1. An Introduction to Sustainability

2. An Introduction to Sustainability
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not.”
― Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

3. Overview of Presentation
Introduction to Sustainability
Ecological footprint
Climate Change

4. Key Concepts: Are our present lifestyles sustainable? (pause)
The Story of Stuff
The Story of Solutions

5. Why are our (developed countries – US, in particular) lifestyle unsustainable?
Pause for discussion

6. Our lifestyle is unsustainable:
Over-exploitation of natural resources that accompanied economic and demographic growth
Market failure - Hidden environmental costs are not reflected in market prices
Accelerating resource depletion, waste generation, and environment pollution due to shorten product lifecycles (technology advances) and changing lifestyles since industrial revolution

7. We Are Living Unsustainably
Environmental destruction and degradation: wasting, depleting, and degrading the earth’s natural capital
Happening at an accelerating rate
Also called natural capital degradation

8. Humans Degrade Natural Capital
Figure 1.9: These are examples of the degradation of normally renewable natural resources and services in parts of the world, mostly as a result of rising populations and resource use per person.
Fig. 1-9, p. 13

9. The Great Acceleration of Human Pressure on the Planet
The Great Acceleration of Human Pressure on the Planet, from Big World, Small Planet

10. The Great Acceleration of Human Pressure on the Planet
The Great Acceleration of Human Pressure on the Planet, from Big World, Small Planet

11. A Vision of a More Sustainable World
Sustainability is the overarching theme of Environmental Science
Environmental Science
Environmental Systems

12. Overview of Presentation
Introduction to Sustainability
Climate Change
Green Building
Human Health and Social Justice
Pollution and Industry
Food Production and Agriculture
Conclusion
View sustainability explained

13. What do we learn in Environmental Science?
How the environment affects us
How nature works
How to live more sustainably
How we affect the environment
How to deal with environmental problems

14. First of Four Spheres of Earth
Biosphere refers to:
All of the living parts of the separate ecosystems of the Earth acting as one unit
The parts that are organic and self-replicating
Includes all of the plants and animals of the Earth
Includes both living and dead organisms

15. Other Spheres of Earth
Lithosphere – Above the core and mantle and contains the top of the upper mantle and the crust (which includes all of the soil & rocks)
Hydrosphere – All of the liquid water on the Earth and in the ground (groundwater), solid water in the polar ice, permafrost, sea ice, and water vapor in the atmosphere
Atmosphere – Gaseous envelope that surrounds the Earth as is comprised of multiple layers

16. Atmosphere
Troposphere (layer closest to the Earth and referred to as the boundary layer) contains most of the Earth’s air (78% N2 & 21% O2) and is where all weather is generated.
Stratosphere contains the ozone layer which absorbs ultraviolet radiation from the sun.
Mesosphere is the coldest layer in the atmosphere.
Thermosphere which includes the:
Ionosphere contains ions and is responsible for the absorption of high energy photons from the sun.
Exosphere is the outermost layer and merges with outer space.

17. What Keeps Us Alive? Capital
Solar Energy: without the sun there would be no life. (What is the difference between direct and indirect solar energy?
Natural Capitals:
Air, water, soil etc.

18. How renewable a resource is depends on the timescale of reference.
Natural Capitals
How renewable a resource is
depends on the timescale of reference.

19. Natural Capital = Natural Resources + Natural Services
Solar energy
Natural Capital = Natural Resources + Natural Services
Air
Renewable energy (sun, wind, water flows)
Air purification
Climate control
UV protection
(ozone layer)
Life
(biodiversity)
Water
Population control
Water purification
Pest control
Waste treatment
Figure 1.4: These key natural resources (blue) and natural services (orange) support and sustain the earth’s life and human economies (Concept 1-1a).
Nonrenewable minerals
(iron, sand)
Soil
Land
Soil renewal
Food production
Natural gas
Nutrient recycling
Oil
Nonrenewable energy
(fossil fuels)
Coal seam
Natural resources
Natural services
Fig. 1-4, p. 9

20. Resources Perpetual: renewed continuously on a human scale.
Renewable: can be replenished fairly quickly.
Non-renewable: exist only in fixed quantities. (Once they are gone, they are gone.)
Fig. 1-5, p. 9

21. Ecosystems
Ecosystem is a community of different species interacting with each other and their non-living environment.
ex. Great Lakes
Colorado River
The Adirondack Mountains
New York City
Ecology is the study of the inter-connections of nature.
Ecology is, literally, the study of where living organisms live. By contrast, Environmental Science is a broader, interdisciplinary field in which ecologists work with other physical, chemical, and biological “ologists” to study and seek solutions to environmental problems

22. All of these vary over space/time
Ecosystems
Non-living
Living
ABIOTIC COMPONENTS
BIOTIC COMPONENTS
Sunlight
Primary producers
Temperature
Herbivores
Precipitation
Carnivores
Water or moisture
Omnivores
Soil or water chemistry (e.g., P, NH4+)
Detritivores
etc.
All of these vary over space/time
Because plants are the first step in the production of energy for living things, it is called primary production. Herbivores obtain their energy by consuming plants or plant products, carnivores eat herbivores, and detritivores consume the droppings and carcasses of us all.
Abiotic – chemical & physical factors present in an ecosystem
Biotic – biological component– contains all living organisms

23. Major Ecosystem Processes
The two major processes of any ecosystem are:
1) chemical cycling
2) one-way flows of energy (from the sun)
An ecosystem maintains overall stability by three chief mechanisms:
1) controlling the rate of chemical or material cycling within the system
2) controlling the rate of energy flow through the system
3) maintaining a diversity of species and food webs so that system stability is not affected seriously by the loss of some food web links and / or species.

24. Ecosystem problems can arise by:
1) Disruption of essential materials/nutrients cycles
a) changing the rate of cycling by material overloads or leaks
in the system
b) breaking of the cycle
c) introduction of human-made chemicals into the system, especially
those which have no natural decomposition chain
2) Disruption of energy flow(s)
a) entropy or heat build-up in the system by consumption of too much
energy by human society
b) changing properties and/or composition of the atmosphere leading
to an increase or decrease in the solar energy input or output
from the earth-atmosphere system
3) Disruption of the ecosystem by destruction of species diversity and/or the food web

25. Ecologic-Environmental principles
Your can’t get something for nothing, or there is not such thing as a free lunch (first law of thermodynamics).
If you think things are mixed up now just wait, or you can’t even break even (second law of thermodynamic, energy degradation “up and along” the food web ).
Everything must go somewhere, or there is no thrown away (law of conservation of matter)
Everything is connected to everything, but how? 25

26. Ecologic-Environmental principles
In most cases the greater the diversity of a system the greater its stability.
Nature frequently but not always “knows” best.
Up to a point the bigger the better; beyond that point, the bigger the worse (negative externalities, negative “emergent properties,” threshold effects)
Existence of non-linear and threshold effects 26

27. Nature has sustained itself for billions of years …

28. It has done so using four principles:
Reliance on Solar Energy
Biodiversity
Chemical (Nutrient) Cycling
Population Control

29. What Are Four Principles of Sustainability?
Concept 1-1A Nature has sustained itself for billions of years by using solar energy, biodiversity, nutrient cycling, and population control.
Concept 1-1B Our lives and economies depend on energy from the sun and on natural resources and natural services (natural capital) provided by the earth.

30. Nature’s Survival Strategies Follow Four Principles of Sustainability
Reliance on solar energy
The sun provides warmth and fuels photosynthesis

31. We rely on solar energy

32. Reliance on Solar Energy: The Sun alone provides all the energy for the planet

33. Nature’s Survival Strategies Follow Four Principles of Sustainability
Biodiversity
Astounding variety and adaptability of natural systems and species

34. Biodiversity: The astounding variety of life forms, the genes they contain, and the natural services they provide have given countless ways to adapt to the environmental changes

35. Diversity Makes a System Stronger
Diversity allows natural systems to function since every player has a particular role. When one player drops out or is unable to fulfill its role AND if there is no other player around to step in, system function is compromised.
Figure 1.3: Three principles of sustainability.
We derive these three interconnected principles of sustainability from learning how nature has sustained a huge variety of life on the earth for at least 3.5 billion years, despite drastic changes in environmental conditions (Concept 1-1a).

36. Nature’s Survival Strategies Follow Four Principles of Sustainability
Chemical cycling
Circulation of chemicals from the environment to organisms and then back to the environment
Also called nutrient cycling

37. Nutrient Cycling: Chemicals that plants and animals need to survive and reproduce are recycled by natural processes.

38. Nutrient Cycling
Figure 1.5: Nutrient cycling: This important natural service recycles chemicals needed by organisms from the environment (mostly from soil and water) through those organisms and back to the environment.
Fig. 1-5, p. 10

39. Nutrient Cycling
Figure 1.5: Nutrient cycling: This important natural service recycles chemicals needed by organisms from the environment (mostly from soil and water) through those organisms and back to the environment.
Fig. 1-5, p. 10

40. Nature’s Survival Strategies Follow Four Principles of Sustainability
Population Control:
Competition and limited resources puts limits on how much any population on Earth can grow.

42. Four Scientific Principles of Sustainability: Copy Nature