Download Causes of Environmental Problems

Warm Up to ……
Causes of Environmental Problems
• We have been raising our awareness about the
types of environmental problems that exist at
local, regional, national and international levels.
• What do you think the ROOT CAUSES of these
problems are ? Jot down as many as you can
think of.
•
Problem
- Root Cause
• Ex. Runny nose, Sore throat – bacterial infection
• Ex. Car won’t run, battery dead – broken
The Fate of Easter Island
Can what happened on one South
Pacific island serve as a cautionary
tale for the planet as a whole?
Causes of Environmental Problems
Experts Have Identified Five Basic
Causes of Environmental Problems
• Population growth
• Wasteful and unsustainable resource use
• Poverty
• Failure to include the harmful environmental
costs of goods and services in their market
prices
Causes of Environmental Problems
Population growth
• Considered by many to be the biggest threat
to the environment.
• Theorists hold the idea that the human
population is rising beyond the Earth’s ability
to regenerate. Has human population
exceeded the Earth’s carrying capacity for it?
• Presently 7 + billion people on the planet.
Every minute 200,000 people are added.
• Slower growth rate is occuring but overall
13
12
11
?
8
7
6
5
4
2–5 million
years
8000
Hunting and
gathering
6000
Industrial revolution
3
Black Death—the Plague
2
1
4000
2000
Time
B. C.
Billions of people
10
9
0
2000 2100
A. D.
Agricultural revolution
Industrial
revolution
Fig. 1-1, p. 5
• Agricultural Revolution –
2Events
rise tofrom
population
Began ~that
10,000gave
ya transition
huntergatherer to agriculural
lifestyle
increase
 Provided a way to maintain stable food source
which improved human health
• Industrial Revolution –
Began in the early 1700’s
Shift from rural, animal-powered farming to an
urban society pwered by nonrenewable fossil
fuel energy sources
Resource Consumption
• “It’s not just the number of people
on Earth, but how much they
consume”
Consumption of Natural Resources
Consumption of Natural Resources
What is a resource?
• Anything an organism needs to survive – food,
shelter, mates, breeding sites, water, air, land
• Renewable natural resource – Resource that is
replenished over “short” periods of time
(within our lifetime). If consumed faster than
replaced it can be lost.
• Ex. Wood, wildlife, sunlight, wind, water, soil
• Nonrenewable natural resource - Resource
that is formed much more slowly than its
Overexploiting Shared Renewable
Resources: Tragedy of the
Commons
• Three types of property or resource rights
– Private property
– Common property
– Open access renewable resources
• Tragedy of the commons – Garret Hardin
• If not managed, common resources will be
exploited by its users – Ex. Ocean fishing
Ecological Footprint
• Resources use can be measured using the
concept of “ecological footprint” (1990’s)
Ecological Footprint – measures the
environmental effects of an individual or
population in terms of the total amount of land
and water required to provide raw materials and
to dispose of waste.
Total Ecological Footprint (million hectares)
and Share of Global Ecological Capacity (%)
2,810 (25%)
United States
European Union
2,160 (19%)
China
India
Number of Earths
Japan
Per Capita Ecological Footprint
(hectares per person)
2,050 (18%)
780 (7%)
540 (5%)
Earth's
ecological
capacity
9.7
United States
European Union
4.7
China
India
1.6
0.8
Japan
4.8
Projected footprint
Ecological
footprint
Fig. 1-10, p. 15
Total Ecological Footprint (million hectares)
and Share of Global Ecological Capacity (%)
2,810 (25%)
United States
European Union
2,160 (19%)
China
India
Number of Earths
Japan
Per Capita Ecological Footprint
(hectares per person)
2,050 (18%)
780 (7%)
540 (5%)
Earth's
ecological
capacity
9.7
United States
European Union
4.7
China
India
1.6
0.8
Japan
4.8
Projected footprint
Ecological
footprint
Stepped Art
Fig. 1-10, p. 15
Cultural Changes Have Increased
Our Ecological Footprints
• 12,000 years ago: hunters and gatherers
• Three major cultural events
– Agricultural revolution
– Industrial-medical revolution
– Information-globalization revolution
Resource Sustainability is the Goal of
E.S.
• Resource use is considered sustainable if it can
continue at the same rate into the future.
• As we consider our values, sustainability for
the benefit of ourselves in the immediate,
those in the future, those living elsewhere and
natural in general is the goal of Environmental
Science
#3 Poverty and the Inequality of
Wealth
• One billion people live on less than a dollar a
day, the official measure of poverty
• However, half the world — nearly three billion
people — lives on less than two dollars a day.
• A few hundred millionaires now own as much
There Is a Wide Economic Gap between Rich and Poor Countries in terms of
both Population Growth and Resource Use
Developed Nations
Developing Nations
• Lower life expectancy
• Have less education
• Have less money income
Lowered living standard
• Underdeveloped industrial
base
• Higher population growth
rate
• Lower consumption rate
•
•
•
•
•
Higher life expectancy
Have more education
Greater income
Higher standard of living
Industrialized nation
• Lower population growth
• Higher consumption rate
per person
Comparing Developed and Developing Nations
Poverty Has Harmful
Environmental and Health Effects
• Population growth affected
• Malnutrition
• Premature death
• Limited access to adequate sanitation facilities
and clean water
Lack of
access to
Number of people
(% of world's population)
Adequate
sanitation facilities
2.6 billion (38%)
Enough fuel for
heating and cooking
2 billion (29%)
Electricity
2 billion (29%)
Clean drinking
water
1.1 billion (16%)
Adequate
health care
1.1 billion (16%)
Adequate
housing
Enough food
for good health
1 billion (15%)
0.86 billion (13%)
Fig. 1-13, p. 18
• 1 billion people suffer from hunger and some
2 to 3.5 billion people have a deficiency of
vitamins and minerals
• Yet, some 1.2 billion suffer from obesity
Affluenza
"a painful, contagious, socially
transmitted condition of
overload, debt, anxiety,
and waste resulting from the
dogged pursuit of more."
Affluence Has Harmful and
Beneficial Environmental Effects
• Harmful environmental impact due to
– High levels of consumption
– Unnecessary waste of resources
• Affluence can provide funding for
– Developing technologies to reduce
• Pollution
• Environmental degradation
• Resource waste
Poverty Also Has Harmful and
Beneficial Environmental Effects
• Beneficial environmental impact due to
– Low levels of consumption
– Reduced waste of resources
• Poverty negatively affects the environment
through
• “Resource stripping” necessary to pay of
personal and national debts.
• Lack of or poor pollution controls
#4 Poor Environmental Accounting
• Results from a lack of doing busineness that
includes the full value of a products natural
capital • What resources are used in making the
product?
• How much water was used to make product
and wasn’t available for drinking purposes?
• How many forests were cut down, displacing
species, loss of ecological services like oxygen
production and the take up of carbon dioxide?
Prices Do Not Include the Value of
Natural Capital
• Companies do not pay the environmental cost
of resource use
• Goods and services do not include the harmful
environmental costs
• Companies receive tax breaks and subsidies
• Economy may be stimulated but there may be
#5 Ecological Ignorance
• Ignorance – lack of understanding, crude
knowledge
• Refers to the failure to understand the effect of
human actions on the relationship between the
environment and living things.
What is the connection between your
Big Mac and a rainforest
destruction?
We Can Learn to Make Informed
Environmental Decisions
• Scientific research
• Identify problem and multiple solutions
• Consider human values