ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS, THEIR

CAUSES, & SUSTAINABILITY

OUTLINE

Sustainability

What is an Environmentally Sustainable Society?

How are our ecological footprints affecting the earth?

What is pollution and what can we do about it?

Why do we have environmental problems?

How can we live more sustainably? 3 Big Ideas

It' All About Sustainability

SUSTAINABILITY
• is the ability of the earth's
various natural systems and
human cultural systems and
economies to survive and adapt
to changing environmental
condition indefinitely
Why should we care about sustainability?

• Because we are a species in the process

of rapidly degrading our own life support
system
• UN Millenium Ecosystem Assesment
(2005)
– "human activity is putting such a strain on the
natural functions of Earth that the ability of the
planet's ecosystems to sustain future
generations can no longer be taken
for granted"
3 Principles of Sustainability

• 3 interconnected principles derived from

learning how nature has sustained a
huge variety of life on earth for at least 3.5
billion years despite drastic changes in
environmental conditions
– 1. Reliance on solar energy
– 2. Biodiversity
– 3.Chemical cycling
3 Principles of Sustainability
SOLAR
ENERGY

CHEMICAL
CYCLING BIODIVERSITY
 1. Reliance on solar energy

the sun warms the planet and

provides energy that plants use to
produce food for themselves and for
us and most other animals

without the sun there will be no

plants, no animals, and no food

the sun also powers indirect forms of

solar energy such as wind and
flowing water, which can be used to
produce electricity
 2. Biodiversity

• includes the
astounding variety of
different organisms;
the deserts,
grasslands, forests
oceans, and other
systems in which
they exist and
interact; and the free
natural services that
these species
provide
3. Chemical Cycling

natural processes recycle nutrients, or

chemicals that plants need to stay alive
and reproduce
because the earth gets no new shipments
of these chemicals, they must be
continuously recycled from organisms to
their nonliving environment and back
without chemical cycling, there would be
no air, no water, no soil, no food, no life
What is an Environmentally
Sustainable Society?
ENVIRONMENT

• everything around us
• includes the living and non living
things (air, water, and energy),
with which we interact in a
complex web of relationships
that connect us to one another
and to the world we live in
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

an interdisciplinary
study of how humans
interact with living and
non living parts of their
environment

integrates information and ideas

from the natural sciences
(biology, chemistry, geology);
social sciences (geography,
economics, political science);
and humanities (philosophy,
ethics)
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

3 goals:
• 1. to learn how nature works
• 2. to understand how we
interact with the environment
• 3. to find ways to deal with
environmental problems and
live more sustainably
• Ecology
- the biological science that studies how
organisms, or living things, interact with one
another and with their environment.
• Species
- a group of organisms that have distinctive traits
and, for sexually reproducing organisms, can
mate and produce fertile offspring.
• Ecosystem
-a set of organisms within a defined area or
volume interacting with one another and with and
their environment of nonliving matter and energy
COMPONENTS OF SUSTAINABILITY

Natural Capital

To recognize that many human activities can degrade

natural capital by using normally renewable resources
faster than nature can renew them
• e.g. clearing mature forests much faster than they can
grow back
• eroding topsoil faster than nature can renew it
• harvesting many species of ocean fish faster thatn they
can replenish themselves

Solutions
 NATURAL CAPITAL

the natural resources and natural services

that keep us and other forms of life alive and
support our economies

Natural
resources

NATURAL
CAPITAL

Natural
services
 NATURAL RESOURCES

are materials and energy in nature that are

essential or useful to humans

classified as:

• renewable (air, water, soil, plants, wind)

• nonrenewable (copper, oil coal)
 NATURAL SERVICES

are processes in nature such as purification of air and

water, which support life and human economies

earth's biodiversity of species, ecosystems, and

intracting services provide us with this essential
services at no cost

we can use technology to enhance such services but

there are no substitute for them

one vital natural service is nutrient cycling

NUTRIENT CYCLING

• the circulation of chemicals

necessary for life, from the
environment (mostly from
soil and water) through
organisms and back to the
environment
• Topsoil
– the upper layer of the earth's
crust
– the vital natural resource that
provides the nutrients that
support the plants, animals,
and microorganisms living on
land
NUTRIENT CYCLING
NATURAL CAPITAL

• KEY NATURAL • NATURAL SERVICES

RESOURCES – air purification
– air – climate control
– water
– UV protection
– non-renewable
minerals (iron,sand) – water purification
– soil – waste treatment
– land – soil renewal
– non-renewable energy – food production
(fossil fuels) – nutrient recycling
– renewable energy
(sun, wind, water, – population control
flows) – pest control
– life (biodiversity)
SOLUTIONS

• Scientific research - scientific solutions

• Political solutions - political processes
• e.g. - depletion of trees
– SS: stop chopping down biologically diverse,
mature forests
– PS: implementing government laws &
regulations
• the search for solutions oftens involves:
– conflicts
– making trade-offs, or compromises
The ultimate goal:

• An environmentally sustainable
society - one that meets 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
needs
LESSON:

• Protect your capital and live on the income

it provides.
• Deplete or waste your capital, and you will
move from a sustainable to an
unsustainable lifestyle.
• Living sustainably means living on natural
income, the renewable resources such as
plants, animals, and soil provided by the
earth's natural capital.
How are our ecological
footprints affecting the earth?
RESOURCE

• anything obtained from the environment to

meet our needs and wants
• directly available:
– solar energy
– fresh air
– fertile soil
– wild edible plants
• not directly available
– petroleum
– iron
– underground water
– cultivated crops
Perpetual Resource

• solar energy
• renewed continuously and is
expected to last at least 6 billion
years as the sun completes its life
cycle
Renewable Resource

• can be replenished in days to several

hundred years through natural processes
as long as it is not used up faster than it is
renewed
– forests
– grasslands
– fish populations
– freshwater
– fresh air
– fertile soil
Sustainable yield

• The highest rate at which a

renewable resource can be used
indefinitely without reducing its
available supply
Environmental Degradation

• When use of a renewable

resource exceeds its natural
replacement rate, the available
supply begins to shrink
• Such degradation of the natural
capital provided by renewable
resources is an example of
unsustainable living.
Degradation of Normally Renewable
Natural Resources & Services

• usually a result of rising population and

resource use per person
– air pollution
– climate change
– soil erosion
– shrinking forests
– decreased wildlife habitats
– species extinction
– aquifer depletion
– declining ocean fisheries
– water pollution
TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS

• Garrett Hardin (1968) - biologist

• We are environmentally degrading many
openly shared renewable resources
• occurs because each user of a shared
common resource or open-access
resource reasons:
– "If I do not use this resource, someone else
will. The little bit that I use or pollute is not
enough to matter, and anyway, it's a
renewable resource"
2 Ways to deal with this problem:

1.Use shared renewable resource at rates

well below their estimated sustainable
yields.
reducing use of the resources
regulating access to the resources
2.Convert open-access renewable
resources to private ownership
if you own something you are most likely to
protect your investment
not applicable: atmosphere & open ocean
BAD NEWS!

• according to a massive and growing body

of scientific evidence, we are living
unsustainably by wasting, depleting, and
degrading the earth’s natural capital at an
accelerating rate
• In many parts of the world, potentially
renewable forests are shrinking, deserts
are expanding, soils are eroding, and
agricultural lands are being replaced by
suburban developments
GOOD NEWS!!!

• we have solutions to these problems that

we could implement within a few decades
ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT

• A model of the unsustainable use of

renewable resources
• the amount of biologically productive land
and water needed to indefinitely supply the
people in a particular country or area with
renewable resources and to absorb and
recycle the wastes and pollution produced
by such resource use.
• per capita ecological footprint
– the average ecological footprint of an
individual in a given country or area
• ecological deficit
– if a country's (or the world's) total
ecological footprint is larger than its
biological capacity to replenish its
renewable resources and absorb the
resulting wastes and pollution
• In 2008, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
and the Global Footprint Network
estimated that humanity’s global
ecological footprint exceeded the earth’s
ecological capacity to indefinitely support
humans and other forms of life by at least
30%. That figure was about 88% in high-
income countries such as the United
States.
• According to William Rees and Mathis
Wackernagel, the developers of the ecological
footprint concept, it would take the land area of
about five more planet earths for the rest of the
world to reach current U.S. levels of renewable
resource consumption with existing technology.
• if everyone consumed as much as the average
American does today, the earth could
indefinitely support only about 1.3 billion
people—not today’s 6.8 billion.
Some resources are Not Renewable

• exist in a fixed quantity, or stock, in

the earth's crust
• energy resources:
– coal & oil
• metallic mineral resources:
– copper & aluminum
• nonmetallic mineral resources:
– salt & sand
3Rs of sustainable use of
Nonrenewable Resources

•Reduce (use less)

•Reuse
•Recycle
IPAT-Another Environmental Impact
Model
• Rich and poor countries have different
environmental impacts
• developed countries (use about 88% of world's
resources & produce about 75% of pollution &
waste)
– US, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Europe
• developing countries
– middle-income moderately developed countries
(China, India, Brazil, Thailand, Mexico)
– low-income least developed countries (Congo, Haiti,
Nigeria, Nicaragua)
What is pollution
and what can we do
about it?

Preventing pollution is more

effective and less costly than
cleaning up pollution...
Pollution

• contamination of the environment by

chemical or other agent such as noise or
heat that is harmful to health, survival, or
activities of humans or other organisms
• naturally:
– volcanic eruptions
• human activities:
– burning coal and gasoline
– dumping chemicals into rivers and the ocean
 POLLUTANTS: 2 Types of Sources

• Point Sources
– single, identifiable sources
• smokestack of a coal-burning power or industrial
plant
• drainpipe of a factory
• exhaust pipe of an automobile
• Nonpoint Sources
– dispersed and often difficult to identify
• pesticides blown from the land into the air
• runoff of fertilizers and pesticides from farmlands,
lawns, gardens and golf courses into streams and
lakes
2 WAYS of Dealing with Pollution

Pollution • involves cleaning up or

diluting pollutants after
cleanup they have been produced

Pollution • reduces or eliminates the

prevention production of pollutants
Pollution
cleanup
 Pollution
prevention
3 Problems with Pollution Cleanup

1.It is only a temporary bandage as long as

population and consumption levels grow
without corresponding improvements in
pollution control technology.
2.Cleanup often removes a pollutant from
one part of the environment only to cause
pollution in another.
3.Once pollutants become dispersed into the
environment at harmful levels, it usually
cost too much to reduce them to
acceptable levels.
WHY DO WE HAVE
ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS?
4 MAJOR CAUSES

• Population Growth
1.

• Unsustainable resource use

2.

• Poverty
3.

• Excluding environmental costs from

4. market prices
Exponential Growth

• occurs when a quantity such as

the human population or pollution
increases at a fixed percentage
per unit time
 Poverty
• occurs when people are unable to meet
their basic needs for adequate food, water,
shelter, health, and education
• Harmful results:
– Lack of access to:
adequate sanitation facilities
enough fuel for heating and cooking
electricity
adequate health care
clean drinking water
adequate housing
enough food for good health
 Harmful Effects of Poverty

• Which two of
these effects
do you think
is most
harmful?
Why?
 Prices Do Not Include the Value of
Natural Capital
• Companies using resources to provide goods
for consumers generally are not required to pay
for the harmful environmental costs of supplying
such goods.
• For example, fishing companies pay the costs
of catching fish but do not pay for the depletion
of fish stocks.
• Timber companies pay the cost of clear-cutting
forests but not for the resulting environmental
degradation and loss of wildlife habitat.
How can we live more
sustainably?
Three Big Ideas
3 BIG IDEAS

1. Rely more on renewable energy from the

sun,including indirect forms of solar energy
such as wind and flowing water, to meet
most of our heating and electricity needs.

2. Protect biodiversity by preventing

degradation of the earth's species,
ecosystems, and natural processes.
3 BIG IDEAS

3. Do not disrupt the earth's natural

chemical cycles by overloading
them with harmful chemicals or by
removing natural chemicals faster
than the cycles can replace them.
This requires relying more on
pollution prevention and reducing
the wasteful use of resources.