CHAPTER INTRO

ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS,
THEIR CAUSES, and
SUSTAINABILITY
This powerpoint lecture is created by MUSFIL A.S.
LIVING IN EXPONENTIAL AGE
The quantity increases by a fixed
percentage of the whole in a given
time
SIX ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES


1. Population Growth
2. Increasing Resource Use
3. Global Climate Change
4. Premature Extinction of Plants and Animals
5. Pollution
6. Poverty
Exponential Population Growth
THIS CHAPTER PRESENTS:
An overview of:
1. Environmental Problems
2. Their causes
3. Controversy over their seriousness, and
4. Way we can live more sustainably


With Sub Chapter:
1. Living more sustainably
2. Population Growth
3. Economic Growth, Development, and
Globalization
4. Resources
5. Pollution
6. Environmental Problems: Causes and
Connections
7. Is our present course sustainable?
SUB CHAPTER INTRO.1
LIVING MORE SUSTAINABLE
i.e. Living off natural income replenished
by soils, plants, air, and water and not
depleting earths natural capital that
supplies this income.
Environment, Ecology, and Environmental Science
Environment: everything that affects a living organism
(any unique form of life)
Ecology: a biological science that studies the
relationships between living organisms and their
environment.
Environmental Science: interdiciplinary science that uses
concepts and information from natural sciences
(ecology, biology, chemistry, and geology) and social
sciences (economics, politics, and ethics) to help us
understand:
1. how the earth works
2. how we are affecting the earths life support-systems
3. how to deal with environmental problems we face.
Keeps us alive!
Our existence, lifestyles, and economies depend
completely on the SUN and the EARTH
By analogy:
1. Energy from the Sun as SOLAR CAPITAL
2. The planets air, water, soil, forests, fisheries,
minerals, wildlife, range-lands, and natural purifi-
cation, recycling, and pest control processes as
NATURAL RESOURCES or NATURAL
CAPITAL.
Earths Natural Capital
Consists of:
Resources (orange)
and Ecological
services (green)
that support and
sustain the earths
life and economies.
SOLAR ENERGY
Direct sunlight and indirect forms of solar
energy such as:
1. wind power
2. hydropower (from flowing water), and
3. biomass (direct solar energy converted
into chemical energy stored in biologi-
cal sources of energy like wood, etc)
Environmental Sustainable Society
A society that has achievements:
1. It satisfies the basic needs of its people
for food, clean air, clean water, and shelter
into indefinite future.
2. it does this without depleting or
degrading the earths natural capital and
thereby preventing current and future
generations of humans and other species
from meeting their basic needs.
Sub Chapter INTRO.2
POPULATION GROWTH
POPULATION GROWTH
Currently is
growing exponen-
tially at a rate
1.26% a day
(slowed from 2.1%
in 1963)
At the end of 2004
world population
around 6.4 billion
Sub Chapter INTRO.3.
ECONOMIC: Growth,
Development, Poverty, and
Globalization
What is Economic Growth?
An increase in a countrys capacity to
provide people with goods and services,
through:
Population Growth Increase in Consumption
+
GNI, GDP, Per capita GNP, and GWP
1. Gross National Income (GNI):
Market value in current US dollars for
goods and services produced within and
outside (e.g. US companies in Mexico) a
country by the countrys business
persons in that year. (formerly: GNP)
2. Per capita GNI GNI divided by total
population, or average GNI per person.
3. Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
Market value in current US dollars for
goods and services produced within a
country in that year.
4. Gross World Product (GWP)
Market value in current US dollars of
all goods and services produced in
the world in a year
Economic Development
The improvement of living standards by econo-
mic growth
Developed Countries
North (High GNP)
Developing Countries
South (Low GNP)
Mostly US, Canada,
Europe, New Zealand,
Australia, and Japan
19% world population
85% world wealth and
income
Use 88% worlds natural
resources, generate 75%
pollution and waste
mostly in Africa, Asia and
Latin America
Low and middle income
81% world population
15% world wealth and
income
Use 12% world resources
95% population growth
Impact of Poverty
Poverty
is related to environmental quality and peoples
quality of life
Many poor people:
deplete and degrade local forest, soil, grasslands,
wildlife, and water supply for short term survival
often life in areas with high level of air and water
pollution and have job in unhealty area and unsave
work
often have many children as a form of econo-mic
security
die prematurely from preventable health problem
Globalization
Definition: process of global social, economic and
environmental change leading to an in-creasingly
integrated world. (Economic, Information and
Communication, and Environmental Effects)
: Consequences
- Increase in global economy and international
trade
- Increase in transnational corporations (7,000
54,000 ) (1970-2001)
- Increased transportation of exotic species and
infectious diseases across borders
- Transfer of pollutants like DDT and radioactive
particles
What is a resource?
Economic Resource
Ecological Resource
Required by an organism
for growth, maintenance,
reproduction.
Meets human
needs and wants
Perpetual
Renewable
Non-renewable
Fig. 1-6 p. 9
Resources human viewpoint
1. Perpetual: e.g. Sun
2. Renewable (fairly rapid
replenishment): e.g. forest
sustainable yield (use =
replace)
environmental degradation
3. Non-renewable: e.g. coal, metal.

Renewable Resources
can be replenished fairly rapidly
Sustainable Yield: the highest rate at
which a renewable resource can be used
indefinitely without reducing its available supply
Environmental Degradation: the
process at which the available supply begins
shrink
Tragedy of the Commons: degradation of
renewable free-access resources (overuse of
common property)
If I do not use this resource, someone else will
Ecological Footprint
Developed
Countries
Large Ecological
Footprint or
environmental
impact.
High economic
and population
growth,
Globalization
(increasingly
integrated world).
Less Developed
Countries
81% world
population,
15 % Income
12% Resources
Per Capita Ecological Footprint

is amount of biogically productive area
per person required to produce the
renewable resources (such as food and
wood), supply space for infrastructure,
and absorbs the greenhouse gas CO
2

emitted from burning fossil fuels
Ecological Footprint
Non-Renewable Resources
exist in a fixed quantity or stock in the earths crust
Energy Resources: coal, natural gas, oil
Metallic Resources: iron, copper, Al, etc
Non-Metallic
Resources:
salt, clay, etc
Reuse: glass
bottle
Recycle: Al-can
Economic Depletion
What is pollution? : any addition to air,
water, soil, or food that threatens the health, survival,
or activities of humans or other living organisms
Effects of Pollution:
1. disruption of life-support systems for humans and
other species
2. damage to human health, wildlife, and property
3. nuisances such as noise, unpleasants smells, tastes,
and sights
Prevention (Input Control): reduces or elimi-
nates the production of pollutants.

Prevent or at least reduce the pollution by 5
Rs resources use:
- Refuse (do not use)
- Replace (find less harmful sustitute)
- Reduce (use less)
- Reuse (use over and over again)
- Recycle (reprocessing)
Problems
1. Temporary fix as population
grows
2. Moves problem elsewhere
3. Dilution is not solution
Clean-up (End-of-Pipe solutions)
Why is this problematic?

Cleanup (Output Control): cleaning up pollutants
after produced.

Three problems with relying primarily on
cleanup:

-1. Temporary bandage as long as population and
consumption levels grow without corresponding
improvements in pollution control technology
-2. It often removes a pollutant from one part of the
environment only to cause pollution in another
(burned dumped buried)
-3. Once pollutants have entered and become
dispersed into the environment at harmful levels, it
usually cost too much to reduce them to acceptable
level.
Both Pollution Prevention and Pollu-
tion Cleanup are needed!

Emphasize to prevention because it
works better and cheaper than cleanup

An ounce of prevention is worth a
pound of cure

Government have encourege for both
Key Players
1. Ecologists: study ecology
2. Conservation Biologist: study & protect
biodiversity
3. Environmentalists: study the relationship/
impact of man on environment.
Multidisciplinary.
4. Preservationists: protect/support undisturbed
nature areas
5. Conservationists: sustain natural areas for
wildlife.
6. Restorationists: promote partial or complete
restoration of degraded natural areas
Sub Chapter INTRO.6
Environmental and Resource
Problems: Causes and
Connections
Major Problems: interconnected environmental
and resource problems
Five Root Causes
Environmental Impact
Fig. 1-11 p. 13
Environmental Interactions
Fig. 1-12 p. 14
Sub Chapter INTRO.7
Is Our Present Course
Sustainable?
Are things getting better or
worse?
Three Unifying Themes that
we could work towards
: practical goal our Sustainability
interaction with the natural world should
aim towards
: ethical and moral Stewardship
framework that forms the basis of public
and private actions
: Basis for our Sound Science
understanding how the world works
Environmental Worldviews
We are in charge of nature
There is always more (has unlimited
supply)
All economic growth is good and the
potential for it is essentially limitless
Our success depends on how well we
can understand, control, and manage
the earths life-support system for our
benefit
Planetary Management:
Environmental Worldviews
Opposite of the Planetary Management Worldview:

Natural does not just for us and we only
think we in charge
There is not always more
Some economic growth are environmen-
tally harmful
Our success depends on: learning about
sus-taining the earth, and integrating
scientific lesson from nature into the way
we think & act
Environmental Wisdom:
Environmentally-Sustainable Economic
Development
Decision making in a
sustainable society
Social Economic
Environmental
Sustainable
Solutions
Traditional
decision making
Environmental
Social Economic
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