Interdisciplinary science – ecology,geology,chemistry, politics,engineering,economics,ethics ...

Interdisciplinary science –ecology,geology,chemistry,

politics,engineering,economics,ethics

Connections and interactions between humans and the rest of nature

Validity of data questioned – many variables

Ability of a specified system to survive and function over a period of time

Our research leads us to believe that in the face of drastic environmental changes, there are three overachiving themes relating to the long-term sustainability of life on this planet.

Meeting present needs without preventing future generations from meeting theirs

Reliance on Solar Energy Biodiversity Chemical (Nutrient) Cycling

Natural Capital= Natural Resources + Natural Services Natural resources- materials and energy in

nature that are essential or useful to humans Natural Services- process in nature, such as

purification of air, water and renewal of topsoil.

Degrading of Natural Capital Solutions

Resource- Anything that we can obtain from the environment to meet our needs and wants.

Perpetual Resource- The Sun

Renewable- A resource that takes anywhere from several days to several hundred years to be replenished, through natural processes.

As long as we don’t consume if faster than nature can renew it.

Forest, grasslands, fish populations, freshwater, etc.

Non-Renewable- A resource that exist in a fixed quantity, or stock, in the earths curst. Ex: Coal, oil, salt, sand

Ecological –

RenewableNon renewablePotentially

renewable

Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.

Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.

Economic Growth- An increase in a nation’s output of goods and services.

Gross National Productive- Market value in current dollars of all goods and services produced by a country

Per Capita GNP – GNP/Total population

Gross Domestic Product- (GDP)-Market value in current dollars of all goods and services produced WITHIN a country for use during a year

1.2 billion (19%) Highly industrialized 85% of world wealth and income Use 88% of world resources Generate 75% of wasteUS,Canada,Japan,Australia,New

Zealand ,most of Europe

4.9 billion (81%) Low to moderate

industrialized 15% of world wealth and

income Use 12% of world resources Asia, Latin America, Africa

Pollution- any presence within the environment of a chemical or other agent such as noise or heat at a level that is harmful to the health, survival, or activities of humans or other organisms.

Natural – volcanoesAnthropogenic – human activities

(burning of coal or dumping of chemicals into rivers and oceans.

Point Source Pollution- pollutants that are single, identifiable source.Ex: smokestack from a coal burning powerplant, drainpipe of a factory, exhaust from an automobile.

Non-point Source Pollution- are dispersed and often difficult to identify.Ex: Pesticides blown from the land into the air, runoff of fertilizers, pesticides, and trash from the land into streams and lakes.

We have tried to deal with pollution in two very different ways

Pollution Cleanup- involves cleaning up or diluting pollutants AFTER we have produced them.

Pollution Prevention- reduces or eliminates the production of pollution

Three types of property- Private Common Property (right to certain

resources are held by a large group of individuals. 1/3 of land in US is owned by all US Citizens and run by the government. (Parks)

Open-Access Renewable- owned by no one and available for use for cheap or mostly free. Clean air, open ocean and its fish & ,wildlife species,

Many common-property and open access and renewable resources have been degraded.

1968, Biologist Garrett Hardin (1915-2003) called this degradation Tragedy of the Commons

Solving Environmental Problems is result of struggle between: Short term welfare Long term environmental

stability and societal welfare

In less developed countries , the individual use of resources and the resulting environmental impact is low, where as in more developed countries individuals are more affluent (wealthy) and consume resources far beyond their basic needs.

The average amount of land, water and ocean required to provide that person with all the resources they consume.

Earth’s Productive Land and WaterEarth’s Productive Land and Water

28.2 billion 28.2 billion acresacres

Amount Each Person is Allotted Amount Each Person is Allotted (divide Productive Land and Water (divide Productive Land and Water by Human Population)by Human Population)

4.7 acres4.7 acres

Current Global Ecological Footprint Current Global Ecological Footprint of each personof each person

5.7 acres5.7 acres

Ehrlich and Holdren (Scientist in the 1970’s) developed a simple model showing how population size, affluence, beneficial and harmful effect help to determine environmental impact

I= PxAxT I (Impact)= P (population) x A (affluence)

x T (technology)

Pollution Environmental Degradation Population growth Wasteful and unsustainable

resource use Poverty Pollution

Exponential Growth– quantity increases by a fixed percentage of the whole in a given time. (ex 2%)

This starts of slow but doubles again and again and grow to enormous numbers.

Rule of 70: 70/ percentage of growth rate= Doubling Time

Ex: If the growth rate is 3 % what is the doubling time?

70/3%= 23.3 yrs, it will take that population 23.3 years to double its population

At the current rates of exponential growth, the human population will reach 8 billion by 2025.

Rapid population growth

Wasteful use of resources

PovertyFailure to

encourage earth sustaining economic development

Failure to include overall economic cost

Maximum number of organisms an environment can support over a specified period of time

Social, economic and environmental change that leads to an increasingly integrated world

economic, information and

communication,environmental effects

Poverty is defined as people who are unable to fulfill their basic needs for adequate food, water, shelter, health, and education.

2008 Study- 1/5 people on this planet live in extreme poverty. (Live on less than $1.25 a day)

Those that live in poverty do degrade potentially renewable forests, soils, grasslands, etc…they do not have the luxury of worrying about long term.

But many time the converse is true. Pollution and environmental degradation have a severe impact on the poor and can increase their

poverty.

Most of the world's desperately poor die prematurely from 4 preventable disease. All of which are made worse by degrading environmental issues. Malnutrition Increased susceptibility to normally nonfatal

infectious diseases (diarrhea and measles.) Lace of clean drinking water Severe Respiratory disease. (breathing

smoke from open fires, poorly vented stoves, etc)

Planetary Management or (ANTHROPOCENTRIC-) “we are in charge of nature, always more to use, all economic growth is good”

The Stewardship Worldview- holds that we should manage the earth for our benefits, but that we have an ethical responsibility to be caring and responsible managers, or stawards of the earth.

Earth Wisdom –”nature for all of earth’s species, not always more to use, make a judgment call about economic growth

International trade of goods increased

Transnational corporations from

7,000 to 53,000Phones –from 89

to 850 millionPassenger

kilometers – from 28 million to 2.6 trillion

Infectious microbes transported

Hunter gatherers – 12,000 years ago

Agricultural revolution – 10,000-12,000-

Industrial revolution-275 years ago

Technological revolution – 50 years ago

nomadic, living in small bands, population in balance with food

supplyhigh infant mortality,life expectancy 30-40 yr.

3 energy sources - sun, fire, muscle power

settled communities slash and burn cultivation

to fertilize nutrient poor field by ashes

shifting cultivation subsistence farming

Urbanization and agricultural expansion, cut down forests, destroyed habitats, soil erosion and desertification

birth rate faster than death- population increase

wood used up - coal usage steam generation fossil fuel powered farm

machinery- less farmers needed- moved to cities

The Industrial Societies began many of the environmental problems we still see today.

increase in agricultural products

lower infant mortality improved health increase in longevity net population increase

1903-Theodore Roosevelt, Pelican Island,Florida to save the Brown Pelican

1905- Gifford Pinchot - US Forest Service

“resources should be saved to be used for the greatest good, for the greatest number, for the longest time”

John Muir , Sierra Club “fundamental right of

organisms to exist for it’s own sake”

1962- , Rachel Carson “Silent Spring”, threats of pollution and toxic chemicals

David Brower and Barry Commoner,Paul Ehrlich,Garret Hardin -relationship between population growth, resource use,pollution

1963 - air pollution in New York

Laundry detergent in water 1969- Cuyahoga in Ohio Love Canal , New York pollution of Lake Erie Extinction -grizzly,bald

eagle,whooping crane,falcon

1972-UN- Human development

1973 - OPEC oil embargo Roland and Molina - CFC’s

cause ozone depletion Carter creates Superfund to

clean hazardous waste sites(Love Canal)

Three Mile Island

1981 - Ronald Reagan - sagebrush philosophy

1986-Chernobyl disaster 1987-Montreal Protocol -

fade out CFC’s Exxon Valdez disaster

1991-Persian Gulf war - protect oil

1992 - UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

1994 - UN Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, Egypt.

1995- US Congress,reduce environmental spending - vetoed by Clinton

1997 - Kyoto- global warming

Clinton protects large areas in national forests from roads and logging - designated as national monuments

remove most lands from federal ownership and turn over to States

great supporter - Ronald Reagan

pollution cleanup to prevention waste disposal to waste

reduction species protection to habitat

protection increased resource use to

conservation