1. Preserving the Planet: Human Impact on Environmental Systems
Chapter 14
Preserving the Planet:
Human Impact on Environmental Systems
Activity 1: Environmental Impacts (IPAT)
by Development Category:
A Global Warming Case Study
Activity 2: Human-Environment Systems Analysis
of Environmental Change
Activity 3: Conflicting Viewpoints on Environmental Problems

2. Learning Outcomes After completing the chapter, you will be able to:
Calculate total carbon dioxide emission from population, affluence, and technology data for different country groups.
Decipher different units of measurement.
Relate levels of development and geographic location of countries to environmental impacts.
Break down environmental problems into five components: human driving forces, human activities, environmental change, adverse consequences, and solutions.
Describe the causes and effects of the disappearing Aral Sea and cattle ranching in tropical Latin America.
Understand different stakeholder groups’ perspectives on environmental problems.
Advocate a position on an environmental problem, and search for solutions that may be amenable to several groups.

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16. I = P * A * T $ GDP kg . CO million kg . CO = million persons * *2 2
person $
GDP

17. Definitions of Key Terms
Adverse Consequences: Negative impacts of environmental change on humans and/or nature (plants and animals).
Biosphere: The regions of the earth’s crust and atmosphere occupied by living matter. The biosphere includes the atmosphere (air), the hydrosphere (surface and subsurface waters), and the lithosphere (upper reaches of the earth’s crust).
Cycle: A circular flow of energy, materials, or organisms that replenishes the elements of a system, enabling the system to continue to function.
Direct Biological Interference: Human-caused alteration of species through removal, redistribution, or modification of living creatures.
Energy/Material Redistribution: Human-caused alteration of energy or material flows through impoundment, redistribution, or transformation.

18. Environmental Change:
Environmental Change: Changes in an environmental system caused by an alteration or disruption of the natural cycles.
Flow: Movement or transformation of energy, materials, or organisms from one stock to another.
Human Activities: The actual activities by humans that directly affect the environment.
Human Driving Forces: Social and cultural conditions that influence human use and perception of the natural environment.
Human-Environment Interactions: The ways in which human society and the natural environment affect each other.
IPAT: Shorthand for a multiplicative model of human impacts on the environment which holds that impacts (I) are proportional to population (P) x Affluence (A) x Technology (T).

19. Negative Feedback Loop:
Negative Feedback Loop: A cause-and-effect chain that begins with a change to a stock and ends up reversing the original change and bringing the system back toward equilibrium.
Pollution: Human introduction of materials into the biosphere that have a negative environmental impact.
Population Pressure: Strain on the natural and economic resources that occurs when the needs of a large or rapidly growing population cannot be met by the resources available.
Positive Feedback Loop: A cause-and-effect chain that begins with a change to a stock and ends up amplifying the original change and pushing the system further from equilibrium.
Renewable Resources: Resources that can be used and restored after use, or that have an unlimited supply.

20. Solutions: Efforts to solve environmental problems.
Stakeholder: An individual or group with a strong interest or stake in how an issue is decided.
Stock: Amounts of energy, materials, or organisms that exist in a system.
Sustainable Development: Providing for the needs of the present without diminishing the options of future generations.
System: A set of elements along with the connections between them that form a whole unit and work together.