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Environmental Science
Unit 1 -Environmental Issues, Their
Causes, & Sustainability(STE Chapter 1, pp. 1-16)
Where are we going?
1. Living more sustainably
2. Population growth, economic growth, and sustainable development
3. Resources
4. Pollution
5. Problems: causes and connections
6. Is our present course sustainable?
1.1 Living more sustainably
environment - everything that affects a living organism
ecology - study of the interactions between organisms & environment
environmental science - interdisciplinary study (ecology, biology, chemistry, geology, social science, economics, politics and ethics) of the relationship between humans & their environment.
Renewable Energy Sources (RES)
Solar derived• RES
– solar– wind– waves– hydro– biomass– geothermal– tidal
Question
What does it mean to be sustainable?
Sustainability – ‘Ability of a system to survive and function over time’
Exponential Growth
exponential growth – quantity increases by a fixed
%-age in a given time
e.g. 2x where x = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, …
Complete the table:
x 2x
0 1
1 2
2 4
3 8
4 16
7 128
World Population Growth
In less than 200 years,
the population went from 1 billion to 6 billion people
Why?
BIRTH RATE > DEATH RATE
Critical Environmental Problems
• population growth
• increasing resource use
• destruction/degradation of wildlife habitats
• extinction of plants and animals
• poverty
• pollution
Solutions
• management
• planning
• conservation
• education
• life style changes
• new ways of doing things
Views
73% of habitable area of the planet has been disturbed. How much more when the population increases from 6 to 8 billion by 2028?
VIEW 1 - Neo-malthusianism
Held by Environmentalists‘we are living unsustainably’ As the population increases it puts strain on our natural resources
VIEW 2 – Cornucopian
Held by Economists and business leaders ‘there are no limits to human population growth that cannot be
overcome by human ingenuity and technology’
1.2 Population Growth, Economic Growth, and Sustainable Economic Development
Cultural change
- has given us more energy and
technology to alter our planet
- allowed population expansion
- increased our environmental impact
What is in store for future generations?
Economic Growth
• Economic growth provides people with more goods and services
– Measured in gross domestic product (GDP) and purchasing power parity (PPP)
• Economic development uses economic growth to improve living standards
– The world’s countries economic status (developed vs. developing) are based on their degree of industrialization and GDP-PPP
1.3 Resources
Resource – obtained from the environment to meet human demand, e.g. food, water, goods etc
Perpetual resources – renewed continuously, e.g. solar energy
Renewable resources - can be replenished relatively rapidly, e.g. forests, grasslands, animals, water, air, soil
Nonrenewable resources - can be exhausted & not renewed in human time scales, e.g. fossil fuels, metallic minerals, nonmetallic minerals
Renewable vs. Nonrenewable Resources
We can extend the supply of non-renewables: - Reduce Reuse Recycle(requires less water, energy and other resources, produces less pollution)
Ecological Footprint
Ecological footprint – amount of land needed to produce resources and assimilate waste for an average person in a country
Includes Carbon FP, Food FP,Housing FP, Goods + Services FP
What is you EFP?
see CW1: have to convert 1 ha = 2.5 acres
Biologically productive land: 1.9 ha land per person (1 ha = 10,000 m2)
Mean EFP is 2.3 ha per person
Ecological Footprint
Larger for developed countries
e.g. Netherlands EFP is 15x the countries area.
When population reaches 10 billion, 1 ha per person
Example
EF = 9.6 ha/person
Total EF USA = 9.6 ha/person x (300 x 106) people = 3 x 109 ha
(3 billion hectares)
Area Land USA = 9631418 km2
100 ha = 1 km2, so 1 x 107 km2 x 100 ha = 1 x 109 ha
1 km2
Ratio EF USA : Area Land USA
= 3 x 109 ha = 3
1 x 109 ha
How many times the country’s total land area is the combined ecological footprint (EF) of all persons living in the USA?
World Consumption
For developed countries to enjoy their standard of living, others must make do with less.
Environmental destruction and pollution do not know political boundaries
How long it will be until we begin to feel the impacts of our actions at home?
Ecological footprint in relation to available ecological capacityCountries indicated by red dots were in an ecological deficit in 1997 when this study was conducted.
Pollution: undesirable change in physical, chemical, or biological characteristics of air, water, soil, or food that can adversely affect humans or other living organisms
Nonpoint Source: dispersed & often difficult to identify sources (e.g., agricultural runoff)
Point Source: single identified sources of pollution (e.g., smoke stack or effluent discharge)
1.4 Pollution
What Types of Harm do Pollutants Cause?
- disrupts life-support systems- damages health and property- nuisances (Noise and smell)
What type of pollutant is CO2?
Severity
Severity - 3 governing factors: 1. Speciation
How active and harmful a pollutant is.e.g. organic or methyl-mercury is highly toxic to humans whilst its elemental form is also toxic, but to a lesser extent
2. Concentration
Measured in parts per million (ppm) mg/kg g/g 3. Persistence
Degradable (nonpersistent) – may be broken down, e.g. sewageSlowly degradable (persistent) – e.g. pesticides, oil, plasticsNondegradable – e.g. lead, mercury
The dose makes the poison
Dealing with Pollution
Prevention (the three R’s – refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle) or Cleanup?
2 BIG problems with cleanup.
1. With the population increasing this is only a temporary solution, e.g. catalytic converter in cars
2. Removes a pollutant from one environment into another
1.5 Environmental Problems‘World Scientists' Warning to Humanity’ 1,700 of the world leading scientists issued an appeal in 1992 -The Environment is suffering critical stress in the following areas:
Tragedy of the Commons
• Problems cannot by solved by technical means
• Problems raised by human population growth and the use of the Earth's common property natural resources
• Examples:
– Depleting biodiversity
– Burning of fossil fuels
– Pollution of waterways and the atmosphere
– Logging of forests
– Overfishing of the oceans
Fresh water?
“If I do not use this resource, someone else will. The little bit I use or pollute is not enough to matter, resources are renewable”
Connections
P x A x T = I
developing countries P is high A and T are low
developed countries A and T are high P low
Actually much more complicated than this!
1.6 Is Our Present Course Sustainable? Guidelines for Sustainability
• Leave the earth as good or better than we found it• Take no more than we need• Try not to harm life, air, water, soil• Protect biodiversity• Help maintain Earth's capacity for self repair• Don't use potentially renewable resources faster than they are
replenished• Don't waste resources• Don't release pollutants faster than Earth's natural processes can dilute
or degrade them• Slow the rate of population growth• Reduce poverty
Advocates for environmentally sustainable economic development call for a shift to using economic
rewards to encourage sustainable choices
Quote
What's the use of a house if you don't have a decent planet to put it on?
–– Henry David Thoreau