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

2. Concept 1: What is an environmentally sustainable society?
Concept 2: How can environmentally sustainable societies grow economically ?
Concept 3: How are our ecological footprints affecting the earth?
Concept 4: What is pollution and what can we do about it ?
Concept 5: Why do we have environmental problems ?
Concept 6: What are 4 scientific principles of sustainability

3. Core Case Study: Living in an Exponential Age (Read this)

4. 1-1 What Is an Environmentally Sustainable Society?
1) Terms:
a) Environment: everything that affects a living organism
b) Ecology: science that studies the relationship between living organisms and the environment
c) Environmental science: interdisciplinary study that uses information from physical and social sciences to learn how the earth works, how we interact and how to deal with problems

5. Environmental Science Is a Study of Connections in Nature (1)
d) Ecosystem: set of organisms interacting with one another & their environment within a specific area
e) Environmentalism: social movement dedicated to protecting the earth’s life support systems

6. 2) Sustainability Is the Central Theme of This Book
Sustainability: ability of the natural systems and human cultural system to survive and adapt to changing environmental conditions indefinitely.
Natural capital: natural resources and services that keep us alive and support our economies
Natural resource: anything we use
Natural service: function of nature that supports life & human economy

7. Pg 8

8. Organic matter in animals
e) Nutrient Cycling: circulation of chemicals
Organic matter in animals
Dead organic matter
Organic matter
in plants
Decomposition
Inorganic
matter in soil

9. f) Solar Capital: energy from the sun
g) Humans degrade natural capital
h) Fixing the problems require scientist to find solutions and political groups to implement them
i) Any shift toward environmental sustainability should be based on accepted scientific concepts

10. We must live off of natural income: the renewable resources
3) Environmentally Sustainable Societies Protect Natural Capital and Live off Its Income
Meets the current and future basic resource needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs.
We must live off of natural income: the renewable resources
Research shows we are not currently living sustainably.

11. 1-2 How Can Environmentally Sustainable Societies Grow Economically?
There Is a Wide Economic Gap between Rich and Poor Countries
Economic growth: increase in the nation’s output of goods and services
GDP: annual market value of all goods and services produced within a country
Per capita: means divided by the total population at midyear

12. There Is a Wide Economic Gap between Rich and Poor Countries
5) per capita GDP PPP: measures the amount of goods that a country’s average citizen could buy in the US
6) Economic development uses economic growth to improve living standards
7) Developed VS developing:
Highly industrialized agricultural
High GDP PPP Low GDP PPP
Figure 1-5 page 11

13. 8) More that half of the people in the world live on an income of less that $2 and 1 in 6 struggle to live on less than $1 a day
9) Environmentally sustainable economic development: Using political and economic systems to discourage unsustainable growth and encourage sustainable growth

14. 1-3 How Are Our Ecological Footprints Affecting the Earth?
Some resources are renewable
Conservation: managing resources with the goal of minimizing waste
Perpetual resource: solar energy, continually renewed (last 6 billion yrs)
Renewable: replenish quickly through natural processes (if not used to fast)
Sustainable yield: highest rate of use without reducing the supply

15. e) Environmental degradation: supply shrinks

16. 2) Tragedy of the Commons
Property resource rights
Private: individual or firms own the rights
Common property: rights held by large groups of individuals
Open access: no one owns them and are available for use by anyone
b) Many of the common and open property has been degraded.
c) Hardin called this tragedy of the commons 16

17. d) This develops from the idea that if I don’t use it someone else will
e) The cumulative effect of people using a common resource can exhaust or ruin it
f) How do you fix it
1. use at below sustainable yields
2. convert it to private ownership

18. 3) Some Resources Are Not Renewable
These exist in fixed amounts
These include energy sources, metal and nonmetallic minerals
How do you maintain the supply
1. reduce
2. reuse
3. recycle
d) This requires less energy & produces less pollution

19. 4) Our Ecological Footprints Are Growing
a) Developing countries use little resources and have a small environmental impact, while developed countries use large amounts and have a large impact

20. b) Ecological footprint: amount of biologically productive land and water needed to supply the people in a particular country with the resources and to absorb and recycle the waste and pollution produced
c) Currently humanity’s global footprint exceeds the biological capacity by 25%

21. Case Study: China’s New Affluent Consumers (15)
Figure 1.13: Natural capital use and degradation.
These graphs show the total and per capita ecological footprints of selected countries (top). In 2008, humanity’s total, or global, ecological footprint was at least 30% higher than the earth’s biological capacity (bottom) and is projected to be twice the planet’s biological capacity by around Question: If we are living beyond the earth’s renewable biological capacity, why do you think the human population and per capita resource consumption are still growing rapidly? (Data from Worldwide Fund for Nature, Global Footprint Network, Living Planet Report See
Fig. 1-13, p. 16

22. 1-4 What Is Pollution and What Can We Do about It?
Pollution Comes from a Number of Sources
Pollution: anything that is harmful to health, survival or activities
Point source: single, identifiable source
Non-point source: dispersed and difficult to identify
It is easier and cheaper to identify and control point source

23. Point or non-point source??
Figure 1.10: This point-source air pollution rises from a pulp mill in New York State (USA).
Fig. 1-10, p. 14

24. 2) Main types:
Biodegradable: will break down by natural processes
B) Nondegradable: Cannot be broken down
3) Unwanted effects
Disrupt or degrade life support systems
Damage wildlife, health and property
Create a nuisance (noise, unpleasant smell)

25. 4) We Can Clean Up Pollution or Prevent It
It is always easier and cheaper to prevent pollution than to clean it up
Problems with cleanup
1. Temporary fix
2. only moves pollutant to another area
3. once dispersed, it cost too much

26. 1-5 Why Do We Have Environmental Problems? (1)
Five Basic Causes
Trying to manage nature without enough knowledge

27. 2) Poverty Has Harmful Environmental and Health Effects
Short term survival leads to depletion of resources
Increase number of children
(gather food, water and fuel and care for adults in old age…40-50)
3) Pollution also effects poor.
a) They die early from preventable health problems

28. b) Lack adequate sanitation and clean drinking water
c) Respiratory disease from indoor air pollution
d) Estimated to cause 7 million premature deaths per year

29. Figure 1. 20: These are some of the harmful effects of poverty
Figure 1.20: These are some of the harmful effects of poverty. Questions: Which two of these effects do you think are the most harmful? Why? (Data from United Nations, World Bank, and World Health Organization)
Fig pg 18

30. 4) Affluence Has Harmful and Beneficial Environmental Effects
Affluence is based on the assumption that buying more things brings happiness (Affluenza)
It takes 27 tractor-trailer loads of resource per year to support 1 American
US footprint is much larger than in developing countries
It can lead to environmental awareness

31. e) Advantages
1. cleaner drinking water
2. Cleaner air
3. Abundant and safe food
4. Decrease in life-threatening infectious disease
5. Longer life expectancy
6. Rescue of some endangered species
7. Reduced population growth

32. 5) Prices Do Not Include the Value of Natural Capital
a) Companies do not pay the environmental cost of resource use
b) Goods and services do not include the harmful environmental costs
c) Companies receive tax breaks and subsidies
d) Economy may be stimulated but there may be a degradation of natural capital

33. 6) Different Views about Environmental Problems and Their Solutions
Environmental Worldviews
a) Planetary management: Its all about us
b) Stewardship: Its about us, but we should be responsible managers
c) Environmental wisdom: Its not all about us, we are part of the world ecosystem and should live sustainably

34. Case Study: The Environmental Transformation of Chattanooga, TN Pg 21

35. Individuals Matter: Aldo Leopold
5–10% of the population can bring about major social change
Anthropologist Margaret Mead
Aldo Leopold: environmental ethics
A leader of the conservation and environmental movements of the 20th century
Land ethic
Wrote: A Sand County Almanac

36. 1-6 What Are Four Scientific Principles of Sustainability?
1) Studying Nature Reveals Four Scientific Principles of Sustainability pg 23
2) Using these guides could help bring about a sustainability revolution during your life.
3) Fig 1-18 pg 24 list some shifts necessary
4) Current evidence suggest that we have 50to 100 yrs to make these changes
5) Every choice you make makes a difference