Chapter 1: Environmental Science: An overview (CASE STUDIES NOT INCLUDED)

Objectives:

Introduction:

What is Environmental Science?

Environmental Science is an interdisciplinary field that combines knowledge from biology, chemistry,
geology, and other sciences. Environmental science is the study of the relationships that happen between
organisms and their environment.
It is also very helpful to have a background in overlapping disciplines such as politics, ethics, economics, and
others in order to better understand the societal component of environmental problems and solutions.

1.1 Environmental Science defined

The Scientific Method

The scientific method requires observation and the collection

of evidence that is visible, reliable, and testable.
Summary of Scientific Method:
- Observe and gather data
- Formulate a hypothesis
- Test the hypothesis
- Develop a theory

The scientific method is the rules under which environmental

science must operate:

Step 1: Observe and gather data, usually done in the form of

quantative research by making observations and hypotheses
Step 2: Test the hypothesis, explain the observations and
understand data by making a hypothesis.
Step 3: Test the hypothesis, the hypothesis is used to make predications and develop tests. The goal is not to
prove it but rather to disprove it
Step 4: Develop a theory, after the tests, the scientific community is more confident in the hypothesis and it
becomes a theory. Those that never deviate earn the title of scientific law, principle or paradigm.

Avoiding information overload:

We are bombarded with information daily, which can be overwhelming.

The systems approach to environmental science allows us to focus on the information we can use instead
of trying to learn it all. We strive for environmental wisdom on the long term. Environmental science is often
referred to as being holistic, as it seeks connections among all aspects of a problem.

Lack of environmental wisdom: costly (to our species, to our quality of life, future generations etc.)
The most easily measured costs are economic. Sometimes money spent on an environmental problem does
not always correlate with the actual magnitude of the problem. Spending inefficiencies occur because of lack of
information on the risk of environmental issues.
Building a Sustainable World:
Examining the environment and society as an interconnected system.
- The input of energy and materials through society is called throughput
- Environmental resources (or inputs) as sources of throughputs
- Environmental reservoirs that receive throughput are called sinks and are the ultimate repository of
societal output, which could become input and throughput again.

Environmental problems arise from:

- 1. Resource depletion
- 2. Pollution.
Past efforts were “end of pipe”, cleaning up waste after it was produced. You can also reduce the flow of
material through society to control pollution.
Input reduction, which conserves resources and reduces pollution is a better solution.

Figure: People use resources and deposit waste back into the environment. Materials and energy are the
sources, the environmental reservoirs that receive products from humans are the sinks.
Problems can arise from resource depletion and pollution of sinks → Control consumption and reduce the flow of
materials solves this problem.

1.2 The Environment as a System: An Overview

The environment of our planet can be divded into four spheres:

- Biosphere (living organisms on Earth)
- Atmosphere (gaseous envelope surrounding the
planet)
- Hydrosphere (liquid water on the surface of Earth)
- Lithosphere (the stony or rocky matter composing
the bulk of the surface of the earth)
- Matter cycles and energy flows through these
spheres.
- Looking at these overlapping components as a
system can help better understand the
environment and people’s impact on these
spheres.

A system is:
- a set of components functioning together as a whole.
- usually hierarchical; composed of smaller sets of systems with even smaller interacting parts.
- We can choose the complexity (size) of the system we study
Three Key Traits of an Environmental system:
- Openness: whether a system is isolated from other systems
- Openness refers to the degree of isolation of a system.
- The Earth is open to energy, which flows in and out of it.
- Higher quality energy is lower quality energy (entropy).
- Earth is essentially closed to matter, which cycles over and through the four spheres.
- Open system: not isolated (exchanges matter and or energy with other systems)
- Closed system: isolated and exchanges nothing with other systems
- The four spheres can be divided in their own right (for example lithosphere → continental and oceanic
crust → pedosphere, asthenosphere etc.)

- Integration: the strength of the interactions among most parts of the system.
- Integration refers to the strength of the interactions among the parts of the system.
- The degree of integration of the global environment is under debate.

- Complexity: how many kinds of parts a system has

- The global environment is moderately integrated
and highly complex.
- This complexity makes the effects of disturbance
difficult to predict.
- Hardin’s first law of ecology states, “We can never
do merely one thing.” (law of unintended
consequences)

Major Obstacles:

Social Responses to environmental problems are hindered by two

key traits of a system:
- Moderate integration
- High complexity
Disturbances can be transferred from one part of the system to
another
- The World Health Organization reports, the spread of Zika
and dengue fever affected over 100 million people (2010).
- Increased rainfall and higher than average temperatures
increases the range for mosquitoes carrying these diseases.
Some interactions exhibit positive feedback:
- Positive feedback occurs when part of a system responds to
change in a way that magnifies the initial change.
- Positive Feedback occurs when a part of the system responds
to change in a way that magnifies the initial change.
- Example: An increase in global temperature causing
further increase by melting some of the glaciers and
snow that reflect sunlight back into space. This results
in more surface area absorbing, instead of reflecting,
heat.
- Negative Feedback occurs when part of the system mitigates the initial change.
 - When you turn down the thermostat in your home, this causes the heat to come on less
frequently and for the temperature to become cooler, and visa versa with turning the thermostat
up.

Society and the Environment:

Society accelerates the cycling of matter through the four spheres, depleting resources and causing
pollution.
Depletion occurs when the cycling removes matter and energy faster than natural processes are renewing
them.

The equation: I = f(P, A, T) where I = human impact, P = population, A = affluence and T = technology, shows
how population accelerates as a matter of cycling.

Because our planet is a closed system there is no place for this waste to go.

1.3 What is Environmental Impact

Environmental impact refers to the alteration of the natural

environment by human activity.
Impact = Population * Consumption
Rates of population growth and the rates of resource
consumption and pollution generation all affect impact.
Environmental impact is exponential with increasing population
and industrial development

Personal consumption increases throughout per Person

- Overall impact = number of individuals (impact/individual)
- The industrialized countries, especially the U.S.A., have much more impact than developing countries.
This is because they are more technologically advanced.
- The population of the U.S. is approximately 5% of the total world population, but citizens in the U.S.
consume nearly a quarter of the world’s energy.

Exponential growth:
- Population trend show increasing impact
- Currently the world population experiences a net gain of 77 million people (equivalent to one-
third U.S. population).
- Over the last 50 years world population has grown more than in the entire history of human
existence.
- Even if world population stabilizes by 2050, the increase will be approximately 30% more than
the 2011 population, resulting in 9 billion people.
- At the same time, Earth’s resources are being consumed at rates never before seen, which
make consequences difficult to predict.
- Multiplicative processes cause exponential growth. It occurs in population growth because biological
reproduction is inherently multiplicative: most organisms have the ability to produce more offspring than
necessary to replace the previous generation.
- Each newe generation is larger than the previous

The exponential growth of the human population:

 - The earth can support between 6-8 billion people at a reasonable standard of living.

The exponential growth of consumption:

- Consumption (in the economic sense): refers to the purchase and use of material goods, energy and
services in our daily lives.
- Consumption has increased he overall environmental
impact by increasing the impact per person:
- Overall impact = population * consumption =
nb of individuals * (impact/individual)
- Trends in U.S. Solid Waste Production
- The overall impact of solid waste has grown
as a result of increased population, and
despite recent levelling off of the amount of
waste per person.
- This pattern is typical of many other kinds of
pollution.
- In wealthy countries, personal consumption can be
reduced with no impact on the quality of life (green
tech).

The exponential growth of Environmental Impact:

In summary, two basic kinds of environmental impacts are depletion and consumption. Growing consumption
of resources increases pollution as throughput is accelerated. The main causes of increased throughput are
the growth of population and consumption.

1.4 A brief History of Environmental Impact

- Historians identify five basic stages of environmental interaction and thought.

- Gathering and hunting (low population; localized impact)
- Agriculture and conservationism (increased population size; widening impact)
- Industry and environmentalism (faster population growth; increased pollution)
- Transition and sustainability (current stage; increased awareness of underlying issues)
- Some countries are still in a transition stage because we are still in a stage as a
community of decision making.
- Post-industrial stage—the future (sustainability or overshoot?)
- Two outcomes.
- The massive environmental impact of humans is a recent development in the history of the Earth and of
our species.
- Oil disaster
- Growndwater contamination (endocrine altering by-products from pharmaceutical waste)
- Greatest environmental threats cited by the Environmental protection Agency (EPA)
- Global warming
- Ozone depletion
- Increasing species extinction
- As technology advanced, environmental impacts became more severe.

Examining Impact:
Sustainability means meeting the needs of today without reducing the quality of life for future generations,
including the quality of the environment. It can be acheived in many way (tech, recycling, upcycling)
These technologies allow a sustainable economy producing wealth and hobs without degrading the
environment.

Cradle to Cradle recognition:

- Industry that commits to material reuse, renewable energy, water stewardship and social responsibility.
- This means the manufacturer commits to safe materials and accepts responsibility of business as
stewards? In the use of environmental materials

1.5 The Environment as a Commons

Garrett Hardin argued that property held in common by many people would be destroyed or overused until it
deteriorates.The tragedy of the commons:
- Property that people hold in common will be destroyed or at least overused until it deteriorates.
- In our world, these problems are international, which adds to their complexity.
- Many parts of our environment are viewed as commons (water, air, soil).

1.6 Saving the commons

Throughput of matter and energy through all societies must be reduced.

Some countries are in the industrialisation stage (India, China) which puts more demands on Earth’s
resources.
The sustainability movement uses 3 approaches not attempted by previous envionrmental movements:
- Reduce society’s use of all resources (emphasis on input reduction opposed to end of pipe
solutions): waste is viewed as a symptom not a cause of the crisis
- Sustainability movement is more holistic: address the social, economic causes of environmental
degradation.
- Ecouraged growth of local community action groups (grassroots activisim)
Memebers of the sustainability movement are ecocentric (environment centered) instead of anthropocentric
(human centered) → Preserve nature beyond wanting to increase quality of life. Nature has intrinsic value.

Ostrom demonstrated that with the help of resource managers, farmers, fisherman etc. were successful at
sustainable use of the commons.

Key components for best use of Earth resources include:

- Input reduction
- Holistic (interdisciplinary) approach to problem-solving
- Local involvement in issues such as air and water quality.

Reducing Consumption: Defusing the bomb of the North

Rapid population growth is a time bomb

Strategies to reduce Impact (I)

- Strategies to reduce consumption (C) include:
- Reduce materials needed
- Use less or more efficient technology to meet needs
- Choose sustainable technology when possible
True sustainability results from input reduction:
- Efficiency improvements
- Reuse and recycle
- Substitution
- Strategies to reduce population (P) and its impact include:
- Economic development and education
- Paying the true costs of environmental services
- Paying the true costs of imported resources
Examples of Efficiency Improvements to Reduce Impact:
- The EPA reports that conversion to more efficient lighting in homes (e.g., compact fluorescent, LED) in
all U.S. homes would be equivalent to removing over 800,000 cars from the road.
- Lasting longer, these bulbs also provide economic benefit.
- Microirrigation and low-flow or dual-flow toilets can reduce monthly water use.
- Re-using, re-cycling, substitution of materials can also reduce impact.

1.7 Promoting Sustainability Paying the True Costs

When market prices do not reflect all the true costs of a product or service, the term market failure applies.
Most ecosystem services are undervalued or considered free in our current economic system. Environmental
problems can be traced back to market failure:
- Gasoline prices don’t include smog and other air pollutants
- Electricity from nuclear energy does not include the cost of waste disposal
- etc.
Green fees adjust the costs of products and services to include environmental costs.
The U.S. lags far behind most industrial nations in the use of green fees.

Excluding environmental costs by allowing cheap resources and free sinks promotes high throughput

Including Environmental Costs Promotes Input Reduction:

Including costs by imposing user fees and deposits promotes efficiency recycling and other forms of imput
reduction

Another emerging solution is known as payments for ecosystem services (PES): incentives to landowners in
exchange for managing thei land to provide ecological service such as carbon sequestration and sotrage,
spcies habitat and wetlands protection.

Incorporating the true cost of using the environment as both a source and sink could promote far-
reaching sustainable practices.
- Poverty could be positively impacted through prices of goods and services that reflect true costs.
- Water and energy sectors are two areas that could utilize green fees to offset the cost of sustainable
use of resources.
- Economic issues are often at the center of population growth and poverty challenges.

Reducing population: defusing the bomb of the south

More than 90% of world population growth occurs in
developing nations, thus throughput is very important there.
Living to survive one day to the next leaves little time for
developing sustainable systems and practice. This creates a
vicious cycle where population growth leads to poverty
because more people reduces the standard of living.
Fallacy of enlightenment: education will solve the problem.
Often it is not enough, realistic solutions that remove the root
causes must be found.
Legal protection is not effective because of desperation to break laws.

Reducing population growth by paying true costs

Systems and strategies to address the underlying issues of poverty include economic development, education,
and investment in programs in local communities focused on sustainability.
Compounding the challenges of overpopulation is the burgeoning debt, ~50 billion per year, that developing
nations borrow from developed nations.
Debt bomb: rich countries receiving more money from poor countries than they transfer to them
Appropriate payment for ecosystem services from the South to the North could help eliminate poverty.

1.8 The Role of the individual:

- Discounting the future: focusing on the now, the environmental
costs of our actions on future generations are not fully payed
because they are not fully valued in our current economic system.
- Discounting by distance results from focusing on the “here”:
environmental costs of our actions on people living in another area
are not payed

A Solution: Values Beyond the Self and Recognising the True Value of
Ecosytem Services
- The roots of all environmental problems ultimately lie in the values
and consumer choices made by the individuals who comprise
society.
- Initiatives such as fair trade labeling, organic or locally raised food options, Internet searching, social
media, and the increased awareness of ecosystem services are trends toward a more sustainable use
of Earth’s resources.

1.9: Towards a Sustainable World

- Sustainability means meeting the needs of the current generation without sacrificing the needs of future
generations.
- With regard to urgency of population and resources topics, historically two schools of thought exist:
 - Cornucopians, who look to human ingenuity to solve problems to overcome environmental
limitations
- Cassandras, who argue populations will degrade environment to the point of overshoot.
- Both views are extreme. Setting high, medium, and low priority goals and working toward sustainable
solutions is a localized way to make an individual difference.
- Precautionary principle: in the face of uncertainty the best course of action is to assume that a potential
problem is real and should be addressed.

Visualising a Sustainable World:

- Many aspects of our society are affected:
- Scientific paradigms
- Role of the human
- Values towards nature, land and people
- Many social institutions are affected:
- Religion
- Education
- Political systems
- Tech and Ag are affected
- These changes are based on increasing importance of our communities from ecouraging community
values among individuals to creating decentralised, community based economies and political systems.

Considering Earth’s supporting services when contemplating Sustainability:

- Supporting services are at the core of all of Earth’s ecosystems.
- Soil Formation: Without healthy soil ecosystems food crops could not flourish
- Photosynthesis: Converting carbon dioxide to oxygen is an essential process to life on Earth
- Primary Production: Organisms that take convert energy directly from the sun or can fix
atmospheric forms of elements into versions plants can utilize recycle Earth’s nutrients over and
over (Nutrient Cycling).
- Water Cycling: Water is cycled throughout ecosystems which filter and transport it; water is
essential for life.