APES CH 9 - The Environment and Sustainability

environment

everything around you, includes living and non living things

environmental science

study of connections in nature

• how earth works and has survived and thrived

• how humans interact with the environment

• how we can live more sustainably

ecology

branch of biology that focuses on how living organisms interact with nonliving and living parts of their environment

species

a group of organisms having a unique set of characteristics that set it apart from other groups

environmentalism/environmental activism

a social movement dedicated to protectig the earth’s life and its resources

scientific principles of sustainability

major lessons from nature, help move us towards a more sustainable future

1. Dependence on solar energy

2. Biodiversity

3. Chemical Cycling

Dependence on solar energy

the sun’s energy warms the planet and provides energy that plants use to produce nutrients, the chemcials plants and animals need to survive

Biodiversity

The variety of genes, species, ecosystems, and ecosystem processes. Interactions among species provide vital ecosystem services and keep any population from growing too large. Also provides wats for species to adapt to changing environmental conditions and replace species wiped out by catastrophic environmental changes.

Chemical cycling

circulation of chemicals or nutrients needed to sustain life from the environment through various organisms and back to the environment.

The earth receives a continuous supply of energy from the sun, but no new supplies of life-supporting chemicals, and thru billions of years of interactions, organisms have developed ways to continually recycle the chemicals needed to survive.

natural capital

the natural resources and ecosystem services that keep humans and other species alive and that support human economies

natural resources

materials and energy provided by nature that essential or useful to humans

1. inexhaustible resources

2. renewable resources

3. nonrenewable (exhaustible) resources

inexhaustible.perpetual resource

expected to last for many many years

renewable resource

a resource that can be replenished by natural processes

sustainable yield

highest rate at which people can use a renewable resource indefinitely without reducing its available supply

nonrenewable resources

exist in a fixed amount, taking millions to billions of years to form. We use these resources faster than nature can replace them

ecosystem services

natural services provided by healthy ecosystems that support life and human economies at no monetary cost to us. (ex: forests help purify air and water, nutrient cycling)

human activities that can degrade natural capital

• using renewable resources faster than nature can restore them (tragedy of the commons)

• deforestation

• adding pollutants to the air

• dumping chemicals and waste into rivers, lakes, and oceans faster than they can be cleansed thru natural processes

• plastics and other synthetic materials not being broken down.

3 additional principles of sustainability

• full-cost pricing (econ)

• win-win solutions (poly sci)

• responsibility to future generations (ethics)

more developed countries

industrialized nations with high average incomes per person

• 17% of pop, 70% of earth’s natural resources

less developed countries

middle-income, moderately developed, or low-income, least developed. 83% of population, 30% of natural resources

biomimicry

the scientific effort to understand, mimic, and catalog the ingenious ways in which nature has sustained life on the earth for 3.8 billion years.

environmental degradation/natural capital degradation

we waste, deplete, and degrade much of the earth’s life sustaining natural capital

private lands

Owned by individuals or business. Owners use them for purposes such growing crops, grazing livestock, harvesting timber, mining, housing, and other buildings.

public lands

typically owned jointly by the citizens of a country but are managed by the government

ecological footprint

the amount of biologically productive land and water needed to supply a population in an area with renewable resources and to absorb and recycle the wastes and pollution such resource use produces

biocapacity

the capacity of an area’s ecosystem to generate renewable resources and absorb waste, measure of sustainability

I = P x A x T

environmental impact model

• I = impact

• p = pop size

• a = affluence (amount of resource use per person)

• t = technologies

major cultural changes

• agricultural revolution: more reliable source of food, lived longer, and produced more children who survived to adulthood

• industrial-medical revolution: This shift involved learning how to get energy from fossil fuels (such as coal and oil) and how to grow large quantities of food in an efficient manner. It also included medical advances that allowed a growing number of people to have longer and healthier lives

• info-globalization revolution: we developed new technologies for gaining rapid access to all kinds of info and resources on a global scale

sustainability revolution

We could learn to live more sustainably during this century. This involves not degrading or depleting the natural capital that supports all life and our economies and restoring natural capital

basic causes of environmental problems

• pop growth

• wasteful and unsustainable resource use

• poverty

• omission of harmful environmental and health costs in mark prices

• increasing isolation from nature

• competing environmental worldviews

exponential growth

occurs when a quantity increases at a fixed percentage per unit of time, starts slowly but after a few doublings it grows to enormous numbers because each doubling is twice the total of all earlier growth. J curve

• human population

affluence

resource consumption per person, as more people earn higher incomes.

• As total resource consumption and average resource consumption per person increase, so does environmental degradation, wastes, and pollution from the increase in environmental footprints.

• on the other hand, affluence can allow or widespread and better education that can lead people to become more concerned abt environmental quality. It makes more money available for developing technologies to reduce pollution, environmental degradation, and resource waste along with ways to increase our beneficial environmental impacts

Poverty connection to sustainability

daily lives involve getting enough food, water, and cooking and heating fuel to survive, making them too desperate for short-term survival to worry abt long-term environmental quality and sustainability

• poverty does not always lead to environmental degradation, as some can make an impact by planting and nurturing trees and conserving soil they depend on for long term survival.

poverty to pop growth

Having more children is a matter of survival. Their children help them gather firewood, haul water, and tend crops and livestock. The children also help take care of their aging parents, most of whom do not have social security, health care, and retirement funds. This daily struggle for survival is largely why populations in some of the poorest countries continue to grow at high rates

Environmental degradation severe health effects on poor

1. malnutrition

2. illness from limited access to adequate sanitation facilities and clean drinking water

ways to reduce poverty

1. reducing malnutrition and infectious diseases that kill millions of people

2. providing universal primary school education for all children and for the world’s nearly 800 million illiterate adults

3. reducing population growth, by elevating the social and economic status of women, providing access to family planning

4. making small, low interest loans (microloans) to poor people who want to increase their income

why do consumers have no effective way of knowing the harm caused by what they buy?

because prices of goods and services do not include most of their harmful environmental and health costs

nature deficit disorder

many individuals are moving to urban areas, with urban environments having an increasing use of cell phones, computers, and other electronic devices that isolate people, especially children, from the natural world.

benefits from outdoor activities

experiencing nature can lead to better health, reduced stress, improved mental abilities, and increased imagination and creativity. It also can provide a sense of wonder and connections to earth’s life-support system that keeps us alive and supports our economies.

environmental worldview

assumptions and beliefs that you have abt how the natural world works and how you think you should interact with the environment, determined party by environmental ethics

environmental ethics

what you believe abt what is right and what is wrong in your behavior towards the environment.

planetary management

humans managing nature mostly for their own benefit

• we are apart from the rest of nature and can manage nature to meet our increasing needs and wants

• because of our ingenuity and technology, we will not run out of resources

• the potential for economic growth is essentially unlimited

• our success depends on how well we manage the earth’s life-support systems for mostly our benefit

there is little pressure to develop regulations

stewardship

humans managing nature for their benefit and for the rest of nature

• we have an ethical responsibility to be caring managers, or stewards, of the earth

• we will probably not run out of resources, but they should not be wasted

• we should encourage environmentally beneficial forms of economic growth and discourage environmentally harmful forms

• our success depends on how well we manage the earth’s life-support system for our benefit and for the rest of nature

environmental wisdom

based on learning how nature has sustained life for 3.8 billion years and integrating these lessons from nature into our actions

• we are a part of and totally depend on nature, and nature exists for all species

• resources are limited and should not be wasted

• we should encourage earth-sustaining forms of economic growth and discourage earth-degrading forms

• our success depends on learning how nature sustains itself and integrating such lessons from nature into ways we think and act

tragedy of the commons

individuals act in their own self-interest to exploit a shared resource, ultimately leading to its depletion and ruin for everyone

commercial extinction

when a species' population becomes so depleted that it's no longer profitable for humans to harvest it, even though the species still exists

• disrupts ecosystems

economics

the social science that deals with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services to satisfy people’s needs and wants. most use 3 types of capital, or resources to produce goods and services

1. natural capital

2. human capital

3. manufactured (or built) capital

natural capital (2)

includes resources and ecosystem services produced by earth’s natural processes that support all life and all economies

human capital

includes physical and mental talents of people who provide labor, organization and management skills, and innovation

manufactured (or built) capital

It includes tools, machinery, factories, technology, transportation systems, and other infrastructure that humans create by using natural capital and human capital together to produce goods and services.

economic growth

An increase in the capacity of a nation, state, city, or company to provide goods and services to people.

linear high-throughput economy

attempts to boost economic growth by increasing flow of matter and energy resources through the economic system to produce more goods and services

• produces valuable goods and services

• however it also converts large quantities of high quality matter and energy resources into waste, pollution, and low-quality heat

biosphere-based model for an economy

they view human economic systems as subsystems of the biosphere that depend heavily on the earth’s irreplaceable natural resources and ecosystem services

circular low-throughput economy

low waste economy that focuses on energy conservation, waste and pollution prevention, pollution control, and recycle and reusing

it works with nature by

1. reusing and recycling most nonrenewable matter resources

2. using renewable resources no faster than natural processes can replenish them

3. reducing resource waste by using matter and energy resources more efficiently

4. reducing environmentally harmful forms of consumption

5. promoting pollution prevention and waste reduction.

full-cost pricing

including the harmful environmental and health costs of goods and services into market prices and placing a monetary value on the natural capital that supports all economies

subsidies

payment from the government to lower the cost of a good or service with goals including promoting certain industries, helping disadvantaged groups, or achieving social and environmental objectives

• helps creates jobs and stimulates economies

• can encourage depletion and degradation of natural capital (depletion subsides, tax breaks for extracting minerals and fossil fuels, etc)

external costs (hidden costs)

harm to the environment and human health associated with its production and use. They have long and short term harmful effects

internal costs (direct costs)

the price a consumer pays with the cost of raw materials, manufacturing labor and energy consumption, shipping, advertising, etc.

supply and demand curves

• when supply is low and demand is high, price goes up

• when there is more than an ample supply of a good on the market, demand represented by the red line falls, and market prices fall

market price equilibrium

when the supplier’s price matches what consumers are willing to pay for some quantity and a sale is made

• the quantity supplied of a good or service equals the quantity demanded at a specific price

gross domestic product (GDP)

the annual market value of all goods and services produced by all firms and organizations, foreign and domestic, operating within a country

• deliberately designed to measure such outputs without taking into account their beneficial or harmful environmental and health impacts.

per capita gdp

a country’s economic growth per person measured thru the gdp divided by country’t total population at midyear

environmental indicators

called for to help monitor environmental quality and human well being

environmental policy

consists of environmental laws, regulations, and programs that are designed, implemented, and enforced by one or more government agencies

what are governments often legitimately concerned with?

military and economic security

if a nation’s environmental foundations are degraded or depleted, what would happen?

economy may well decline, its social fabric deteriorate, and its political structure become destabilized as growing numbers of people seek to sustain themselves from declining resource stocks. Thus national security is no longer about fighting forces and weaponry alone, it relates to forests, croplands, climate, etc that are as crucial to a nation’s security as are military factors.

environmentally sustainable society

protects natural capital and lives on its income. such a society would meet 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 resource needs (ethical principle of sustainability)

natural income

living on renewable resources like plants, animals, soil, clean air, clean water, provided by earth’s natural capital. By preserving and replenishing the earth’s natural capital that supplies this income, we can reduce our environmental footprints and expand our beneficial environmental impact.

what does living more sustainability means?

learning to live within limits imposed on all life by the earth and the unbreakable scientific laws that govern our use of matter and energy.

• learning from nature

• protecting natural capital

• not wasting resources (there is no waste in nature)

• recycling and reusing nonrenewable resources

• using renewable resources no faster than nature can replenish them

• incorporating the harmful health and environmental impacts of producing and using goods and services in their market prices (full-cost pricing)

• preventing future ecological damage and repairing past damage

• cooperating with one another to find win-win solutions to the environmental problems we face (poly sci)

• accepting the responsibility to pass the earth that sustains us on to future generations in a condition as good as or better than what we inherited (ethics)

net energy principle

The amount of usable energy obtained from an energy resource after accounting for the energy required to extract, process, and deliver it. A higher net energy yield indicates a more efficient and sustainable energy source, while low-yield sources discourage widespread use of those technologies

• low yield sources are often worse for the environment

point pollution

Point source pollution comes from a single, identifiable source like a pipe

non-point pollution

nonpoint source pollution comes from diffuse, widespread areas and cannot be traced to a single origin, often being the result of land runoff or atmospheric deposition