Environmental Issues: Intro

COURSE OBJECTIVE

• Understand of a range of environmental issues that affect mankind.

• Relate environmental problems such as pollution and climate change to the
global economy .
• Develop a link between economy and environmental degradation.—how
economic systems exist and functions within a broader environment.
ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

• Final Exam: 30%

• Mid Term: 20%
• Quizzes:15%
• Assignmnets:10%
• Research Project:15%
• Class Attendance & CP: 10%
ISSUES

• Energy Usage and Crisis

• Pollution
• Global Warming Natural Hazards
• Biodiversity
• Food
• Agriculture
• Urbanization
ENVIRONMENT:

• The environment is everything around us. It includes all of the living

(biotic) and the nonliving things (abiotic) with which we interact.
• We are utterly dependent on the environment for air, water, food, shelter,
energy, and everything else we need to stay alive and healthy. As a result, we
are part of and not apart from the rest of nature.
• An ecosystem is a set of organisms interacting with one another and with
their environment of nonliving matter and energy within a defined area
• Sustainability is the ability of the earth’s various natural systems and human
cultural systems and economies to survive and adapt to changing
environmental conditions indefinitely.
• Environmentally sustainable society—one that meets the current and future
basic resource needs of its people in a just and equitable manner without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their basic needs.
• Natural capital—the natural resources and natural services provided by nature that
keep us and other species alive and support our economies.
• Natural resources are materials and energy in nature that are essential or useful to
humans.
• Natural services are functions of nature, such as purification of air and water,
which support life and human economies.
• These resources are often classified as renewable (such as air, water, soil, plants,
and wind) or nonrenewable (such as copper, oil, and coal).
• Perpetual Resource Renewed continuously and expected to last
SUSTAINABILITY DEPENDS ON THREE KEY
PRINCIPLES

1. Solar energy
Warms earth
Provides energy for plants to make food for other organisms
Powers winds
Powers the hydrologic cycle – which includes flowing water
Provides energy: wind and moving water can be turned into electricity
. BIODIVERSITY (BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY)

Large variety of species

Many ecosystems
• Deserts
• Forests
• Oceans
• Grasslands
• Species and systems renew soil and purify air and water.
CHEMICAL CYCLING

• Natural processes recycle nutrients

• Recycling is necessary because there is a fixed supply of these nutrients on earth
• Nutrients cycle from living organisms to the nonliving environment and back
• Chemical cycles are necessary to sustain life
ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT

The amount of biologically productive land and water needed to indefinitely supply the
people in a given area with renewable resources. Also includes the land and water
necessary to absorb and recycle wastes and pollution

• Per capita ecological footprint

Average ecological footprint of an individual in a given area
IPAT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT MODEL

• Determines impact of a country or regions

• I = PxAxT

• I = environmental impact

• P = population size

• A = affluence of population

• T = technology influence
Fig. 1-7, p. 13
ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF AFFLUENCE

• Harmful effects
• High per-capita consumption and waste of resources – large ecological footprints
• Beneficial effects
• Concern for environmental quality
• Provide money for environmental causes
• Reduced population growth
LINK BETWEEN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL
DEGRADATION.

Environmental Kuznets curve

• It proposes that there is an inverted U-shape relation between environmental degradation and
income per capita, so that, eventually, growth reduces the environmental impact of economic
activity. The hypothesis is that environmental damage first increases with income, then declines. This
might be taken to suggest that economic growth is not a threat to global sustainability, and that there
are no environmental limits to growth.
• At low levels of development both the quantity and intensity of environmental degradation is
limited to the impacts of subsistence economic activity on the resource base and to limited
quantities of biodegradable wastes. As economic development accelerates with the intensification
of agriculture and other resource extraction and the take off of industrialization, the rates of
resource depletion begin to exceed the rates of resource regeneration, and waste generation
increases in quantity and toxicity. At higher levels of development, structural change towards
information-intensive industries and services, coupled with increased environmental awareness,
enforcement of environmental regulations, better technology and higher environmental
expenditures, result in levelling off and gradual decline of environmental degradation
WHY DO WE HAVE ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS?

Major causes of environmental problems are

• Population growth

• Wasteful and unsustainable resource use,

• Exclusion of harmful environmental costs from the market prices of goods and services.

• Poverty
Fig. 1-9, p. 15
HOW CAN WE LIVE MORE SUSTAINABLY?

We can live more sustainably

• Relying solar energy,
• Preserving biodiversity,
• Not disrupting the earth’s natural chemical recycling processes.
ASSIGNMENT

• Q.2 How can environmentally sustainable societies grow economically?