Download APES Ch. 1 PP - MS. BRANTON`S APES CLASS

Environmental Problems:
Their Causes and Sustainability
Biologists estimate that human
activities are causing premature
extinction of the earth’s species
at an exponential rate of 0.1% to
1% a year.
EXPONENTIAL GROWTH
A quantity increases at a
constant rate per unit of time.
Exponential growth plays a key
role in:
* population growth
* resource use and waste
* poverty
* loss of biological diversity
* global climate change
www.otherwise.com/population/e
xponent.html
Environment
Everything that affects a living
organism.
Environmental Science
An interdisciplinary 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.
Environmentalism
A social movement dedicated to
protecting the earth’s life support
systems for us and other species.
Solar Capital
Energy from the sun.
Solar Energy
Includes direct sunlight and indirect
forms of renewable solar energy
such as wind power, hydropower,
and biomass.
Natural Resources
a.k.a. Natural Capital
Def. – The planet’s air, water, soil,
wildlife, forest, rangeland, fishery,
mineral, and energy resources, and
the processes of natural
purification, recycling, and pest
control.
What is an Environmental
Sustainable Society?
A society that meets the 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.
How rapidly is the human
population growing?
1.25% a year
Economic Growth
An increase in the capacity of a country
to provide people with goods and
services. Measured by the change in a
country’s GDP.
Economic Development
The improvement of living standards by
economic growth. Measured by per capita
GDP.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
The annual market value of all goods and
services produced by all firms and
organizations in operation within a
country.
Per capita GDP
The GDP divided by the total population
at midyear.
Developed Countries
• Highly industrialized.
• High average per capita GDP.
• Examples: US, Canada, Japan ,
Australia, Iceland.
Developing Countries
 Middle to low income.
 High poverty rates.
 Life expectancy lower than
developed countries.
 Examples: Yemen,
Samoa
Ethiopia,
Globalization
The process of social, economic, and
environmental global changes that
lead to an increasingly
interconnected world. It involves
increasing exchanges of people,
products, services, capital, and
ideas across international borders.
Resource
Anything obtained in the
environment to meet our needs and
wants. Ex.- food, water, shelter.
Perpetual Resource
Renewed continuously. Ex.- solar
energy, winds, tides, flowing water.
Renewable Resource
Can be replenished fairly rapidly through
natural processes. Ex.- forests, grasslands, wild
animals, soil, fresh water, fresh air.
Sustainable Yield
The highest rate at which a renewable resource
can be used indefinitely without reducing its
available supply.
Environmental Degradation
Exceeding a renewable resources natural
replacement rate.
Common-Property
a.k.a. free-access resources.
Not owned by anyone. Available to
users at little or no cost. Ex.- clean
air, open ocean, fish, birds, wildlife,
and publicly owned land.
Tragedy of the Commons
The degradation of renewable
free-access resources.
Per Capita Ecological Footprint
A measure of how much of the earth’s natural
capital and biological income each of us uses.
Humanity’s ecological footprint per person exceeds
the earth’s biological capacity to replenish
renewable resources and absorb waste by about
15%.
Ecological Footprint is larger in developed than in
developing countries.
What’s your ecological footprint?
www.earthday.net
Nonrenewable Resources
Can be depleted faster than they are
formed.
Examples include:
• Energy resources (coal, oil, natural gas)
• Metallic mineral resources (iron, copper,
aluminum)
• Nonmetallic mineral resources (clay,
sand, phosphates)
A resource becomes economically depleted
when
the costs of extracting and using what is left
exceed
its economic value.
At that point, what are our options?
• Try to find more
• Recycle or reuse existing supplies
• Waste less
• Use less
• Try to develop a substitute
• Wait millions of years for more to be produced
Pollution
The presence of substances at high enough levels in
the air, water, and soil, or food to threaten the
health, survival, or activities of humans or other
organisms.
Point sources – single, identifiable sources.
Nonpoint sources – dispersed, difficult to pinpoint.
Input pollution control – Prevention
Output pollution control – Cleanup
The Big Five – Key Environmental
Problems
 Population Growth
 Wasteful Resource Use
 Poverty
 Poor Environmental Accounting
 Ecological Ignorance
Environmental Worldview
How you think the world works.
Three types:
Planetary Management Worldview
Stewardship Worldview
Environmental Wisdom Worldview
Guidelines for Working With the
Earth
 Never leave the earth worse than you found
it.
 Take only what you need.
 Do no harm.
 Sustain diverse living organisms.
 Maintain earth’s capacity for self-repair and
adaptation.
 Do not waste; do not pollute.
 Decrease population; reduce poverty.