Transcript darfur

Notes on Prologue and Chapters 1 and 2
in Earth Odyssey
Prologue-Introduction to environmental problems in
China.
pp. 2-3 example of “externalities” costs which are not
absorbed in the price of the product. “Social Costs”.
p. 5- Beijing switched to unleaded gasoline in 1997.
9-notes on the ozone layer P. 10-11-global warming,
International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
P. 10-11-global warming, International Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC)
Humanitarian Disasters, the Environment,
and Global Poverty
• Darfur-a complicated civil war
in the Sudan that has killed
from 200,000-400,000; 2.5
million people displaced into
refugee camps and
desperately poor.
Sudan: Darfur and the Environment
• tensions were exacerbated in the last two decades of the twentieth
century by a combination of environmental calamity, fast population
growth, desertification, political opportunism and regional politics.
• On June 16, 2007, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the
slaughter in Darfu in Darfur was caused "at least in part from climate
change, and that it "derives, to some degree, from man-made global
warming
• "The scale of historical climate change, as recorded in Northern
Darfur, is almost unprecedented: the reduction in rainfall has turned
millions of hectares of already marginal semi-desert grazing land
into desert.
• The impact of climate change is considered to be directly related to
the conflict in the region, as desertification has added significantly to
the stress on the livelihoods of pastoralist societies, forcing them to
move south to find pasture,“ (UN Report)
• Global ecological stresses will first effect the poorest of
the poor, and some of them are described in Hertsgaard’s
chapter.
these are people who consume virtually nothing
Review Chapter 2
• African biodiversity
• Stages of human civilization: hunter-gatherers,
agriculture, industrial society