Environmental Issues Chapter 1
What are the 3 different cultural changes that have occurred?
Agricultural revolution 10,000 - 12,000 years ago; Industrial-medical revolution approx 275 years ago; Information-globalization revolution approx 50 years ago
How have the 3 cultural changes/revolutions led to more environmental degradation?
Allowing the human population to increase because of increased food supplies, longer life spans, increasing our ecological footprints
Environmental science
An interdisciplinary study of how humans interact with the environment of living and nonliving things.
Natural capital degradation
Depletion or destruction of a potentially renewable resource such as soil, grassland, forest, or wildlife that is used faster than it is naturally replenished. If such continues, the resource becomes nonrenewable (on a human time scale) or extinct.
Natural capital
The natural resources and natural services that keep us and other forms of life alive and support our economies.
Explain the Tragedy of the Commons. Describe two possible solutions to this "problem"
The tragedy of the commons is an economic theory of a situation within a shared-resource system where individual users acting independently according to their own self-interest behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting or spoiling that resource through their collective action. One way to deal with the degradation of shared resources is to use a shared or open-access renewable resource at a rate well below its estimated sustainable yield by using less of the resource, regulating access to the resource, or doing both. Another is to convert shared renewable resources to private ownership. Some resources, however, cannot be converted to private ownership.
Pollution cleanup/ output pollution control
cleaning up or diluting pollutants after we have produced them
Biocapacity
refers to the capacity of a given biologically productive area to generate an on-going supply of renewable resources and to absorb its spillover wastes. Unsustainability occurs if the area's ecological footprint exceeds its biocapacity.
3 unwanted effects of pollutants
1) disrupt or degrade life-support systems 2) damage wildlife, human health, and property 3) create nuisances such as noise and unpleasant smells, tastes, and sights
3 social science principles of sustainability
1) full-cost pricing 2) win-win solutions 3) a responsibility to future generations
3 problems with relying of pollution cleanup
1) only a temporary bandage 2) cleanup often removes a pollutant from one part of the environment only to cause pollution in another 3) once pollutants become dispersed into the environment at harmful levels, it usually cost too much to reduce them to acceptable levels
3 principles of sustainability
1) reliance on solar energy 2) biodiversity 3) chemical cycling
The national park service reflects a _____ approach, while the national forest approach reflects a _____ approach
A moral and aesthetic, pragmatic resource conservation
Environmentalism
A social movement dedicated to protecting the earth's life-support systems for us and all other forms of life.
Per Capita GDP PPP
A measure of the amount of goods and services that a country's average citizen could buy in the United States.
Nonpoint sources
Broad and diffuse areas, rather than points, from which pollutants enter bodies of surface water or air. Examples include runoffs from chemicals and sediments from cropland, livestock feedlots, logged forests, urban streets, parking lots, lawns, and golf courses.
Renewable resource
Can be replenished fairly quickly through natural processes as long as it is not used up faster than it is renewed.
Explain the problems we face by not including the harmful environmental costs in the prices of goods and services.
Consumers are not aware of them and can't evaluate the harmful effects on the earth and their own health. Governments give companies subsidies to assist them in using resources to run their businesses, but degrades the natural capital.
Environmental Revolution
Cultural change that includes halting population growth and altering lifestyles, political and economic systems, and the way we treat the environment with the goal of living more sustainably.
Explain the difference between the footprint of a developing and developed country.
Developed countries have huge ecological footprints, such as the US (9.7 hectares per person) and the European Union (4.7 hectares per person) In 2003, the US ecological footprint was 12 times larger than low income countries.
Distinguish between developed countries and developing countries.
Developed: 1.2 billion people total, highly industrialized, high per capita GDP PPP, 18% of the population, 85% of the wealth, 75% of pollution/waste Developing: 5.5 billion people, some middle income moderately developed and others are low income least developed, per capita GDP PPP is steadily declining, 82% of population, 15% of wealth, 25% pollution/waste
Perpetual resource
Essentially inexhaustible resource on a human time scale because it is renewed continuously (ex. Solar energy)
Nonrenewable resource
Exist in a fixed quantity, or stock, in the earth's crust. On a time scale of millions to billions of years, geological processes can renew such resources.
What is full-cost pricing and why is it important
Full-cost pricing is adding detrimental costs to the environment and human health to the prices of goods and services. It is important because it gives consumers better information about the environmental impacts of their lifestyles, and it allows them to make more informed choices about the goods and services they use.
Natural services
Functions of nature, such as purification of air and water, which support life and human economies.
Sustainable yield
Highest rate at which a potentially renewable resource can be used indefinitely without reducing its available supply.
Explain why individuals matter in dealing with the environmental problems we face.
History has shown that almost all of the significant changes in human systems have come from the bottom up, through the collective actions of individuals and from individuals inventing more sustainable ways of doing things. Thus, sustainability begins with actions at personal and local levels.
Natural resources
Materials and energy in nature that are essential or useful to humans. Often classified as renewable (water, air, soil, plants, and wind) or nonrenewable (copper, oil, coal)
Concepts for Chapter 1
Nature has been sustained for billions of years by relying on solar energy, biodiversity, and chemical cycling. Our lives and economies depend on energy from the sun and on natural resources and ecosystem services (natural capital) provided by the earth. We could shift toward living more sustainably by applying full-cost pricing, searching for win-win solutions, and committing to preserving the earth's life-support system for future generations. As our ecological footprints grow, we are depleting and degrading more of the earth's natural capital.
Identify 5 basic causes of the environmental problems we face today
Population growth, wasteful and unsustainable resource use, poverty, failure to include harmful environmental costs of goods and services in their market prices, and insufficient knowledge of how nature works.
Point sources
Single identifiable source that discharges pollutants into the environment. Examples include the smokestack of a power plant or an industrial plant, drainpipe of a meat packing plant, chimney of a house, or an exhaust pipe of an automobile.
Sustainability
The ability of the earth's various natural systems and human cultural systems and economies to survive and adapt to changing environmental conditions indefinitely.
What is an ecological footprint?
The amount of biologically productive land and water needed to supply the people in a particular country or area with resources and to absorb and recycle the wastes and pollution produced by such resource use.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
The annual market value of all goods and services produced by all firms and organizations, foreign and domestic, operating within a country.
Nutrient cycling
The circulation of chemicals necessary for life. Dead organic matter --> decomposition --> inorganic matter in soil --> organic matter in plants --> organic matter in animals, repeat
Conservation
The management of natural resources with the goal of minimizing resource waste and sustaining resource supplies for current and future generations.
Use the ecological footprint concept to explain how we are living unsustainably in terms of the estimated number of planet earths that we need to sustain ourselves now and in the future.
We are living unsustainably by over extracting resources, and not allowing adequate time for the processes of recycling and regeneration. Today we are using one and one-half of the earth's supply of resources.
3 examples of how we are degrading natural capital
We degrade natural capital by cutting down trees faster than they can grow back, replacing diverse and sustainable forests with croplands, and adding harmful chemicals and wastes to streams and oceans faster than they can cleanse themselves.
What is poverty and in what way do poverty and affluence affect the environment?
When people are unable to meet their basic needs for adequate food, water, shelter, health, and education. The poor deplete forests, soil, grasslands, fisheries, and wildlife in order to meet basic needs. Poverty also affects population growth, because children help get fuel, carry drinking water, care for the old, etc. The affluent have high levels of consumption and unnecessary waste of resources.
What is the difference between economic growth and economic development?
While economic growth provides people with more goods and services, economic development has the goal of using economic growth to improve living standards.
Evidence of progress in dealing with population problems is best illustrated by
a decrease in number of child born from women
Natural services/ Ecosystem services and examples
are processes provided by healthy ecosystems. ex: purification of air and water, renewal of topsoil, and pollination, which support life and human economies at no monetary cost to us. Forests help purify air and water
The HDI Human development Index
how we measure a nations health
Pollution prevention/ input pollution control
reduces or eliminates the production of pollutants
Solar Energy and why is it important
the energy imparted to the earth system by the sun. The sun warms the planet and provides energy that plants use to produce nutrients. The sun also powers indirect forms of solar energy such as wind and flowing water.
Biodiversity and why is it important
the variety of genes, organisms, species, and ecosystems in which organisms exist and interact. The interactions among species provide vital ecosystem services and keep populations from growing too large.
3 examples of environmental degradation
water and air pollution, decreased wildlife habitats/shrinking forests, soil erosion
