Environmental Science Chapter 1 Notes Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and Sustainability Essays

Environmental Science Chapter 1 Notes Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and Sustainability Essays Environmental Science Chapter 1 Notes Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and Sustainability Paper Environmental Science Chapter 1 Notes Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and Sustainability Paper Essay Topic: Notes From Underground Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and Sustainability Chapter 1 Case Study Living in an Exponential Age Exponential growth – concept in which a quantity increases at a constant rate per unit of time Global economic output is a rough measure of the human use of the earth’s resources Poverty affects environmental quality, from the poor depleting and degrading forests, grasslands, and wildlife Exponential growth plays a key role in five important and interconnected environmental issues: population growth, resource use and waste, poverty, loss of biological diversity, and global climate change Questions What keeps us alive? What is an environmentally sustainable society? How fast is the human population increasing? What are economic growth, economic development, and globalization? What are the earth’s main types of resources? How can they be depleted or degraded? What are the principal types of pollution? What can we do about pollution? Wha t are the basic causes of today’s environmental problems? How are these causes connected? Is our current course sustainable? What is environmentally sustainable development? Living More Sustainably 1-1 What Is the Difference between Environment, Ecology, and Environmental Science? Defining Some Basic Terms Environmental science is a study of how the earth works, how we interact with the earth, and how to deal with environmental problems. Environment – everything that affects a living organism (any unique form of life) Ecology – a biological science that studies the relationships between living organisms and their environment Environmental science – study that uses information from the physical sciences and social sciences to learn how the earth works, how we interact with the earth, and how to deal with environmental problems; it involves integrating ideas from the natural world and our cultural world Environmentalism – social movement dedicated to protecting the earth’s life support systems for us and oth er species What Keeps Us Alive? The Sun and the Earth’s Natural Capital All life and economies depend on energy from the sun (solar capital) and the earth’s resources and ecological services (natural capital) Solar capital – energy from the sun Solar energy – direct sunlight and indirect forms of renewable solar energy such as wind power, hydropower (energy from flowing water), and biomass (direct solar energy converted to chemical energy and stored in biological sources of energy such as wood) Natural resources / natural capital – resources and ecological services from the planet itself such as air, water, fishery, mineral, processes of natural purification, and recycling Biological income examples are renewable supplies of wood, wish, grassland, and underground water for drinking and irrigation What is an Environmentally Sustainable Society? One that Preserves Natural Capital and Lives Off Its Income An environmentally sustainable society meets all the basic resource needs of is people indefinitely without degrading or depleting the natural capital that supplies these resources Environmentally sustainable society – society that meets current needs of its people for food, clean water, clean air, shelter, and other basic resources without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs Living sustainably means living off natural income replenished by soils, plants, air, and water and not depleting or degrading the earth’s natural capital that supplies this biological income Protect your capital and live off the income it provides Population growth, economic growth, economic development, and globalization 1-2 How Rapidly Is the Human Population Growing? Pretty Fast The rate at which the world’s population is growing has slowed but is still growing pretty rapidly Currently the populati on is growing exponentially at a rate of ~1. 25% a year It is actually a lot (average increase of 219,000 people a day) What Is the Difference between Economic Growth and Economic Development? More Stuff and Better Living Standards Economic growth provides people with more goods and services and economic development uses economic growth to improve living standards Economic growth – an increase in the capacity of a country to provide people with goods and services, often requiring population growth, more production and consumption er person, or both Gross domestic product (GDP) – the annual market value of all goods and services produced by all firms and organizations, foreign and domestic, operating within a country; usually measures the economic growth Per capita GDP – the GDP divided by the total population at midyear; indicator of standard of living Economic development – the improvement of living standards by economic growth What Is the Difference bet ween Economic Growth and Economic Development? More Stuff and Better Living Standards (cont. ) Developed countries – highly industrialized countries with high average per capita GDP –E. g. US, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and countries of Europe Developing countries – low to moderately industrialized countries with low to moderate per capita GNP –E. g. China, India, Iran, Iraq, Laos, Peru, Afghanistan ~97% of projected increase in population is expected to take place in developing countries Trade-offs of Economic Development What Is Globalization? Being Connected We live in a world that is increasingly interconnected through economic, cultural, and environmental interdependence Globalization – the process of social, economic, and environmental global changes that lead to an increasingly interconnected world Involves increasing exchanges of people, products, services, capital, and ideas across international borders Factors accelerating it: technology (e. g. internet), human mobility, and international trade and investment Society has become a democratization of learning and communication that has never been seen before it’s so crazy Resources 1-3 What Is a Resource? Things We Need or Want We obtain resources from the environment to meet our needs and wants Resource – anything obtained from the environment to meet our needs and wants (e. g. ood, water, shelter, transportation, recreation) Material resources gotten from the environment is classified as perpetual, renewable, or nonrenewable What Are Perpetual and Renewable Resources? Resources That Can Last Resources renewed by natural processes are sustainable if we do not use them faster than they are replenished Perpetual resource – resource that is renewed continuously (e. g. solar energy) Renewable resource – resource that can be replenished fairly rapidly (e. g. forests) Sustainable yield – the highest rate at which a renewable r esource can be used indefinitely without reducing its available supply Environmental degradation – when a renewable resource’s natural replacement rate is exceeded, shrinking the available supply (e. g. eforestation) Case Study: The Tragedy of the Commons- Degrading Free Renewable Resources Renewable resources that are freely available to everyone can be degraded Common-property / free-access resources – overused and causes environmental degradation (e. g. clean air, public land) Tragedy of the commons – degradation of renewable free-access resources, coined by Garrett Hardin in 1968 –â€Å"If I do not use this resource, someone else will. The little bit I use or pollute is not enough to matter, and such resources are renewable†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Solution: use free-access resources at rates well below their sustainable yields, by regulating them or reducing population Not as good solution: convert free-access resources to private ownership. However, they may not always protect their resources and is not practical for global common resources What Is Our Ecological Footprint? Our Growing Environmental Impact Supplying each person with renewable resources and absorbing the wastes from such resource use creates a large ecological footprint or environmental impact Per capita ecological footprint – amount of biologically productive land and water needed to supply each person or population with the renewable resources they use and to absorb or dispose of the wastes from such resource use Currently, humanity’s footprint exceeds the earth’s biological capacity to renew resources by 15% What Are Nonrenewable Resources? Resources We Can Deplete Nonrenewable resources can be economically depleted to the point where it costs too much to obtain what is left Nonrenewable resources – resources that exist in a fixed quantity or stock, can be renewed in maybe a few hundreds or thousands of years –Energy resources (coal, oil, and natural gas that cannot be recycled) –Metallic mineral resources (iron, copper, aluminum that can be recycled) –Nonmetallic mineral resources (salt, clay, sand, and phosphates which are difficult to recycle) We never complete exhaust a resource, it becomes economically depleted when it costs more to extract it than it’s economical value We can either try to find more, recycle or reuse existing supplies (not nonrenewable energy resources), waste less, use less, develop substitute, or wait millions of years (GOOD IDEA. ) What Are Nonrenewable Resources? Resources We Can Deplete (cont. ) Recycling – collecting waste materials, processing them into new materials, and selling the new products Reuse – using a resource again in the same form Recycling nonrenewable metallic resources takes much less energy and resources than using virgin metallic resources pollution 1-4 Where Do Pollutants Come From, and What Are Their Harmful Ef fects? Threats to Health and Survival Pollutants are chemicals found at high enough levels in the environment to cause harm to people or other organisms Pollution – presence of substances at high enough levels in air, water, soil, or food to threaten the health, survival, or activities of humans or other organisms Most pollution is anthropogenic, near urban and industrial areas Industrialized agriculture is also a major source of pollution Point sources – single, identifiable sources of pollution Nonpoint sources – dispersed and often difficult to identify Three types of unwanted effects –Disrupt or degrade life-support systems for humans and other species –Damage wildlife, human health, and property –Can be nuisances such as noise and unpleasant smells, tastes, and sights Solutions: What Can We Do about Pollution? Prevention Pays We can try to clean up pollutants in the environment or prevent them from entering the environment Pollution prevention / input pollution control – reduces or eliminates the production of pollutants, more effective Pollution cleanup / output pollution control – cleaning up or diluting pollutants after they were processed Problems with pollution cleanup –Only temporary –Remove one pollutant? You get another pollutant –Too expensive to reduce to acceptable levels Environmental and resource problems: causes and connections 1-5 What Are Key Environmental Problems and Their Basic Causes? The Big Five The big five: –Rapid population growth –Unsustainable resource use –Poverty Not including the environmental costs of economic goods and services in their market prices (poor environmental accounting) –Trying to manage and simplify nature with too little knowledge about how it works (ecological ignorance) What Is the Relationship between Poverty and Environmental Problems? Being Poor Is Bad for People and the Earth Poverty is a major threat to huma n health and the environment They deplete and degrade land for survival They live in places with high levels of air and water pollution and with a great risk of natural disasters More poverty also means more population growth (more children = more economic security) Premature deaths –Malnutrition –Increased susceptibility to normally nonfatal infectious diseases –Lack of access to clean drinking water –Severe respiratory disease and inhaling indoor air pollutants What Is the Relationship between Resource Consumption and Environmental Problems? Affluenza Many consumers in developed countries have become addicted to buying more and more stuff in their search for fulfillment and happiness Affluenza – term used to describe the unsustainable addiction to overconsumption and materialism exhibited in the lifestyles of affluent consumers in the US and other developed countries Admit your problem, go on a stuff diet –Law of progressive simplification: â€Å"True growth occurs as civilizations transfer an increasing proportion of energy and attention from the material side of life to the nonmaterial side and thereby develop their culture, capacity for compassion, sense of community, and strength of democracy† How Can Affluence Help Increase Environmental Quality? Another Side of the Story Affluent countries have more money for improving environmental quality yup How Are Environmental Problems and Their Causes Connected? Exploring Connections Environmental quality is affected by interactions between population size, resource consumption, and technology In developing countries, population size and degradation of resources are key factors to the environmental impact, low per capita resource use In developed countries, high per capita resource use and high levels of pollution and environmental degradation per person usually are the key factors determining overall environmental impact and a country’s ecological footprint per person Is our present course sustainable? 1-6 Are Things Getting Better or Worse? The Answer is Both There is good and bad environmental news Technological optimists overstate the situation because technological innovations and conventional economic growth and development will lead to a wonderful world Environmental pessimists overstate the problems to the point where our environmental situation seems hopeless How Should We Live? A Clash of Environmental Worldviews The way we view the seriousness of environmental problems and how to solve them depends on our environmental worldview Environmental worldview – how you think the world works, what you think your role in the world should be, and what you believe is right and wrong environmental behavior (environmental ethics) Planetary Management Worldview As the planet’s most important species, we are in charge of nature We will not run out of resources because of our ability to develop and find new ones The potential for global economic growth is essentially unlimited Our success depends on how well we manage the earth’s life-support systems, mostly for our own benefit Stewardship Worldview We are the planet’s most important species but we have an ethical responsibility to care for the rest of nature We will probably not run out of resources but they should not be wasted We should encourage environmentally beneficial forms of economic growth and discourage environmentally harmful forms of economic growth Our success depends on how well we can manage the earth’s life-support systems for our benefit and for the rest of nature Environmental Wisdom Worldview Nature exists for all species, not just for us and we are not in charge of the earth The earth’s resources are limited, should not be wasted, and are not all for us We should encourage earth-sustaining forms of economic growth and discourage earth-degrading forms Our success depends on learning how the earth sustains itself and integrating such lessons from nature (environmental wisdom) into the ways we think and act What Are the Greatest Environmental Problems We Face Now and in the Future? The Big Picture Poverty and malnutrition, smoking, infectious diseases, water shortages, biodiversity loss, and climate changes are the most serious environmental problems we face What Is Environmentally Sustainable Economic Development? Rewarding Environmentally Beneficial Activities Environmentally sustainable economic development rewards environmentally beneficial and sustainable activities and discourages environmentally harmful and unsustainable activities Environmentally sustainable economic development – uses economic rewards to encourage environmentally beneficial and more sustainable forms of economic growth and economic penalties to discourage environmentally harmful and unsustainable forms of economic growth