1. The ungreen city – or the polluting countryside?
Topic: Statistics & Environment
Group Four
Members: Chan Yong Ming, Kwek Zi Wei Bernetta, Peh Ching Hui Timothy
Presenter: Chan Yong Ming

2. Assigned Reading
Group four: Smaje, Chris (2011). The ungreen city - or the polluting countryside? Significance, 8(2), pp

3. Outline Background Key Issues How does statistics affect?
Possible implications
What can be done?

4. Which do you prefer?

5. Less pollution?

7. COMMON MISCONCEPTION
“People living in urban or city areas contribute to less impact on the environment than people living in the countryside or rural areas”

8. Findings
Satterthwaite, D. (2008) Cities’ contribution to global warming: notes on the allocation of greenhouse gas emissions. Environment and Urbanization, 20, 539–549.

9. Ecological Footprint Impact of a person or community on environment
Expressed as amount of land required to sustain use of natural resources

10. Key Issues Fallacy of composition
Problems of reification and confounding
Tension between economies of scale
Comprehensiveness

11. Issue 1: Fallacy of composition

12. Atomistic Fallacy
Applying correlation based on individuals towards the aggregates correlation
observed among individuals may not apply to aggregated data

13. Biased Sample Fallacy
Drawing conclusion about a population based on a sample that is biased
Sample chosen that reflects the population on average being different than it actually is

14. Fallacy of Composition
Something is true of a part cannot be inferred to the whole
City dwellers lower-impact lifestyles than country dwellers
Data does not support

15. Issue 2: Problems of reification and confounding

16. Problems of reification and confounding
Reification = complex idea for when you treat something immaterial
Confounding factors
Greater affluence in cities  Greater Ecological footprint?

17. Electrical Appliances Facial cleansers with microbeads

18. Lower Environmental impacts

19. Problems of reification and confounding
Urbanisation  Affects Environmental Impacts
Need to include Confounding factors (Underlying relationships)

20. Issue 3: Tension between economies of scale

21. Tension between economies of scale
EOS = Proportionate saving in costs gained by an increased level of production
“Diseconomies of urbanity” = economic disadvantage due to city life
Resulting sewage sludge?

22. 2013_Petrozavodsk_WWT_Sludge_Photo_DA_web.jpg

23. Issue 4: Comprehensiveness

24. Comprehensiveness Many environment studies look only at direct impact
Heating up urban apartment vs rural cottage
Other Impacts: Street lighting, transport fuel, waste disposal

26. http://www. sunviewled

27. Possible Implications
People living in city continue to be unaware
2 billion more people on Earth in 2050
Building new city of a million people every week for next 40 years!

28. What can be done? Identifying different pollution sources
Setting regulatory standards
Better statistical analysis of both pollution and measures taken to address

30. Let’s do our part in stopping pollution today!