1. Foundation

Studying for ESS, inculdes 1.1, 1.2 and 1,3

Perspective

How an individual or group views and understands a situation; shaped by experience; culture; science; economics; religion; local and global events

Values

Principles that individuals and communities consider important; they guide decisions and actions

Perspective vs argument

A perspective is a viewpoint; an argument is the set of reasons used to support or challenge it

Environmental Value System (EVS)

A framework (worldview) that shapes how individuals or groups perceive and respond to environmental issues

EVS inputs

Education; media; personal experiences; economic context; culture and religion

EVS outputs

Decisions and actions - lifestyle choices; activism and advocacy; voting behaviour

Technocentric

Technology and human ingenuity can solve environmental problems

Anthropocentric

Humans are central and the environment exists mainly for human benefit; includes environmental managers and soft ecologists

Ecocentric

The natural world has intrinsic value; deep ecologists call for a radical shift in consciousness

Soft ecologists vs deep ecologists

Soft: sustainable living with human-centred solutions; deep: intrinsic value of all living beings

Values surveys

Explore beliefs and attitudes about environmental issues and identify patterns between social groups; ethics: informed consent and anonymity

Behaviour-time graph

Shows how behaviour or perspectives change over time (e.g. littering declining after awareness campaigns)

Influences on the environmental movement

Know ONE example from each: literature; media; major events; technological; scientific; international agreements

Literature example

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) exposed the dangers of DDT; sparked public concern and policy change

Media example

Attenborough's documentaries or Greta Thunberg's school strike amplify issues to a global audience

Major event example

Minamata (1956) - industrial pollution; Bhopal (1984) - stricter safety rules; Chernobyl - nuclear risks; Deepwater Horizon (2010) - fossil fuel regulation

Technological example

Green Revolution (1940s-1960s) increased food production; renewable energy changed the energy sector

Scientific example

Pesticide toxicity (1960s) led to chemical regulation; link between human activity and global warming

International agreement example

Rio Earth Summit (1992); Convention on Biological Diversity (1992); Paris Agreement (2015) - limit warming to well below 2°C

System

A set of interacting or interdependent components that work together to form a functional whole

Storages and flows

Storages accumulate energy or matter; flows are movements of energy or matter into or out of or within the system

Inputs vs outputs

Inputs are flows entering the system; outputs are flows leaving it

Transfer vs transformation

Transfer: movement without change of form (river to ocean); transformation: change of form or state (light to chemical energy)

Systems diagram

Shows components and flows (arrows); limitation: oversimplifies reality

Open vs closed system

Open exchanges energy and matter (forest); closed exchanges energy only (Biosphere 2)

Gaia hypothesis

Earth is a self-regulating system where living and physical components maintain stable conditions through feedback

Negative feedback

Output reduces or reverses change; stabilises the system (detection; counteraction; restoration of balance)

Negative feedback examples

Predator-prey populations; ocean absorption of CO₂; Daisyworld (black daisies warm; white daisies cool)

Positive feedback

Amplifies a small disturbance and pushes the system away from equilibrium; can cause rapid and irreversible change

Tipping point

A small change triggers a large shift into a new equilibrium; hard to reverse

Eutrophication (positive feedback example)

Excess nitrates and phosphates; algal bloom; algae decompose; oxygen drops; aquatic life dies; dead zone

Types of equilibrium

Stable: returns to original state; steady-state: inputs equal outputs; developing: evolves toward a new equilibrium (succession)

Model

A simplified representation of reality used to understand a system and predict its response to change

Model strengths

Simplification; predictive power; transferability; visualisation

Model limitations

Oversimplification; uncertainty; data limitations (e.g. climate models cannot perfectly predict tipping points)

Emergent properties

Characteristics that arise from interactions between components but are not present in the components themselves

Emergent properties example

Yellowstone wolves reduced deer; vegetation recovered; the whole ecosystem changed (trophic cascade)

Resilience

A system's ability to resist disturbance and recover instead of reaching a tipping point; resistance plus recovery

Diversity and resilience

Higher biodiversity means higher resilience through functional redundancy (other species cover a lost role)

Functional redundancy

Multiple species perform similar roles so the system stays stable if one is lost (e.g. pollinators)

How humans reduce resilience

Monocultures; fragmentation; overexploitation; pollution and climate change push systems toward tipping points

Sustainability

Practices that ensure the long-term viability of a system by maintaining the health and stability of societal and ecological systems

Three pillars of sustainability

Environmental; social; economic

Strong sustainability model

Environment is the foundation; economy and society sit inside it; environmental limits cannot be exceeded

Sustainable development

Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs

Sustainable development examples

Renewable energy (Sweden; Costa Rica); green cities (Copenhagen cycling); agroforestry

Newfoundland cod collapse

Overfishing with bottom trawling and sonar; quotas too high; moratorium in 1992; over 30000 jobs lost; cod have still not fully recovered

Lessons from the cod collapse

Ecosystems have limits; act before collapse (precautionary management); removing one species affects the whole food web; use quotas and marine protected areas

Environmental justice

All people have the right to a clean healthy environment and fair access to resources regardless of background

Environmental injustice examples

Cancer Alley (Louisiana) - petrochemical plants and high cancer rates; landfills sited in low-income areas (cheap land and less political power)

Worst subject in IB

Green GDP

GDP adjusted for environmental costs (e.g. $1 trillion minus $200 billion costs = $800 billion); gives a truer picture of sustainable development

Natural capital

The stock of natural resources and ecosystem services that long-term economic stability depends on

Sustainability indicators

Quantitative measures of environmental; social and economic health that can be used at local; national or global scale

Ecological footprint

Land and water area needed to supply the resources a population uses and absorb its waste; measured in global hectares per person

Biocapacity

Ability of biologically productive land and water (forests; cropland; fisheries) to regenerate resources and absorb waste

Ecological deficit and overshoot

Footprint greater than biocapacity means resources are used faster than they regenerate (overshoot); Earth Overshoot Day marks when humanity exceeds the annual budget

Footprint vs biocapacity

Footprint less than or equal to biocapacity is sustainable; footprint greater than biocapacity is unsustainable (resource depletion; pollution; ecosystem collapse)

Carbon and water footprint

Carbon: total greenhouse gases emitted by a person or activity; water: blue (surface and ground) and green (rainwater) and grey (polluted) water

Limitations of footprints

Complex data and assumptions; overlook biodiversity loss and social impacts

Improving biocapacity

Reforestation and ecosystem restoration; renewable energy; sustainable agriculture and water management (technology alone cannot solve unsustainability)

Citizen science

Public involvement in collecting and reporting environmental data (e.g. NASA GLOBE; iNaturalist; eBird)

Benefits of citizen science

Large-scale real-time data scientists cannot collect alone; public engagement; data for policymakers

Challenges of citizen science

Data quality (fix: training and standard protocols); inclusivity; long-term volunteer engagement and funding

Three-pillar model limitation

Treats the pillars as separate when they are deeply interconnected

Ecological footprint model limitation

Does not account for technology that improves resource efficiency

Doughnut economics

Social foundation (inner boundary) and planetary limits (outer boundary) define a safe and just space; limitation: thresholds are hard to quantify

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

17 global goals set in 2015 to be met by 2030; apply to all countries; used by governments to set targets

Criticisms of the SDGs

Lack ambition and do not address root causes; global in scope but ignore local contexts

Planetary boundaries

Climate change; biosphere integrity; land-system change; biogeochemical flows; freshwater use; ocean acidification; aerosol loading; ozone depletion; novel entities

Circular economy

Eliminate waste and pollution; circulate products and materials; regenerate nature

Worldview

A broad set of beliefs and values through which a person or group interprets the world; it shapes values and perspectives

Perspective vs values vs worldview vs EVS

Perspective: how someone views a specific issue; values: what is considered important; worldview: broad beliefs about the world; EVS: a worldview applied to the environment (inputs and outputs)

Technocentric characteristics

Optimistic about technology and innovation; economic growth can continue; problems solved by experts and technological fixes

Anthropocentric characteristics

Humans as managers or stewards of the environment; nature valued for human benefit; uses laws and taxes and regulation

Ecocentric characteristics

Nature has intrinsic value; limits to growth; humans are part of nature; small-scale and low-impact lifestyles

Isolated system

Exchanges neither energy nor matter with its surroundings (only theoretical; the universe is the closest example)

Types of systems and scale

Systems can be living or non-living; open or closed or isolated; at any scale from micro (a pond) to macro (the biosphere)

Albedo

The proportion of incoming solar radiation reflected by a surface; high for ice and snow; low for dark surfaces like ocean or forest

Albedo positive feedback

Warming melts ice; less ice means lower albedo; more heat absorbed; more warming and more melting

Tipping point example - keystone species

Loss of a keystone species (e.g. sea otters) lets its prey boom (urchins) and collapses the ecosystem (kelp forest)

Tipping point example - coral reef death

Warming and acidification cause bleaching; past a threshold the reef dies and shifts to an algae-dominated state

Resilience and size or diversity

Smaller systems (smaller storages) and systems with lower diversity are less resilient and reach tipping points more easily

Natural capital

Natural resources that provide goods and services; renewable (forests and fish and soil) or non-renewable (fossil fuels and minerals)

Natural income

The yield or goods and services harvested from natural capital each year (e.g. timber or fish catch); sustainable if capital is not depleted

Carrying capacity

The maximum population size of a species that an environment can support indefinitely with available resources

Environmental sustainability

Using natural resources at a rate they can be replenished and ecosystems can recover

Social sustainability

Systems that support human well-being; equity; education; health; and cultural survival over the long term

Economic sustainability

Economic activity that can continue long term without depleting natural resources or harming the environment

Regenerative design

Designing systems that restore and renew ecosystems and resources instead of just sustaining them

Distributive design

Designing economic systems that share value fairly among everyone who contributes to creating it