Overview of Chapter 1

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Overview of Chapter 1

• Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and
  Sustainability

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Items in RED

• You should definitely know
• Do not limit your notes to only items in RED I
  might forget to highlight!
• Usually key terms so get them from your book
  LATER rather than copy word for word during our
  lecture.

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Words to know

• Environment everything that affects a living
  organism
• Ecology field of study that explores the
  relationships between living things and their
  environments
• Environmental science incorporates physical
  science, chemistry, ecology, social sciences, and
  ethical issues.

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Exponential Growth

• increasing at an increasing rate
• Can only give a snapshot in time every second 5
  babies are born will only be true for a limited
  amount of time.
• Animal example - my cat has 7 kittens, each of
  them has 7 kittens, in 2 years becomes 49
  kittens, in three years becomes 350, in 7 years
  becomes 1/2 million cats.
• Humans also reproduce exponentially - we
  reproduce faster than we die off!

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Exponential Growth Curves
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Work this problem
You are offered a job which pays either 100
dollars a week, or 1 penny the first week, 2
pennies the second week, 4 the third week, 8 the
fourth week, etc. You know you will only work at
this job for 17 weekswhich would you take? If
you would stay at this job for 20 weeks, which
pay scale would you choose?
Take the 100 a week 1700 Take the penny
option 1310.71
Take the 100 a week 2000 Take the penny
option 10,485.75
The penny option is exponential growth!!
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Exponential Growth Affects 5 Key Areas

• Population Growth
• Resource Use and Waste
• Poverty
• Loss of Biological Biodiversity
• Global Climate Change

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Thats deceiving!

• Right now the worlds population is growing
  exponentially at 1.25 a year
• How many people is that? In 2004, the population
  was 6.4 billion. 6.4
  billion x .0125 80 million (people added in
  2004)
• At this rate, it would take 3 days to replace
  all the Americans killed in all wars/conflict
  with US involvement

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Concept for May Exam

• Know the rule of 70!

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Population Growth
Rule of 70 Tells you how many years it will take
to double the population. 70/percent population
growth number of years to double
Fig. 1-4, p. 8
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Rule of 70

• How long until the world doubles in population if
  the population is increasing at a rate of 1.25 a
  year?

70/1.25 56 years
Projected to double in the year 2061
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Is this Econ??

• Capital wealth used to sustain a business and
  create more wealth
• Solar capital AKA solar energy and indirect
  forms of solar energy (wind power, hydropower,
  biomass energy)
• Natural capital AKA natural resources of the
  Earth.
• Econ lesson Live off the interest of your
  resources so you dont deplete the capital.

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INTERESTing

• You win 1,000,000 in the lottery and you invest
  it at 10 interest.
• Each year you have 100,000 in interest alone to
  live off of!
• If you spend 200,000 a year, all your winnings
  and interest will be gone in 7 years.
• If you spend 110,000 a year, all your winnings
  and interest will be gone in just over 17 years.
• Environmental connection Dont use up resources
  faster than they can be replaced! (trees,
  cropland, rainforests, etc)

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Money, money, money

• GDP gross domestic product. This is the market
  value of all the products, goods, services of all
  firms and organizations that operate within the
  country.
• Per capita GDP GDP divided by the total
  population. Will reflect the standard of living.
  A higher GDP will show a high standard of living
  in that country.

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Whats the difference?

• Developed countries US, Canada, Japan,
  Australia, New Zealand, and countries of Europe.
• Consists of 1.2 billion people
• High per capita GDP
• Developing countries mostly in Africa, Asia, and
  Latin America
• Consists of 5.2 billion people
• Some are moderately developed (middle-income)
• Some are low-income developing

Graph on page 8 shows a great comparison
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Lets Compare

• See page 8 in your text
• Population
• 19 developed
• 81 developing
• Population growth
• 0.1 growth developed
• 1.6 growth developing
• Wealth/Income
• 85 of wealth in developed
• 15 of wealth in developing
• Resource Use
• 88 resource use in developed
• 12 resource use in developing
• Pollution and waste
• 75 of pollution from developed
• 25 of pollution from developing

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Economic Trade-Offs
Good news
Bad news
Developing countries life expectancy 11 years
less than developed countries
Global life expectancy doubled since 1950 (today
is 67)
Infant mortality cut in half since 1955
Infant mortality 8x higher in developing countries
Air, water pollution has dropped in developed
countries
Air, water pollution in most developing countries
too high
Those living in poverty has dropped by 6 since
1990
Half worlds population still trying to live on
less than 3 a day
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Pollution
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Give a hoot, dont pollute

• Pollution substances that threaten health,
  survival, or activities of living organisms.
• Natural pollution volcanoes, sulfur deposits,
  etc.
• Human pollution industrialized agriculture,
  technology, power generation, etc.

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Whered that come from??

• Point source pollution source is identifiable as
  one single area. Examples drainpipe dumping
  into river, smokestack of factory, tailpipe of
  car.
• Non-point source pollution source is
  difficult/impossible to identify. Examples
  Nitrate runoff from fields, pesticides sprayed in
  air
• Obviously, point source pollution is easiest to
  fix

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If its broke, fix it!

• Pollution prevention AKA input pollution
  control. This reduces or eliminates the amount
  of pollution produced.
• Pollution clean-up AKA output pollution control.
  Finding better ways to clean up pollution once
  it has occurred.
• Name some problems with output pollution control

Temporary fix, there is no away, not usually
cost effective
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The big FIVE

• The five main causes of Environmental problems
• Population growth
• Wasteful resource use
• Poverty
• Poor environmental accounting (not including
  environmental costs in market price of goods)
• Ecological ignorance (trying to manage nature
  with too little knowledge about how it works)

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Does money grow on trees?

• Despite huge gains in economic growth, 1 out of
  every 2 people today still survives on an income
  of less than 3 dollars a day.
• Poverty affects environment because impoverished
  may degrade soil, forests, and other resources
  just to survive.
• Its hard to be concerned with the environment
  when your survival is on the line.
• ITS ALL ABOUT CHOICES the life of my child or
  cutting down more trees for crop land for food?

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And you thought you had it bad
of world population with this problem
Problem
Inadequate sanitation
38
Not enough fuel for heat or cooking
32
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No electricity
No clean drinking water
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Inadequate health care
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Not enough food
17
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I think I have affluenza

• Addiction to over-consumption!
• Symptoms Debt, too many material possessions,
  increased stress and anxiety, often feel
  unfulfilled
• Scary between 1998 and 2001, more Americans
  filled for bankruptcy than graduated from
  college!
• Treatment Life within your means!

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Environmental Impact
Fig. 1-13 p. 15
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Whats your view?
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Planetary Management World View

• We are the planets most important species, we
  are in charge of nature
• We will not run out of resources because of our
  ability to develop and find new ones.
• The potential for global economic growth is
  unlimited
• Our success depends on how well we manage the
  earths life-support systems for our own benefit.

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Stewardship Worldview

• We are the planets most important species, but
  we have an ethical responsibility to care for the
  rest of nature
• We will probably not run out of resources, but
  they should not be wasted
• We should encourage environmentally benefical
  forms of economic growth and discourage
  environmentally harmful growth
• Our success depends on how well we manage the
  earths life-support systems for our benefit and
  for the rest of nature

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Environmental Wisdom Worldview

• Nature exists for all species, not just us and we
  are not in charge of the earth
• Earths resources are limited and should not be
  wasted and are not all for us
• We should encourage earth-sustaining forms of
  economic growth and discourage earth-degrading
  forms.
• Our success depends on learning how the earth
  sustains itself and integrating such lessons from
  nature in our own lives.