1. Environmental Science: Toward a Sustainable Future Richard T. Wright
Chapter 1
Introduction: Toward a Sustainable Future

2. The Chapter Introduction
The global environmental picture
Population in 2004 = 6.4 billion
Growing at approximately 77 million per year
Population by 2050 could be 8.9 billion!

3. The Chapter Introduction
Three strategic themes
Sustainability
Stewardship
Sound science

4. The Chapter Introduction
Three integrative themes
Ecosystem capital
Policy/politics
Globalization
The environment in the 21st century

5. The Lessons of Easter Island
Great example of what humans can do to the environment…
Society fails to care for the environment
Population increases beyond carrying capacity.
Disparity between rich and poor widens.

6. The Lessons of Easter Island
First inhabited between 400 and 800 A.D.
Island was originally forested with many varieties of trees
Population flourished with abundance of resources
By 1600 AD all trees had vanished

7. What made Easter Island so fragile?
Studies by Jared Diamond and Barry Rolett put characteristics of 81 Pacific islands through a gambit of statistical analysis
Came up with 9 physical factors (variables) that contribute to deforestation

8. Why was Easter Island so fragile?
What Affects Deforestation on Pacific Islands?
Deforestation is more severe on:
dry islands than wet islands;
cold high-latitude islands than warm equatorial islands;
old volcanic islands than young volcanic islands;
islands without aerial ash fallout than islands with it;
islands far from Central Asia’s dust plume than islands near it;
islands without makatea than islands with it;
low islands than high islands
remote islands than islands with near neighbors; and
small islands than big islands
*Source: Diamond, J.; Collapse: Why Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed © 2005; p

9. The Lessons of Easter Island
No trees = loss of soil quality
Cannot support agriculture
No agriculture = NO FOOD
Starvation and disease became epidemic
…and the Europeans were no help…

10. The Lessons of Easter Island
Three Dutch ships charted Easter Island in 1722
They discovered Polynesians living primitively
After the island’s discovery, visiting whalers infected the original inhabitants with venereal diseases, captured them as slaves and infected them with smallpox

11. How to Prevent a Global Version of the Easter Island Disaster
Understand how the natural world works
Understand how human and natural systems interact
Accurately assess the status and trends of crucial natural ecosystems
Establish long-term sustainable relationships with the natural world

12. The Global Environmental Picture
Rapid human population growth and increasing consumption per person
Decline of ecosystems
Global atmospheric changes
Loss of biodiversity
Arrival of the new millennium became the occasion for taking stock in many areas of human concern
In particular, the global environment
The picture of the state of our planet that emerged from a number of surveys was troubling
Four global trends were of particular concern
Population growth and economic development
Decline of vital life-support ecosystems
Global atmospheric changes
Loss of biodiversity

13. Rapid Human Population Growth
World population started a rapid growth phase in the early 1800s and has increased six-fold in the last 200 years.
Future projections are based on assumptions that birthrates will continue to decline.

14. Ecological Footprint Ecological Footprint
Calculates the natural areas required to satisfy human needs and demands in food, housing, transportation, consumer goods, etc.
Average American = 12.6 acres
Average Indian = 1 acre
Concept developed by a team of scholars at the University of British Columbia
For the U.S. population this works out to 1 ½ times our national area – an indication that we are drawing on resources and services that extend outside the country
The 2.5 billion persons added by 2050 will have to be clothed, fed, housed, and hopefully supported by gainful employment. Virtually all of the increase will be in developing countries.
Over 800 million people – one out of every five – remain undernourished
Stabilizing population growth in developing countries is vital to the natural world

15. Ecological Footprint
Lower Fraser Valley Canadians require an area 19 times larger than their home region to provide food, clothing, energy, and shelter.

16. The Chapter Introduction
The Decline of Ecosystems
Natural and managed ecosystems support human life and economies
PAGE (Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems)
Human activities significantly affecting natural chemical cycles
We STILL lack much knowledge needed to assess and implement sustainable plans!
Around the world we see groundwater supplies depleted, agricultural soils degraded, oceans over-fished, and forests cut faster than they can re-grow
Recent report from UN (called PAGE) addressed these trends as it examined the status of the five major ecosystems which deliver the goods and services that support human life and the economy
coastal/marine systems
Freshwater systems
Agricultural lands
Grassland
Forests

17. Indicators of Decline of Vital Ecosystems
Depleted water supplies
Agricultural soils degraded
Oceans overfished
Forests cut faster than they can grow
“Nearly every measure we use to assess the health of ecosystems tells us we are drawing on them more than ever and degrading them at an accelerating pace”

18. Conceptual Framework for Millennium Ecosystem Project
The left-hand side of this scheme shows the basic relationship between ecosystem services and human well-being. On the right are the factors that can lead to changes in ecosystems, some acting indirectly. The changes can be positive or negative. The red crossbars indicate where actions can be taken to enhance positive changes or respond to negative changes. All of these interactions can take place at different spatial scales.

19. Global Atmospheric Changes
The baseline, or zero point, is the average temperature. The warming trend since 1975 is conspicuous.

20. Contributors to Loss of Biodiversity
Habitat alteration
Exploitation
Pollution
The rapidly growing human population, together with increasing consumption, is accelerating the conversion of forests, grasslands, and wetlands to agriculture and urban development.
Inevitable result is loss of most of the wild plants and animals that occupy those natural habitats.
Pollution also degrades habitats – particularly aquatic and marine habitats – destroying the species they support.
Hundreds of species of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, birds, and butterflies, as well as innumerable plants, are exploited for their commercial value – even when species are protected by law they continue to be hunted, killed, and marketed illegally.
As a result earth is losing its biodiversity and no one knows exactly how many. Biodiversity is the total diversity of living things that inhabit the planet.
Why so critical? Some 80% of human population depends on traditional medicines, which in turn are highly dependent upon biodiversity. There are also aesthetic and moral arguments for maintaining biodiversity.

21. Three Strategic Themes
Sustainability: interactions with the natural world that we should be working towards
Stewardship: the ethical and moral framework of our actions
Sound science: the basis for our understanding of how the world works

22. Unifying Themes
Sustainability, stewardship, and sound science are the three strategic themes that must be embraced by our society in order to move toward a sustainable future. Ecosystems capital, policy and politics, and globalization are three integrative themes that deal with the current status of interactions between human societies and natural systems. Each integrative theme can have positive or negative effects on achieving a sustainable future, and each can be positively influenced by the application of the strategic concepts.

23. Four Dimensions to Sustainable Solutions
Environmental
Social
Economic
Political
The concerns of sociologists, economists, and ecologists must intersect in order to achieve sustainable solutions in a society

24. How Stewardship Is Demonstrated
Recognition that a trust has been given
Responsible care for something not owned
Desire to pass something on to future generations

25. Environmental Justice or Racism?
Placement of waste sites and hazardous facilities in nonwhite communities
The stewardship ethic is concerned not only with the care of the natural world, but also with establishing just relationships among humans. This concern for justice has been applied to the US in what is called the environmental justice movement.
Major problem addressed is the placement of waste sites and other hazardous facilities in towns and neighborhoods in which most of the residents are nonwhite.
Example in Piney Woods and Alton Park – suburbs of Chattanooga, Tennessee – largely populated in African Americans.
42 known hazardous waste sites, 12 of which have been listed as Superfund sites (polluted sites deemed serious enough to require governmental intervention and remediation)
Cancer and asthma rates unusually high – people organized the group stop Toxic Pollution (STOP) to draw attention to the toxic waste and health problems

26. Components to the Structure of Sound Science
Data: measurable
Theories: explanations
Shaping principles: uniformity of nature, quantifiability

27. Assumptions of the Process of Science
Causes and effects are explainable.
We have tools and capabilities to understand basic principles and natural laws.

28. Steps in the Scientific Method
The process leading to the formation of theories and the postulation of natural laws and concepts is a continual interplay between observations, hypotheses, test (experiments), theories, and further refinement.

29. True or False Concerning the Process of Science
There are no controversies or arguments among scientists.
Progress in science can be slow.
We are continually confronted by new observations.
Some observed phenomena may not lend themselves to simple experiments.

30. True or False Concerning the Process of Science
Science is incapable of providing absolute proof for any theory.
The process of science can be used to test value judgments.
The validity of science is based on the ability to do experiments.

31. Junk Science Presentations of selective results
Public distortions of scientific works
Publication in quasi-scientific journals

32. Ecosystem Capital: Goods and Services
Provisioning goods, regulating benefits, cultural (nonmaterial) benefits, and supporting services that originate with natural ecosystems and that support life and human enterprises.

33. Policy and Politics
Human decisions that determine what happens to the natural world and the political processes that lead to those decisions.
Purpose of public policy is to promote the common good.
Improvement of human welfare
Protection of the natural world

34. Globalization
The accelerating interconnectedness of human activities, ideas, and cultures.
Health improvements
Global markets
Improved crop yields
Dilution or destruction of cultural and religious ideals.

35. Globalization Environmentally friendly consumer goods
Economic reorganization of the world
Worldwide spread of emerging diseases
Dispersion of exotic species
Trade in hazardous wastes
Spread of persistent organic pollutants

36. The Environment in the 21st Century
The big issues
Corporate accountability
Globalization and WTO
Trade and subsidies
Climate and energy
Development priorities and aid

37. The Environment in the 21st Century
If we do not change direction, we will end up where we are heading.

38. End of Chapter 1