PUAF 741

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Global Environmental Problems

• PUAF 741
• Spring 2005
• Steve Fetter

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Purpose

• Understand and assess human influences on the
  global environment
• Through back-of-the-envelope calculations and
  simple models, develop a way of seeing and
  understanding the natural world
• Make you more informed consumer and alert critic
  of scientific information and analyses
• Environmental policy is largely about science if
  you are going to do environmental policy, you
  should understand the science

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The college idealists who fill the ranks of the
environmental movement seem willing to do
absolutely anything to save the biosphere, except
take science courses and learn something about
it. P.J. ORourke
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Quantitative Aspects ofGlobal Environmental
Problems

• The subject matter is unavoidably technical ?80
  science, ?20 policy
• There are no prerequisites, but knowledge of
  calculus and/or physics and/or chemistry at the
  first-semester undergraduate level is helpful
• Dont worry if you dont have this background,
  but be prepared to work a bit harder and ask for
  help

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Required Textbook

• Available at bookstores, Amazon from publisher
  http//uscibooks.com/ for 34
• Written by first-class scientist
• Simple models and back-of-the-envelope
  calculations
• Good exercises and problems
• Terrific appendices
• Little explanation or review

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Recommended Textbook

• Available at bookstores, Amazon for 55 (32
  used)
• Supplements lecture slides
• Written by first-class scientist
• Excellent non-technical explanations of
  atmospheric topics we cover in class
• Good review of basic physics and chemistry
• Useful appendices

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Grading
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Problem Sets Learning By Doing

• What I hear, I forget
• What I see, I remember
• What I do, I understand
• Confucius

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Problem Sets examples

• A key element of President Bushs energy policy
  is to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
  (ANWR) for oil exploration. The U.S. Geological
  Survey estimates that 6 to 16 billion barrels of
  oil might be recovered from ANWR, over a 20-year
  period.
• What increase in the corporate-average fuel
  economy (CAFE) standard would save an amount of
  oil equal to what could be recovered from ANWR
  over the same period?

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Problem Sets examples
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, has about 100,000
dairy cows. Each cow eats about 120 pounds of
grass and feed per day. Manure and urine is
spread on fields the nitrogen leaches into the
Susquehanna River and is transported into the
Chesapeake Bay. At roughly what rate does
nitrogen flow into the environment from Lancaster
Countys dairy herd? What is the resulting
concentration of nitrogen in the Bay?
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Quizzes and Exams

• Quizzes and exams are closed-book
• Formulas and essential information will be
  provided
• One page of notes allowed for final exam
• Final exam will almost certainly be given Monday,
  16 May, 4-7 pm, 1207 VMH

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Class Meetings

• Lecture
• review solution to problem set (if due)
• introduce topics, examples using PowerPoint
  slides (available on web)
• ask questions
• pizza?
• Discussion section
• None scheduled because of small class size
• Come to me for help!

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http//www.puaf.umd.edu/courses/puaf741
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Course Outline
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Course Outline
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Teaching 741 is a challenge

• Some of you have degrees in environmental science
  or engineering
• I dont want to bore you!
• Some of you have degrees in the humanities and
  havent had math and science courses
• I dont want to lose you!
• I need feedback from you to strike the right
  balance

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Instructor

• Steve Fetter
• At Maryland since 1988
• PhD in energy and resources from UCB, where
  Hartes course was required
• Some work on climate and energy, nuclear energy
  issues
• In office most weekdays (except Friday)
  official office hours Monday 12-130 pm
• Feel free to email or phone
• No TA this year!

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Please introduce yourself

• Undergraduate major/minor
• Any calculus, chemistry, or physics?
• What brought you here?
• What are your immediate and longer-term career
  objectives?
• Which topics interest you most (or least)?
• Whats missing in the course?
• Where are you from, what do you do for fun

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What are Global Problems?

• Impacts have a wide geographic scale
• Climate change, ozone depletion, acid rain
• Depletion of resources traded on world markets
  (oil)
• Impacts are geographically local, but the problem
  is pervasive
• Habitat, biodiversity loss
• Air, water pollution
• Depletion of local resources (water)

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Whats an Environmental Problem?

• Poses a direct threat to human well-being
• Urban and indoor air pollution
• Water pollution
• Solid and hazardous waste disposal
• Poses a threat to natural systems and, often
  indirectly, to human well-being
• Climate change, ozone depletion, acid rain,
  habitat/ecosystem/biodiversity loss

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Direct v. Indirect Threats

• In low- and medium-income countries, direct
  threats to human health are the most serious
  environmental problems
• Development ameliorates these problems, but in
  the process creates threats to natural systems
  that can threaten humans
• Overwhelming majority of money/attention goes to
  direct threats to human health. In some cases
  this may no longer be sensible.

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Environmental Indicators v. Income
Kuznets Curves
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Problems in Ranking Risks

• Problems generated by others, that threaten
  health of public (v. workers or ecosystems), that
  activate political constituencies receive
  disproportionate concern
• Outdoor v. indoor air pollution (esp. toxics)
• Pesticide residues (v. workers, ecosystems)
• Toxics in water supplies (v. pathogens, or
  childhood lead exposure from other sources)
• Solid waste disposal (and benefits of recycling)
• Electromagnetic fields, cell phone use
• Radiation exposures, nuclear waste disposal
• Oil spills

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Unfinished Business Ranking

• High-Risk Problems
• global climate change
• stratospheric ozone depletion
• habitat destruction, biodiversity loss
• Medium-Risk Problems
• acid deposition
• airborne toxics, surface water pollution,
  herbicides/pesticides
• Low-Risk Problems
• oil spills, groundwater pollution, radionuclides,
  thermal pollution

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Why Should We Care?

• Natural systems provide free goods and services
  that are important to human welfare
• food, fish, fiber, genetic diversity
• clean air and water, fertile soil
• regulate climate, absorb UV radiation
• limit pests and diseases, pollination
• opportunities for recreation, aesthetic values
• Value ? 16-54 trillion/y (GWP ? 30-45
  trillion/y)

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The value of the worlds ecosystem services and
natural capital Costanza et al. Nature 387
253-260 (1997)
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Ecosystem Services

• Gas regulation
• Climate regulation
• Disturbance regulation
• Water regulation
• Water supply
• Erosion control and sediment retention
• Soil formation
• Nutrient cycling

• Waste treatment
• Pollination
• Biological control
• Refugia
• Food production
• Raw materials
• Genetic resources
• Recreation
• Cultural

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Terrestrial Biome Value
(1012/y) Forest 5
Tropical 4 Temperate/boreal
0.9 Wetlands 5 Marsh/mangroves
1.7 swamps/floodplains 3 Lakes/rivers
1.7 Desert, tundra, ice, rock, urban
0 Cropland 0.128
Total Terrestrial 12
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Marine Biome Value (1012/y)
Open ocean 8 Coastal 13
Estuaries 4 Seagrass/algae beds 4
Coral reefs 0.4 Shelf
4 Total Marine 21 Total
World 33 (16-54) World GWP (2001) 46 (PPP)
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Why Should We Care?

• Natural systems provide free goods and services
  that are important to human welfare
• Human activities degrade or alter distribution of
  these goods and services
• reduce resource availability (fish, water)
• alter chemistry of air, water, soil
• alter climate
• alter or eliminate natural habitat, species

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Why Should We Care?

• These impacts decrease human well-being
• loss of crops, forests, fish stocks
• storms, floods, sea-level rise
• death, illness, spread of disease vectors
• loss of genetic information
• damage to recreation, tourism, culture,
  aesthetics
• conflict over resource redistribution/access
  trans-boundary flows of pollution, refugees,
  migrants unrest due to deprivation and growing
  inequities

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Human Impacts Are Not New

• Since Homo sapiens arose 100,000 yr BP
• extinction of large mammals (mammoths)
• Since agriculture arose 10,000 yr BP
• desertification of cradle of civilization
• Since the industrial revolution 250 yr BP
• deforestation of northern hemisphere
• ten-fold increase in human population,
  accumulation of wealth, rise of megacities

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Whats New

• Rate and magnitude of change
• Global extent of change
• Are there environmental limits to growth?
• How can we best improve overall human welfare
  (economic natural goods and services)?
• How can we close the gap between rich and poor?
• Can the poor approach levels of consumption now
  enjoyed by the rich without ruining the natural
  systems upon which human well-being depends?

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Quartiles of Change 10,000 BC to mid-1980s
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Are We Over-Driving Our Headlights?

• Ozone
• Antarctic hole was a surprise luckily, we could
  stop before an Arctic hole appeared
• Climate
• GHG emissions continue to increase without any
  clear idea of consequences
• Biodiversity
• Are we in the midst of a human-induced mass
  extinction? If so, does it matter?
• Nutrients
• Human flows approach or exceed natural flows
  what are the long-term consequences?

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Population, Consumption, Pollution
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Population, Consumption, Pollution
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IPAT

• Often useful to think of environmental impact as
  the product of three factors
• Population will increase (in poor countries)
• Affluence should increase in poor countries
• Can improved technology offset rising population
  and affluence?

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Technology

• Technology is both a blessing and a curse
• Provides new goods and services, improves human
  welfare
• Requires energy and resources, generates wastes,
  all of which have environmental impacts that
  decrease welfare
• Improved technologies can decrease impact per
  unit good/service (scrubbers, fuel cells,
  photovoltaics)

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Two Views

• Pessimists (Mathusian or Cassandra)
• Developed economies unsustainable developing
  cannot follow in their path technology is not
  keeping pace with resource depletion,
  environmental impact
• Optimists (Cornucopian or Dr. Pangloss)
• No barriers to growth substitutes will be
  developed for scarce resources economic
  development and technology produce net
  improvement in environmental quality

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Two leading figures in the debate both had/have
offices in VMH
Julian Simon
Herman Daly
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Simon offered to bet 1000 that the price of any
five commodities would decrease from 1980 to
1990. Ehrlich et al. selected Cu, Cr, Ni, Sn, W.
Simon won. Simon subsequently offered to bet that
any set of environ-mental measures relating to
human welfare would get improve. Ehrlich et al.
selected CO2, N2O, O3, temperature, SO2 in Asia,
tropical forest, per-capita grain and fish,
species, AIDS, sperm counts, rich-poor gap. Simon
declined.
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Only 4 of 47 elements increased in price over the
last century
Price/Price in 2000
Cumulative World Production
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A Middle Ground?

• Global environmental problems present serious
  challenges to future human well-being
• If we recognize this and plan accordingly, we can
  do a great deal to solve these problems or at
  least keep the consequences tolerable
• A business-as-usual approach will not work. Risks
  are too large, time frames are too long.

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Im a cautious optimist. Why?

• Decreased frequency of war international
  institutions and laws becoming stronger
• Democracy and rule of law becoming more
  widespread
• Steady reductions in estimated size of future
  world population
• Per-capita food production continues to increase
  without increases in arable land
• North-south gap in infant mortality, life
  expectancy, sanitation lower than ever

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Im a cautious optimist. Why?

• Literacy rates continue to increase global
  communication weakens nationalism
• Steady increases in per-capita income everywhere
  (except sub-Saharan Africa)
• Reforestation of northern hemisphere
• Steady decrease in air and water pollution in
  developed countries
• Steady increase in efficiency of energy and
  resource use

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Keys to Progress

• Research and Development
• crop yields, energy supply, understanding of
  earth systems
• Education
• scientific literacy
• Economics
• bring industry on board, remove subsidies and tax
  pollution, develop markets for alternatives