Transcript Week 3 and 4

Reminder
• Homework is due on Thursday (posted online)
• A note about ‘current events’– stuff you should
cover:
• Where is the article from (blog? reliable daily like the
NYT?) What is this publication?
• What is their perspective and why are they writing?
• Any background information we need to know?
(you may want to decide relay this information while
you are presenting the article rather than before)
Know where you are getting your info:
Example of Fracking
https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/fracking/
http://www2.epa.gov/hfstudy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/03/epafracking-study-pavillion-wyoming_n_3542365.html
Last two weeks
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
Define Sustainability
Three principles of Sustainability
Panarchy Cycle
Ecosystem Services
Trade-offs in managing ecosystems
Increased consumption (2 reasons)
This week
(1) Continue discussion of consumption: the
relationship between economic growth and
environmental degradation
(2) 2 models to measure consumption/sustainability by
country
(3) Pollution (2 types)
(4) Tipping Points
(5) The 4 causes of modern day environmental
problems
(6) Environmental Policy!
Reuse
Fig. 1-7, p. 11
Reuse
Fig. 1-7, p. 11
Recycle
Scientists estimate that we
could recycle and reuse 80–
90% of the resources that we
now use and thus come closer
to mimicking the way nature
recycles essentially everything.
Recycling is important but it
involves dealing with wastes
we have produced. Ideally, we
should focus more on using
less, reusing items, and
reducing our unnecessary
waste of resources.
Fig. 1-8, p. 12
Countries Differ in Levels of
Unsustainability (1)
• Economic growth: increase in output of a nation’s
goods and services
• Gross domestic product (GDP): annual market value
of all goods and services produced by all businesses,
foreign and domestic, operating within a country
• Per capita GDP: one measure of economic growth
How does per capita GDP vary?
How does per capita GDP vary?
Western
EU
US and
Canada
Oil
Producing
Japan
and Sing.
Countries by Gross National Income per Capita
Supplement 8, Fig 2
Countries Differ in Levels of
Unsustainability (2)
GDP divides countries into 2 separate groups:
• More-developed countries: North America,
Australia, New Zealand, Japan, most of Europe
• Less-developed countries: most countries in Africa,
Asia, Latin America
Economic development: using economic growth to
raise living standards
Measuring the rate resource
consumption/sustainability by country
Measuring the rate resource
consumption/sustainability by country
Two models to measure rate resource
consumption/sustainability by country
(1) Ecological Footprint
(2) IPAT Model
1. Ecological Footprints: A Model of
Unsustainable Use of Resources
• Ecological footprint: the amount of biologically
productive land and water needed to provide the
people in a region with indefinite supply of
renewable resources, and to absorb and recycle
wastes and pollution
• Per capita ecological footprint: national ecological
footprint divided by the number of people (duh.)
1-2 How Are Our Ecological Footprints
Affecting the Earth?
• Concept 1-2 As our ecological footprints grow, we
are depleting and degrading more of the earth’s
natural capital.
Unsustainable: footprint is larger than biological
capacity for replenishment
Current Events
• If you miss your current event due to class being
canceled: Reschedule with Meaghan
• If you miss you current event due to personal
reasons, you will not be able to make it up without
doctors note (or other extenuating circumstances)
• Homework due today in class
1-2 How Are Our Ecological Footprints
Affecting the Earth?
• Concept 1-2 As our ecological footprints grow, we
are depleting and degrading more of the earth’s
natural capital.
As we raise per capita GDP and income, we raise quality of life
How do we raise quality of life without raising ecological fp?
Patterns of Natural Resource Consumption
Fig. 1-12a, p. 15
Patterns of Natural Resource Consumption
Fig. 1-12b, p. 15
Natural Capital Use and Degradation
Fig. 1-13, p. 16
2. IPAT is Another Environmental
Impact Model
I=PxAxT
•
•
•
•
I = Environmental impact
P = Population
A = Affluence
T = Technology
IPAT Illustrated
Fig. 1-14, p. 17
IPAT Illustrated
Fig. 1-14, p. 17
Case Study: China’s New Affluent
Consumers
• Leading consumer of various foods and goods
• Wheat, rice, and meat
• Coal, fertilizers, steel, and cement
• Second largest consumer of oil
• Two-thirds of the most polluted cities are in China
• Projections for next decade
• Largest consumer and producer of cars
China is becoming much more affluent which
ostensibly increases the quality of life but
potentially with large environmental costs
We Are Living Unsustainably
• If the entire world had the consumption pattern of
more developed nations environmental
degradation would be accelerated…
• Environmental degradation: wasting, depleting, and
degrading the earth’s natural capital largely through
increased consumption across the world (but clearly
more developed nations are disproportionally
responsible)
Natural Capital Degradation
Fig. 1-9, p. 13
Pollution Comes from a Number of
Sources (1)
• Sources of pollution
• Point sources: can identify the source of the pollutant
• E.g., smokestack
• Nonpoint sources: cannot identify the source of the pollutant
• E.g., pesticides blown into the air
Point-Source Air Pollution
Fig. 1-10, p. 14
Nonpoint Source Water Pollution
Fig. 1-11, p. 14
Ever heard of the great pacific garbage
patch?
Microplastic concentrations in 1972–1987 and 1999–2010.
Goldstein M C et al. Biol. Lett. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2012.0298
©2012 by The Royal Society
• http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/11/us/hawaii-japantsunami-debris/
Natural Systems Have Tipping Points
• Ecological tipping point: an often irreversible shift in
the behavior of a natural system
• Environmental degradation has time delays between
our actions now and the deleterious effects later
• Long-term climate change
• Over-fishing
• Species extinction
Tipping Point
Fig. 1-15, p. 19
Multiple Stable States: Some desirable
and some not
Hawaiian Marine Debris Example
1. Albatross
populations
are stable
(pre tsunami)
2. Tsunami
“forces” the
system to
change
3. Albatross
populations enter a
“new reality”
(post tsunami)
Experts Have Identified Four Basic
Causes of Environmental Problems
1. Population growth
2. Wasteful and unsustainable resource use
3. Poverty
4. Failure to include the harmful environmental costs
of goods and services in market prices
Experts Have Identified Four Basic
Causes of Environmental Problems
1.
2.
3.
4.
Population growth
Wasteful and unsustainable resource use
Poverty
Failure to include the harmful environmental costs
of goods and services in market prices
1. Exponential Growth of Human Population
Fig. 1-18, p. 21
Technology Increases Population
Fig. 1-16, p. 19
2. Affluence Has Harmful and
Beneficial Environmental Effects
• Harmful environmental impact due to
• High levels of consumption
• High levels of pollution
• Unnecessary waste of resources
• Affluence can provide funding for developing
technologies to reduce
• Pollution
• Environmental degradation
• Resource waste
3. Poverty Has Harmful Environmental
and Health Effects
•
•
•
•
Population growth affected
Malnutrition
Premature death
Limited access to adequate sanitation facilities and
clean water
Extreme Poverty
This boy is searching
through an open dump in
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,
for items to sell. Many
children of poor families
who live in makeshift
shantytowns in or near
such dumps often
scavenge most of the
day for food and other
items to help their
families survive.
Fig. 1-19, p. 22
Harmful Effects of Poverty
Fig. 1-20, p. 22
4. 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 a
degradation of natural capital
Genuine Progress Indicator
Vector (2010)
Nature
Environmentally Sustainable Societies Protect
Natural Capital and Live Off Its Income
• Environmentally sustainable society: meets current
needs while ensuring that needs of future
generations will be met
• Live on natural income of natural capital without
diminishing the natural capital
We Can Work Together to Solve
Environmental Problems
• Social capital
• Encourages
• Openness and communication
• Cooperation
• Hope
• Discourages
• Close-mindedness
• Polarization
• Confrontation and fear
Individuals Matter
• 5–10% of the population can bring about major
social change
• We have only 50-100 years to make the change to
sustainability before it’s too late
• Rely on renewable energy
• Protect biodiversity
• Reduce waste and pollution
Three Big Ideas
• 1. We could rely more on renewable energy from the
sun, including indirect forms of solar energy such as
wind and flowing water, to meet most of our heating
and electricity needs.
• 2. We can protect biodiversity by preventing the
degradation of the earth’s species, ecosystems, and
natural processes, and by restoring areas we have
degraded.
Three Big Ideas
3. We can help to sustain the earth’s natural chemical
cycles by reducing our production of wastes and
pollution, not overloading natural systems with
harmful chemicals, and not removing natural
chemicals faster than those chemical cycles can
replace them.