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Concept 1: Sustainability

Concept 1: Sustainability. Four Scientific Principles of Sustainability: Copy Nature. Reliance on Solar Energy Biodiversity Population Control Nutrient Recycling. Figure 1-16. Implications of the Four Scientific Principles of Sustainability. Figures 1-17 and 1-18.

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Concept 1: Sustainability

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  1. Concept 1: Sustainability

  2. Four Scientific Principles of Sustainability: Copy Nature • Reliance on Solar Energy • Biodiversity • Population Control • Nutrient Recycling Figure 1-16

  3. Implications of the Four Scientific Principles of Sustainability Figures 1-17 and 1-18

  4. SUSTAINABILITY ANDENVIRONMENTAL WORLDVIEWS • Technological optimists: • suggest that human ingenuity will keep the environment sustainable. • Environmental pessimists: • overstate the problems where our environmental situation seems hopeless.

  5. Introduction • Environment • External conditions that affect living organisms • Ecology • Study of relationships between living organisms and their environment • Environmental Science • how nature works. • how the environment effects us. • how we effect the environment. • how we can live more sustainably without degrading our life-support system.

  6. Solar Capital and Earth Capital • Solar Capital • Energy from the sun • Provides 99% of the energy used on earth • Earth Capital • Life-support and Economic Services • Environment • Planet’s air, water, soil, wildlife, minerals, natural purification, recycling, pest control,…

  7. Carrying Capacity • The maximum number of organisms of a local, regional, or global environment can support over a specified period • Variables • Location • Time • Short term ~ seasonal changes • Long-term ~global changes in factors such as climate • Technology

  8. 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 • Examples: Sustainable earth, resource harvest, and society • The steps to sustainability must be supported by sound science.

  9. 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

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

  11. 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

  12. Economic Growth - Key Terms • Economic Growth • Increase in the capacity to provide goods and services for people’s use • Gross National Product • Measures economic growth in a country • Gross Domestic Product • Market value in current dollars of all goods and services produced only within a country during one year

  13. Economic Growth - Key Terms • More Developed Countries (MDC) • Highly industrialized • Average per capita GNP above $4000 • Less Developed Countries (LDC) • Low to moderate industrialization • Average per capita GNP below $4000

  14. Economic Growth - Key Terms • Development • Change from a society that is largely rural, agricultural, illiterate, poor and rapidly growing population • Per Capita GNP • GNP divided by the total population • Shows one person’s slice of the economic pie

  15. Questions 1. The sun provides the earth with what percent of the energy? (A) 2% (B) 25% (C) 50% (D) 80% (E) 99% 2. What is the carrying capacity of an environment? (A) The number of animals that can be produced when mating. (B) The maximum number of organisms in an area that can be supported. (C) The amount an animal can carry in that environment (D) The number of prey that an environment can sustain (E) The minimum a population must have to survive in an environment 3. What is used in order to calculate the doubling of a resource, population, money, etc.? (A) Rule of 2 (B) Rule of 20 (C) Rule of 40 (D) Rule of 70 (E) Rule of 90

  16. POPULATION GROWTH, ECONOMIC GROWTH, AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT • Economic growth provides people with more goods and services. • Measured in gross domestic product (GDP) and purchasing power parity (PPP). • Economic development uses economic growth to improve living standards. • The world’s countries economic status (developed vs. developing) are based on their degree of industrialization and GDP-PPP.

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

  18. Sustainable Development • Assumes the right to use the earth’s resources and earth capital to meet needs • It is our obligation to create sustainability • Environmentally sustainable societies meets basic needs of its people in a just and equitable manner without degrading the natural capital that supplies these resources.

  19. Resources

  20. 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

  21. 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

  22. Natural capital degradation • The exponential increasing flow of material resources through the world’s economic systems depletes, degrades and pollutes the environment. Figure 1-11

  23. Nonrenewable Resources • Nonrenewable/Exhaustible Resources • Exist in a fixed quantity in the earth’s 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

  24. Nonrenewable Resources • Recycling • Collecting and reprocessing a resource into new products • Reuse • Using a resource over and over in the same form

  25. ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS: CAUSES AND CONNECTIONS • The major causes of environmental problems are: • Population growth • Wasteful resource use • Poverty • Poor environmental accounting • Ecological ignorance

  26. Questions 1. Approximately how many people in the world live on under a dollar a day? (A) 40, 000 (B) 100,000 (C) 1,000,000 (D) 10,000,000 (E) 1,000,000,000 2. Which is not a renewable resource? (A) Air (B) Water (C) Soil (D) Metal (E) Animals 3. What is genetic diversity? (A) The distinction between species (B) The variety of environments (C) The genetic makeup of individuals (D) The different genes from mating (E) Hybrid species mating 4. Which is not a cause of environmental problems? (A) Population growth (B) Unsustainable resource use (C) Poverty (D)Global warming (E) Trying to manage and simplify nature without knowledge

  27. Poverty and Environmental Problems • 1 of 3 children under 5, suffer from severe malnutrition. Figure 1-12 and 1-13

  28. Our Ecological Footprint • Humanity’s ecological footprint has exceeded earths ecological capacity. Figure 1-7

  29. 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

  30. Point Source Pollutants • From a single, identifiable sources • Smokestack of a power plant • Drainpipe of a meat-packing plant • Exhaust pipe of an automobile

  31. Nonpoint Source Pollutants • Dispersed and often difficult to identify sources • Runoff of fertilizers and pesticides • Storm Drains (#1 source of oil spills in oceans)

  32. 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

  33. Types of Pollutants • Factors that determine the severity of a pollutant’s effects: chemical nature, concentration, and persistence. • Pollutants are classified based on their persistence: • Degradable pollutants • Biodegradable pollutants • Slowly degradable pollutants • Nondegradable pollutants

  34. Water Pollution • Sediment • Nutrient overload • Toxic chemicals • Infectious agents • Oxygen depletion • Pesticides • Oil spills • Excess heat

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

  36. Solution: Pollution cleanup • Output Pollution Cleanup • Involves cleaning up pollutants after they have been produced • Most expensive and time consuming

  37. 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 • Four R’s • Reduce, reuse, refuse, recycle

  38. Questions 1. Which is not one of the 4 R’s? (A) Reduce (B) Reserve (C) Recycle (D) Reuse (E) Refuse 2. What resource is the world population most deprived of in poor countries? (A) Adequate sanitation (B) Electricity (C) Clean water (D) Enough food (E) Fuel 3. What is NOT a point source pollutant? (A) Smokestack from a coal processing plant (B) Drainpipe of a meat-packing plant (C)Runoff from fertilizers (D)Exhaust pipe of a car (E)Heated water from a power plant

  39. Biodiversity Depletion • Habitat destruction • Habitat degradation • Extinction

  40. Food Supply Problems • Overgrazing • Farmland loss and degradation • Wetlands loss and degradation • Overfishing • Coastal pollution • Soil erosion • Soil salinization • Soil waterlogging • Water shortages • Groundwater depletion • Loss of biodiversity • Poor nutrition

  41. Agricultural Revolution • Agricultural Revolution • Cultural shift that began in several regions of the world • Involved a gradual move from a lifestyle based on nomadic hunting • Agroforestry • Planting a mixture of food crops and tree crops

  42. Agricultural Revolution • Slash-and-burn • Cutting down trees and other vegetation and then burning the underbrush to clear small patches of land • Subsistence Farming • Family grew only enough food to feed itself.

  43. 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 earth’s system for our benefit

  44. Earth-Wisdom Worldview • Nature exists for all of the earth’s 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

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