Environmental Policy and Human Population ch 7&8

Environmental Policy: Overview

• Environmental policy: A formal set of plans and principles aimed at solving environmental issues and aiding decision-making.

• Requires input from science, ethics, and economics to be effective.

Lecture Objectives

• Describe environmental policy and its social context.

• Explain the role of science in policymaking.

• Discuss the history of U.S. environmental policy and summarize major U.S. environmental laws.

• Compare and contrast different approaches to environmental policymaking.

Fracking: A Case Study

Introduction to Fracking

• Cabot Oil and Gas offered residents royalty payments for drilling rights in Dimock, Pennsylvania, leading to high productivity in Marcellus Shale.

Environmental Concerns

• Residents experienced:

  • Contaminated drinking water.

  • Chemical smells from wells.

  • Incidents including an exploded well.

Mechanism of Fracking

• Hydraulic fracturing involves:

  • Drilling down and then horizontally into shale formations.

  • Injecting water, sand, and chemicals to create fractures and release gas.

• Some injected liquids return as wastewater, while natural gas is collected.

Impact of Fracking

• Significant boost in natural gas extraction in the U.S., leading to:

  • Job creation.

  • Lower natural gas prices.

  • Transitioning from coal to natural gas for electricity generation.

• Policymakers promote fracking, sometimes exempting it from key federal laws (e.g., National Environmental Policy Act).

• Gas companies are not mandated to disclose chemical additives used or to test wastewater for toxins.

Community Responses

• Debate within Dimock:

  • Some residents prioritized economic benefits over environmental risks.

  • The Pennsylvania DEP fined Cabot for issues related to water contamination.

  • U.S. EPA found contamination in tested wells but faced criticism regarding the influence of lobbyists on policy.

Environmental Policy Context

Science, Economics, and Ethics

• Science:

  • Provides understanding of fracking's impacts on health and the environment.

• Economics:

  • Assesses the value of natural gas compared to potential long-term pollution costs.

• Ethics:

  • Examines the consequences of pollution from fracking operations.

Tragedy of the Commons

• Introduced by Garrett Hardin:

  • Over-exploitation of shared resources leads to depletion.

  • Relevant to public resources like air and water.

Issues with Free Riders

• The dilemma of collective action failures when some businesses benefit without contributing to pollution reduction efforts.

External Costs of Fracking

• Fracking contributes to:

  • Water pollution.

  • Air pollution.

  • Noise pollution.

  • Induced earthquake activities.

• The polluter-pays principle aims to internalize these external costs in product pricing.

Challenges to Environmental Policy

• Environmental protection often perceived as economic sacrifice.

• Short-term decision-making conflicts with long-term environmental concerns.

Industry Influence

• Individuals moving between government and private sectors can skew policy favorably towards industries (e.g., Dick Cheney and Andrew Wheeler).

Disregarding Scientific Evidence

• Science must inform policy; however, political motivations may lead to ignoring established scientific consensus.

U.S. Environmental Policy and Law

Structure of Policy Development

• Environmental policy evolves through various levels of government:

  • Legislative processes in Congress.

  • Executive orders by Presidents (e.g., Obama on fracking chemical disclosure, Biden on Paris Agreement).

State and Local Policy Variation

• Significant differences exist across states in environmental approaches,

  • Example: California's strict auto emissions standards; New York's fracking ban.

Historical Evolution of Environmental Policy

First Wave: Resource Extraction

• 18th-19th Century:

  • Environmental policy promoted settlement and resource extraction as land was perceived to be inexhaustible.

Second Wave: Conservation Focus

• Late 1800s:

  • Shift towards conservation initiated with national parks and forest reserves.

Third Wave: Response to Pollution

• Mid-20th Century:

  • Reacted to visible pollution, marked by Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" and events like the Cuyahoga River fire.

• Led to major environmental laws being enacted in the 1960s and 1970s.

Major Environmental Protection Laws (1963-1980)

• Clean Air Act (1963, amended numerous times): Sets air quality standards and emissions restrictions.

• Clean Water Act (1977): Regulates discharges into water bodies.

• Endangered Species Act (1973): Protects threatened species and their habitats.

• Safe Drinking Water Act (1974): Sets quality standards for drinking water.

NEPA and Agency Formation

• National Environmental Policy Act (1970): Requires environmental impact statements (EIS) for major federal actions affecting the environment.

• Creation of the EPA consolidated various regulatory agencies for streamlined environmental oversight.

Modern Policy Challenges

• Increasing calls for policy reform amid economic priorities conflicting with environmental needs.

• Ongoing debates on climate change and equity, including proposals like the Green New Deal.

International Environmental Policy

• Notable trends: Germany's solar initiatives, Costa Rica's reforestation efforts, and China's pollution reduction actions.

• International law lacks the authority compared to national laws, presenting new challenges.

Global Organizations & Their Roles

• UN, World Bank, EU, and WTO influence international environmental policy through various means.

Conclusions on Environmental Policy Approaches

• Approaches categorized as:

  • Legal actions by individuals.

  • Command-and-control regulation.

  • Economic incentives (e.g., green taxes, subsidies, emissions trading).

• Each seeks to internalize external costs to create more favorable environmental outcomes.

Chapter 8 – Human Population

China case study

• Two child policy - A population control scheme implemented in China limited most couples to having only one child. Increased availability to abortion and contraceptives, incentives for families with only one child, and penalties and societal disdain for those with more. The population's labor force decreased, the proportion of the elderly rose, and there were too few women as a result of the one-child policy. ▪ The decline in young workers has made it challenging for employers and could have an impact on the economy.

• The one-child mandate and the culturally elevated value placed on male offspring have resulted in selective abortion and the murder of female children. ▪ The male-to-female ratio is out of balance, preventing many young men from getting married.

Human population growth trends

• The current pace of human population growth is 88 million people year, or 2.8 new people every second. A billion people are currently being added about every 12 years

• exponential growth, in which the size of the base population causes a significant increase at a tiny percentage growth rate.

Infant mortality rate

• Improved sanitation, modern medicine, and higher agricultural output have all helped to reduce the infant mortality rate, the frequency of children dying in infancy.

How this has affected population growth

Food production has increased. ▪ Birth rates have decreased due to improved wealth, education, and gender equality. ▪ Despite these advancements, population growth continues to drain resources, strain social structures, and harm the environment.

IPAT model

The IPAT model illustrates how population (P), affluence (A), and technology (T) interact to produce our overall environmental impact (I). I= p+ a+ t

As the population grows, more people occupy space, consume resources, and produce trash.

▪ Higher per capita resource consumption is a result of affluence.

▪ Technology can increase impact by enhancing our ability to exploit resources or decrease impact by improving efficiency.

Demography

Principles of pop. Ecology can be applied to the study of statistical changes in the human pop.

What it is the study of

The study of Human pop.

Age structure diagrams

Compare the relative numbers of individuals at each age class within the pop.

Be able to understand and interpret them

• A pyramid with a wide foundation indicates a high percentage of individuals who are not yet of reproductive age as well as the possibility of rapid future expansion.

▪ A pyramid with a higher percentage of adults in post-reproductive age signifies a declining population, whereas one with an even age distribution will show a stable population.

How populations change

Birth, death, immigration, emigration

• Immigration and births increase a population's size.

• People remove from the population through emigration and death.

Infant mortality and industrialization

• The degree of industrialization of a country is directly correlated with its infant mortality rates.

Total fertility rate

the typical number of children a woman will have throughout her lifetime.

Replacement fertility

The TFR that maintains population size stability

Rate of natural increase

the difference between the birth rate and the death rate

Compare TFR between major continental regions

Demographic transition

Nations that are still developing will go through several phases of cultural and economic transformation.

Life expectancy

A decrease in infant mortality raises the average number of years that a person in a given age group is predicted to live.

Be able to understand and explain different stages of demographic transition

Death rates are high in the pre-industrial era because of pervasive illness, inadequate medical treatment, and unstable food sources. People have several children to make up for the high infant death rate. There is no birth control available. Overall, population growth is steady.

Birth rates are still high since society has not yet adapted to the new economic conditions, whereas death rates decrease during the transitional period as a result of better food production and healthcare. There is also a fairly high rate of population growth overall.

Women have greater work options and access to birth control expands during the industrial stage, which lowers birth rates. The population starts to stabilize and slow down.

During the post-industrial stage, population growth either levels out or starts to decline. The US is in this stage, despite having higher birth rates because of a greater immigration rate.

Population and society

What types of populations are increasing, and which kinds are decreasing

Differences between developed and developing countries

Developed countries have higher standards of living, stronger economies, and more economic and political stability than developing countries.

developing countries are so overpopulated that they may not be able to complete a transition, creating demographic fatigue

• How populations are affected by various societal influences

There are many economic and societal factors that affect fertility in a nation

Significance of family planning

a key approach for controlling population growth. the effort to plan the number

and spacing of one’s children.

Influences of

Female education

Leads to women having the ability to make reproductive decisions themselves, leading to further drops in fertility rates and overall better care for children

Increasing affluence

reduces fertility ▪ Poorer societies tend to show larger population rates than wealthy ones

State of the economy

Population growth and economic considerations are closely related.

▪ Rapid population increase makes poverty worse. ▪ Poverty makes population growth worse.

The environmental impacts of expanding wealth

Wealth can produce even more severe environmental impacts than poverty

Impacts of one individual from a wealthy country compared to third world countries.

The addition of 1 person from a wealthy country like the United States has the same impact as 3.4 Chinese, 8 Indians, or 14 Afghans.

Biocapacity

The amount of biologically productive land available to us

What does human ecological footprint look like right now

One analysis concluded that humanity is now living 50% beyond our means, which in ecology would be termed an overshoot

Ecological deficit vs reserve

If humanity’s ecological footprint exceeds this, it is termed an ecological deficit. ▪ If the footprint is less, there is an ecological reserve