasts. Sociodemographic questions included questions about respondents age, income, education level, race, and gender. The second survey asked participants to rate their levels of pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors, in addition to questions about community attachment, community integration, community impact, and basic sociodemographic about their age, income, education level, race, and gender. Most important was the measure of community integration; this was measured by asking participants to name at most 10 people who they interact with regularly. Through the use of multivariate OLS regressions, I find that community integration is positively associated with pro-environmental behaviors net of prior pro-environmental behaviors, age, community impact, and religion. I also find that age exhibits a marginally significant negative association with pro-environmental attitudes. Thereby this thesis provides initial evidence for the pro-environmental nature of tiny house communities as a result of community integration. While community integration was found to be a key predictor pro-environmental behavior, the same could not be said for the pro-environmental attitudes. Furthermore, community attachment did not exhibit any significant associations with behaviors or attitudes.