1. Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and Sustainability
Chapter 1
Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and Sustainability

2. Core Case Study: Living in an Exponential Age
Human population growth: J-shaped curve
Figure 1-1

3. Exponential Growth
A quantity increases by a constant rate of increase per unit of time
Also called Geometric Growth
Follows a geometric pattern of increase
2,4,8,16,32, etc.

4. Arithmetic Growth Increases at a constant amount per unit of time
1,3,5,7, etc.
Also called Linear Growth
Graph will be a sloping straight line
Food production is increasing in this manner

5. 1-1 What Is an Environmentally Sustainable Society?
Concept 1-1A Our lives and economies depend on energy from the sun (solar capital) and on natural resources and natural services (natural capital) provided by the earth.
Concept 1-1B Living sustainability means living off the earth’s natural income without depleting or degrading the natural capital that supplies it.

6. LIVING MORE SUSTAINABLY
… the study of how the earth works, how we interact with the earth and how to deal with environmental problems.
Figure 1-2

7. What is Environmental Science?
The goals of environmental science are to learn:
how nature works.
how the environment effects us.
how we effect the environment.
how we can live more sustainably without degrading our life-support system.

8. Environment, Ecology, & Environmental Science
Environment - all external conditions and factors that affect living organisms
Ecology - study of relationships between living organisms and their environment
Environmental Science - examines the effect of humans on the earth’s environment

9. Capital Wealth – to an economist Solar capital – energy from the sun
Direct sunlight and indirect forms such as windpower, hydroelectric, and biomass
Natural capital – (natural resources) air, water, soil, biodiversity, etc. Also called natural resources.
Our existence depends completely on the sun and the earth.

10. 1-2 How Can Environmentally Sustainable Societies Grow Economically?
Concept 1-2 Societies can become more environmentally sustainable through economic development dedicated to improving the quality of life for everyone without degrading the earth's life support systems.

11. Sustainability: The Integrative Theme
Sustainability, is the ability of earth’s various systems to survive and adapt to environmental conditions indefinitely.
The steps to sustainability must be supported by sound science.
Figure 1-3

12. POPULATION GROWTH, ECONOMIC GROWTH, AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Economic growth provides people with more goods and services.
Measured in gross domestic product (GDP) and purchasing power parity (PPP).
Economic development uses economic growth to improve living standards.
The world’s countries economic status (developed vs. developing) are based on their degree of industrialization and GDP-PPP.

13. What is economic development?
Improvement of living standards by economic growth

14. Developed Countries Highly industrialized High per capita GNI
Have 20% of world’s population
Have 85% of world’s wealth and income
Use 88% of its natural resources
Generate 75% of its pollution & waste

15. Developing Countries Low to moderate industrialization
Low per capita GNI
Most are in Africa, Asia, and Latin America
Have 80% of the world’s population
Have 15% of its wealth and income
Use only 12% of its natural resources

16. Development
The change from a largely rural society, mainly agricultural, illiterate, and poor with a rapidly growing population to one that is mostly urban, industrial, educated, and wealthy with a slow-growing population..

17. 1-3 How Are Our Ecological Footprints Affecting the Earth?
Concept 1-3 As our ecological footprints grow, we are depleting and degrading more of the earth’s natural capital.

18. Types of resources PERPETUAL - renewed continuously
SOLAR ENERGY
WIND, TIDES, FLOWING WATER
RENEWABLE - can be replenished fairly rapidly
AIR, WATER, SOIL, BIODIVERSITY
NONRENEWABLE - exist in a fixed quantity
FOSSIL FUELS
METALLIC MINERALS
NONMETALLIC MINERALS

19. Tragedy of The Commons by Garrett Hardin

20. The Tragedy of the Commons
Garrett Hardin
“If I don’t use it, someone else will”
Overusing that which belongs to all or us
Air, water, ocean
Called COMMON PROPERTY OR FREE-ACCESS RESOURCES

21. Nonrenewable resource
Exist in fixed amounts in the earth’s crust and can be completely used up
Include energy resources such as coal, oil natural gas & uranium
Metallic mineral resources - iron, copper
Nonmetallic mineral resources - salt, sand, clay
Mineral - hard, crystalline material formed naturally
Also called exhaustible resources

22. Economic depletion
When 80% of a mineral is used up and it becomes more expensive to retrieve it than the mineral is worth.
Five choices at this point:
Reduce or use less, reuse or recycle existing supply - does not apply to nonrenewable energy sources- use less or try to find a substitute or do without.

23. Recycling - collect and reprocess. resource into new products
Recycling - collect and reprocess resource into new products. Reuse - Use resource over & over again. Cannot recycle nonrenewable energy sources Reserve - known deposit from which a useable mineral can be extracted at a profit at current prices.

24. Our Ecological Footprint
Humanity’s ecological footprint has exceeded earths ecological capacity.
Figure 1-7

25. Ecological Footprint
The amount of land needed to produce the resources needed by the average person in a country.
Ecological footprint of people in developed countries is large compared to people in developing countries.
If all people in the world consumed what we do in the U.S. it would take three planets to support them.

26. 1-4 What Is Pollution and What Can We Do about It?
Concept 1-4 Preventing pollution is more effective and less costly than cleaning up pollution.

27. POLLUTION
Found at high enough levels in the environment to cause harm to organisms.
Point source
Nonpoint source
Figure 1-9

28. Pollution
Any addition to air, water, soil or food that threatens the health, survival, or activities of humans or others
Can be natural such as a volcano or anthropogenic - due to human activities
POINT SOURCES - come from a single identifiable source - a wastewater treatment plant
NONPOINT SOURCES - come from sources that are difficult to identify.

29. Pollution Pollutants can have three types of unwanted effects:
Can disrupt / degrade life-support systems.
Can damage health and property.
Can create nuisances such as noise and unpleasant smells, tastes, and sights.

30. Solutions: Prevention vs. Cleanup
Problems with relying on cleanup:
Temporary bandage without improvements in control technology.
Often removes a pollutant from one part of the environment to cause problems in another.
Pollutants at harmful levels can cost too much to reduce them to acceptable levels.
Love Canal, New York

31. 1-5 Why Do We Have Environmental Problems? (1)
Concept 1-5A Major causes of environmental problems are population growth, wasteful and unsustainable resource use, poverty, exclusion of environmental costs of resource use from the market prices of goods and services, and attempts to manage nature with insufficient knowledge.

32. 1-5 Why Do We Have Environmental Problems? (2)
Concept 1-5B People with different environmental worldviews often disagree about the seriousness of environmental problems and what we should do about them.

33. Human Economic and Cultural Systems Recycling and reuse
SOLAR
CAPITAL
EARTH
Goods and services
Heat
Human Capital
Human
Economic
and
Cultural
Systems
Depletion of nonrenewable resources
Degradation of renewable resources
Natural Capital
Figure 1.10
Natural capital use, depletion, and degradation: human and natural capital produce an amazing array of goods and services for most of the world’s people. But the exponentially increasing flow of material resources through the world’s economic systems depletes nonrenewable resources, degrades renewable resources, and adds heat, pollution, and wastes to the environment.
Pollution and waste
Recycling and reuse
Fig. 1-10, p. 17

34. Key Environmental Problems FIVE ROOT CAUSES
Overpopulation
Waste of resources
Poverty
Not including environmental costs of economic goods and services in their market prices
Trying to manage and simplify nature with too little knowledge of how nature works.

35. Poverty and Environmental Problems
1 of 3 children under 5, suffer from severe malnutrition.
Figure 1-12 and 1-13

36. Results
Developing countries have more people but use less resources / person
Developed countries have less people but use more resources/person
Ends up that both have effects on environment

37. Resource Consumption and Environmental Problems
Overconsumption
Affluenza: unsustainable addiction to overconsumption and materialism.

38. CULTURAL CHANGES AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Agricultural revolution
Allowed people to stay in one place.
Industrial-medical revolution
Led shift from rural villages to urban society.
Science improved sanitation and disease control.
Information-globalization revolution
Rapid access to information.

39. Case Study: The Environmental Transformation of Chattanooga, TN
Environmental success story: example of building their social capital
1960: most polluted city in the U.S.
1984: Vision 2000
1995: most goals met
1993: Revision 2000

40. SUSTAINABILITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL WORLDVIEWS
Technological optimists:
suggest that human ingenuity will keep the environment sustainable.
Environmental pessimists:
overstate the problems where our environmental situation seems hopeless.

41. 1-6 What Are Four Scientific Principles of Sustainability?
Concept 1- 6 Nature has sustained itself for billions of years by using solar energy, biodiversity, population control, and nutrient cycling—lessons from nature that we can apply to our lifestyles and economies.

42. Four Scientific Principles of Sustainability: Copy Nature
Reliance on Solar Energy
Biodiversity
Population Control
Nutrient Recycling
Figure 1-16