Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and Sustainability

1
Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and
Sustainability

• Chapter 1

2
Key Concepts

• Population growth and sustainability
• Economic growth and development
• Resources and resource use
• Pollution
• Causes of environmental problems

3
World Population
Worlds Population Growth 1.2 (78 million
people added per year 8,900 / hour)
?
Billions of people
Black Deaththe Plague
Time
Hunting and gathering
Agricultural revolution
Industrial revolution
Click for Current Word Population
4
Natural Capital
See Fig. 1-2, p. 7
5
Environmentally Sustainable Society

• A society that manages economy population size
  without doing irreparable environmental harm.
• Does not deplete natural capital
• Income analogy

6
Economics

• Economic growth increase in capacity of country
  to provide goods and services
• Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annual market
  value of goods and services produced in a country
• Per capita GDP GDP/Population
• Economic development improvement of living
  standards via economic growth
• Developed and developing countries

7
Global Outlook
Percentage of World's
19
Population
81
0.1
Population growth
1.5
Wealth and income
85
15
88
Resource use
12
75
Pollution and waste
25
Developed countries
Developing countries
8
Human Population Growth
97 of projected increase expected in developing
world
World total
Developing countries
Population (billions)
Developed countries
Year
9
Economic Development
Trade-Offs
Economic Development
Good News
Bad News
Global life expectancy doubled since
1950 Infant mortality cut in half since
1955 Food production ahead of population growth
since 1978 Air and water pollution down in most
developed countries since 1970 Number of people
living in poverty dropped 6 since 1990
Life expectancy 13 years less in developing
countries than in developed Countries Infant
mortality rate in developing countries over
9 times higher than in developed countries Harmfu
l environmental effects of agriculture may limit
future food production Air and water pollution
levels in most developing countries too
high Half of world's workers trying to live on
less than 2 (U.S.) per day
10
Resources

• Perpetually Renewable - sun, wind, flowing water
• Potentially Renewable - fresh air, water,
  soils, forests, food(potentially renewable
  can be depleted if used beyond sustainable yield)
• Nonrenewable - fossil fuels, metals, economic
  depletion

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Renewable Resources(Potentially Renewable)

• Sustainable yield highest rate renewable
  resource can be used indefinitely w/out reducing
  supply
• Environmental degradation depletion of renewable
  resource is faster than renewal
• Tragedy of the Commons overuse of free-access
  resources (clean air, water, fish, pasture,)
  If I dont use this resource, someone else
  will.

12
Ecological Footprint
1.0 hectare 2.47 acres
current global footprint requires 1.2 planets 21
higher than carrying capacity Sustainable???
Fig. 1-5, p. 11
13
Nonrenewable Resources- (exist in fixed quantity
in earths crust)

• Energy resources- coal, oil, natural gas
• Metallic mineral resources - iron, copper,
  aluminum
• Nonmetallic mineral resources - salt, clay, sand
• Economic depletion- Exhaustion of about 80 of
  estimated supply of nonrenewable resource.
• Recycling and reuse

14
Pollution

• Definition any addition to air, water, soil or
  food that threatens health, survival or
  activities of humans or other organisms
• Point sources- single identifiable
  sources(smokestack, drainpipe, exhaust pipe)
• Nonpoint Sources - dispersed and difficult to
  identify and control (fertilizer / pesticide
  runoff, wind-blown pesticides, )
• Unwanted effects of pollution1. Disrupt life
  support systems2. Damage wildlife, human health
  and property3. Create nuisances (noise, smell,
  taste, sight)

15
Point-source Air Pollution
Fig. 1-8, p. 14
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Solutions to Pollution

• Pollution prevention (input control)
• Pollution cleanup (output control)
• Disadvantages of output control- temporary
  bandage, can transfer to other areas, costly

17
Environmental Problems Causes and Connections

• First step Understanding the causes
• Poverty and population growth
• Premature death among the poor

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Causes of Environmental Problems
Causes of Environmental Problems
Population growth
Unsustainable resource use
Poverty
Not including the environmental costs of economic
goods and services in their market prices
Trying to manage and simplify nature with
too little knowledge about how it works
?Poor Environmental Accounting
?Ecological Ignorance
Fig. 1-9, p. 15
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Some Harmful Results of Poverty
Lack of access to
Number of people ( of world's population)
Adequate sanitation
2.4 billion (37)
Enough fuel for heating and cooking
2 billion (31)
Electricity
1.6 billion (25)
Clean drinkingwater
1.1 billion (17)
Adequate health care
1.1 billion (17)
Enough food for good health
1.1 billion (17)
Fig. 1-12, p. 17
20
Malnutrition
Fig. 1-13, p. 17
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Economics and Ethics

• Affluenza unsustainable addiction to
  over-consumption and materialism
• Globalization and global advertising it takes 27
  tractor trailer loads of resources to support one
  American
• Law of Progressive Simplification-shift from
  material to non-material
• Positive environmental effects of affluenza- In
  many developed countries, environ quality is
  improving

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Affluenza Diagnosis
Too many people spend money they havent earned
to buy things they dont want to impress people
they dont like. - W. Rogers

1. I am willing to work at a job I despise so I can
   buy lots of stuff
2. When I am feeling down, I like to go shopping to
   make myself feel better.
3. I would rather be shopping right now.
4. I owe more than 1,000 on my credit cards.
5. I usually make only the minimum monthly payments
   on my credit card bills.
6. I am running out of room to store my stuff.

If you agree with 2 or more of the statements
above, you could be suffering from Affluenza
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Measuring Environmental ImpactI PAT
Developing Countries
X
X

Consumption per person (affluence, A)
Technological impact per unit of consumption (T)
Environmental impact of population (I)
X
X

Population (P)
X
X

Developed Countries
Fig. 1-7, p. 13
24
Historical Changes in Human Culture

• Hunter-gatherers - 60,000 years ago - 12,000 yrs
  ago
• Agricultural revolution- began between 10k 12k
  years ago
• Industrial-medical revolution- began 275 years
  ago
• Information-globalization revolution- 50 years ago

25
Eras of US Environmental History

• Tribal era (10K yrs before Euro Settlement) -
  respect for land
• Frontier era (1607-1890)- Euro Colonists-
  Conquer Nature
• Early conservation era- (1832-1870) Alarm from
  resource depletion- Urged protection of
  Wilderness
• Environmentalism (1870-present)- Resource
  conservation, public health and environmental
  protection

26
Sustainability Revolution
Current Emphasis
Sustainability Emphasis
Pollution cleanup Waste disposal(bury or
burn) Protecting species Environmentaldegrada
tion Increased resourceuse Population
growth Depleting anddegrading naturalcapital)
Pollution prevention(cleaner production) Waste
prevention reduction Protecting wherespecies
live (habitat protection) Environmentalrestorati
on Less wasteful (more efficient)resource
use Population stabilization bydecreasing birth
rates Protecting natural capitaland living off
the biological interest it provides
Fig. 17-19, p. 449