1. Concept 1: Sustainability

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

3. Implications of the Four Scientific Principles of Sustainability
Figures 1-17 and 1-18

4. 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.

5. Introduction Environment Ecology Environmental Science
External conditions that affect living organisms
Ecology
Study of relationships between living organisms and their environment
Environmental Science
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.

6. Solar Capital and Earth Capital
Energy from the sun
Provides 99% of the energy used on earth
Earth Capital
Life-support and Economic Services
Environment
Planet’s air, water, soil, wildlife, minerals, natural purification, recycling, pest control,…

7. Carrying Capacity
The maximum number of organisms of a local, regional, or global environment can support over a specified period
Variables
Location
Time
Short term ~ seasonal changes
Long-term ~global changes in factors such as climate
Technology

8. Sustainability
The ability of a specified system to survive and function over time
$1,000,000
10% interest
Live on up to $100,000 per year
Examples: Sustainable earth, resource harvest, and society
The steps to sustainability must be supported by sound science.

9. Linear Growth Quantity increases by a constant amount per unit of time
1,2,3,4,5, …
1,3,5,7,9, …
When plotted on a graph, growth of money yields a fairly straight line sloping upward

10. Exponential Growth Growth yields a J-shaped curve
Describes the human population problem that disturbs the environment today

11. Rule of 70 How long does it take to double? Rule of 70 Resource use
Population size
Money in a savings account
Rule of 70
70 divided by the percentage growth rate = doubling time in years
70 / 7% means it takes ten years to double

12. Economic Growth - Key Terms
Increase in the capacity to provide goods and services for people’s use
Gross National Product
Measures economic growth in a country
Gross Domestic Product
Market value in current dollars of all goods and services produced only within a country during one year

13. Economic Growth - Key Terms
More Developed Countries (MDC)
Highly industrialized
Average per capita GNP above $4000
Less Developed Countries (LDC)
Low to moderate industrialization
Average per capita GNP below $4000

14. Economic Growth - Key Terms
Development
Change from a society that is largely rural, agricultural, illiterate, poor and rapidly growing population
Per Capita GNP
GNP divided by the total population
Shows one person’s slice of the economic pie

15. Questions
1. The sun provides the earth with what percent of the energy?
(A) 2% (B) 25% (C) 50% (D) 80% (E) 99%
2. What is the carrying capacity of an environment?
(A) The number of animals that can be produced when mating.
(B) The maximum number of organisms in an area that can be supported.
(C) The amount an animal can carry in that environment
(D) The number of prey that an environment can sustain
(E) The minimum a population must have to survive in an environment
3. What is used in order to calculate the doubling of a resource, population, money, etc.?
(A) Rule of 2
(B) Rule of 20
(C) Rule of 40
(D) Rule of 70
(E) Rule of 90
1. (E) 99% 2. (B) The maximum number of organisms in an area that can be supported (D) Rule of 70

16. 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.

17. Wealth Gap
The gap between the per capita GNP of the rich, middle-income and poor has widened since 1980
More than 1 billion people survive on less than one dollar per day

18. Sustainable Development
Assumes the right to use the earth’s resources and earth capital to meet needs
It is our obligation to create sustainability
Environmentally sustainable societies meets basic needs of its people in a just and equitable manner without degrading the natural capital that supplies these resources.

19. Potentially Renewable
Resources
Renewable
Non-Renewable
Potentially Renewable
Direct solar energy
Fossil fuels
Fresh air
Winds, tides, flowing water
Metallic minerals (iron, copper, aluminum)
Fresh water
Nonmetallic minerals (clay, sand, phosphates)
Fertile soil
Plants and animals (biodiversity)

20. Biodiversity Genetic Diversity Species Diversity Ecological Diversity
Variety in a genetic makeup among individuals within a single species
Species Diversity
Variety among the species or distinct types of living organisms found in different habitats of the planet
Ecological Diversity
Variety of forests, deserts, grasslands, streams, lakes, oceans, wetlands, and other communities

21. Environmental Degradation
Common Property Resources
Tragedy of the Commons
Resources owned by none, but available to all users free of charge
May convert potentially renewable resources into nonrenewable resources

22. Natural capital degradation
The exponential increasing flow of material resources through the world’s economic systems depletes, degrades and pollutes the environment.
Figure 1-11

23. Nonrenewable Resources
Nonrenewable/Exhaustible Resources
Exist in a fixed quantity in the earth’s crust and can be used up
Mineral
Any hard, usually crystalline material that is formed naturally
Reserves
Known deposits from which a usable mineral can be profitably extracted at current prices

24. Nonrenewable Resources
Recycling
Collecting and reprocessing a resource into new products
Reuse
Using a resource over and over in the same form

25. ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS: CAUSES AND CONNECTIONS
The major causes of environmental problems are:
Population growth
Wasteful resource use
Poverty
Poor environmental accounting
Ecological ignorance

26. Questions
1. Approximately how many people in the world live on under a dollar a day?
(A) 40, 000
(B) 100,000
(C) 1,000,000
(D) 10,000,000
(E) 1,000,000,000
2. Which is not a renewable resource?
(A) Air
(B) Water
(C) Soil
(D) Metal
(E) Animals
3. What is genetic diversity?
(A) The distinction between species
(B) The variety of environments
(C) The genetic makeup of individuals
(D) The different genes from mating
(E) Hybrid species mating
4. Which is not a cause of environmental problems?
(A) Population growth
(B) Unsustainable resource use
(C) Poverty
(D)Global warming
(E) Trying to manage and simplify nature without knowledge
1. (E) 1,000,000, (D) Metal (D) The different genes from mating (D) Global warming

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

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

29. Pollution
Any addition to air, water, soil, or food that threatens the health, survival, or activities of humans or other living organisms
Solid, liquid, or gaseous by-products or wastes

30. Point Source Pollutants
From a single, identifiable sources
Smokestack of a power plant
Drainpipe of a meat-packing plant
Exhaust pipe of an automobile

31. Nonpoint Source Pollutants
Dispersed and often difficult to identify sources
Runoff of fertilizers and pesticides
Storm Drains (#1 source of oil spills in oceans)

32. Negativity of Pollutant
Chemical Nature
How active and harmful it is to living organisms
Concentration
Amount per unit volume or weight of air, water, soil or body weight
Persistence
Time it stays in the air, water, soil or body

33. Types of Pollutants
Factors that determine the severity of a pollutant’s effects: chemical nature, concentration, and persistence.
Pollutants are classified based on their persistence:
Degradable pollutants
Biodegradable pollutants
Slowly degradable pollutants
Nondegradable pollutants

34. Water Pollution Sediment Nutrient overload Toxic chemicals
Infectious agents
Oxygen depletion
Pesticides
Oil spills
Excess heat

35. Air Pollution Global climate change Stratospheric ozone depletion
Urban air pollution
Acid deposition
Outdoor pollutants
Indoor pollutants
Noise

36. Solution: Pollution cleanup
Output Pollution Cleanup
Involves cleaning up pollutants after they have been produced
Most expensive and time consuming

37. Solutions: Pollution Prevention
Input Pollution Control or Throughput Solution
Slows or eliminates the production of pollutants, often by switching to less harmful chemicals or processes
Four R’s
Reduce, reuse, refuse, recycle

38. Questions 1. Which is not one of the 4 R’s? (A) Reduce (B) Reserve
(C) Recycle
(D) Reuse
(E) Refuse
2. What resource is the world population most deprived of in poor countries?
(A) Adequate sanitation
(B) Electricity
(C) Clean water
(D) Enough food
(E) Fuel
3. What is NOT a point source pollutant?
(A) Smokestack from a coal processing plant
(B) Drainpipe of a meat-packing plant
(C)Runoff from fertilizers
(D)Exhaust pipe of a car
(E)Heated water from a power plant
1. (B) Reserve 2. (A) Adequate sanitation 3. (C) Runoff from fertilizers

39. Biodiversity Depletion
Habitat destruction
Habitat degradation
Extinction

40. Food Supply Problems Overgrazing Farmland loss and degradation
Wetlands loss and degradation
Overfishing
Coastal pollution
Soil erosion
Soil salinization
Soil waterlogging
Water shortages
Groundwater depletion
Loss of biodiversity
Poor nutrition

41. Agricultural Revolution
Cultural shift that began in several regions of the world
Involved a gradual move from a lifestyle based on nomadic hunting
Agroforestry
Planting a mixture of food crops and tree crops

42. Agricultural Revolution
Slash-and-burn
Cutting down trees and other vegetation and then burning the underbrush to clear small patches of land
Subsistence Farming
Family grew only enough food to feed itself.

43. Planetary Management Worldview
There is always more
All economic growth is good
Potential for economic growth is limitless
Our success depends on how well we manage earth’s system for our benefit
                                                                                   

44. Earth-Wisdom Worldview
Nature exists for all of the earth’s species, not just for us
There is not always more
Not all forms of economic growth is beneficial to the environment
Our success depends on learning to cooperate with one another and with the earth