Patterns and Change

This is the core theme for DP Geography and it helps to provide a foundation for exploring key global issues. It encompasses four key units:

• Populations in transition

• Disparities in wealth and development

• Patterns in environmental quality and sustainability

• Patterns in resource consumption

Populations in Transition

Population Trends:

• Global population change 1930-2020

  • In most regions, population growth has increased between 1930 and 1960, and then again between 1960 and 1990 (Africa, South America, Australia, Asia) except North America and Europe.

  • In contrast, the projected changes for 1990-2020 show that the population growth rate will fall all over the globe

• Exponential growth

  • Increasing/accelerating growth rate

  • The world’s population is growing rapidly, most of it being recent

  • Global pop. Doubled between 1650 and 1850, 1850 and 1920, and 1920 and 1970 (taking less and less time to double)

  • Up to 95% of pop. growth is taking place in LDC

  • This trend of growth is defined as exponential growth

  • Despite this, world population is expected to stabilize at about 12 billion by around 2050-80

  • This growth creates:

    • Pressures on the government to provide for their people

    • Environmental pressure

    • Increased risk of disease and malnutrition

    • Greater differences between poor and rich countries

• Demographic change and global trends

  • The annual growth rate is found by subtracting the crude death rate (% of deaths per thousand people, also referred to by number of deaths per thousand) from the crude birth rate (% of births per thousand people, also referred to by the number of births per thousand) and is then expressed as a percentage

  • The highest growth rates are found in Africa, and lowest in North America and Europe

Birth Rates:

• Measurements of fertility

  • Crude birth rate (CBR) = total number of births/total population x 1000 per year (doesn’t consider age and sex structure of population), total number of births per thousand.

  • Standardized birth rate (SBR) in contrast to the CBR, gives a birth rate for a region based on the premise that the region’s age composition is the same as that of the whole country.

  • Total fertility rate (TFR) is the average number of births per woman.

  • The general fertility rate is the number of live births per 1000 women of reproductive age in a country

    • GFR = number of live births/number of women in reproductive age x 1000 per year

  • The age-specific birth rate (ASBR) = number of births/women of any specified age x 1000 per year

  • In general, the highest fertility rates are shown in LEDCs (Less economically developed countries) and the lowest in MEDCs (More economically developed countries), with the TFR in MEDCs being an average of 1.7, and in LEDCs an average of 5.8.

• Changes in fertility

  • Changes are a result of a combination of sociocultural and economic factors

• Sociocultural factors and fertility

  • Status of women

    • The status of women is assessed by the gender-related development index (GDI), which measures the inequality between the sexes in life expectancy, education and the standard of living.

    • In countries where the status of women is low and few women are educated or involved in paid employment, birth rates are generally higher

    • An example is Singapore, where the status of women has improved, and from 1960 to 2000, because of this improvement, the rate fell from 3.0 to 1.5

  • Level of education and material ambition

    • In general, the higher the level of parental education, the fewer the children

    • Middle-income families with high aspirations but limited means tend to have smaller families

    • To improve standards of living, they limit family size

    • An example is Ethiopia (2005) where uneducated women had TFR’s of 6.1 and educated ones with a TFR of (2.0)

  • Type of residence

    • People in rural areas have more children than in urban

    • This is because:

      • More rigid social pressures on women

      • Greater freedom and less state control in rural areas (e.g. China’s one-child policy is enforced less rigorously in rural areas)

      • Females in rural areas have fewer educational and economic opportunities

      • In some urban areas, such as shanty towns, there are high levels of fertility because of their youthful population structure

  • Religion

    • In general, most religions are pro-natalist and favor larger families (are against abortions, sterilization, etc.)

  • The health of the mother

    • Sometimes, women who are unhealthy and have some miscarriages become pregnant more often to compensate

• Economic factors and fertility

  • Economic Prosperity

    • Not complete correlation, but there are some links

    • Economic prosperity favours an increase in the birth rate while increasing costs lead to a decline in the birth rate

    • The UN believe that a reduction in the high birth rates in the LEDCs can be achieved only by improving the standards of living in those countries

    • In addition, equitable distribution of wealth tends to lower the fertility rate

    • Canada has a higher level of GNP per capita (US$) than Tanzania (20,000 to 200) and therefore has a lower TFR (1.6 in comparison to 5.5)

  • The need for children

    • High infant mortality rates increase the pressure on women to have more children (replacement/compensatory births)

    • Larger families in agricultural societies help provide labour for the farm

Mortality:

• Measurements of mortality

  • The crude death rate (CDR) = total no. of deaths/total population x 1000 per year(number of deaths per 1000 per year)

  • Poor measurement of mortality (doesn’t consider many other factors, Pakistan’s crude rate of 7.8% is less than that of Denmark’s 11%

  • Better measures are the standardized mortality rate (SMR), and age-specific mortality rates (ASMRs) such as the infant mortality rate (IMR)

  • IMR = total no. of deaths of children <1 year old/total no. of live births per year x 1000

  • The child mortality rate (CMR) = total no. of deaths of children aged 1-5 years/total number of children aged 1-5 years x 1000

  • Life expectancy (E0) is the average number of years that a person can be expected to live, given the demographic factors are constant

• Patterns of mortality

  • Patterns of mortality differ from MEDCs to LEDCs

  • In MEDCs, the death rate falls steadily to 9% with high life expectancies (75+)

  • In LEDCs, the opposite can be seen, but due to steady improvements over the past few decades in the food supply, water, sanitation and housing, the situation is improving

  • However, this trend has unfortunately been reversing as a consequence of AIDS

Population Pyramids:

• Population pyramids tell us a great deal of information about the age and sex structure of a population:

  • A wide base suggests a high birth rate

  • A narrowing basis suggests a falling birth rates

  • Straight or near-vertical sides show a low death rate

  • A concave lope suggests a high death rate

  • Bulges in the slope indicate high rates of immigrant

  • Deficits in the slope show out-migration or age-specific or sex-specific deaths

• Population pyramids can also be used to show the racial composition of a population or the employed population group

• Pop. Pyramids are important because they tell us about population growth.

• They help planners to find out how many services and facilities, such as schools and hospitals will be needed in the future

Demographic transition model:

• 4 stages

• Stage 1: Pre-transition

  • High BR

  • High infant mortality rates

  • High DR

  • High fertility

  • Many young, few old

  • Upwards curving population pyramid

• Stage 2: Early-transition

  • DR declines rapidly (better medical care)

  • BR + FR remain high

  • Many you people

  • Infant mortality declines

  • Triangle shape population pyramid

• Stage 3: Late-transition

  • BR declines rapidly

  • DR declines slowly

  • FR declines

  • Increasing older people

  • Rounded triangular shape

• Stage 4: Post-transition

  • Low BR + DR

  • Fertility rate around 2.1 (replacement rate)

  • Greying society

  • Stable/slow pop growth

  • Bullet-shaped population pyramid

Gender and Change:

• Gender and population growth

  • High rates of population growth are associated with a low status of women in society

  • The UN Decade for Women, from 1975 to 1985 recommended three important points for action:

    • There should be legal equality for women

    • Further development needs to improve on the substandard role that women play

    • Women should receive an equal share of power

  • Gender and social role

    • In 1970, Esther Boserup identified women as having been left behind in the development process

    • The social roles that women have are mostly

      • Biological reproduction

      • Social reproduction

      • Economic reproduction

    • These three roles create a great deal of physical and psychological stress

    • It is believed in sub-Saharan Africa that:

      • Up to one-third of women are pregnant or breastfeeding at any one time

      • Women comprise over half the workforce, sometimes 70%

      • Women grow over 80% of the food eaten and contribute half of the region’s cash crops

  • Women and development

    • Strategic or political change is needed to attain equality and empowerment

    • Progress for sexual equality has been painfully slow

    • For example, the illiteracy rate is much higher for girls than boys, and generally, women are becoming poorer (supposedly)

    • Gender inequalities in adult literacy are higher in African and Arab cities

  • The reasons for slow progress

    • Conditions are deteriorating in a large part of Africa

    • As a result of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), countries spend less money on health and social welfare (disproportionately borne by women)

    • There is a lack of commitment to women by man countries and by donors

    • Women have to work as well as be the head of the household, but they have little legal status

Responses to high and low fertility:

• Political factors and family planning

  • Most governments in LEDCs have introduced programmes aimed at reducing birth rates

  • Effectiveness depends on:

    • Focusing on family planning and not just birth control

    • Investing sufficient finance in the schemes

    • Working in consultation with the local population

  • Where birth controls have been imposed by the government, less successful (except China)

  • In MEDCs, financial and social support for children is often available to encourage a pro-natalist approach

  • However, where fears of negative pop. Growth (Singapore), more direct measures taken to increase birth rates

• Dependency ratios

  • The dependency ratio measures the working population and the dependent population

  • Population aged <15 + population aged >60 (dependents)/Population aged 16-59 (economically active)

  • In the developed world, there is a high proportion of the elderly

  • In the developing world, there is a higher proportion of youth

• Aging ratios

  • The future trend in the old-age dependency ratio for the EU countries is increasing

  • Currently for working individuals for each person 65 or older

  • Will drop down to two, or worse, generally due to the low birth rates

Migration:

• Types of movement

  • Migration is the movement of people, involving a permanent (more than one year)change of residence

  • Internal or external (international), voluntary or forced

• Patterns of migration according to Ravenstein

  • Most migrants proceed over a short distance

    • Due to limited technology and transport, (poor communications), people know more about local opportunities

  • Migration occurs in steps

    • Typically from rural to small town, to large town to city (people become “locked in” to the urban hierarchy)

  • As well as movement to large cities, movement away (dispersal)

    • The rich move away and commute from nearby villages and small towns

  • Urban dwellers migrate less than rural dwellers

    • Fewer opportunities in rural areas

  • Women are more migratory than men over short distances

    • Especially for marriage and in societies where the status of women is low

  • Migration increases with advances in technology

    • Transport, communications, spread of info

• Migration according to Lee (1966)

  • Described migration in terms of push and pull factors

    • Push factors are negative features causing a person to move away from a place(unemployment, natural hazards etc.)

    • Pull factors are the attractions (better wages, schools etc.)

• Limitations of models

  • Models have many assumptions

    • Are all people free to migrate?

    • Do all people have skills, education etc. allowing them to move

    • Are there barriers to migration

    • Is distance a barrier to migration

Migration:

Origin of disparities:

• Inequalities in development

  • Despite considerable economic growth in many regions, the world is more unequal than it was 10 years ago

  • Some countries left behind in the “poverty cycle”, aren’t able to develop as fast as others

  • Even within the group of countries that are commonly thought of as poor, there is variation in levels of poorness

  • For example, both Taiwan and South Korea have extremely high levels of GNI per capita

• Employment

  • The gulf between formal and informal economies

  • Widening gap between skilled and unskilled labour

  • Growing disparities in health, education and opportunities for social, economic and political participation

  • Inequalities between and within countries have accompanied globalization

  • These have had many negative consequences in many areas, including employment, job security and wages

  • Unemployment remains high, especially youth unemployment

  • Youths are two to three times more likely than adults to be unemployed and currently make up as much as 47% of the total 186 million people out of work worldwide (most labor markets unable to absorb them)

  • Millions are working but remain poor (don’t reach the poverty threshold of 1$ a day)

  • A large majority of the working poor are informal agricultural workers (globalization led to an explosion of the informal economy)

  • In many countries, wage inequalities (esp. between skilled and unskilled workers)

  • Falling real minimum wages and sharp rises in the highest incomes

  • Rich countries with income gap, such as Canada, UK and USA

• Parental education and inequality

  • Link between investment in education and poverty is extremely fundamental

  • Education may raise incomes of those with it (and those with higher qualifications tend to have less children)

Global disparities and change:

• Changing global inequalities

  • PPP: what a person can by with their income at local prices

  • Until 200 years ago, Asia was the dominant world economic power

  • Today rapid econ. growth rates are helping the region regain its former position

  • Used to be Asia dominant, with Europe and Africa in 2nd and 3rd around the year 100

  • Currently, Asia is almost dominant, with Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US combined in second, then after that Europe, Latin America, Japan, Africa and USSR

• Income Inequalities (“Twin Peaks” of rich and poor)

  • The greatest contributors to income inequality are the largest countries at either end of the spectrum, the “Twin Peaks”

  • One pole represents the 2.4 billion people whose mean income is less than $1000 a year and includes people living in India, Indonesia and rural China. With 42% of the world’s population, this group receives just 9% of the world’s PPP incomes

  • The other pole reps 500 million people whose annual income exceeds $11500

  • Group includes USA, Japan, Germany, France and the UK

  • Combined, account for 13% of the world’s population but use 45% of the world PPP income

  • In the last 25 years, the main changes in come between diff. regions of the world include:

    • The continued rapid econ. growth in the already rich country relative to most of the rest of the world

    • The decline in real income of sub-Saharan Africa and eastern Europe

    • Relatively modest gains in Latin American and Arab states

  • Some most important global disparities relate to lack of decent work and low incomes

  • According to ILO (international labour organization), about 200 million people don’t have any form of work

• Social inequalities

  • Despite some progress, health and education inequalities have widened, especially within countries

  • Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia are in the worst predicament

  • Wide gaps in access to immunization, maternal and childcare, nutrition and education

  • Gender gaps in access to education have narrowed somewhat, but persist

  • Indigenous people, persons with disabilities, older people and youth are typically excluded from decision-making processes that affect their welfare

• Environmental impacts

  • Today’s disparities are also closely linked to human impact on environment

  • Poor frequently end up with poor land, water, fuel and other natural resources (limit productivity)

Patterns in environmental quality and sustainability

Atmosphere and Change:

• Global warming

  • Refers to the increase in temperatures around the world that has been noticed over the last 50 years or so, and in particular since the 1980`s

  • Greenhouse effect is the process by which certain gases (water vapour, CO2, methane etc.) allow short-wave radiation from the sun to pass through to heat up the earth, but trap an increasing proportion of long-wave radiation from the earth

  • Enhanced greenhouse effect is increased amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to human activities

  • CO2 levels have risen from about 315 ppm in 1950 to 355 ppm and are expected to reach 600 ppm by 2050

  • Caused by burning of fossil fuels, deforestation (also removes trees that convert the CO2 to oxygen)

  • Methane is the second largest contributor to global warming (increasing rate of 1% per annum)

  • Cattle convert 10% food they eat into methane, emit 100 million tonnes of methane each year

  • Natural wetlands and paddy fields also emit 150 million tonnes annually

  • CFCs are synthetic chemicals that destroy ozone and absorb long wave radiation from the earth

  • Increasing at rate of 6% per annum, and are up to 10000 times more efficient at trapping heat than CO2

• Effects of global warming

  • A rise in sea levels caused flooding in low-lying areas such as the Netherlands, Egypt and Bangladesh (over 200 million could be displaced)

  • Increase in storm activity

  • Changes in agricultural patterns (decline in the US grain belt, increase in Canada`s growing season)

  • Reduced rainfall over the USA, southern Europe

  • Extinction of up to 50% of species of wildlife

• Implications of climate change

  • Global warming

    • Climate change

      • Extreme events

      • Long term change

        • Temperature, wind, pressure, precipitation, humidity

        • Storms, drought, fire, erosion, landslides, sedimentation, avalanches, pests and diseases

    • Sea level rise

      • Coastal erosion, flooding, salination

      • River flooding, bank erosion,

      • Waves, Tsunami

• Policies to combat climate change

  • Emission of main anthropogenic (man-made) GHG, CO2, influenced by size of the human population, amount of energy used per person, level of emissions resulting from that use of energy

  • A variety of options which could reduce emissions, especially from the use of energy, are available

  • Reducing CO2 emissions can be done through:

    • Improved energy efficiency

    • Fuel switching

    • Use of renewable energy sources

    • Nuclear power

    • Capture and storage of CO2

  • Another measure involves increasing the rate at which natural sinks take up CO2 (i.e. increase the number of forests)

Water usage and change:

• Changing supply and demand

  • Use of water has increased six time in past century, world population tripled

  • Some rivers that formerly reached the sea no longer do so, diverted for our use (example of Colorado in the USA)

  • Half world’s wetland disappeared, today 20% of freshwater species are endangered or extinct

  • Many aquifers are being depleted, and water tables in many parts of the world are dropping at an alarming rate

  • World water use is projected to increase by about 50% in next 30 years

  • Estimated by 2025, 4 billion people will live under conditions of sever water stress (conditions particularly severe in Africa, Middle East and south Asia)

  • May fuel armed conflicts

  • Currently estimated 1.1 billion people lack access to safe water, 2.6 billion without adequate sanitation, and more than 4 billion do not have their waste water treated to any degree

• Water supply

  • Depends on several factors in the water cycle, including rates of rainfall, evaporation, use of water by plants (transpiration), river and groundwater flows

  • Less than 1% of freshwater available is available for people to use (everything else locking in ice sheets and glaciers)

  • Globally, 12500 km3 of water are considered available for human use on an annual basis

  • About 6600 m3 per person per year

  • Only 4800 m3 likely per person in 2025

  • Freshwater is not evenly distributed around the world

  • Three-quarters of rainfall occurs in areas containing less than one-third of the world's population (whereas two-thirds of the world's population live in areas receiving only one-quarter of the world`s annual rainfall)

  • 20% of global average runoff each year is accounted for by the Amazon Basin, a vast region with fewer than 10 million people

  • India gets 90% of its rainfall during the summer monsoon season (other times rainfall is extremely low)

  • Water stress

    • When per capita water supply is less than 1700 m3 per year, an area suffers from ``water stress”, and is subject to frequent water shortages

    • In many areas, less than 1000 m3 per capita, causing problems for food production and economic development

    • 2.3 billion people live in water-stressed areas

    • Water stress will affect 3.5 billion people (48% of world pop.) projected by 2025

• Water use

  • Currently, quantity of water used for all purposes exceeds 3700 km3 per year

  • Agriculture is largest consumer (two-thirds of all water from rivers, lakes and groundwater

  • 1960, water used for crop irrigation risen by 60-70%

  • Industry uses about 20% of available water, and municipal uses about 10%

  • Pop. growth, urbanization and industrialization have increased the use of water in these sectors

  • As world pop. and industrial output have increased, by 2025 global availability of freshwater expected to drop 25% from year 2000 figure to 5100m3

• Water scarcity

  • Two types of water scarcity affect LEDCs in particular:

  • Physical water scarcity

    • Occurs where water consumption exceed 60% of the usable supply

    • To help meet water needs, countries such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait import much of their food and invest in desalinization plants

  • Economic water scarcity

    • Country physically has sufficient water, but additional storage and transport facilities needed (embarking on expensive water development projects, of too high a cost)

  • In addition, in LEDCs access to adequate water supplies is most affected by exhaustion of traditional sources such as wells and seasonal rivers

  • In many poor countries farmers use, on average, twice as much water per hectare as industrialized countries, but their yields are three times as low (six times difference in efficiency of irrigation)

• Water quality

  • Needs to be of adequate quality for consumption

  • WHO estimates 4 million deaths each year attributed to water-related diseases (cholera, hepatitis, malaria and other parasitic diseases)

  • Real problem of drinking water and sanitation in developing countries is too many people lack access to safe and affordable water supplies and sanitation

• Global water supply and sanitation

  • Urban areas are better served than rural ones, and countries in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean are better off than African countries

  • Many piped water systems however do not meet water quality criteria, leading more people to rely on bottled water (as in major cities in Columbia, India, Mexico, Thailand, Venezuela and Yemen)

  • Some cases, poor pay more than rich for water

  • Port-au-Prince, Haiti, survey have shown households connected to water system typically paid around $1.00 per cubic metre, while unconnected customers forced to purchase water from mobile vendors paid from $5.50 to $16.50 per cubic metre

  • Sanitation and population growth

    • Fewer people have adequate sanitation than safe water, and global provision of sanitation is not keeping up with pop. growth

    • Between 1990 and 2000 number of people without adequate sanitation rose from 2.6 billion to 3.3 billion

    • Least access to sanitation occurs in Asia (48%), especially in rural areas

    • Still pressure points, especially in areas of rapid pop. growth

    • Squatter settlements in many of world’s poorest cities, local authorities unable to or legally prevented from providing sanitation, situation is likely to deteriorate rapidly

Patterns in resource consumption

Ecological Footprints:

• Calculating ecological footprint

  • Everything used for our daily needs comes from natural resources

  • Ecological footprint measured in acres or hectares, calculates amount of earth`s bio productive space needed to keep a population at its current level of resource consumption

  • Calculation takes into account:

    • Arable land:

      • Amount of land required for growing crops

    • Pasture land:

      • Resources required for growing animals for all forms of consumption

    • Forests:

      • For fuel, furniture etc., also providing many ecosystem services such as climate stability, erosion prevention

    • Oceans:

      • For marine products

    • Infrastructure needs:

      • Based on built-up land used for these needs

    • Energy costs:

      • Land required for absorbing carbon dioxide emissions and other energy wastes

• Ecological footprint, global and national

  • Planet`s biological productive capacity (biocapacity)is estimated at 1.9 ha per person

  • Currently, countries are using up to 2.2 ha per person, beyond the planet`s biocapacity to sustain us by 15%

  • The deficit is showing up as failing natural ecosystems – forests, oceans, soil, water etc.

  • Planet`s biocapacity is affected by global population as well as rate of consumption

  • Increased consumption depletes the planet’s carrying, renewal and regeneration capacities

  • The ecological footprint estimated available to each person would be reduced to 1.5 by 2050

  • If we continue at the consumption rates of the rich Western countries, we will need 4 to 5 earths to sustain ourselves

  • The USA is a country with the largest per capita footprint in the world – 9.57

  • If everyone lived like Americans, Earth could only support 1.2 billion people, but if everyone was like those in Bangladesh, it could support 22 billion people (footprint of 0.5 ha)

  • Global ecological footprint grew from about 70% of capacity in 1961 to 120% in 1999

  • The future projections show growth of about 180 to 220% by 2050

Environmental Sustainability:

• Environment sustainability index

  • ESI was produced by a team of environmental experts at Yale and Columbia

  • Using 21 indicators and 76 measurements including natural resource endowments, past and present pollution levels, and policy efforts, the report creates a “sustainability score” for each country, with higher scores indicating better environmental sustainability

  • 10 most sustainable countries as ranked by the ESI are dominated by wealthy, sparsely populated nations with an abundance of natural resources

  • Finland ranks first, with Norway, Sweden and Iceland all in the top 5

  • The only developing nations in the top 10 are Uruguay and Guyana, which have relatively low pop. densities and an abundance of natural resources

  • Conversely, the only densely populated countries that have received above-average rankings are Japan, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy, some of the richest countries on the list

  • Environmental sustainability is essential in aiding the poor

  • Highly dependent on the environment and its resources which provide roughly two-thirds of household income for the rural poor

  • Climate change is dramatically reshaping the environment on which poor people depend

  • Climate change increases rainfall variability (droughts and floods), food security, spread of disease, increased risk of accidents and damage to infrastructure

  • Poor are most vulnerable to these changes and have limited capability to respond to them

  • Overfishing has led to the collapse of many fisheries, and one-quarter of global marine fish stocks are currently overexploited or significantly depleted

  • About 60% of the ecosystem services resources evaluated by the UN’s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (a measure of how ecosystems benefit people), are being degraded or are being used unsustainably

  • Between 10% and 30% of mammal, bird and amphibian species face extinction

  • Global timber production has increased by 60% in the past four decades, meaning roughly 40% of forest area has been lost, and deforestation continues at a rate of 13 million ha per annum

• Challenges and solutions

  • Environmental concerns are fundamental to long-term sustainable development

  • Efforts must be made to improve understanding of the environmental impact of development strategies and to recognize the link between environmental degradation and poverty

  • The poor, who are most dependent on natural resources and are most affected by environmental degradation, lack the information or access to participate in decision-making and policy development

  • In contrast, those who influence policy development have little understanding of the costs and benefits associated with environmental policy

  • Economic growth and the environment are often still viewed as competing objectives

  • But investing in environmental management can be cost-effective, and it contributes to improving livelihoods

• Managing the Korup National Park

  • Created in 1986 by the government of Cameroon with the support of the WWF

  • Under the law, human activity in the park is limited to tourism, research and recreation

  • The project aims to integrate the National Park into the local economy and regional development plans

  • An example of sustainable development in Korup is that of community forests

  • These are large areas of forest in which villagers obtain and manage a part of the communal forest sustainably (reviewed regularly by the government and WWF)

  • Management of Korup is important, contains over 400 species of trees, 425 species of birds, 120 species of fish and 100 mammal species

  • Over 60 species occur only in Korup, and 170 are considered to be endangered or vulnerable

The changing importance of alternative energy sources:

• Renewable resources

  • Include hydroelectric power, solar, wind and tidal

  • World potential renewable energy

    • Wind Energy is the smallest, mostly in North America, Northern Europe, Japan Australia and New Zealand, South America, China, India

    • Biomass biggest, mostly in South America, North America, the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Southern Africa, Northern Europe

    • Hydroelectricity second largest, mostly in North America, South America, Northern Europe, the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe

    • Solar energy is lowest with similar countries possessing the potential to use it

• Trends in renewable energy sources

  • Renewable energy is growing fast

  • Rates of development of renewable energy sources are far exceeding those of fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas

  • 2006, wind and solar development grew by 20% and 40% respectively

  • The market for renewable energy sources was about $55 billion worldwide in 2006, with forecasted growth to $226 billion by 2016

Conservation, waste reduction, recycling and substitution:

• Recycling

  • refers to the processing of industrial and household wastes (such as paper, glass and some metals and plastics) so that materials can be reused

  • Saves scare raw materials and helps reduce pollution

  • UK fallen behind other EU countries with recycling because there are more landfill sites which are cheaper to use (has recycling target of 33% by 2015)

• Reuse

  • Refers to multiple use of a product by returning it to the manufacturer or processor each time (more energy and resource efficient than recycling)

• Reduction

  • Using less energy, such as turning lights off when you don’t need them

• Substitution

  • Using one resource rather than another (renewable verse non-renewable)

• Landfill

  • Burying of waste in the ground, and then covering over the filled pit with soil and other material

  • Cheap but not always healthy (mostly domestic waste, some hazardous waste allowed as well)

• Fly-tipping

  • When people/companies dump waste/old equipment

  • Increasing problem

  • Done because of increased costs of landfills

  • Also more goods, such as TVs, computers and refrigerators classified as hazardous and subject to restrictions on how they are disposed of

  • Introduction of strict new EU regulations means high proportion of new products must be recycled (costly to manufacturers and purchasers)