Environmental Sustainability Notes
Environmental Sustainability
The Anthropocene Era
We have entered an era described as Anthropocene, where human action is a critical driver of change on the planet.
Human influence occurs at multiple spatial scales, from local to global.
This era is characterized by irresponsible development, leading to climate change, poverty, conflict, water scarcity, and emissions, threatening a just society and the planet.
Physical vs. Social Aspects of the Anthropocene
Physical science focuses on understanding and quantifying Earth's systems, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, land use change, and ocean acidification.
It helps assess the extent and magnitude of human impacts on the planet and provides essential data for mitigation and adaptation strategies.
Social science focuses on how human societies drive or respond to environmental changes.
It examines human behaviors, values, cultural norms, economic systems, and governance structures and their influence on environmental problems.
It helps understand the root causes of environmental challenges and how to facilitate sustainable and equitable solutions.
The Need for Change
The socio-economic system is part of the global ecosystem.
The socio-economic system depends on the ecosystem for energy and natural system resources.
Materials are transformed and converted to heat in the socio-economic system.
The ecosystem provides regulating, provisioning, and cultural services.
Ultimately the socio-economic system produces into the sink.
Ecological Services
Ecosystems provide various services categorized as:
Provisioning Services: Food, fresh water, fuelwood, fiber, biochemicals, genetic resources.
Regulating Services: Climate regulation, disease regulation, water regulation, water purification, pollination.
Cultural Services: Spiritual & religious, recreational, ecotourism, aesthetic, inspirational, educational, sense of place, cultural heritage.
Supporting Services: Nutrient cycling, evolution, soil formation, spatial structure, primary production.
Services to Ecosystems (S2E) also exist, including:
Protecting Services (Habitat protection, weeding/culling, ritual regulation)
Enhancing Services (Cultivation, domestication, trait selection, translocation, pruning, fertilizing)
Restoring Services (Improving soil/water/air quality, habitat reconstruction, planting, revitalisation)
Thinking Sustainability
Research and thinking about sustainable development have focused on modifying operational decisions using a cradle-to-grave approach.
A green economy improves human well-being and social equity while reducing environmental risks.
Advancing the three pillars of sustainability.
Total Economic Value (TEV) includes direct use (consumptive and non-consumptive) value and indirect use (e.g., water purification).
Development and the Environment
Cycle A: Wealth created by dependence on the environment leads to advances that reduce stress but promote inappropriate development.
Cycle B: The degraded environment begins to feedback to society in the form of increased stress, which promotes further inappropriate development.
Cycle C: Addressing the root cause of inappropriate development to promote sustainable development.
Sustainable Development
The Brundtland Commission definition: "Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
‘Sustainable’ means able to be sustained – to keep in existence, to maintain, to endure.
‘Development’ means a step or stage in advancement or improvement.
Sustainable development strategies seek ways to forge lasting relationships between humans and the environment, protecting and restoring ecosystems rather than destroying them.
The Brundtland Era
The Brundtland Commission report focused on two pillars:
Meeting the needs of the current generation (e.g., water, shelter, food, and fresh air).
Not limiting the prospects of future generations to meet their own needs.
The harm has been done during the industrial revolution due to fossil fuel burning.
A principle to be engrained in personal and corporate practice/decision-making.
Practiced to foster an inclusive, participatory, and resilient future.
Sustainable Development Frameworks
Several frameworks exist with the goal of achieving trade-offs between cost, environment, and the economy in practice and decision-making.
UK Sustainable Development Principles
Prioritized four key areas:
Sustainable consumption and production.
Natural resource protection and environmental enhancement.
Climate change and energy.
Sustainable communities.
What Does Sustainable Development Offer?
Sustainable development calls for policies and actions that foster enduring relationships among people and between people and the planet.
It results in the creation of sustainable communities, states, and nations, which require social, economic, and environmental conditions conducive to harmony and long-term survival.
Social Conditions: Adequate food, shelter, basic needs, freedom from oppression and physical harm, democratic decision-making, participation, cooperation, and intergenerational/intragenerational equity (environmental justice).
Environmental Conditions: Waste output that does not exceed the assimilative capacity of the environment, use of renewable resources that does not exceed Earth's capacity to regenerate, use of nonrenewable resources that does not exceed the rate of their replacement by renewable substitutes, clean air and water, and biodiversity.
Economic Conditions: Broad prosperity, greater local/regional self-reliance, ecologically sound economics, well-paying jobs, and healthy, stable economies.
Scientific Principles of Sustainability
Three major natural factors play key roles in the long-term sustainability of life on Earth.
Interdependence sustains life.
Principles of Sustainable Development
Based on 10 key principles derived from the 3 pillars (Ecology, Social thought and ethics, Economics/Politics).
Ensure a clean, healthy environment, a sustainable society, and a better future.
Dependence: Humans depend on the environment for countless goods and services essential for day-to-day living and the functioning of the economy.
Biophysical Limits: Renewable and nonrenewable resources are limited; Earth’s ability to assimilate and detoxify wastes is limited. Many signs indicate we have exceeded these limits.
Living within limits Living sustainably means finding ways of prospering within limits of resources and the waste assimilation capacity of the Earth’s ecosystem
Interdependence: We depend mightily on the Earth and its ecosystems, but the Earth depends on our actions.
Intergenerational Equality: Conduct all human activities to honor the needs of future generations, ensuring they have access to resources and conditions they need to live well.
Intragenerational Equality: Act in ways that honor the rights and needs of all people alive today.
Ecological Justice: All species have a right to a clean environment and adequate resources, and current generations have a responsibility to ensure their rights.
Participation: Building a sustainable society will require participation by and cooperation between governments, businesses, and individuals.
Cooperation: Environmental protection and sustainable development will require the cooperation of all participants.
Addressing the Root Causes: To create a sustainable society, we must focus on strategies that address the root causes of environmental problems.
Global Goals for Sustainable Development
On September 25th, 2015, 193 world leaders committed to 17 goals to achieve 3 extraordinary things in the next 15 years:
End extreme poverty.
Fight inequality & injustice.
Fix climate change.
The Global Goals for sustainable development could get these things done in all countries for all people.
Natural Capital
The natural resources and ecosystem services support life and the human economy.
Natural resources include solar energy, air, water, nonrenewable minerals, natural gas, oil, soil, and land.
Ecosystem services include air purification, climate control, UV protection, water purification, waste treatment, renewable energy, life (biodiversity), population control, pest control, soil renewal, food production, and nutrient recycling.
Natural Capital Degradation
Renewable natural resources and natural services are degraded globally due to:
Growing populations.
Rising rates of resource use per person.
Human Footprint
The human ecological footprint has an impact on about 83% of the earth's total land surface.
Environmental Protection and Sustainability
Human civilization experienced two major revolutions:
Agricultural Revolution (started 10,000 BC).
Industrial Revolution (started late 17th century).
Gains in civilization were made at the expense of the environment.
May be entering a new cultural revolution which is Sustainable Revolution; redesigning of systems to sustain human presence
Meeting our needs while protecting the environment is called sustainable development.
Growth and Development
Growth results in an increase in material production and consumption that may be unsustainable in the long run.
Development is a strategy that calls for improvements in culture that do not necessarily require further increases in resource consumption, pollution, and environmental destruction.
Human Settlements – A Network of Unsustainable Systems
Human settlements are made up of interdependent systems, such as transportation, energy, and waste management.
Growing evidence shows that these systems are not sustainable in the long run.
Why Human Settlements Are Unsustainable
Although human systems may provide us with a steady stream of goods and services, they are systematically reducing the planet’s carrying capacity.
Produce pollution in excess of the planet’s ability to absorb and detoxify wastes.
Deplete nonrenewable resources faster than substitutes can be found.
Use renewable resources faster than they can be regenerated.
Human Settlements - Impacts
Causes of Environmental Problems:
Population growth.
Unsustainable resource use.
Poverty.
Excluding environmental costs from market prices.
Increasing isolation from nature.
Applying the Principles of Sustainable Development
Creating a sustainable society requires a number of steps:
Population stabilization
Growth management
Efficiency
Renewable energy use
Recycling
Restoration
Sustainable resource management
Redesigning the systems
Redesigning systems could help reduce many symptoms of the environmental crisis and put us back on a sustainable course.
Roots of the Environmental Crisis
Many different hypotheses explain the root causes of the environmental crisis:
Religious Roots
Cultural Roots
Biological & Evolutionary Roots
Psychological & Economic Roots
Religious Roots
Some scholars believe early Christian teaching shaped attitudes toward nature, fostering exploitive systems that caused environmental destruction.
Others argue that humans have a long history of environmental destruction predating Christianity.
Cultural Roots: Democracy and Industrialization
Some scholars believe the spread of democracy and the Industrial Revolution are at the root of the environmental crisis.
Democracy put land ownership and wealth in the hands of many.
The Industrial Revolution made mass production of goods possible and spread wealth throughout society
Frontierism, a belief in the inexhaustibility of resources, may have been another root cause of the environmental crisis.
Ignorance drives many environmentally unsound practices despite increased understanding of ecology.
Biological and Evolutionary Roots
Human populations expand if there are adequate resources and no other controls.
Technology has greatly facilitated population growth and increased our environmental impact.
Psychological and Economic Roots
Human attitudes and beliefs are also responsible for many unsustainable practices.
Denial, apathy, inability to respond to subtle threats, greed, acquisitiveness, and other factors influence our economic systems, laws, and way of life in profound ways.
What Does This All Mean?
Biological imperialism, technology, democratization, and capitalism.
Technology unleashes our biological imperialism and is partly responsible for overpopulation and vast, unsustainable systems that support our lives.
Democracy, industrialism, and the spread of wealth may contribute to excessive resource demand and pollution production of human society.
Psychological factors: Humans seem unable to respond to long-term trends or warnings of problems.
Our obsession with economic growth, including many psychological and ethical factors, comes into play.
Religious teachings may also come into play.
A New Worldview: Changing Our Perceptions, Values, and Beliefs
Creating a sustainable society will require profound changes:
Changes in our understanding of issues through education.
Changes in values that shape how we live.
Changes in beliefs to put humans in partnership with nature.
Unsustainable Ethics
In most Western nations, human values express frontierism.
This attitude causes us to pursue our own interests at the expense of the environment.
Frontier thinking influences how we design and operate all human systems: economy, government, education, waste management.
The Evolution of Environmental Sustainability
Environmental protection has evolved from piecemeal local efforts to a much more comprehensive global sustainable strategy.
Environmental policy and protection efforts have evolved dramatically in the past three decades; most solutions have dealt with symptoms.
Efforts are now focused on the root causes of the problems (i.e., population growth, inefficiency in resource use, heavy dependence on fossil fuels, throw away mentality).
Creating Sustainable Solutions
Sustainable solutions must be robust in nature, involving actions on all levels: local, state, national, and international.
Must involve activities by all players – not just governments – businesses and citizens also.
Emphasis on restructuring human systems – energy, industry, agriculture, transportation, housing, waste management.
Efforts could eliminate environmental problems that threaten our long-term social, economic, and environmental health.
All environmental problems result from human systems such as energy production, resource use, and agriculture that are unsustainable.
The Tenets of Frontierism
The Earth is an unlimited supply of resources for exclusive human use: There’s always more, and it’s all for us.
Humans are apart from nature, not a part of it. As a result, we often assume that we are immune to natural laws that govern other species.
Success comes through domination and control of nature.
Creating a sustainable society that protects the environment will require a new value system that:
Respects limits.
Sees humans as a part of the natural world.
Recognizes the need to cooperate with nature, not dominate it.
Uncertainty in Scientific Data
Sustainable development emphasizes the need for policy and practice to manage human impacts.
Scientific decisions are limited by uncertainty.
If actions would harm the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even when there is no scientific proof of a cause-effect relationship.