Transcript Environmental problems

Environmental problems
Their causes and Sustainability
What do you want the world to be?
 Before you can begin the journey down this path, you have to
have an idea:
 of what the world was
 what the world is today…
 and most importantly what the world is going to look like years
from now.
Sustainability
 The capacity of the earth’s natural systems and human
cultural systems to survive, flourish and adapt to the
changing environment
 Consider this: The earth is one big pot of “soup, ” as long as
the pot is full we are happy. But as we offer the “soup” to
everyone and quit adding things to the pot… one day that
pot is going to be empty.
Environmental science vs.
Environmentalism
 Environmental science – is how all the natural processes
(living and nonliving) of the earth work together to form the
environment that we live in.
 Important – we have to understand these processes so we can keep
the lifestyles we are used to living as well as other species and their
way of living
 Environmentalism – social movement dedicated to
protecting the earth’s life support systems for all forms of
life. More political and ethical then scientific.
Three principles of Sustainability
 Reliance of solar energy
 How would we live without the sun?
 Biodiversity
 Everything on this earth plays a part, even if we don’t know the
part, every living thing on the planet interacts with each other
and provides natural services.
 Chemical cycling
 Everything is part of a cycle and has to be replenished through the
earth.
Key Components
 Natural Capital - Natural resources and services that keep us
alive.
 You can relate this to economics – this is what we have, so we can
either lose it or make more of it.
 Natural Resources – materials and energy that are useful to
us
 Renewable vs. non-renewable
 Natural Services – processes that support life and human
economics
 Purification of air and water, renewal of topsoil
Key Components cont.
 Degradation of Natural Capital
 If resources are being used faster than we can replace them,
how are we supposed to keep growing as a species?
 Clearing mature forests, taking up more groundwater
 Soup example – If we keep inviting people over for soup, we
will run out. Hence if we don’t make enough, have enough
ingredients some people will not have soup.
Key components cont.
 Solutions
 The hard part – we as a people can create all the scientific
solutions necessary.
 But there is the political aspect of it – who is going to enact it,
regulate it, and enforce it?
 There are always trade-offs – if you give us ______, we can do
________.
 Tree farms and timber companies
Resources
 Perpetual – A continuous
supply that last billions of
years
 Renewable – a supply that
takes several days to
several hundred years.
Nature can replace but it
takes time.
 Nonrenewable – a fixed
quantity. Takes millions to
billions of years to renew.
Resources cont.
 Reuse – we can save products
and continue to use them
 Recycle – break materials
down into materials that can
be used over again
 It takes energy to create
things. We have to become
more efficient at producing
materials and not wasting the
energy from the first time.
Differences in countries
 Economic Growth – nation’s output of goods and services.
 Gross national product (GDP) – annual market value of ALL
goods and services – foreign and domestic – operating in a
country.
 Per capita GDP – GDP/ total population (at mid-year)
 Basically every country has an output of resources and
services that determines where their country lies compared
to other countries based on monetary units
Comparison
 More developed countries
 US, Canada, Japan,
Australia, New Zealand,
and most of Europe
 High average income
 World Bank – 19% of the
population use about 88%
of the resources and
makes about 75 % of the
waste
 Less developed countries
 Most of Africa, Asia, and
Latin America
 Can be broken down:
 Middle income
moderately developed
countries – China, India,
Brazil
 Low income least
developed countries –
Congo, Haiti, Nigeria
Our Ecological Footprint
 Question: At the rate of
growth we as a world are
experiencing, are we going to
have the resources to sustain
our way of living?
 Natural Capital Degradation –
wasting, depleting and
degrading the earth’s natural
capital.
 Renewable forests are
shrinking, desertification,
rivers are running dry etc.
 2005 study says that 60% of
the earth’s natural resources
have degraded in the past 50
years.
Pollution
 A basic environmental
problem that enters all
environments
 Two sources of pollution
 Point sources – single
identifiable sources
 Smoke stacks, exhaust
stacks
 Non Point Sources –
pesticides blown over the
land into air and run offs,
trash from land into lakes
and streams
Pollution cont.
 Biodegradable pollution
 Materials that can break
down over time – sewage
(human), newspapers.
 Non biodegradable
pollution
 Chemicals and products
that cannot break down by
natural processes – lead,
mercury, arsenic.
Unwanted effects of Pollution
 They can disrupt or degrade life supporting systems for
humans and other species
 They damage wildlife, health and property
 They create nuisances such as noise, smells, tastes and sights
 So what can we do about this? How are we supposed to
control what we as humans do to help alleviate the stress
placed on the environment?
Two Methods
 Pollution Clean-up
 Pollution Prevention
 Problems
 Back end fixing
 1. temporary solution
 2. remove from one part
of the enviro. but adds to
another part
 3. if pollutants become to
dispersed at harmful
levels, then it costs too
much
 If you can eliminate the
pollutants first or reduce
them in the beginning,
then it is easier to fix in the
long run.
Tragedy of the Commons
 Three types of property
rights
 Private property
 Common property
 Open access property
 1968 biologist Garrett
Harden said
 “If I do not use this
resource, someone else
will. The little bit that I use
is not enough to matter,
and anyway, it is a
renewable resource.”
 So does this make sense?
What is the difference?
Who carries a larger
footprint?
Ecological footprints
 The amount of biologically productive land and water needed
to provide the people in a given area with an indefinite supply
of renewable resources and to absorb and recycle the wastes
and pollution produced by such resource use.
 Wow… now who wants to say that in a simple fashion?
Footprints cont.
 If a country’s footprint is larger than its biological capacity, it
is said to have an ecological deficit.
IPAT
 A model developed in the 1970’s showing how certain
variables determine the impact on the environment.
 I = Impact
 P= Population size
 A = Affluence
 T= Technology
 I = P*A*T
 Lesser developed countries with a lower per capita –
population size and resources are factors
 About 1.4 billion people live on $1.25 a day
 ~ half of the world live on about $2.25 a day
 More developed countries – pollution and resource depletion
are the factors that determine the impact
 In general – the world at this moment, based on estimates
and scientists, the world is over consuming.
Three things that have changed our
footprint
 Remember we have only been around for about 200,000
years… barely a burp compared to how long the earth has
been here
 We started as hunters and gatherers
 Agricultural Revolution ~12,500 ya
 Industrial Revolution ~ 275 ya
 Information- globalization Revolution ~ 50 ya
 Should we start the Sustainability Revolution?
4 basics
 Things we know
 Population is growing exponentially – J curves from Biology
 Slight decline since 1963
 We consume tons of food, water and raw materials along with
energy and produce lots of pollution and waste
 We know that certain countries like to live a certain lifestyle
that shows the wealth.
 Pros and cons to this… let’s discuss.
4 basics cont.
 We know that from 2008 World Study – 1.4 billion people live
in extreme poverty.
 Malnutrition, mass degradation of resources not properly
managed
 What we assume is free is really not – economics says this,
There is no such thing as a free lunch… except in this case
Earth pays
 Cutting down trees means good for us, bad for the
environment, fishing means we get to eat but about the fish
population.
 We are mostly looking to maximize profits rather then look at
long term effects environmentally.
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
People matter
Planetary management
 We are separate from and in
charge of nature.
 Nature exists to meet our
needs and we can use our
ingenuity and tech to manage
everything indefinitely.
World Stewardship
 We can and should manage
the earth, but we should have
an ethical responsibility to be
caring towards the Earth.
 Encourage beneficial forms of
economic growth, and
discourage environmental
harmful ones.
Environmental Wisdom
 We are part of and very much
dependent on nature.
 Nature exists for all species,
not just humans.
Questions
 Are we the most important beings on this planet or are just
one of Earth’s millions life-forms?
 Do we have an ethical obligation to pass on to the future
generations the natural world we have today in at least the
condition that we live on right now?
 Do we have an obligation to protect other species from
becoming extinct?