Environmental Science 204 Ecology and the Biosphere

In the Past Hour (World)…  World Population: grown by 8,500 (all 2004)  15,000 births  6,500 deaths  200 from air pollution  600 children from hunger  300 from AIDS  World Population: grown by 8,500 (all 2004)  15,000 births  6,500 deaths  200 from air pollution  600 children from hunger  300 from AIDS

In the Past Hour (World)…  Food Consumed:  Fish & Shellfish - 33 million pounds (2002) (10 million pounds farmed)  Meat - 59 million pounds (2004)  Grain million pounds (2004)  Coffee Beans - 340,000 lbs (2002)  Ice Cream - 650,000 quarts  Fertilizer Use: 35 million pounds  Food Consumed:  Fish & Shellfish - 33 million pounds (2002) (10 million pounds farmed)  Meat - 59 million pounds (2004)  Grain million pounds (2004)  Coffee Beans - 340,000 lbs (2002)  Ice Cream - 650,000 quarts  Fertilizer Use: 35 million pounds

In the Past Hour (World)…  Forests Cut: 20,000 acres (1,000,000x size of this room!) (2000)  Extinctions: 1-3 species  Paper/Wood Consumed: 250 million pounds  Forests Cut: 20,000 acres (1,000,000x size of this room!) (2000)  Extinctions: 1-3 species  Paper/Wood Consumed: 250 million pounds

In the Past Hour (World)…  5,000 cars rolled off the assembly line (2004)  $50 million spent on advertising (2002)  Carbon Dioxide: 1.8 billion pounds added to atmosphere (US - 25%) (2004)  5,000 cars rolled off the assembly line (2004)  $50 million spent on advertising (2002)  Carbon Dioxide: 1.8 billion pounds added to atmosphere (US - 25%) (2004)

In the Past Hour (U.S.)…  Energy Use: 570 million lbs oil equivalent (1999) (2.1 million barrels) (3/31 - $66/barrel = $138 billion!) (World: 2 billion lbs equivalent)  Water Use: 16 billion gallons (2000)  Energy Use: 570 million lbs oil equivalent (1999) (2.1 million barrels) (3/31 - $66/barrel = $138 billion!) (World: 2 billion lbs equivalent)  Water Use: 16 billion gallons (2000)

In the Past Hour (U.S.)…  Threw Away:  50 million pounds municiple trash (4.5 lbs person day) (2001)  3 billion lbs mining/industrial/agricultural waste  11 million pounds paper  2.5 million plastic bottles  2,300 computers  2 million pounds packing peanuts  21 million pieces of “junk mail”  170,000 pounds of edible food  Threw Away:  50 million pounds municiple trash (4.5 lbs person day) (2001)  3 billion lbs mining/industrial/agricultural waste  11 million pounds paper  2.5 million plastic bottles  2,300 computers  2 million pounds packing peanuts  21 million pieces of “junk mail”  170,000 pounds of edible food

Before you get depressed…

Scientific Method Raise question Gather data

Scientific Method Raise question Gather data Form hypothesis Test and modify hypothesis Scientific Theory Scientific Law

Peer-Reviewed Journals

Does Tropical Biodiversity Increase As Rainforest Area Expands During Global Warming? Science Daily Online, 31 March 2006 (1)"Plant diversity seems to increase when tropical forests cover large areas. (2) Shrinking ecosystems may experience biodiversity loss lasting for millions of years." (3) Carlos Jaramillo, at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), and colleagues seek explanations for the longest Central and South America pollen record, published in the March 31, 2006 issue of the journal Science. (4) “Jaramillo's intriguing findings provide an evolutionary perspective on a modern crisis," William Laurance of STRI and the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments project in Brazil comments (5) "They suggest that the rapid contemporary loss and fragmentation of rainforests will lead to striking, long-term biodiversity declines.” (6) Jaramillo used cores drilled through 5km of rock in eastern Colombia and western Venezuela to get at the fossil pollen record in a sequence of samples representing 10 to 82 million years before present. (7) Then they correlated pollen diversity with global temperature estimates for the middle part of that sequence (20-65 mybp). (8) "We found that pollen diversity tracks global temperature through time over millions of years. (9) Diversity increases as the planet warms and decreases as it cools. (10) The mystery is that even when global temperatures vary enormously, average temperatures in the tropics don't change much, so why do we see global temperature patterns reflected in tropical plant diversity?" (11) Jaramillo proposes that changes in area drive speciation and extinction in the tropics.” (12) There is good correlation between area and number of species: more area implies more species. (13) During global warming, tropical areas expand and diversity goes up, the opposite happens during global cooling. (14) If this is the case, fragmentation of modern tropical forest could be equated to a global cooling period, because forested areas are shrinking dramatically, resulting in plummeting diversity in the forests that remain."