Environmental%20Problems,%20Their%20Causes,%20

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Environmental Problems, Their Causes,
Sustainabiltiy

• An Introduction to Environmental Science

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What is environmental science?

• Interdisciplinary science
• Natural sciences social sciences

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• Study Env. Sci. to understand
• How Earth works
• How we affect the environment
• How to deal with env. probs. we face
• We are conducting an experiment with no chance to
  start the experiment over.

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6 Important Environmental Issues

• Population growth
• Increasing resource use
• Global climate change ? political issuewhy?
  even if its just cyclical, it seems to be
  worse
• Premature extinction of plants animals
• Pollution
• Poverty
• ALL ARE INTERCONNECTED and are growing
  exponentially

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Environmentally Sustainable Society

• Satisfies basic needs (food, clean water, clean
  air, shelter) without depleting or degrading
  natural resourcesfor now or later!
• Protect Your Capital
• Again, we are experimenting with only 1 chance to
  get it right!

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Problems with sustainability?

• Are environmentalists exaggerating?
• Can technology fix it?
• Will human ingenuity fix it?

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Rule of 70

• 70 / growth rate doubling time

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• GNP Gross National Product
• GDP Gross Domestic Product
• GWP Gross World Product
• Per capita GNP GNP / Pop.

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Developed Countries

• Have 85 of worlds wealth
• Use 88 of natural resources
• Generate 75 of pollution wastes
• Are 20 of worlds total population
• (about 1.4 billion)
• U.S., Canada, Japan, Europe, Australia, New
  Zealand

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Developing Countries

• Have 15 of worlds wealth
• Use 12 of natural resources
• Are 80 of worlds total population
• (about 5.6 billion)
• Africa, Asia, Latin America

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Where do developed countries send their wastes?

• U.S. sends metals, plastics, paper to China
• China cant get natural resources fast enough
• Old computers dumped in India
• U.S. companies go to countries with little env.
  laws. to get or give

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Environmentally Sustainable Economic Development

• Economic rewards for env. Beneficial
  sustainable forms of economic growth ? i.e. do it
  the right way increases
• Economic penalties?

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Environmental Effects of Poverty?

• Nearly 1.5 billion are hungry or malnourished and
  lack access to clean drinking water, decent
  housing, and adequate health care
• 1 in 3 lack fuel to keep warm, cook food (no
  access to electricity)
• 2/3 lack sanitary toilets (still some
  straightpipes in Appalachia)
• 1 in 4 adults cannot read or write
• 1 in 2 survive on 1-3 a day!

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Poor Parents have many children. Why?

• Help grow food
• Help gather fuel
• Help haul drinking water
• Help tend livestock
• Work
• Beg in streets
• Take care of parents (no strong social support
  systems)
• Culture Religion

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• So, how are poverty env. problems related?
• Cant worry about long-term effects of
  actions.survive!

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• Globalization process of global social,
  economic, and environmental change that leads to
  an increasingly integrated world
• Communication, travel

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• Resources anything obtained from env. to meet
  needs and wants
• Perpetual renewed continuously and not really
  affected by humans (sun, wind)
• Renewable renewed fairly rapidly
• Nonrenewable not renewed on a reasonable time
  scale

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Review

• Whats Environmental Science?
• Interdisciplinary, how Earth works, how we affect
  it
• Major Issues
• Population growth, resource use, global climate,
  change, mass extinction, pollution, poverty
• Sustainability- meet basic needs without
  degrading for future generations
• Problems
• Are environmentalists exaggerating?
• Population Growth (rule of 70)
• Developing vs. Developed countries- both have
  problems, just diffent
• Environmental effects of poverty
• Globalization Resource use

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Environmental Degradation

• Urbanization of productive land
• Waterlogging and salt buildup in soil
• Excessive topsoil erosion
• Deforestation
• Groundwater depletion
• Overgrazing of grasslands by livestock
• Reduction in earths biodiversity (largely due to
  habitat loss/human expansion)
• Pollution
• Why all the worry with soil/land?

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Pollution

• Natural
• Human Activities (Anthropogenic)
• Burning fossil fuels ? increase in CO2, acid
  precipitation
• Chemical runoff ? biomagnification/eutrophication
• Point Source vs. Nonpoint Source

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What to do?

• Prevention
• Focus efforts here
• Cleanup
• Not AS good of a solution because
• Temporary bandage, must be repeated
• Removes pollution from one place to another
• Case study BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, 2010
• Lasted 87 days, may even still be leaking
• 4.9 million barrels of oil (210 million gallons)
• Oil/dispersant mixture still affecting gulf
  wildlife and coastal ecosystems

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The Government can help!

• Discourages pollution by
• Offering Incentives for sustainable practices
• subsidies tax write-offs
• Enforcing regulations on degrading practices
  coupled with taxes/fines.

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Estimating Environmental Impact

• P x A x T I
• Ppopulation size
• Aaffluence (consumption per person)
• Ttechnology (impact per unit of consumption)
• Ienvironmental impact
• Developing vs. Developed Impact, p. 13

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Human History in the Environment

• Up until 10-12,000 ya Hunter-gatherers
• 10-12,000 ya Agricultural Revolution
• Slash-and-Burn Cultivation
• Shifting Cultivation (Sand Co. Commons)
• 1700-1800s Industrial Revolution
• Rapid expansion in the production, trade, and
  distribution of material goods
• Coal
• Sharp increase in human population (continues
  today)
• Since 1950 Information Globalization
  Revolution (positive and negative affects)

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BIG questions

• Better or worse? p. 17
• 1992 Warning from scientists around the world p.
  18
• Call for Sustainability Revolution
• Goals/Priorities must shift!
• The rest of the course will present a more
  detailed analysis of these problems, the
  controversies they have created, and solutions
  proposed by analysts.
• Try NOT to be overwhelmed by bad news
• There is also some great news
• Learning a great deal about how nature works
• Have numerous solutions available
• Make creative use of our economic and political
  systems to implement
• Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
  committed citizens can change the world. Indeed,
  it is the only thing that ever has.
• Margaret Mead

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To prepare for test

• Review Qs p. 19-21, 1-25
• Choose 6 (of 8) Critical Thinking Qs p. 21-22
• Due day of test, beginning of class
• Study