Environmental Problems and Their Causes

1
Environmental Problems and Their Causes

• Population, Resources, Environmental Degradation,
  and Pollution

2
What is The Environment?

• Environment - all external conditions and factors
  (living and non-living) that affects all
  organisms

3
What is The Environment?

• Two Major Components of the Environment
• Biotic - living organisms
• Abiotic - non-living (chemicals, energy)

4
What is Environmental Science?

• Environmental Science - the study of how we and
  other species interact with one another and with
  the abiotic environment of matter and energy

5
Sustainable Living

• All life on earth depends on two forms of
  capital
• Solar Capital - energy from sun
• Earth Capital - air, water, soil wildlife,
  minerals, natural recycling

6
Sustainable Living

• The Environment is comprised of solar and earth
  capital
• Sustainability - the ability of a system to
  survive for some specified (finite) time

7
Sustainable Living

• Sustainable Society - a society that manages its
  economy and population size without depleting
  earth capital and thereby jeopardizing the
  prospects of current and future generations of
  humans and other species

8
Sustainable Living

• Sustainable Living - living off the income
  without depleting the capital that supplies the
  income
• 1 million capital _at_ 10 annual interest
  100,000 annual income

9
Growth and Wealth Gap

• Linear (Arithmetic) Growth - growth in which a
  quantity increases by a constant amount per unit
  of time
• Example an automobile accelerates by 1 mph every
  second

10
Growth and Wealth Gap

• Exponential (Geometric) Growth - growth in which
  a quantity increases by a fixed percentage of the
  whole per unit of time
• Example an automobile doubles its speed very
  second (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, )

11
Growth and Wealth Gap

• Formula for Exponential (Geometric) Growth
• 2n
• where n time

12
Growth and Wealth Gap

• Doubling Time - the time it takes for a quantity
  growing exponentially to double
• Rule of 70
• Doubling Time 70 percentage growth rate

13
Growth and Wealth Gap

• Example of Doubling Time
• Annual global population growth rate 1.47
• 70/1.47 48 years
• Population will double in 48 years

14
Growth and Wealth Gap

• Human Population Growth
• Global Population Time (yrs)
• 1 billion 1 million
• 2 billion 130
• 3 billion 30
• 4 billion 15
• 5 billion 12

15
Growth and Wealth Gap

• Environmental Impacts of Exponential Human
  Population Growth
• 73 of the habitable area of the earth has been
  altered by human activities

16
Growth and Wealth Gap

• Economic Growth
• An increase in the ability of an economy to
  provide goods and services
• The increase in the real value of all final goods
  and services produced by an economy

17
Growth and Wealth Gap

• Gross National Product - market value in current
  dollars of all goods and services produced by an
  economy for final use during a year
• Increasing GNP indicates economic growth

18
Growth and Wealth Gap

• Economic growth achieved by increasing throughput
  of matter and energy resources used to produced
  goods and services
• Increased throughput achieved through population
  growth and/or increased consumption per person

19
Growth and Wealth Gap

• Per Capita GNP - GNP divided by total population
• United Nations Classification of Worlds
  Countries
• Developed (MDCs)
• Developing (LDCs)

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Growth and Wealth Gap

• MDCs
• 20 worlds population
• Highly industrialized
• High per capita GNP (gt4,000)
• 85 of worlds wealth
• Consume 88 of worlds natural resources

21
Growth and Wealth Gap

• MDCs
• Generate 75 of worlds pollution
• U.S., Germany, Japan account for gt 50 of worlds
  economic output

22
Growth and Wealth Gap

• LDCs
• 80 worlds population
• Low to moderately industrialized
• Low to moderate per capita GNP
• 15 to 20 of worlds wealth
• Consume 12 of worlds natural resources

23
Growth and Wealth Gap

• LDCs
• Account for 9 of every 10 babies born
• Account for 98 of all infant and childhood
  deaths
• 1 million people added every 4 days
• 35 of population is under age 15

24
Growth and Wealth Gap

• Development - change from a society that is
  rural, agricultural, illiterate, and poor with a
  rapidly growing urban population to one that is
  mostly urban, industrial, educated, and wealthy

25
Growth and Wealth Gap

• The Wealth Gap
• Widening gap since 1960
• Environmental Impacts
• High population growth rates
• Widespread urbanization
• Resource depletion
• Famine (20 million people annually)

26
Resources and Environmental Degradation

• Resource - anything we get from our environment
  to meet our needs and wants
• Classification of Resources
• Renewable
• Potentially Renewable
• Nonrenewable

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Resources and Environmental Degradation

• Renewable Resource - a resource that is virtually
  inexhaustible on a human time scale

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Resources and Environmental Degradation

• Potentially Renewable Resource - a resource that
  can be replenished fairly rapidly (hours to
  decades) through natural processes
• Sustainable Yield - the highest rate at which a
  potentially renewable resource can be used
  without reducing its available supply

29
Resources and Environmental Degradation

• Potentially Renewable Resource - a resource that
  can be replenished fairly rapidly (hours to
  decades) through natural processes
• Environmental Degradation - depletion or
  destruction of a potentially renewable resource
  by using it faster than it is naturally
  replenished

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Sustainable Yield

• The Sustainable Yield Teeter-Totter

Use
Renewal
31
Environmental Degradation
Use
Renewal
32
Resources and Environmental Degradation

• Nonrenewable Resource - a resource that exists in
  a fixed amount in various places in the earths
  crust and has the potential for renewal only by
  geological, physical, and chemical processes
  taking place over hundreds of millions to
  billions of years

33
Resources and Environmental Degradation

• Nonrenewable Resource
• Economical Depletion - occurs when the cost of
  exploiting the resource exceeds it economic value

34
Resources and Environmental Degradation

• Nonrenewable Resource
• Options to deal with economical depletion
• Recycling
• Reuse
• Waste less
• Use less
• Develop a substitute

35
Resources and Environmental Degradation

• Nonrenewable Resource
• Recycling - collecting and processing a resource
  into new products
• Reuse - using a resource over and over in the
  same form

36
Pollution

• Pollution - an undesirable change in the
  characteristics of air, water, soil, food that
  can adversely affect health, survival, and
  activities of living organisms

37
Pollution

• Sources of Pollution
• Point Sources
• Non-point Sources

38
Pollution

• Factors Determining the Harmfulness of Pollutants
• Chemical Nature
• Concentration
• Persistence

39
Pollution

• Solutions to Pollution
• Input Pollution Control
• Pollution prevention strategy based on
• Reduce
• Reuse
• Recycle

40
Pollution

• Solutions to Pollution
• Output Pollution Control
• Pollution cleanup strategy
• Problems
• Often a temporary bandage
• Removes pollutant from one area and transfers it
  to another area
• Often too expensive to reduce pollutants to
  acceptable levels