SUS1501 Assignment 8 PORTFOLIO (ANSWERS) Semester 1 2026 - DISTINCTION GUARANTEED.

Comprehensively structured SUS1501 Assignment 8 PORTFOLIO (ANSWERS) Semester 1 2026 - DISTINCTION GUARANTEED. Prepared to a distinction standard with detailed and well-developed responses. .. Portfolio Assignment SUS1501 – Sustainability and Greed Student Number: Date: Teaching Assistant Name: Note: grades will be allocated for getting this right Declaration: By submitting this portfolio, I implicitly declare that this is my own work except for the “Introduction” which was kindly written for me by my lecturer. I am aware that if ANY unacknowledged copying is detected in ANY answer, I will get 0 (zero) for the entire assignment. Instructions: • Please read the instructions on myUnisa carefully. • Please download the most up-to-date version of this template from your group site on myUnisa. • DO NOT delete the template to reduce the Turnitin score. We do not look at the score we look at the detailed report. • Go through the MCQs again, and record your current choice in the template (we suggest that you don’t look at your original choices before you have been through all questions) • For each question, record your original choice in assignment 1. • Write a note of AT LEAST 100 words discussing YOUR option for each of the five (5) questions that are written in red (questions 1 – 5). • Write a note of AT LEAST 100 words discussing YOUR option for any other five (5) questions of your choice. • Write your conclusion of AT LEAST 500 words • Somewhere within your notes and/or conclusion there must be meaningful references to the major theories that we covered (deontology, consequentialism, distributive justice, virtue ethics and environmental ethics). • Your notes and conclusion should also make reference to discussions with fellow students that you found meaningful. • Please write your notes and conclusion in your own words first, and then use AI to edit these. NB If we detect any AI generated content in your own answers this will be treated as plagiarism. • Save the file as a Word document with a short name (myUnisa will reject files with long names). • Take a screen grab of the final submission acknowledgement on myUnisa and save this somewhere safe in case of any disputes. MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS CHECKLIST – i.e. if you do not fulfill ALL of these you will NOT pass this portfolio: 1. Correct template version used 2. All 20 multiple choice question original answers captured 3. All 20 multiple choice question answers now captured 4. Notes for the five (5) questions in red 5. Notes for AT LEAST five (5) other questions of your choice 6. Each note AT LEAST 100 words long 7. Conclusion present 8. Conclusion AT LEAST 500 words long 9. Template NOT deleted   Introduction My aim in compiling this portfolio was to reflect on the things that have struck me throughout this crazy module. My starting point for doing this was to revisit my opinions to the multiple choice questions which were presented in the Crossroads assignment. I present these current opinions, together with my original opinions, and some brief notes in the section entitled: “Back at the Crossroads!” Once I have done this, I will reflect on the entire learning process and draw some key conclusions about this crazy module and about the things that really struck me. Back at the Crossroads! 1. (YOU MUST WRITE NOTES ON THIS QUESTION) “Unless fossil-fuel use slows dramatically, the earth’s average temperature could rise by six degrees Celsius in the next 100 years.” My personal opinion on this statement is most closely described by: a. I don’t believe this climate change nonsense b. Six degrees will make winters much more bearable to me personally c. I’m a bit concerned about this, but why should I invest my personal time, effort or money in solving a general social. d. I think that individually we can and should strive to solve this problem for the greater good. e. I think it is time for radical action to disrupt the fossil-fuel cartel. Choice now: Choice in assignment 1: Notes: Answer in here IN YOUR OWN WORDS DO NOT USE AI HERE AT ALL. IF YOU DO YOU WILL FAIL. - at least 100 words long Your answer language edited by AI 2. (YOU MUST WRITE NOTES ON THIS QUESTION) “In January 2026 Patrice Motsepe's net worth was estimated to be US$ 4.2 billion." My personal opinion on this statement is most closely described by: a. Good for him – he is brilliant and worked hard to earn this. b. The only problem I have with this is that it wasn’t me with US$ 4.2 billion! c. No problem with this. I'm sure Motsepe gives huge amounts to charities. d. I think that it is morally wrong for anyone to have that much money. e. I think that active steps should be taken to correct such immoral wealth. Choice now: Choice in assignment 1: Notes: Answer in here IN YOUR OWN WORDS DO NOT USE AI HERE AT ALL. IF YOU DO YOU WILL FAIL. - at least 100 words long Language edited by AI 3. (YOU MUST WRITE NOTES ON THIS QUESTION) “In order to have the continued opportunity to express their ‘generosity,’ the oppressors must perpetuate injustice as well.” (Paulo Freire) My personal opinion on this statement is most closely described by: a. This is crazy ‘commie’ nonsense from Freire – it’s a disgrace that Unisa allows this rubbish to appear in its official study material. b. This is rubbish - if it were not for the essential goodness of the wealthy, the lives of the poor would be so much worse than they already are.. c. So, let me get this straight – Freire is saying that in order for some (like Bill Gates for instance) to continue being generous, wealth AND poverty need to be sustained? I’m going to have to think about this. d. Freire is absolutely right - all this ‘generosity’ just makes rich people look like the heroes when actually they are the villains. e. How can you possibly say something as ungrateful as option d? Choice now: Choice in assignment 1: Notes: Answer in here IN YOUR OWN WORDS DO NOT USE AI HERE AT ALL. IF YOU DO YOU WILL FAIL. - at least 100 words long Language edited by AI 4. (YOU MUST WRITE NOTES ON THIS QUESTION) “Drill baby drill!” (Donald J Trump) My personal opinion on this statement, is most closely described by: a. Trump = visionary; environmentalist = fools. b. What happens when the US runs out of oil and gas? c. This represents a huge setback for global climate change mitigation efforts. d. Trump is clearly banking on Musk’s SpaceX to get the human race to Mars because planet earth is doomed. e. Time for an environmental liberation movement – bomb the pipelines and oil wells! Choice now: Choice in assignment 1: Notes: Answer in here IN YOUR OWN WORDS DO NOT USE AI HERE AT ALL. IF YOU DO YOU WILL FAIL. - at least 100 words long Language edited by AI 5. (YOU MUST WRITE NOTES ON THIS QUESTION) “In capitalism, profit happens when the capitalist pays labour x for their labour which is worth x+p. p then is profit.” My personal opinion on this statement is most closely described by: a. So what you are saying is that profit is the result of expropriation without compensation? I can see the truth in this when I look at who gets rich and who gets poor. b. That is a really interesting perspective which I hadn’t thought about before. c. Rubbish. d. Rubbish. Profit comes from innovation and an entrepreneurial spirit. e. This is fine - without profit there is no capitalism and it is capitalism that bring wealth to humanity as a whole. Choice now: Choice in assignment 1: Notes: Answer in here IN YOUR OWN WORDS DO NOT USE AI HERE AT ALL. IF YOU DO YOU WILL FAIL. - at least 100 words long Language edited by AI 6. “Every day some 20,000 children die prematurely from poverty related causes, mostly treatable diseases.” My personal opinion on this statement is most closely described by: a. Who cares? b. It’s hard to say it, but given the rising human population, perhaps this is a blessing in disguise for the human species as a whole c. It’s hard to say it, but this just means less people competing with me for scarce opportunities and resources. d. This is morally wrong, but practically, I think that it would cost too much money to solve e. It is morally unacceptable for a single child to die of a preventable disease and we should collectively fix this irrespective of the cost. Choice now: Choice in assignment 1: Notes: Answer in here IN YOUR OWN WORDS DO NOT USE AI HERE AT ALL. IF YOU DO YOU WILL FAIL. - at least 100 words long Language edited by AI 7. “Even before COVID, one out of every five South Africans lived below the food poverty line.” My personal opinion on this statement is most closely described by: a. Who cares? b. The mortality rates of these people will be high and, as in the question on child mortality, this is a blessing in disguise for the human species as a whole, given the rising human population. c. If they worked harder, they wouldn't be so poor. d. This is sad, but to be honest, it is not going to stop me from focusing on my own wellbeing first. e. I think that we must all strive to eliminate poverty together. Choice now: Choice in assignment 1: Notes: Answer in here IN YOUR OWN WORDS DO NOT USE AI HERE AT ALL. IF YOU DO YOU WILL FAIL. - at least 100 words long Language edited by AI 8. "The average entry level wage in South African mines is around R 120 000 per annum. The average entry level wage in Australian mines is around R 1.2 million per annum." My personal opinion on this statement is most closely described by: a. Well, the cost of living in Australia must be higher. b. Australian workers are obviously 10 times more productive than South African workers. c. R120 000 a year is good money for just digging holes. d. “We’ve got to run globally competitive companies [in South Africa] and there are times you have to look at your workforce in the eye and say: ‘We cannot pay you what you want.’” e. Colonisation might have ended, but the brutal exploitation of Africans goes on. Choice now: Choice in assignment 1: Notes: Answer in here IN YOUR OWN WORDS DO NOT USE AI HERE AT ALL. IF YOU DO YOU WILL FAIL. - at least 100 words long Language edited by AI 9. “Save the rhino!!” My personal opinion on this statement is most closely described by: a. Why? b. Let the people who want to use this resource pay to protect it. c. We have bigger problems than worrying about rhinos. d. We must save rhino because their survival is critical for sustaining healthy e. We must save the rhinos because it is the right thing to do. Choice now: Choice in assignment 1: Notes: Answer in here IN YOUR OWN WORDS DO NOT USE AI HERE AT ALL. IF YOU DO YOU WILL FAIL. - at least 100 words long Language edited by AI 10. “If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.” (The Limits to Growth, 1972) My personal opinion on this statement is most closely described by: a. I don’t believe this tale of doom. b. Yes we are consuming natural resources too fast, but I don’t think this is a problem as there is plenty of time to find technological solutions to problems that emerge. c. Yes we are consuming natural resources too fast. The first priority in solving this is to put the brakes on human population growth. d. Yes we are consuming natural resources too fast. The first priority in solving this is for rich people to reduce their consumption significantly. e. es we are consuming natural resources too fast. The first priority is for poor people to not have more kids than they can afford. f. Yes we are consuming natural resources too fast. And frankly I don’t see any solution because increasing consumption is the basis of our economic growth. Choice now: Choice in assignment 1: Notes: Answer in here IN YOUR OWN WORDS DO NOT USE AI HERE AT ALL. IF YOU DO YOU WILL FAIL. - at least 100 words long Language edited by AI 11. "You won’t make the poor rich by making the rich poorer." (Winston Churchill) My personal opinion of what should be done is most closely described by: a. This is rubbish and we should attack extreme wealth wherever it arises. b. This is the sort of trite rhetoric that the rich try and sell to the world in order to protect their privilege. c. This is rubbish. If a few take a huge share, it leaves that much less for the rest. It’s simple maths. d. This is absolutely true. Without the money that the rich have, the poor would be that much worse off and lefty socialists would do well to understand this fact. e. Since my personal aim is to be rich, my opinion here is simple – just leave the rich alone. Choice now: Choice in assignment 1: Notes: Answer in here IN YOUR OWN WORDS DO NOT USE AI HERE AT ALL. IF YOU DO YOU WILL FAIL. - at least 100 words long Language edited by AI 12. “Black lives matter.” My personal opinion on this statement is most closely described by: a. So do white lives matter b. “All lives matter.” c. The problem is that at the moment this is not supported by evidence. d. Finally we are starting to recognise this! e. Slogans are pointless. We need to enforce radical social changes aimed at actively destroying structural racism. Choice now: Choice in assignment 1: Notes: Answer in here IN YOUR OWN WORDS DO NOT USE AI HERE AT ALL. IF YOU DO YOU WILL FAIL. - at least 100 words long Language edited by AI 13. "The wealth of the few depends upon the poverty of many." My personal opinion on this statement is most closely described by: a. So long as I am amongst the few I don't care. b. This is just not true – the rich are simply more “diligent, intelligent, and above all frugal”. c. This is just not true – if it were not for the generous wealthy, the poor would be even poorer than they are. d. This is absolutely true – there is only so much wealth in the world at any one moment so if one person has more than their share someone else has to have less than their share. e. This is absolutely true and given how much poverty there is we ought to do something about it. Choice now: Choice in assignment 1: Notes: Answer in here IN YOUR OWN WORDS DO NOT USE AI HERE AT ALL. IF YOU DO YOU WILL FAIL. - at least 100 words long Language edited by AI 14. "In 2025, Elon Musk's net worth increased by about ZAR 18 billion every day!" My personal opinion on this statement is most closely described by: a. Good for him – he is brilliant and worked hard to earn this. b. The only problem I have with this is that it wasn’t me getting ZAR 18 billion richer every day! c. No problem with this. I'm sure all of these billionaires donate huge amounts to charities. d. I think that it is morally wrong for anyone to earn that much money. e. I think that active steps should be taken to correct such immoral earnings Choice now: Choice in assignment 1: Notes: Answer in here IN YOUR OWN WORDS DO NOT USE AI HERE AT ALL. IF YOU DO YOU WILL FAIL. - at least 100 words long Language edited by AI 15. “Investment under neo-colonialism increases rather than decreases the gap between rich and poor countries.” (Kwame Nkrumah) My personal opinion on this statement, is most closely described by: a. Get over it!! b. It’s irresponsible messages like these that frighten foreign investors away from Africa. c. Colonialism died off decades ago. Why are you still talking about this? d. Absolutely. As Thomas Sankara said: “debt is a cleverly managed re-conquest of Africa” e. This is all managed through ratings agencies who have much more say in the decisions a government takes than the citizens of the country. Choice now: Choice in assignment 1: Notes: Answer in here IN YOUR OWN WORDS DO NOT USE AI HERE AT ALL. IF YOU DO YOU WILL FAIL. - at least 100 words long Language edited by AI 16. "Save the delta smelt." My personal opinion on this statement is most closely described by: a. Never heard of the delta smelt and don’t care about it. b. Let rich people in California, where it occurs, worry about it. c. Even Americans don’t care about this fish that occurs there - the president of the United States called it “an essentially worthless fish”. d. The delta smelt is an important indicator of environmental health so if we save it we save the whole ecosystem. e. We must save the delta smelt because it is the right thing to do. Choice now: Choice in assignment 1: Notes: Answer in here IN YOUR OWN WORDS DO NOT USE AI HERE AT ALL. IF YOU DO YOU WILL FAIL. - at least 100 words long Language edited by AI 17. “It is estimated that humans are consuming natural resource at a rate that is 30% above the renewal rate. If we continue to consume in this way we are likely to suffer dire consequences which could include extinction.” My personal opinion on this statement is most closely described by: a. Yes we are consuming natural resources too fast, but I don’t think this is a problem as there is plenty of time to find technological solutions to problems that emerge b. Yes we are consuming natural resources too fast. The first priority in solving this is to put the brakes on human population growth. c. Yes we are consuming natural resources too fast. The first priority in solving this is for rich people to reduce their consumption significantly. d. Yes we are consuming natural resources too fast. And frankly I don’t see any solution because increasing consumption is the basis of our economic growth. e. I don’t believe this tale of doom. Choice now: Choice in assignment 1: Notes: Answer in here IN YOUR OWN WORDS DO NOT USE AI HERE AT ALL. IF YOU DO YOU WILL FAIL. - at least 100 words long Language edited by AI 18. (YOU MUST WRITE NOTES ON THIS QUESTION) “It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” (Mark Fisher) My personal opinion on this statement, is most closely described by: a. Who cares? b. This is what comes from a world population that believes that the path to enlightenment is X. c. Capitalism is absolutely the only viable economic system, so yes, this is true and right. d. I had never thought of this, but as unreasonable as this might sound, it is actually so true. e. I think that we need to work on our imagination then because this is clearly absurd. Choice now: Choice in assignment 1: Notes: Answer in here IN YOUR OWN WORDS DO NOT USE AI HERE AT ALL. IF YOU DO YOU WILL FAIL. - at least 100 words long Language edited by AI 19. “Show me a great fortune and I’ll show you a great crime.” (a translation from Honoré de Balzac) My personal opinion on this statement is most closely described by: a. Clearly Balzac had taken too much hashish when he wrote that! b. It is completely possible to make a fortune by legal means – in fact this is what I intend to do in my life. c. I don't care - watch out Elon Musk, here I come! d. I think that this is absolutely true. e. Even if great fortunes are acquired in a technically legal way, they are always morally problematic. Choice now: Choice in assignment 1: Notes: Answer in here IN YOUR OWN WORDS DO NOT USE AI HERE AT ALL. IF YOU DO YOU WILL FAIL. - at least 100 words long Language edited by AI 20. “The most environmentally friendly product is the one you didn’t buy.” (Joshua Becker) My personal opinion on this statement is most closely described by: a. I really don’t care about the environment. b. Yeah – I really want a Range Rover so I am going to say this is rubbish irrespective of whether is makes any sense. c. This is a very subversive statement aimed at collapsing capitalism and human happiness. d. As much as I want a Range Rover, this is a really wise statement. e. Capitalism’s lust for consumption is the greatest threat to the sustainability of the human species. Choice now: Choice in assignment 1: Notes: Answer in here IN YOUR OWN WORDS DO NOT USE AI HERE AT ALL. IF YOU DO YOU WILL FAIL. - at least 100 words long Language edited by AI Summary Number unchanged: Insert number of questions where the answers were the same here Number changed: Insert number of questions where the answers were different here Conclusion To conclude, looking at the preceding sections of this portfolio, the most important things which I learned in this module were: complete this in a few paragraphs. NB: This should be the most substantial comment in this portfolio and must give us a clear indication whether you have thought deeply about this module. Answer in here IN YOUR OWN WORDS DO NOT USE AI HERE AT ALL. IF YOU DO YOU WILL FAIL. - at least 100 words long Language edited by AI