Download Chapter 1 Concepts

September 05, 2014
Chapter 1 Concepts
• Environmental Science
• Sustainability
• Natural capital
>
Natural resources and natural services
• Exponential growth
• Economic growth
>
GDP, per capita GDP, GDP-PPP*
>
Economic development
>
developed and developing countries
>
environmentally sustainable economic development
• Doubling time and exponential growth: Rule of 70 **
• Resources
>
Perpetual and renewable
>
sustainable yield
>
environmental degradation
>
common-property or free-access resources
>
tragedy of the commons
>
ecological footprints*
>
Nonrenewable resources
>
Pollutants
>
input v. output pollution control
• Causes of Environmental Problems
>
Population growth
>
unsustainable resource use
>
poverty*
>
poor environmental accounting
>
environmental ignorance
>
Affluence
• Culture
>
agricultural revolution
>
industrial-medical revolution
>
information-globalization revolution
>
frontier environmental worldview
>
conservative era
• Environmental worldviews and ethics
• 4 principles of sustainability: copy nature
>
Reliance on solar energy
>
biodiversity
>
population control
>
nutrient recycling
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Sustainability and how to get there:
*Pick a specific example of natural capital and describe
the five steps to reach sustainability.
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Natural capital = natural resources + natural services
services
=
+
Sustainability: Ability of earth's systems to survive and
adapt to changing environmental conditions indefinitely.
Sustainability (human practices): Using resources and
services in such a way that they are not degraded and
remain for future generations.
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Causes of Environmental Problems:
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Population Growth
• Rate of population growth has decreased:
> 2.2% 1963
> 1.23% 2006
> 1.1% 2013
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Exponential Growth and The Rule of 70:
Rule of 70: Calculate doubling time for some quantity
(ex: population) that is growing exponentially.
70
doubling time
=
(in years)
percentage growth
rate
*There are 8 million people in Los Angeles, and the
population is growing exponentially at 1.12%. If the rate
continues, how long until the population of Los Angeles is
16 million?
doubling time = 62.5 years
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Economic growth and economic development
• Economic growth: increase in the capacity of a
county to provide people with goods and services.
Need:
> Population growth (producers + consumers)
> More production
> More consumption
• Gross domestic product: annual market value of all
goods/services with in a country.
> Increase in GDP = economic growth
> GDP per capita = GDP/total population
– Per capita = "per person"
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Economic growth and economic development
• Economic development: Improvement of human
living standard by economic growth.
> How does economic growth improve living
standards?
• Developed countries: high GDP-PPP, industrialized,
higher standard of living
• Developing countries: Can vary from moderately
developed countries (China, India, Brazil, Mexico) to
low-income countries (African countries).
http://www.prb.org/Publications/Lesson-Plans/HumanPopulation/PopulationGrowth.aspx
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Developed v. developing countries: Distribution of
poverty
*What is this map lacking?
Regi
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Economic growth and economic development:
developed v. developing countries
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What about poverty?
• Higher birth rates
• Premature death
> lack of clean drinking water
> lack of access to medicine
> air pollution
• Unsustainable use of resources (education and need)
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What about affluence?
*Please brainstorm 1-2 items for each of the
categories below:
• Negative environmental impact
• overconsumption of resources
• subsequent production of pollution
• Affluent countries takes resources from
other countries and outsources pollutants
• Positive environmental impact
• Concern for environmental quality
• Money for development of technologies to
reduce environmental impacts
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Model to quantify environmental impact:
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Resources
• Resource: anything obtained from the environment to
meet needs and wants.
• Perpetual resource: renewed continuously on a
human time scale.
> sun: 6 billion years
• Renewable resource: replenished fairly rapidly (hours
- decades) through natural processes
> sustainable yield!
> Water, forests, air, soil.
• Nonrenewable resource: exists in a fixed quantity in
the earth's crust.
> takes millions to billions of years to renew
> Recycling and reuse!
> fossil fuels, mineral resources
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Pollution
• Pollution: presence of chemicals at high enough levels
in air, water, soil, or food to threaten the health,
survival, or activities of humans or other living
organisms.
• Source of pollution concentrated in industrialized areas
> cars
> factories
> industrialized agriculture
Steve Lonker:http://nsf.gov/news/mmg/mmg_disp.jsp?med_id=71556&from=search_list
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Pollution
• Point sources: single, identifiable sources.
> factories
> car
• Non-point sources: larger, dispersed
> Runoff
> Pesticides blown into air
• Which ones are harder to identify and control?
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Pollution
• Pollution prevention or input pollution control:
reduce or eliminate production of pollutant
• Pollution clean up or output pollution control:
clean up or diluting pollutants
> What is the problem with output control?
– Temporary--consumption and population
continues to grow
– Clean up just puts pollutants somewhere else
– Difficult + costly
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Model to quantify environmental impact:
can be harmful (cars) or
helpful (green energy)
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Human History and the Environment:
• Agricultural revolution
> Allow people to settle and increase food production
• Industrial-medical revolution
> Urbanization
> Fossil fuels!
> Science to improve sanitation + medicine
• Information-globalization revolution
> Gain and access lots of information
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2005: UN's Millenium Ecosystem Assessment
Human activities are degrading or
using unsustainably about 60% of
the world's free natural services that
sustain life on earth.
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Four scientific principles of sustainability: Copy Nature
Reliance on Solar
Energy
Biodiversity
Population
Control
Nutrient Cycling
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Social Capital: getting people to work together to
find solutions
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