Summer Course ESS 1.1-1.5

Ecocentrism

• Component of the world 

• They believe that the earth does not need humans but humans need the earth.

• It considers the environment as an interconnected whole, emphasising the importance of maintaining the health and integrity of ecosystems.

Anthropocentrism

• Humans are at the center of the environment

• Means that human would have to manage ecosystems and nature

• Alongside managing the ecosystem → humans are to use what they are given with and be able to progress with human development.

• Ex. Canada is trying to find the balance between the human race and the environment. → differentiation between the Indigenous Canadians and the colonisers

• Limiting access of cars in the company → opt for enviornmentally friendly options like bicycle and walking → cars are based on electricity.

Technocentrism

• Trusts in science and technology to provide solutions to environmental problems.

• Extreme technocentrism are cornucopians. 

  • Who see the world as having infinite resources to benefit humanity

  • Technology and our inventiveness is that we can solve any environmental problem and continuously improve our living standards. 

Enviornmental Value Systems

• It is a worldview that shapes the way an individual or group of people perceive and evaluate environmental issues.

• It is most often defined by four contexts: social, political, socio-political and religious contexts.

• There are three defining factors: ecocentrism, anthropocentrism and technocentrism. 

Sustainable Development and Sectors of Society

• Conservation Biologists prioritizes the biorights. 

•  Self Reliant Soft Ecologist prioritizes the encouragement of self restraint in human behaviour. 

• Bankers are able to prioritize the use of taxes, environmental regulation and assessments. 

Different Sectors Support Sustainability Development

• A self-reliant ecologist means that they allow the environmental nature to continue and the consideration of human needs. This may support sustainable development → resources given to future generations

• A conservation biologist could support sustainable development → help preserve biodiversity and ecosystems, which help the ecological balance.

• A banker may support sustainable development → able to finance and prioritize the use and advancement of environmental development.

Sustainable Development

• All ecological factors are considered but the needs of people are still the center of the motivation

Thoreau Walden

• 1854

• Early eccentric EVS

• Self reliant, more aware.

• Society corrupts

Yellowstone National Park

• First wild area set aside globally

• 1872

• USA

• Resources are vast

John Muir and Sierra Club

• 1892

• 1st large environmental preservation society

• Ecocentrism expanded

• Development of the country

• Right before industrialism.

Passenger Pigeon Extinction

• Common bird starts to go extinct

• Hunted to extinction

• Aroused interest for conservation

• Lost resources for protein → low income families.

Dust Bowl

• 1930s

• Spurred new agriculture technologies

• Massive loss of soil → overgrazing, plowing

• Farmers went on strikes → starving to death.

Minamata

• Link between human health and pollution

• Area in japan

• Lack of environmental laws

• Mercury poisoning → poisoning the water

• Bioaccumulation and biomagnifications

  • Cats falling in after eating fishes.

Rachel Carson’s Silver Spring

• They were able to realise the danger of the environment because of pesticides

• → Investigation of bald eagles, which are one of the common American eagles → slowly dwindling. 

• This allowed the human race to realize the dangers of the DDT, → between the use of pesticide and the health of the ecosystem.

The Love Canal

• Was abandoned then leased to a chemical company.

• Used to build schools on former toxic waste dumps,

• Causing high rates of birth defects and cancer

• Caused a peak in rallies of mothers, an exposure in the media, and this → development of social development in activism and environmental development

Bhopal Disaster

• Killed millions of people

• MIC toxins were leaked out → was inhaled and caused a lot of defects and miscarriages

• Leaked out and affected the slums

• Took no accountability.

Montreal Protocol

• Was widely successful 

• Had a strong goal → hence there was no financial repercussions. 

• Voluntary 

• They phased out CfCs, refrigerants and HOGS. 

  • Made sure that it was realistic to reach for LEDC and MEDCs.

    • Etc. For LEDC → it was that they had more leeway and time, but they were still required to phase out CfCs.

• It was an international agreement. 

Rio Earth Summit

• It was a conservation → tropical rainforest

• The deforestation was very bad.

  • In approximately 1 minute, a part of the trees (olympic stadium size) is gone. 

• As the rainforest was there for → oxygen production and air filtration → had the motivation to protect 

• Countries economically and technologically helped 

• Became the principles → global forest managements 

Kyoto Accord

• UN framework were starting to implement

• Although te commitment rate was lower than the Paris Agreement, → starting ground level. 

• Policy adaptation and mitigation 

• Committed countries were to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

• Created conflict within the MEDC and LEDCs

  • MEDC believed they were doing ‘too much’ and contributing to the output. 

  • LEDC believed the MEDC were contributing the most in global warming. 

• Global warming was starting to be taken seriously. 

Paris Agreement

• There were more media exposure 

  • Campaigns in France include eye-catching ones for the public. 

• 188 parties were committed to reducing CO2 emissions. 

• It was a legally binding contract. 

• The reductions increased overtime 

• Largest environmental agreement 

• Goal was to mitigate climate change impacts 

• Continuous checks (3 and 5 years)

• Made sure that around 2050-2060 was to be the goal for climate neutral to be reached.

EV Influences: Input

1. Education

2. Media

3. Culture

4. Experiences

5. Beliefs

EV Influences

Personal Worldview (EVS)

EV Influences: Output

1. Actions

2. Decisions 

3. Evaluations

Systems

• Even things could be seen as small, it can be everything is linked to everything else

• Etc. Even though mosquitoes are small insects, without them, it could affect the ecosystem. 

• Made of different parts

• Performs a specialized function 

• In the systems approach, we focus      on the interactions

Biosphere

• Is a fragile skin in Planet Earth 

• Includes the air (atmosphere), rocks (lithosphere), and water (hydrosphere) within which life occurs

• Humans and all other organisms live within this thin layer yet → we know little about how it is regulated. 

Open System

• Exchanges matter and energy with its surroundings.

• Ecosystem is an open system

• Ex. Plants fix energy from light entering the system during photosynthesis

• Ex. Nitrogen from the air is fixed by soil bacteria.

• Can be applied to a remote oceanic island 

  • Energy and matter are exchanged with the atmosphere

  • Surrounding oceans and migratory birds.

Transfers

• Occurs when energy or matter flows and changes locations but does not change the state. 

  • Water moving from a river to the sea, chemical energy in the form of sugars moving from a herbivore to a carnivore or: 

  • The movement of material through living organisms (carnivores eating other animals)

  • The movement of a material in a non-living process (water being carried by a stream)

  • The movement of energy (ocean currents transferring heat)

Transformations

• Occur when energy or matter flows and changes its state - a change in the chemical nature, a change in state or a change in energy. 

  • Liquid to gas, light to chemical energy

  • Matter to mater (soluble glucose converted to insoluble starch in plants)

  • Energy to energy (light converted by heat by radiating surfaces)

  • Matter to energy (burning fossil fuels)

  • Energy to matter (photosynthesis)

Flows and Storages

• Both energy and matter flow (as inputs and outputs) through ecosystems but, at times, they are also stored (as storages or stock) within the ecosystems. 

  • Inputs: Energy (light, heat, electricity or chemical energy)

  • Outputs: Heat light, electricity… released by the system 

  • Storage: Where energy and matter accumulates

Closed Systems

• Exchanges energy but not matter with its environment 

• Are extremely rare in the nature 

  • Hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen cycles are closed → they exchange only energy and no matter

  • Planet itself can be an ‘almost’ closed system. 

• Most closed systems are artificial 

  • Examples include bottle gardens or sealed terraria ut they usually do not survive long because the system becomes unbalanced

    • Not enough food for the animals

    • Not enough oxygen or carbon dioxide

    • Organisms die easily

Isolated Systems

• Exchanged neither matter or energy with its environment. 

• Do not exist naturally but it is possible to think an entire universe is an isolated system.

Models of Systems

• Is a simplified version of the real thing. 

• Is to help understand how a system works and predict what happens if something changes. 

• System works in predictable ways. 

• Models can be in many forms

  • A physical model: A wind tunnel or river,  globe or model of the solar system, an aquarium or a terrain. 

  • A software model: Climate change or evolution.

Strengths of Models

• Easier to work with than complex reality

• An be used to predict the effort f a change of input 

• Can be applied to similar situations

Limitations of Models

• Accuracy is lost because the model is simplified

• If assumptions are wrong → model will be wrong.

Energy in Systems

Energy in all systems is subject to the laws of thermodynamics.

First Law of Thermodynamics

• Energy is neither created nor destroyed. 

• The total energy in any isolated system, such as the entire universe → constant. 

• In a power station, one form of energy is converted or transformed into electricity. 

• In your body, food provides chemical energy which you convert into heat and kinetic energy.

Second Law of Thermodynamics

• More entropy → less energy to do useful work.

• Energy conversions are never 100% efficient. → food chains

• When energy is used to do work, some energy is always dissipated (lost to the environment) as waste heat.

• Things left to themselves tend to go from a state of order to disorder, and energy transformations are never perfectly efficient, with some energy becoming unusable (often in the form of heat). 

Entropy

Measure of disorder of a system and it refers to the spreading out of dispersal of energy.

Complex and Stability

• High level of complexity → a more stable system that can withstand stress and change better

• Another pathway can take over if one is removed.

• Ex. Tundra ecosystems → fairly simple so populations fluctuate

Equilibrium

• Tendency of the system to a return to an original state → a state of balance exists among the components of the system.

Steady-state equilibrium.

• Characteristic of an open system → continous inputs and outputs of energy and matter

• System remains in a more-or-less constant stage.

• May have small fluctuations in the short term → weather changes.

• Ex. Mature climax ecosystem\

  • Usually looks the same → trees look relatively the same, etc.

  • Just gets replaced → light inputs the sun, energy outputs as heat lost through respiration..

Negative Feedback

• Stabilizes steady-state equilibrium.

• Neutralize or counteract any deviation from the equilibrium → self regulation of the syste

Static Equilibrium

• There is no change overtime

• If the equilibrium is disrupted → will adopt a new equilibrium as a result of the disturbance

Unstable Equilibria

• System returns to a new equilibrium after disturbances.

Stable Equilibria

• System tends to return to the same equilibrium after a disturbance.

Positive Feedback

• Will tend to amplify changes and drive the system towards a tipping point where a new equilibrium is adopted.

• Results in a further increase or decrease → enhances the change in the system

• Ex. Global temperature → ice caps melt

  • Reduces the albedo of Earth so global temperature rises

Negative Feedback Loops

• Return to its original state

• Stabilize as they reduce change.

Resilience System

• Measures how it responds to a disturbances

• The more resilient = more disturbance it can deal with

• Is the ability of system to return to its initial state after a disturbance.

• Maintains stability in the system.

• Agriculture → we want stability to protect the amount of food growing about the same each year.

Factors affecting ecosystem resilience

• The more diverse the ecosystem → more resilient it tends to be → more interactions between each species.

• Greater the species biodiversity → greater the likelihood → species can replace another if it dies out to maintain the equilibrium.

Tipping Points

• Changes occur in systems and may not make a huge difference

• These changes tip the equilibrium over the threshold → system may transform into a different one

  • Positive feedback loops drive the system to a new steady state

• Ecological is reached → ecosystem experiences a shift to a new state in → significant changes to its biodiversity and services that it provides.

Tipping Point Examples

• Coral Reef Death

  • If ocean acidity levels rise high enough, the reef coral dies and cannot regenerate.

Sustainability

The ability to maintain at a certain level.

• earth resources are limited, fossil fuels are limited, aluminium, iron, gold, silver → limitation

• Eventually will need to leave Earth → different planets need to be set up, until Earth can live up until then.

Sustainable Development

• Meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. 

• Quality of life → should be kept the same or better for the next humanity generations.

5Ps of Sustainable Development

• Prosperity

• Partnerships

• Avoid Conflict

• Protect the Planet from further degradation

• End Poverty (or mitigating it) → all children should get all the education in the world.

• Sometimes you can’t; avoid conflict when extracting resources → can be seen as unrealistic.

Environmental Indicator

• Environmental indicators and ecological footprints can be used to assess sustainability. 

• SO2 pollutants are very big → very toxic to humanity. → asphyxiation like

  • Fossil fuel computants → impurities. 

• Lichens → different amounts of lichen can tell us → how much sulfur dioxide is in the air 

• Blackspot fungus → if there is no blackspot fungus on a rose → there is a lot of chemicals when taking care of roses → can easily die without proper care.  

  • → lots of sulfur dioxide is in the air (indications)

  • Leaves has a lot of black spots.

  • Concentration is higher.

Ecological Footprint

• Measured in global hectares. 

• Is the area of land required to sustainably provide all resources at the rate at which they are being consumed by a given population. 

  • Adding everyone up, it takes 3 planets/earths to keep up with the ecological footprint. 

  • Measure of the theoretical amount of land needed to provide everything for that population, even things imported from elsewhere. 

• It is indicators and ecological footprints can be used to assess sustainability. 

• Carbon 

  • Accounts for the area of forest land required to absorb CO2, emissions from burning fossil fuels 

Ecological Defect

• Red: Defects/ human demands 

• Green: Biocapacity → lower or the same. 

  • Etc. Korea, biocapacity per person is 0.6, Korea shows to be 5.9.

  • It means the country is red because t can only produce to a certain capacity, but because of human demand, it overproduces in Korea. 

• Biocapacity: The capacity of ecosystems to produce useful biological materials and to absorb waste materials generated by humans, using current management schemes and extraction technologies

• Another example (Ethiopia)

  • Biocapacity per person 0.5

  • Ecological Footprint Per person 0.9

  • BIocapacity Reserve/ Deficit (0.5 - 0.9 = -0.4)

• Countries that are green → because they rely on other countries to export resources to their country → water security, land security, food security, energy security → can only focus on that. 

  • Population is high 

Environmental Impact Assessment

• Report that is made before a project → decision making tool

• Compulsory

• To mention the solutions, mitigations and impact from the decisions. 

• Helps in planning the development → environmental impact that can be created during the development 

  • Etc. In the development, for flooding → people must be relocated → need to plan for compensation, planning and tbc disasters or impacts. 

    • Or how to conserve the building, how to minimize the damage.

• Things like tunnels, bridges → must also care for animals, humans, etc. 

  • Animals don’t like humans because we are smelly (from shampoos), too much noise, and animals will relocate if they see a human populated area 

    • Animals relocated → might move to farms, crops.

• Economic benefits → if economic benefits are high, it can triumph the other needs and meets (income, employment) → especially in the US.

EIA Weaknesses

• standards are all different in each country. → 

  • If I was to develop internationally, I would have to do an EIA for both countries → because there are different standards. → needs to be standardized

Resources

Sustainability is the use and management of resources → full natural replacement of the resources exploited and full recovery of the ecosystems affected by their extraction.

Natural Resources

• Are raw materials supplied by nature. 

• People manufacture goods and services from these raw materials to produce economic capital.

Renewable Resources

• Are able to replace or restock themselves by growing. 

• Etc. Tree → if you let them grow, but currently, since we aren’t, it’s very nonrenewable. 

  • Water, Forest → we are supposed to let them grow and then extract, however, we are very impatient, hence we are not letting this be sustainable.

  • Sinkholes: Water is the base of the ground (as it has force), hence as water is extracted out → it becomes an airless space → and because of the overwhelming force, it falls.

  • Turning to technology: last result”

    • Take the salt water, filter out the salt and sugar, and then take water → another method.

Nonrenewable resources

• Exist in finite amounts on Earth.

• Iron, Gold, Aluminium, fossil fuels, soil, etc. 

  • Soil: You have to make it with rocks, rain and soil, hence why it is nonrenewable → soil is the most important. 

    • Without soil, we will not be able to grow crops.

Natural Capital

• The standing stock (total amount) of a natural resource. These are things that people value either economically or intrinsically. 

• Is a term used for natural resources that can produce a sustainable natural income of goods or services → must be tangible.

Goods

• Physical resources which are measurable and may (or may not) be monetized. 

  • Fresh water

  •  Soil Nutrients

  • Minerals 

  • Wood 

  • Animal products.

Services

• Generally not monetized, significantly harder to measure directly. 

  • Oxygen production from photosynthesis

  • Water cycling

Natural Income

Is like the interest earned on a savings account. It is the natural capital gained from the standing stock of resources.

• Agriculture harvest. 

• New tree growth

• Births of livestock or within wild populations.

Ecosystems

• May provide life supporting services such as water replenishment, flood and erosion protection, and goods such as timber, fisheries and agricultural crops. 

  • The flash floods in Korea → the treatment usually has the sewer, but because the rain was falling down so fast, it started to get stuck and gave up. 

  • Clean water, pollination. 

    • Pollination → Bees need the petals 

      • Continuation of plant life, supports healthy ecosystems, and contributes to a stable economy. 

      • World’s food supply and biodiversity would be severely impacted.

Indicators

Factors such as biodiversity, pollution, population or climate may be used quantitatively as environmental indicators of sustainability.

Biodiversity

• Greater diversity → greater ecosystem stability → better withstand changes = more sustainable 

  • Use a tool such as Simpson’s Diversity index to quantify diversity. 

  • Helps people make decisions regarding conservation actions 

  • Helps compare between the two. 

  • Grabs the main point

Pollution

• Less pollution is lower impact on organisms = more sustainable.

  • Pollution may change ecosystems’ abiotic factors beyond organisms’ optimal range for survival. 

  • Living organisms → reproductive rate will be negatively impacted,

Populations

• if human population increases, less sustainable (more resources, more waste, more pollutants) → more toxifying. 

• Increasing plant/animals populations → generally more stable ecosystems = more sustainable 

• Genetic diversity 

• More people use more resources -> increasing a population’s ecological footprint 

• More plants and animals provide more energy and nutrient pathways through ecosystems.

Climate

• Stable levels of GHGs → stable temperatures = more sustainable 

• The environment chooses which organisms are best adapted for survival → main premise of natural selection 

• A changing environment increases selective pressure on organisms, making them less likely to survive. 

• Adaptation → (watch video)

• Environment is changing too rapidly → reaction to the adaptation is very slow 

  • Can only be very late.

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA)

Gave a scientific appraisal of the condition and trends in the world’s ecosystems and the services they provide using environmental indicators → scientific basis for action to conserve and use them sustainably 

Aim of the MEA

• Assess the consequences of ecosystem change for human well being 

• Findings: 

  • Ecosystem degradation: Will lead to long-term harm to human populations → cannot feel or see the ocean’s finding → 90% is mostly ocean. → Too much big changes. 

    • With a warm ocean → could change the ecosystems and organisms, coral deaths. 

  • More diversity loss in past 50 years than any other time in human history

  • Gains in human wealth and health have come at a cost to ecological goods and services.

  • Global natural capital is being harvested unsustainably 

  • Sustainable solutions are possible, but require international coordination and collaboration to implement change.

Pollution

• Is a highly diverse phenomenon of human disturbance in ecosystems

• Plastic is being a problem → turtles eat the plastics → they eat the jellyfish, and the jellyfish floats on the ocean. 

  • Because plastics float on the ocean, and plastics are not supposed to be in oceans, they eat the ocean → get sick, or be trapped in the throat → cannot digest and die. 

Birds that fly around who see it are very colourful → see it and takes it, eats it thinking it’s full, and die. Because PLASTIC IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THERE. → Six pack rings.

Approaches (Pollution)

• Pollution management strategies can be applied at the different levels. 

  • Living without plastic is hard → apple pencils are plastic, tumblers are plastic, etc. 

• Any pollution: Atomsphere pollution, Soil Pollution, Water Pollution.

Tier 1 (Replace)

• Changing human behavior to replace the pollutant with a less-harmful substance. Most effective strategy, but often the most difficult to implement, old habits die hard! → legislation, economic incentives, and education. 

  • Education starts now, will change in the primary school and kindergarten school → replace the behavior. 

  • Starch-made or corn-made plastic. 

  • Biodegradable plastics (PLA) 

    • Can throw in the regular trash. Coming out → is more expensive, so it’s not easy. 

    • Plastic straws and reusable straws (paper) → small businesses can’t afford the reusable straws, and can only afford plastic. 

    • Government incentives 

    • Minimal Input

Tier 2

• Does not stop the production of pollutants, but prevents their release into the enviro → legislation and new technologies (ie. emissions limits, smokestacks scrubbers, catalytic converters)

• More technologies input 

• Catalytic Converters: Cars exhaust pipes → less harmful to replace 

  • Factories: Exhaust pipes and toxic, → gets filters, to mitigate it the most for the environment. 

• Pollutant to replace → other chemicals to fix.

Tier 3

• Clean up damaged ecosystems.

• Least effective and often the most expensive strategy → it does not address the source of the problem. Requires repeated application until one of the other strategies is implemented properly.

• To reduce: can try and make things with it, give the recycling and receive money.  

• You have to solve the root issue → by decreasing the amount of plastic produced.

Pollution and Human Activity

• Addition of a substance or an agent to an environment through human activity, at a rate greater than that which can be rendered harmless by the environment, and which has an appreciable effect on the organisms in the environment. 

  • Noise pollution

  • Light pollution.

Pollution and Organic and Inorganic Substances

Light, sound, or thermal energy, biological agents or invasive species, and may derive from a wide range of human activities including the combustion of fossil fuels.

Invasive Species; Kudzu

• For decorative reasons → very rapidly changes. 

• Herbivores eat the Kudzu’s → and because they are growing in a rapid amount,. 

• Went from Japan to the US. (Just by growing!)

Invasive Species: Cane Toads

• Tried to do biological control → they couldn’t only do pesticides and kill them all because of laws. 

• In Australia, the frogs would start to eat all the other frogs and the snakes. 

• Usually snakes kill frogs, but frogs eat snakes so something is wrong then. 

• Every summer → volunteer recruitments → would catch one cane toads → to stabilize the population.

• Just kills them by leaning on the small animals.

Zebra Mussels

• Invasive species in pipes → all block it, but also invade the ocean as well. 

• It’s going to block in the end 

• In the container boat from A to B.

  • IF there is not much delivery, the shipping boats need to balance the weight, they will put the water in the boat, and because they don’t know what is in the water, there will have zebra mussels in the pipes and live there.

Pollutant: Nonpoint sources

• Multiple sources dispersed across a wide geographic area

• Regulation is more challenging 

  • Identfy multiple sources

  • Who is responsible?

• Pollutant can be unclear where it is from (might be from the surrounding environment, etc.)

• Agricultural runoff 

• Vehicle exhaust (CO2 and Nox)

Point Sources

• Knowing where the pollution/pollutant is from

• Food waste

•  Modern pesticides.

• Can have nutrients back in the environment 

• Decomposition.

Persistent Plastics

• Lead, iron, plastic → creates bioaccumulation and biomagnification. 

• Biological degrade does not work. 

• Cannot be broken down by living organisms. 

• Passed along food chains as a result. 

• Concentration builds with each higher trophic level -> biomagnification

• Older pesticides (DDT)

Pollution may be acute

• Symptoms appear soon after short, intense exposure. 

• Large amount of pollution released in one time → must be mitigated 

  • Airpolution. 

Pollution may be chronic

• Slowly, small steps → continuous symptoms of pollution released

• Water pollution

• Appear after long-term, low-level exposure. 

• Difficult to clean up. 

• Soil Contamination

  • It gets slowly built up with Mercury and Lead → cannot identify until too late. 

• 50 years (approx) you can tell, and it is already too late.

Primary Pollution

• Co2 (carbon monoxide) → coming from transportation, stationary source fuel combustion, industrial processes. 

• Nitrogen oxide

• Volatile organics. 

Secondary Pollution

• 2nd = form from interactions of primary pollutants with one another or the environment. 

  • SO3

  • Tier 2 = secondary  

  • NO2 → photochemical smog (don’t understand, but sees it as yellow smog