Understanding Environmental Resources and Human Population Growth

1. GEOG 4400: Resource Use Lecture 1 Definition

2. What is a Resource? • Definitions • Mather & Chapman (p. 3) • means of supplying a want; stock that can be drawn on; country’s collective means for support and defense; expedient device; skill in devising expedients, practical ingenuity, quick wit • available means; something to which one has recourse in difficulty; capability or skill in meeting a situation

3. Resource • Merriam & Webster • Etymology: French ressource, from Old French ressourse relief, resource, from resourdre to relieve, literally, to rise again, from Latin resurgere -- more at RESURRECTION • 1 a : a source of supply or support : an available means -- usually used in plural • b : a natural source of wealth or revenue -- often used in plural • c : a natural feature or phenomenon that enhances the quality of human life • d : computable wealth -- usually used in plural e : a source of information or expertise • 2 : something to which one has recourse in difficulty : EXPEDIENT • 3 : a possibility of relief or recovery • 4 : a means of spending one's leisure time • 5 : an ability to meet and handle a situation : RESOURCEFULNESS

4. Use • Merriam & Webster • Etymology: Middle English us, from Anglo-French, from Latin usus, from uti to use • 1 a: the act or practice of employing something :employment, application • b: the fact or state of being used <a dish in daily use> • c: a method or manner of employing or applying something • 2 a (1): habitual or customary usage (2): an individual habit or group custom • b: a liturgical form or observance; especially: a liturgy having modifications peculiar to a local church or religious order • 3 a: the privilege or benefit of using something <gave him the use of her car> • b: the ability or power to use something (as a limb or faculty) c: the legal enjoyment of property that consists in its employment, occupation, exercise, or practice <she had the use of the estate for life> • 4 a: a particular service or end <put learning to practical use> • b: the quality of being suitable for employment <saving things that might be of use> c:good 2b <it's no use arguing> d: the occasion or need to employ <took only what they had use for> • 5 a: the benefit in law of one or more persons; specifically: the benefit or profit of property established in one other than the legal possessor • b: a legal arrangement by which such benefits and profits are so established • 6: a favorable attitude :liking <had no use for modern art>

5. Human Population Growth • More Developed • Less Developed

6. World Population

7. Oil Reserves

8. Water Supply

9. Human Poverty Index

10. Environmental Resources • Parts of nature that humankind considers to be useful or valuable • Anything we get from the physical environment to meet our needs and wants • Those parts of nature that can provide the goods and services sought by humans • As opposed to ‘natural resources’ which indicates the physical bases for human life; ‘environmental resources’ includes amenity and recreational resources that may not be of economic or material value • Natural Resource: industrial materials and capacities (as mineral deposits and waterpower) supplied by nature • Human Resource: personnel

11. What is a Resource? • Definitions • Parts of nature that humankind considers to be useful or valuable • Those parts of nature that can provide the goods and services sought by humans • Environmental Resources • As opposed to ‘natural resources’ which indicates the physical bases for human life; ‘environmental resources’ includes amenity and recreational resources that may not be of economic or material value

12. Types of Environmental Resources • Three main groups • Raw materials and energy sources • Parts of the environment that can provide services • Essential life-support systems

13. Classification #1 • Renewable (flow) • Solar energy • Water power • Non-renewable (stock) • Minerals • Fossil fuels

14. Classification #2 (depends on time scale) • Perpetual • sun • Potentially renewable or Flow • forest, groundwater, fisheries • depends on rate of exploitation • Non-renewable or Stock • minerals, fossil fuels, wilderness? • Potential • solid waste, wastewater • Amenity • scenery

15. Classification #3 • Fund • resources exist independent of human need or desire • Function • resources ‘become’ out of ‘neutral stuff’ as human culture develops a need or desire

16. Zimmerman • Sources and Sinks • Source: from which resources are drawn • Supply depots • Sink: where human wastes and effluents go • Waste repositories • Physical resources: soil, water, biotic, nonfuel minerals • Energy • Pollution sinks

17. Resource Creation

18. Resource Destruction • Environmental Degradation • Habitat conversion • Pollution • Toxification • Salinization • Deforestation • Desertification • Extinction

19. Resource Management • Goals • Provide services • Maintain life support systems

20. Ecological, Economic, and Ethnological components • Science: systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation • Scientific Method • data collection • hypothesis development • testing • Induction vs. Deduction • Environmental science: interdisciplinary study of how humanity affects other living organisms and the non-living physical environment • Value judgments: decisions as to what to do, when to do it, and which thing or course of action is better • based on faith, ethics, and social controls • realm of religion, not the realm of science

21. Environmental Accounting

22. Types of Environmental Resources • Three main groups • Raw materials and energy sources • Parts of the environment that can provide services • Essential life-support systems

23. Resource Management • Aims to provide goods and services, and to maintain essential life-support systems • Concerned with the physical or biological functioning of part of the environment, but also with the allocation of resource products

24. Three Dimensions of Resource Management • Ecological • Economic • Ethnological (social or cultural) • Mather & Chapman (3): If an environmental resource is to be used, its use must be physically possible, economically viable, and culturally acceptable

25. Science • Systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation • Scientific Method • data collection • hypothesis development • testing

26. Induction vs. Deduction

27. Environmental Science • Interdisciplinary study of how humanity affects other living organisms and the non-living physical environment

28. Value Judgments • Decisions as to what to do, when to do it, and which thing or course of action is better • based on faith, ethics, and social controls • realm of religion, not the realm of science

29. Classification of Resources • Classification #1 (Flow vs. Stock) • Renewable (flow) • Solar energy • Water power • Non-renewable (fund/stock) • Minerals • Fossil fuels

30. Classification of Resources • Classification #2 (Temporal Scale) • Perpetual (everlasting) • sun • Potentially renewable (flow) • forest, groundwater, fisheries • depends on rate of exploitation • Non-renewable (fund/stock) • minerals, fossil fuels, wilderness? • ore vs. recycled metal • law of entropy means that energy resources are always degraded into less ordered form

31. Classification of Resources • Classification #3 (Social Value) • Fund • resources exist independent of human need or desire • Function • Zimmerman (1951) World Resources and Industries • resources ‘become’ out of ‘neutral stuff’ as human culture develops a need or desire • resource does not refer to a thing or a substance but to a function which a thing or substance may perform • no part of nature has intrinsic physical or chemical properties that make it a resource, but any part can become a resource when people perceive it as having utility or value • Resistance • negatively perceived parts of the environment • Cairngorm snow • Southeast Asian forest grasses • Dynamic • “false impression of resources as something static, and fixed, whereas actually they are as dynamic as civilization itself

32. Resources “Become”

33. Difficulties in Classification • Land = Flow or Fund? • land as a space for building is a renewable or perpetual resource • land supports flow resources such as food or wood • land degradation can lead to a non-renewable resource • Ocean • flow resources can become stock resources if overharvested • Critical zone • level or threshold of use beyond which resource use is not sustainable

34. Resource Continuum • Mather & Chapman (16) • Fixed stocks: exhaustible and non-renewable • fossil fuels • Infinitely renewable: • solar power & water resources

35. Potential Resources • Resources that are not currently being utilized • solid waste, wastewater, algae

36. Amenity Resources • Aesthetic benefits from the natural world • scenery, recreation, wilderness values, solitude

37. Resource Creation • Component of the environment that was previously not viewed as useful or valuable is perceived to be a resource • Social or cultural trends • Afforestation of peatlands in Scotland • Affluence, free time, attitudes • Changes in technology • Vulcanization of rubber • Charles Herty’s forestry contributions • http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2607

38. Process of Resource Creation • Resource potential is recognized, but not realized • Technology improves, production costs fall, alternative resources prices climb • Side-effects and external costs become acceptable

39. Resource Destruction • Resources can have their value reduced and fall into disuse • Competing & cheaper alternatives • Cease to be perceived as useful or valuable

40. Resource Substitution • Resource is physically exhausted, and price increases force consumers to alternatives • Rare: price rises prevent last unit from ever being consumed

41. Environmental Degradation

42. Causes of Environmental Degradation • Habitat conversion • Pollution • Toxification • Salinization • Deforestation • Desertification • Extinction

43. Environmental, Resource, and Social Problems