Transcript Living in the environment

Introduction to
Environmental
Science
Chapter 1
Environmental Science
Interdisciplinary science –ecology,
chemistry
geology,
environmental studies focuses
on politics,
engineering, economics, and ethics
Connections and interactions between
humans and the rest of nature
Validity
of data questioned – many variables
 hard to perform controlled experiments
Environmental Science
environment: everything around us
including the living and non-living things
with which we interact
Goals of environmental science
learn how nature works
understand how we interact with the
environment
find ways to deal with environmental
problems and live more sustainably
Environmental Issues
Population growth
Increasing resource use
Destruction and degradation of habitat
Premature extinction (loss of biodiversity)
Poverty
Pollution
Our top
three: Climate Change/Global warming;
deforestation and nonrenewable resources
Tragedy of the Commons- Garrett
Hardin 1968

Over use of common property (exploiting common
resources)
“if I don’t use this resource someone else will”
“I don’t take enough to matter”
“the amount I pollute is not enough to cause a problem”
“its a renewable resource...it will come back”

Clean air, open ocean and its fish, wildlife species, publicly
owned land, gases of lower atmosphere, space

How do we manage these resources on a global level?
Who is responsible for enforcing compliance?
Sustainability

Ability of a specified system to survive
and function over a period of time

Sustainable living: Meeting present needs
without preventing future generations from
meeting theirs

Sustainable development: balance
current human well-being and
economic advancement with resource
management
Sustainability
Components of Sustainability
natural capital, natural resources and natural
services work together in ecosystems to
provide us with the resources we need to
survive
being sustainable and managing our resources
allow us to ensure these services for future
generations and indefinitely
Sustainable yield: how much we can take
without depleting the resource for the future
Ecosystem Services
Ecosystems provide services that
aren’t easy to quantify
reasons for protecting
and
preserving our natural resources
Examples?
purifying
air and water, pollination,
providing oxygen, providing food
Ecological footprint
Amount of land
needed to produce
the resources
needed by an
average person in a
country
Currently it takes 1.6
planet earth’s to
support our lifestyle
globally.
As of 2010, the US has the 6th
largest footprint. (UAE, Qatar,
Bahrain, Denmark, Belgium)
Ecological Footprint

The area of land and ocean required to support your consumption of food,
goods, services, housing, and energy and assimilate your wastes.

Your ecological footprint is expressed in "global hectares" (gha) or "global
acres" (ga), which are standardized units that take into account the
differences in biological productivity of various ecosystems impacted by
your consumption activities.

Your footprint is broken down into four consumption categories: carbon
(home energy use and transportation), food, housing, and goods and
services.
www.footprintnetwork.org
Global Averages—Ecological
Footprint
There are only 15.71
acres available per
person (renewable
basis). We are
overshooting the
biological capacity by
almost 50%!!
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Overshoot Capacity

Overshoot Day (O-shoot) overshootday.org

Global overshoot occurs when humanity’s annual demand for the
goods and services that our land and seas can provide—fruits
and vegetables, meat, fish, wood, cotton for clothing, and carbon
dioxide absorption—exceeds what Earth’s ecosystems can renew
in a year. Overshoot means we are drawing down the planet’s
principal rather than living off its annual interest. This overshoot
leads to a depletion of Earth’s life-supporting natural capital and a
buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
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In 2015 the day was August 13.
In 2014 it was August 19.
In 2013 it was August 20.
In 2012 it was August 22.
In 2011 it was September 27.
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Easter Island
The Mystery of Easter Island
What happened on Easter
Island?
What caused the
population crash and the
extinction of some plant
and animal species?
How is this an illustration
of the Tragedy of the
commons and
sustainability?
• Discovered by Admiral
Roggeveen in 1722
– Named Easter Island
because discovered on
Easter Sunday
• Very isolated island (over
2000 miles from nearest
population center—Chile)
– The nearest island is 1400
miles away
• Covered in large strange
monoliths called Moai
– There are over 887
statues on the island
• Now designated an world heritage site (1995) and protected as Rapa
Nui National Park
– Current population is about 5700 (2012).
• Some controversy over what happened on the island and the
explanation of why it looks the way that it does….
– What factors contributed to the extinction of the trees?
• How could this have been managed?
– What was biodiversity like on the island in the past? What is it like now?
– The author says that this is a warning for resource depletion on the
planet…is he correct?
• Can we prevent a crash of the human population?
– What assumptions does the author make? Anything else we need to
know?
Living in the environment
Hunter gatherers –
12,000 years ago
Agricultural
revolution –
10,000-12,000
years ago
Industrial
revolution-275
years ago
Technological
(informational)
revolution – 50
years ago
Cultural changes
Advanced Industrial
societies (1914 --- Present)

increase in agricultural products (shipped
from all over the world)

lower infant mortality, improved health,
increase in longevity (medical advances)
 net population increase

Environmental impacts globalize
http://www.census.gov/popclock/
Countries Differ in Levels of
Unsustainability

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
development (GDP divided by population at
midyear)

Economic development: using economic
growth to raise living standards
Countries Differ in Levels of
Unsustainability

More-developed countries: North America, Australia,
New Zealand, Japan, most of Europe
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High income.
19% of the worlds population (1.2 billion people).
Use 88% of the worlds resources and produce 75% of the
worlds pollution and waste.
Less-developed countries: most countries in Africa,
Asia, Latin America
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Lower income.
81% of the worlds population.
15% of the worlds wealth, use 12% of the worlds resources.
Divided into moderately developing (China, India, Brazil,
Turkey) and least-developed (Congo, Haiti, Nicaragua,
Nigeria)
Measuring Our Impact

Ecological Footprints: the amount of biologically
productive land and water needed to provide the people
in a particular country or area with an indefinite supply of
renewable resources and to absorb and recycle the
wastes and pollution produced by such resource use.

IPAT model: shows how population size (P) , Resource
consumption per person (A) and the beneficial and
harmful environmental effects of technologies (T) help to
determine the environmental impact (I) of human
activities.
 I=PxAxT

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Impact= Population x Resource Use x Technology
Reducing one of these areas reduces overall impact.
Or implementing technologies that reduce
environmental impact (pollution control and prevention,
wind turbines, solar cells, fuel-efficient cars)
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Why do we have
environmental problems?
1.
Population growth
2.
Wasteful and unsustainable resource use (affluence)
3.
Poverty
4.
Failure to include the harmful environmental costs of
goods and services in market prices
Environmental
Awareness

The Sierra Club was the first
environmental organization
created in the US

It was founded in 1892 by
John Muir

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He advocated for the
preservation of wilderness
areas
Theodore Roosevelt
established the US Forest
Service and the National Park
System in 1906
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His efforts led to the protection
of 230 million acres of land in
the US
The first park designated was
Yellowstone (1862)
Washington has 3 National
Parks (Olympic, Rainier, North
Cascades)
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Environmental Awareness

In the time period after World War 2 (late 1940s)
environmental awareness slowly became part of
the national discussion

The 1960s-1970s is when a large majority of legislation
was published

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Rachel Carson and Silent Spring encouraged the
movement
A large majority of legislation was passed in
response to environmental disasters, or in response
to litigation
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Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, Gulf Oil Spill
Love Canal
Chernobyl, Three Mile Island (nuclear disasters)
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We now see a shift from…
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“cleanup” to “prevention”
“disposal” to “reduction”
“species protection” to “habitat
protection”
“increased use” to “conservation”
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The first Earth Day was celebrated on
April 22, 1970

We now see lots of non-governmental
organizations (NGOs)
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Nature Conservancy, Conservation
International, Rainforest Alliance, and
more…

Nationally we have departments to
deal with resource management
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Individual states have departments to
deal with conservation and wildlife
management
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Environmental Law
Research

You will be assigned 2 laws to research. You might also be
assigned an international conference/treaty/protocol to
research.

In your research you need to find the following information:
-Name of law (you will be given 2)—include
abbreviations of the law as appropriate
-Year law was enacted
-Summary of law in your own words (these summaries will
be given to the class as a study guide)
- what happened as a result of this law being
enacted? (major accomplishments,
improvements, or difficulties)
-write on back of card