Unit 1: APES

1
Unit 1 APES

• J.R. Arnold High School
• Living in the Environment by Miller, 14th Edition

2
Chapter 1

• Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and
  Sustainability

3
Introduction

• Environment
• External conditions that affect living organisms
• Ecology
• Study of relationships between living organisms
  and their environment
• Environmental Science
• Interdisciplinary study that examines the role of
  humans on the Earth
• Environmentalism
• A social movement dedicated to protect the
  earths life support systems for us and other
  species.

4
Environmental science

• is an interdisciplinary field, drawing on many
  diverse disciplines.

5
Environmental science

• is NOT the same as environmentalism.
• It is science, NOT advocacy.

6
The nature of science

• A systematic process for learning about the world
  and testing our understanding of it
• A dynamic process of observation, testing, and
  discovery
• And the accumulated body of knowledge that
  results from this process

7
Applications of science

• Policy decisions and management practices are
  applications of science.
• Prescribed burning, used to restore forest
  ecosystems altered by human suppression of fire.

8
Applications of science

• Technology is another application of
  science.Energy-efficient methanol-powered
  fuel cell car from DaimlerChrysler

9
Solar Capital and Natural Capital

• Solar Capital
• Energy from the sun
• Provides 99 of the energy used on earth
• Natural Capital
• Natural Resources and Economic Services

10
(No Transcript)
11
Sustainability

• The ability of a specified system to survive and
  function over time
• 1,000,000
• 10 interest
• Live on up to 100,000 per year

12
Sustainable Resource Harvest

• Certain quantity of that resource can be
  harvested each year and not be depleted over a
  specified period
• Sustainable supply of fish or timber

13
Easter Island

• A unsustainable society
• Used up the trees resources
• A lesson to us to use the
• worlds resources sustainably

14
Sustainable Earth

• Earths supplies of resources
• Processes that make up earth capital are used and
  maintained over a specified period

15
Sustainable Society

• Manages economy and population size without
  exceeding all or part of the planets ability to
• Absorb environmental insults
• Replenish resources
• Sustain human and other forms of life over a
  specified period (100s-1,000s of years)

16
Linear Growth

• Quantity increases by a constant amount per unit
  of time
• 1,2,3,4,5,
• 1,3,5,7,9,
• When plotted on a graph, growth of money yields a
  fairly straight line sloping upward

17
Exponential Growth

• Starts off slowly, doubles a few times, then
  grows to enormous numbers
• Quantity increases by a fixed percentage of the
  whole in a given time as each increase is applied
  to the base for further growth

18
Exponential Growth

• Growth yields a J-shaped curve
• Describes the human population problem that
  disturbs the environment today

19
Rule of 70

• How long does it take to double?
• Resource use
• Population size
• Money in a savings account
• Rule of 70
• 70 divided by the percentage growth rate
  doubling time in years
• 70 / 7 means it takes ten years to double

Homework YouTube- rule of 70- Albert Bartlett
Most important video you will ever see 9 min.
20
(No Transcript)
21
(No Transcript)
22
Global human population growth

• Our population has skyrocketed to over 6
  billion.
• The agricultural and industrial revolutions drove
  population growth.
• The industrial revolution entailed a shift to an
  urban society powered by fossil fuels.
• The worlds population is growing exponentially
  at a rate of about 1.25 a year

23
Thomas Malthus (1766-1834)

• Population growth will lead to starvation, war,
  disease.
• Death rates check population unless birth rates
  are lowered.
• Today, Paul Ehrlich (The Population Bomb, 1968)
  is called neo-Malthusian.

24
(No Transcript)
25
Developed Countries (1.2 billion people)

• They include the US, Canada, Japan, the former
  Soviet Union, and European countries.
• They have high average GNPs per person.
• They are highly industrialized.
• They make up about 19 of the world's population.
• They use about 88 of the world's resources.
• higher average life expectancy

26
Developing Countries (5.2 billion people)

• They are primarily in Africa, Asia, and Latin
  America
• They tend to be highly agricultural
• They makeup about 81 of the worlds population
• They use about 12 of the world's resources.
• higher percentage of the population under age 15

27
Wealth Gap

• The gap between the per capita GNP of the rich,
  middle-income and poor has widened
• More than 1 billion people survive on less than
  one dollar per day
• Situation has worsened since 1980

28
Natural resources

• Renewable resources like sunlight cannot be
  depleted.
• Nonrenewable resources like oil CAN be depleted.
• Resources like timber and clean water are
  renewable only if we do not overuse them.

29
(No Transcript)
30
Nonrenewable Resources

• Nonrenewable/Exhaustible Resources
• Exist in a fixed quantity in the earths crust
  and can be used up
• Mineral
• Any hard, usually crystalline material that is
  formed naturally
• Reserves
• Known deposits from which a usable mineral can be
  profitably extracted at current prices

31
Biodiversity

• Genetic Diversity
• Variety in a genetic makeup among individuals
  within a single species
• Species Diversity
• Variety among the species or distinct types of
  living organisms found in different habitats of
  the planet
• Ecological Diversity
• Variety of forests, deserts, grasslands, streams,
  lakes, oceans, wetlands, and other communities

32
The tragedyof the commons

• Garrett Hardin, 1968
• In a commons open to all, unregulated use will
  deplete limited resources.

33
Environmental Degradation

• Common Property Resources
• Tragedy of the Commons
• Resources owned by none, but available to all
  users free of charge
• May convert potentially renewable resources into
  nonrenewable resources

34
The ecological footprint

• The ecological footprint is the area of land
  and water needed to produce the resources a
  person or population uses, plus the amount needed
  to dispose of their waste.

35
Ecological Footprint Ecological Footprint
36
What is your ecological footprint?

• www.ecofoot.org/
• How many Earths does it take to support you
  lifestyle?
• Complete quiz and print results bring in
  tomorrow.

37
Pollution

• Any addition to air, water, soil, or food that
  threatens the health, survival, or activities of
  humans or other living organisms
• Solid, liquid, or gaseous by-products or wastes

38
Point Source Pollutants

• From a single, identifiable sources
• Smokestack of a power plant
• Drainpipe of a meat-packing plant
• Exhaust pipe of an automobile

39
Nonpoint Source Pollutants

• Dispersed and often difficult to identify sources
• Runoff of fertilizers and pesticides
• Storm Drains (1 source of oil spills in oceans)

40
Negativity of Pollutant

• Chemical Nature
• How active and harmful it is to living organisms
• Concentration
• Amount per unit volume or weight of air, water,
  soil or body weight
• Persistence
• Time it stays in the air, water, soil or body

41
Solutions Pollution Prevention

• Input Pollution Control or Throughput Solution
• Slows or eliminates the production of pollutants,
  often by switching to less harmful chemicals or
  processes

42
Solution Four Rs of Resource Management

• Refuse (dont use)
• Reduce (limit use)
• Reuse
• Using a resource over and over in the same form
• Recycle
• Collecting and reprocessing a resource into new
  products

43
Solution Pollution cleanup

• Output Pollution Cleanup
• Involves cleaning up pollutants after they have
  been produced
• Most expensive and time consuming

44
Air Pollution

• Global climate change
• Stratospheric ozone depletion
• Urban air pollution
• Acid deposition
• Outdoor pollutants
• Indoor pollutants
• Noise

45
Water Pollution

• Sediment
• Nutrient overload
• Toxic chemicals
• Infectious agents
• Oxygen depletion
• Pesticides
• Oil spills
• Excess heat

46
Biodiversity Depletion

• Habitat destruction
• Habitat degradation
• Invasion of nonnative species
• Extinction

Biodiversity loss is perhaps our biggest
environmental problem, because we cannot correct
our mistakes later Once a species is extinct,
it is gone forever.
47
Climate

• Global climate change may be our most pressing
  pollution challenge.
• It likely contributes to glacial melting,
  sea-level rise, impacts on wildlife and crops,
  and increased destructive weather.
• Since the industrial revolution, atmospheric
  carbon dioxide concentrations have risen by 31
  to a level not seen in over 400,000 years.

48
Food Supply Problems

• Overgrazing
• Farmland loss and degradation
• Wetlands loss and degradation
• Overfishing
• Coastal pollution
• Soil erosion

49
Food Supply Problems

• Soil salinization
• Soil waterlogging
• Water shortages
• Groundwater depletion
• Loss of biodiversity
• Poor nutrition

50
Waste Production

• Solid Waste
• Hazardous waste

51
Environmental Tragedies

• Bhopal, India-1984 Union Carbide pesticide plant
  exploded caused lots of problems largest
  industrial accident of all time, resulted in
  20,000 deaths.
• Love Canal, NY- 1978 chemicals buried in old
  canal and school homes built over it causing
  birth defects cancer
• Chernobyl, Ukraine- 1986 Nuclear power plant
  explosion worst ever
• Three mile Island, PA-1979 nuclear power plant
  melt down
• Lake Erie- Declared dead in 1970

52
Major Causes to Environmental Problems

• Population growth
• Poverty
• Unsustainable resource use
• Poor environmental accounting
• Ecological ignorance

53
Environmental Worldviews

• How people think the world works
• What they think their role in the world should be
• What they see as right and wrong environmental
  behavior (environmental ethics)

54
Planetary Management Worldview

• Increasingly common during the past 50 years.
• We are the planets most important species
• We are in charge of the rest of nature

55
Planetary Management Worldview

• There is always more
• All economic growth is good
• Potential for economic growth is limitless
• Our success depends on how well we manage earths
  system for our benefit

56
Earth-Wisdom Worldview

• Nature exists for all of the earths species, not
  just for us
• There is not always more
• Not all forms of economic growth is beneficial to
  the environment
• Our success depends on learning to cooperate with
  one another and with the earth

57
Working with the Earth

• Earth Wisdom
• Learning as much as we can about how the earth
  sustains itself
• Adapt to ever-changing environmental conditions
• Integrating such lessons from nature into the
  ways we think and act

58
Utilitarianism

• Is the belief that something is right if it
  produces the greatest good for the greatest
  number of people for the longest time.
• Is the management of a resource to make certain
  to produces the greatest benefit to humans in the
  future.
• Is the concept that the land should be kept in
  its natural state-never touched or developed

Conservation
Preservation
59
Environmentally-Sustainable Economic Development
Fig. 1-13 p. 17