Download Environment - Cabarrus County Schools

Unit 1: Measurement
Introduction to Earth
science and Experimental
Design
Ch 1, pgs 1-15
Our island: Earth
• Earth may seem enormous
• But it and its systems are finite and limited
• We can change the Earth and damage its systems
• Environment: all the living and non-living things
around us
• Animals, plants, forests, farms, etc.
– Continents, oceans, clouds, ice caps
– Structures, urban centers, living spaces
– Social relationships and institutions
Environmental science
• Environmental science is the study of:
• How the natural world works
• How the environment affects humans and
vice versa
• We need to understand our interactions with
the environment
• To creatively solve environmental
problems
• Global conditions are rapidly changing
• We are also rapidly gaining knowledge
• The opportunity to solve problems is still
available
Limitations of Environmental Science
• Environmental science has its limitations
• Some data has to be estimated
• How many acres of rainforest are cut down each year?
• How many people are affected by pollution
• Interactions between humans and the environment is complex
and not easily simplified
• Environmental models are therefore inherently limited
• Predictions into the future must take these assumptions we
make into consideration
• Will environmental education have an impact on the future?
• Will less developed nations harm the environment as much
as developed nations have in the past?
• How fast will human population grow?
We rely on natural resources
• Natural resources = substances and energy sources needed for
survival
• Renewable natural resources: can be replenished
• Perpetually renewed: sunlight, wind, wave energy
• Renew themselves over short periods: timber, water, soil
• These can be destroyed
• Nonrenewable natural resources: unavailable after depletion
• Oil, coal, minerals
We rely on ecosystem services
• Natural resources are “goods” produced by nature
• Earth’s natural resources provide “services” to us
• Ecosystem services: arise from the normal functioning of
natural services
• Purify air and water, cycle nutrients, regulate climate
• Pollinate plants, receive and recycle wastes
• We degrade ecosystem services
• By depleting resources, destroying habitat, generating pollution
• Increased human affluence has intensified degradation
Human population growth amplifies
impacts
• There are over 7.2 billion
humans
• Agricultural revolution
• 10000 years ago
• Crops, livestock, stable food
supplies
• Able to have more surviving
children
• Industrial revolution
• Spread 19th century from Great
Britain and Europe to America
• Urbanized society powered by
fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal)
• Sanitation and medicines
• Pesticides and fertilizers
World population=7.2 billion
Tragedy of the Commons
• A dilemma coming from the situation in
which multiple individuals, acting
independently and in their own selfinterest, will ultimately deplete a
shared limited resource, even when it is
clear that it is not in anyone's longterm interest for this to happen
• “If I don’t use it, someone else will”
• Overusing which belongs to all of us
• Air, water, ocean
• Everyone is looking out for themselves
• Described by ecologist Garrett Hardin
Our “ecological footprint”
• Affluence increases consumption
• Ecological footprint: the
environmental impact of a person
or population
• The area of biologically
productive land + water
• To supply raw resources and
dispose/recycle waste
• People in rich nations have much
larger ecological footprints
If everyone consumed the amount of resources the U.S.
does, we would need 4.5 Earths!
Overshoot
Overshoot: humans have surpassed the Earth’s capacity
to support us
Year
1987
1990
1995
2000
2005
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
Overshoot Date
December 19
December 7
November 21
November 1
October 20
October 26
September 23
September 25
August 21
September 27
August 22
August 20
August 19
August 13
We are using renewable resources
30% faster than they are being
replenished
What is an “environmental problem”?
• Whether an environmental
condition is seen as a problem
• Depends on the individual and
situation
• Ex.: the pesticide DDT
• In malaria-infested Africa: welcome
because it kills malaria-carrying
mosquitoes
• In America: not welcome, due to
health risks
People also differ in their awareness of problems,
depending on who they are, where they live, what they do
The scientific method
• A scientist makes an
observation and asks
questions of some phenomenon
• Hypothesis: a statement that
tries to explain the question
• The hypothesis generates
predictions: specific statements
that can be directly tested
• The test results either support
or reject the hypothesis
Experiments test the validity of a hypothesis
• Variable: a condition that can change
• Independent variable: can be manipulated
• Dependent variable: depends on the independent
variable
• Controlled experiment: the effects of all variables are
controlled
• Except the independent variable whose effect is being tested
• Control: an unmanipulated point of comparison
• Quantitative data: uses numbers
• Qualitative data: does not use numbers
The scientific process is part of a larger process
• It guards against faulty
research
– Includes peer review,
publication,
competition for
funding
Theories and paradigm shifts
• Theory: a well-tested and widely accepted explanation
– Consolidates widely-supported, related hypotheses
• Paradigm shift – a dramatic upheaval in thought
– It changes the dominant viewpoint
• Wicked problems: are complex, with no simple solution
– I.e. environmental problems
Resources
Ch 1, pgs 15-19 Ch 6, pgs 137-146
Developed Countries
• Highly industrialized
• Have 20% of world’s population
• Have 85% of world’s wealth and income
• Use 88% of its natural resources
• Generate 75% of its pollution & waste
• May be referred to as First World Countries, but that’s an outdated term
Developing Countries
• Low to moderate industrialization
• Most are in Africa, Asia, and Latin America
• Have 80% of the world’s population
• Have 15% of its wealth and income
• Use only 12% of its natural resources
Development
Sustainability and the future of our world
• Sustainability: we must live within our planet’s means
• So the Earth and its resources can sustain us and all life for the
future
• Sustainability involves conserving resources
• Developing long-term solutions
• Keeping fully functioning ecosystems
• Natural (earth) capital: Earth’s total wealth of resources
• We are withdrawing it faster that it’s being replenished
• We must live off Earth’s natural interest (replenishable
resources), not its natural capital
Population & consumption
• Population growth amplifies all human impacts
• The root of all environmental issues is human population
• The growth rate has slowed, but we still add more than 200,000
people to the planet each day
• Resource consumption has risen faster than population
• Life has become more pleasant
• Rising consumption also amplifies our demands on the
environment
• The 20 wealthiest nations have 55 times the income of
the 20 poorest nations
• Three times the gap that existed 40 years ago
Issues surrounding population growth
• Increased human population growth leads to…
• Loss of biodiversity
• Pollution
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Air
Water
Noise
Land
Biological
Solid waste
Light
• Exploited resources
• Using too much of any resource before it can be replaced
Ecological footprints are not all equal
• Not everyone benefits equally
from rising affluence
• The ecological footprints of
countries vary greatly
- The U.S. footprint is much
greater than the world’s
average
• In the U.S. the richest 1%
have 25% of all income
World Ecological Footprint
We face challenges in agriculture
• Technology expanded food production
– Leading to increased population and consumption
• It’s one of humanity’s greatest achievements, but it
comes at an enormous environmental cost
– Nearly half of the land surface is used for agriculture
– Chemical fertilizers and pesticides poison and change natural
systems
– Erosion, climate change and poor management destroy
millions of acres each year
Humans have changed the Earth’s
landscape
Agriculture, urban sprawl, and other land uses have
substantially affected most of the landscape of all nations
We face challenges in pollution
• Waste products and artificial chemicals
– Are used in farms, industries, and households
– Contaminate land, water and air
– Kill millions of people
• Humans are affecting the Earth’s climate
– Melting glaciers
– Rising sea levels
– Impacted wildlife, forests, health and crops
– Changed rainfall and increased storms
Since the Industrial Revolution, atmospheric carbon
dioxide concentrations have risen by 39%, to the
highest level in 800,000 years
We face challenges in biodiversity
• Biodiversity: the cumulative
number and diversity of living
things
• Human actions have driven
many species extinct
– Biodiversity is declining
dramatically
– We are setting in motion a
mass extinction event
Biodiversity loss may be our biggest problem; once
a species is extinct, it is gone forever
Our energy choices will affect our future
• The lives we live today are due to fossil fuels
–
–
–
–
Machines
Chemicals
Transportation
Products
• Fossil fuels are a one-time bonanza
– Supplies will certainly decline
We have used up ½ of the world’s oil supplies; how will we
handle this imminent fossil fuel shortage?
Sustainable development
• The poor suffer the most from environmental degradation
• Development: purposeful changes to improve the quality
of life
• Sustainable development: resources satisfy current
needs
•
•
•
•
Without compromising future availability of resources
It is not ever increasing economic gain
It values and prioritizes environmental protection
Human-made capital cannot substitute for natural capital
Ethics and economics involve values
• Both disciplines deal with what we value
– Values affect our decisions and actions
• Solving environmental problems needs more than
understanding how natural systems work
– Values shape human behavior
– Ethics and economics give us tools to pursue the
“triple bottom line” of sustainability
– Environmental, economic, social
We value things in two ways
• Instrumental (extrinsic) value: valuing something for its
pragmatic benefits by using it
• Animals are valuable because we can eat them
• Inherent (intrinsic) value: valuing something for its own
sake because it has a right to exist
• Animals are valuable because they live their own lives
• Things can have both extrinsic and intrinsic value
• But different people emphasize different values
• How we value something affects how we treat it
Environmental ethics
• Environmental ethics = application of ethical standards to
relationships between human and nonhuman entities
• Hard to resolve: it depends on the person’s ethical
standards and their area of ethical concern
Should we save
resources for future
generations?
Should humans drive
other species to
extinction?
When is it OK to destroy a
forest to create jobs?
Is it OK for some
communities to be exposed
to more pollution?
Environmental justice (EJ)
• The poor and minorities are exposed to more pollution,
hazards, and environmental degradation
North Carolina wanted to put a toxic waste site in the
county with the highest percentage of African Americans
Environmental justice and Native Americans
• From 1948 to the 1960s, neither the U.S. government nor
industry provided Navajo miners with information or
protection
Significant inequities still remain
• Significant inequities remain despite progress toward racial equality
– Economic gaps between rich and poor have widened
– Minorities and the poor still suffer substandard environmental conditions
• Poor Latino farm workers in California suffer from unregulated air
pollution (dairy and pesticide emissions)
– Organized groups convinced regulators to enforce the Clean Air Act and state
legislatures to pass new laws
Environmental justice and Hurricane
Katrina
People most affected by the hurricane and its aftermath
were poor and nonwhite
Environmental justice: an international
issue
• Wealthy nations impose pollution on poorer nations
• Hazardous waste is expensive to dispose of
• Companies pay poor nations to take the waste
• It is dumped illegally
• It may be falsely labeled as harmless or beneficial
• Workers are uninformed or unprotected
• The Basel Convention prohibits international export of
waste
• But illegal trade and dumping continue
• The United States has not ratified this treaty
The environment vs. economics
•
Friction occurs between ethical and economic impulses
•
Is there a trade-off between economics and the
environment?
•
–
People say protection costs too much money, interferes with
progress, or causes job loses
–
But environmental protection is good for the economy
Traditional economic thought ignores or underestimates
contributions of the environment to the economy
–
Human economies depend on the environment
Chapter 6, pgs. 146-163
Economics
Economics
•
Economics studies how people use resources to provide
goods and services in the face of demand
•
Most environmental and economic problems are linked
•
•
Root oikos, meaning “household,” gave rise to both ecology
and economics
Economy = a social system that converts resources into:
– Goods: manufactured materials that are bought, and
– Services: work done for others as a form of business
Types of modern economies
• Subsistence economy = people get their daily needs
directly from nature or their own production
– They do not purchase or trade products
• Capitalist market economy = buyers and sellers interact
to determine prices and production of goods and services
• Centrally planned economy = the government
determines how to allocate resources
• Mixed economy = governments intervene to some extent
– Unregulated financial practices caused the 2009 recession
Governments intervene in a market
economy
• Even in mixed market economies, governments
intervene to:
– Eliminate unfair advantages held by single buyers or sellers
– Provide social services (national defense, medical care,
education)
– Provide safety nets for elderly, disaster victims, etc.
– Manage the commons
– Mitigate pollution and other threats to health and quality of
life
The economy exists within the
environment
• Economies receive inputs
(resources)
– Process them
– Discharge outputs (waste)
• Traditional economics
– Ignores the environment
– Resources are “limitless”
– Wastes are absorbed at no
cost
Environmental view of economics
Human economies exist within, and depend on, the
environment for goods and services
Environmental systems support economies
• Environmental goods = natural resources (sun’s energy,
water, trees, rocks, fossil fuels)
• Ecosystem services = essential services support the life
that makes economic activities possible
* Soil formation
* Pollination
* Water purification
* Nutrient cycling
* Climate regulation
* Waste treatment
• Economic activities affect the environment
– Depleting natural resources, generating pollution
15 of 24 ecosystem services are being degraded or
used unsustainably
Cost-benefit analysis
• Cost-benefit analysis = costs of a proposed action are
compared to benefits that result from the action
– If benefits > costs: pursue the action
• Cost-benefit analysis is controversial: not all costs and
benefits can be identified or defined
– It is easy to quantify wages paid to miners
– But hard to assess the cost of a destroyed landscape
• Monetary benefits are overrepresented
– Analysis is biased in favor of economic development
– Biased against environmental protection
Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”
• Classical economics: when people pursue economic self-interest
in a competitive marketplace
– The market is guided by an “invisible hand”
– Society benefits
• This idea is a pillar of free-market thought today
– It is also blamed for economic inequality between rich and poor
• Critics feel that market capitalism promotes
environmental degradation
Assumption: resources are infinite
• Economic models treat resources as substitutable and
interchangeable
• A replacement resource will be found
• Goods and services are treated as “free gifts of nature”
• Infinitely abundant, resilient, and substitutable
• But Earth’s resources are limited
• Nonrenewable resources can be depleted
• Renewable resources (e.g., forests) can also be depleted
Assumption: costs and benefits are internal
• Only the buyer and seller experience costs and benefits
• Pricing ignores social, environmental, or economic costs of
pollution and degradation
• Externalities = costs or benefits involving people other
than the buyer or seller
• External costs = borne by someone not involved in a
transaction
• Health problems, resource depletion, property damage
• Governments develop laws and regulations
• But how do you assign monetary value to illness?
People suffer external costs
External costs include water pollution, health problems,
property damage, and harm to other organism
Assumption: discounted long-term effects
• A future event counts less than a present one
• Discounting = short-term costs and benefits are more
important than long-term costs and benefits
• Present conditions are more important than future ones
• Cutting trees now brings in more money than cutting them in
the future
• Policymakers ignore long-term consequences of actions
• Puts costs of degradation, resource depletion, pollution on to
future generations
Assumption: growth is good
• Economic growth = an increase in an economy’s production
and consumption of goods
• It is necessary to maintain social order
• Promoting economic growth creates opportunities for poor to
become wealthier
• Progress is measured by economic growth
• Growth is used to measure progress
• All economic growth is seen as good and necessary
• Economic growth is always good news
• Modern global economic growth is unprecedented
• Higher trade, production, amount and value of goods
• The United States has a “more and bigger” attitude
• Americans are in a frenzy of consumption
Can growth go on forever?
• Economic growth comes from:
• Increased inputs (labor, natural resources)
• Economic development = improved efficiency of production
(technology, ideas, equipment)
• Uncontrolled economic growth is unsustainable
• Technology can push back limits, but not forever
• Efficient resource extraction and production perpetuate the
illusion that resources are unlimited
• Many economists believe technology can solve anything
Computer simulations project future trends
Current consumption
patterns predict economic
collapse
Results of policies of
sustainability
Measuring economic progress: GDP
• Gross Domestic Product (GDP) =
the total monetary value of
goods and services a nation
produces
– Does not account for nonmarket
values
– Does not express only desirable
economic activity
– Pollution, oil spills, disasters, etc.
increase GDP
GPI: An alternative to the GDP
• Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) = differentiates
between desirable and undesirable economic activity
• Positive contributions (e.g., volunteer work) not paid for with
money are added to economic activity
• Negative impacts (crime, pollution) are subtracted
In the United States, GDP has risen greatly, but not GPI
Valuing ecosystem goods and services
• Our society mistreats the very systems that sustain it
• The market ignores/undervalues ecosystem values
• Nonmarket values = values not included in the price of a
good or service (e.g., ecological, cultural, spiritual)
The global value of all ecosystem services
• The global economic value
of all ecosystem services
equals $46 trillion
• More than the GDP of all
nations combined
• Protecting land gives 100
times more value than
converting it to some other
use
The market can counter market failure
• Ecolabeling = tells
consumers which brands
use environmentally
benign processes
• A powerful incentive for
businesses to change
• Dolphin-safe tuna, organic
food
• Socially responsible
investing in sustainable
companies
• $2.7 trillion in 2007
Corporations are responding to concerns
• Industries, businesses, and
corporations make money by
“greening” their operations
• Ben & Jerry’s (ice cream),
Patagonia (clothing)
• Industries donate to
environmental groups,
preserve land, etc.
• Manufacturers use recycled
materials, cut energy use, etc.
• Local sustainable businesses
A “green wave” of consumer preferences
• Large corporations are riding the “green wave” of
consumer preference for sustainable products
• McDonald’s, Starbucks, Intel, Ford, Dow, etc.
• Greenwashing: consumers are misled into thinking
companies are acting more sustainably than they are
• “Pure” bottled water may not be safer or better
• Any changes made by large companies will help
• Hewlett-Packard, Wal-Mart
• Corporate actions hinge on consumer behavior
• People must support sustainable economics
For the test tomorrow
• Experimental design (variables, quantitative/qualitative data,
theory, control, hypothesis, etc)
• Natural resources and ecosystem services
• Sustainable development
• Developing and developed countries (resource use, populations,
wealth, etc)
• GDP/GPI
• Supply/demand and cost benefit
• Tragedy of the commons scenarios
• Types of modern economies and how they value the environment
• Ecolabeling/greenwashing