Environmental Sciences: Towards a Sustainable Future Chapter 1

1
Environmental Sciences Towards a Sustainable
Future Chapter 1

• Introduction Sustainability, Stewardship and
  Sound Science

2
The Course Introduction

• Global environmental concerns
• Three unifying themes
• Sustainability
• Stewardship
• Sound science
• The process of science

3
Association Between People and the Land

• Developing Nations
• Closely tied to land because survival depends on
  it.
• Developed Nations
• Totally isolated from the natural world.

4
What Happened to Easter Island
https//www.youtube.com/watch?vgfbQA-Krx9Q

• Society fails to care for the environment and
  sustain it.
• Population increase beyond carrying capacity.
• Disparity between rich and poor widens.

5
How To Prevent a Global Version of the Easter
Island Disaster

• Understand how the natural world works
• Understand how human and natural systems interact
• Accurately assess the status and trends of
  crucial natural ecosystems
• Establish long-term sustainable relationships
  with the natural world

6
The Global Environmental Picture

• Rapid human population growth and increasing
  consumption per person
• Decline of vital life-support ecosystems
• Global atmospheric changes
• Loss of biodiversity

7
Rapid Human Population Growth
8
Indicators of Decline of Vital Ecosystems

• Depleted water supplies
• Agricultural soils degraded
• Oceans over fished
• Forests cut faster than they can grow

https//www.youtube.com/watch?vl02JYsTIWNI
9
Global Atmospheric Changes
10
Contributors to Loss of Biodiversity

• Habitat alteration
• Exploitation
• Pollution

11
Three Unifying Themes

• Sustainability
• Stewardship
• Sound science

12
Four Dimensions to Sustainable Development

• Environmental
• Social
• Economic
• Political

13
How Stewardship Is Demonstrated

• Recognition that a trust has been given.
• Responsible care for something not owned.
• Desire to pass something on to future generations.

14
Environmental Justice or Racism?

• Placement of waste sites and hazardous facilities
  in nonwhite communities

https//www.youtube.com/watch?vvomW-G2P5gE
15
The Environmental Movement

• Rachel Carson Silent Spring
• Effect of DDT in the food chain

16
Successes of the Environmental Movement

• Environmental protection agency (EPA)
• Environmental laws
• Pollution abatement
• Species saved from extinction

17
Assumptions of the Process of Science

• We perceive reality with our five basic senses
• Objective reality functions according to certain
  basic principles and laws

18
Assumptions of the Process of Science

• Causes and effects are explainable
• We have tools and capabilities to understand
  basic principles and natural laws

19
How the Process of Science Works
20
True or False Concerning the Process of Science

• There are no controversies or arguments among
  scientists.
• Progress in science can be slow.
• We are continually confronted by new
  observations.
• Some observed phenomena may not lend themselves
  to simple experiments.

21
True or False Concerning the Process of Science

• Science is incapable of providing absolute proof
  for any theory.
• The process of science can be used to test value
  judgments.
• The validity of science is based on the ability
  to do experiments.

22
Junk Science

• Presentations of selective results
• Public distortions of scientific works
• Publication in quasi-scientific journals