What Causes Environmental Problems and Why Do They Persist?

The human population is growing at a rapid rate Population growth is a major cause of environmental problems The human population has been experiencing exponential growth. Exponential growth occurs when a quantity increases at a fixed percentage per unit of time, such as 2% a year. It starts slowly, but after a few doublings, the rate becomes enormous

Exponential growth of the human population Human population growing exponentially. More than 89 million people are added to the planet every year! We don’t know how many people the Earth can actually hold, but exponential growth of the human population is a problem! The Bubonic Plague 1346

Affluence and unsustainable resource use Recall IPAT where Impact = Population size x Affluence x Technology Affluence means a high level of resource consumption Often an improvement in the quality of human life means an increase in environmental degradation. The United States contains about 4.4% of the world’s people BUT is responsible for about 15% of the global ecological footprint. If everyone lived like Americans we would need 5 Earths Why does affluence increase environmental degradation? How might affluence actually be beneficial to environmental causes?

Poverty has harmful environmental and health effects Poverty is a condition in which people lack enough money to fulfill their basic needs for food water, shelter, health care, and education. Three out of every ten people (30%) or 2.1 billion people of the world’s population live on less than $3.10 a day 900 million of these people live in extreme poverty, less than $1.90 a day! More than 1/3 of the world’s population have no bathroom facilities. Why would poverty contribute to environmental degradation? More than 1 million people die every year in China from air pollution. About 4.3 million people die every year worldwide from indoor air pollution.

Prices of goods and services exclude environmental and health costs Manufacturers are not required to pay for most of the harmful environmental and health costs of supplying goods. Timber companies pay to clear-cut forests BUT they do not pay for the cost of lost ecosystem services Loss of wildlife habitat Soil erosion Water retention How can we fix this problem? In China 90% of the groundwater is polluted. Picture is from a textile factory 17 – 20% of water pollution is from dyes and treatments to textiles! Bottom picture from Bangladesh.

People have different views about environmental problems and their solutions Our opinions differ on the importance and nature of environmental problems. Environmental ethics is the study of varying beliefs about what is right and wrong with how people treat the environment. People with differing worldviews and experiences can look at the same data and arrive at drastically different answers. A human-centered worldview sees the natural world as a support system for human life. In other words, humans are separate from and in charge of nature and that society should manage Earth for the benefit of humans. A life-centered worldview sees the value in all species and their fulfillment of their particular role in the world regardless of their use to society. An Earth-centered worldview maintains that people are part of, and dependent on, nature and that Earth’s natural capital exists for the benefit of all species.

Industrialization and economic growth Between 1940 and 1970 the US encountered problems with air and water pollution and increase in hazardous and solid wastes. Cleveland was a site of industrialism since the 1880s. The Cuyahoga River runs through the center of Cleveland and was described as “an open sewer through the center of the city” In the 1960s it had steel mills and factories along both sides. The factories and steel mills dumped untreated waste into the river for miles down its length The Cuyahoga River has caught fire 13 different times A fire in 1969 gained national attention and eventually led to the Clean Water Act

Rachel Carson Rachel Carson was a nature writer and marine biologist for the US Fish and Wildlife Service DDT is a pesticide developed in 1939 that famously rid islands in the South Pacific of malaria causing insects during WWII Its inventor received a Noble Prize Most pesticides target only one or two species of insects but DDT can kills hundreds of different kinds of insects DDT became available for civilian use in the US in 1945 Despite being a best-selling author, Carson was unable to find a magazine to publish her research on DDT. She wrote the book, Silent Spring, instead. The New Yorker published Silent Spring in serial in 1962 Carson’s meticulously conducted research included 55 pages of notes. Her work was backed by many eminent scientists of the period and caught the attention of JFK who ordered that the President’s Scientific Advisory Committee examine her claims. Thanks to her work DDT was eventually banned in the United States. This was the first time the US government regulation of industry to protect the environment was widely supported by the public. This event ushered in an era of environmentalism