Environmental Problems, Their Causes and Sustainability

Chapter Outline
The chapter is an overview of environmental problems, their root causes, and the controversy over their seriousness What is earth capital? What is sustainable society? How fast is the human population increasing? What are the earths main types of resources? How can they be depleted or degraded?

Chapter Outline (cont)

What are the principal types of

pollution? How can pollution be reduced and prevented? What are the root causes of the environmental problems we face? How serious are environmental problems, and is our current course sustainable?

Chapter Outline (cont)

What major effects have hunter-

gatherers societies, nonindustrialized agricultural societies had on the environment? What major human-centered environmental worldviews guide most industrial societies?

Chapter Outline (cont)

What are some life-centered and

earth-centered worldviews? How can we live more sustainably?

Living in an Exponential Age

Story of two kings from Babylon Exponential growth quantity increases by a fixed percentage of a whole in a given time 263 grains of wheat Paper fold
42x: stack would reach from earth to moon (386,400 kms away) 50x: fold would almost reach the sun (149 M kms away)

Living in an Exponential Age

The environmental problems we face- population growth, wasteful use of resources, destruction and degradation of wildlife habitats, extinction of plant and animals, poverty and pollution-are interconnected and are growing exponentially
ex. world population has more than doubled in 48 years 1950 : 2.5 B 1998 : 5.9 B 2009: 6.8 B

Living in an Exponential Age

Bad news:
Each year more forests, grasslands, coral reefs and wetland disappear Water tables are falling, some rivers are running dry because of excessive withdrawal of water Vital topsoil is washed or blown away from farmland, cleared forests and construction sites, clogging streams, lakes and reservoirs with sediment Many grasslands have been overgrazed and fisheries over-harvested to the point of collapse Oceans, streams and the atmosphere are used as trash cans for a variety of wastes, many of them are toxic

Living in an Exponential Age

Bad news:
We drive an estimated two to eight wildlife species to extinction every hour, mostly because of loss of their habitats Within the next 40-50 years, the earths climate may become warm enough to disrupt agricultural productivity, alter water distribution, drives countless species to extinction due to burning of fossil fuels (oil, coal and natural gas) Toxic wastes from factories and mines poison the air, water and soil Agricultural pesticides contaminate some of our drinking water and food

Living in an Exponential Age

Good news:
Improved sanitation and medical advances, average human life expectancy has doubled and global infant mortality has dropped by almost two-thirds Since 1960 global food production has outpaced population growth due to new high-yield forms of agriculture Because of improved mining technology, there has been significant increases in proven deposits of virtually all of the earths fossil fuel and mineral resources since 1950s Since 1970 air and water pollution levels in most industrial countries have dropped because of new pollution control laws and technologies Recently, industrial nations have developed international treaties to phase production of chemicals that deplete ozone in the stratosphere

Living Sustainably
What are Environment, Ecology and Environmental

Science? Environment refers to all external conditions and factors that affect living organisms. Ecology study of the relationships between living organism and their environment. Environmental Science is interdisciplinary study that examines the role of humans on the earth.
It uses concepts and information from ecology, chemistry, geology, engineering, economics, politics, ethics, philosophy to help us understand how the earth works and how we are affecting the earths life-support systems for us and other species

Living Sustainably
What are Solar Capital and Earth Capital? Solar Capital energy of the sun Earth capital the planets air, water, soil, wildlife,

minerals and natural purification, recycling and pest control processes The concept of earth capital means we and all other organisms are interdependent and interconnected parts of nature and are completely dependent on nature.

Environmentalist, many leading scientist and a growing number of prominent economists believe that we are depleting and degrading the earths natural capital at an accelerating rate as our population.

Living Sustainably
What are Solar Capital and Earth Capital?

Some economists and business leaders disagree. They contend that there are no limits to human population growth and economic growth that cant be overcome by human ingenuity and technology.

Living Sustainably
What are Sustainability and Carrying Capacity?

Sustainability is the ability of a specified system to survive and function over a specified time. Several types of sustainability: a. sustainable resource harvest means that certain quantity of a resource, i.e. fish or timber that can be harvested each year (or other time interval) b. sustainable earth means that the earths supplies of resources and the processes that make up earth capital are used and maintained over a specified period.

Living Sustainably
What are Sustainability and Carrying Capacity?

Sustainability is the ability of a specified system to survive and function over a specified time. Several types of sustainability: c. Sustainable society manages its economy and population size without exceeding all or part of the planets ability to absorb environmental insults, replenish its resources, and sustain human and other forms of life over a specified period, usually hundreds to thousands of years.

Living Sustainably
What are Sustainability and Carrying Capacity?

Carrying capacity - the maximum number of organisms a local, regional, or global environment can support over a specified period. Not a fixed quantity, it varies with: a. location b. time (including short-term seasonal changes and long-term global changes in factors such as climate). c. type of technology used to extract and process resources

Growth and The Wealth Gap

What is the difference between Linear Growth and Exponential Growth? Linear growth quantity increases by a constant amount per unit time. Exponential growth quantity increases by a fixed percentage of the whole in a given time as each increase is applied to the base for further growth.

Growth and The Wealth Gap

A quick way to calculate doubling time is to use the rule of 70: Doubling time (in years) = 70/percentage growth rate ex. 1998: worlds population grew by 1.43%. What will be the doubling time? 70/1.43 = 49 years Even though the supplies of many resources seem large, exponential growth in their use can deplete them in a short time

Growth and The Wealth Gap

How rapidly is the human population growing? The increasing size of the human population is one example of exponential growth. If such exponential growth continues, eventually the population growth curve rounds the bend and heads almost straight up, creating a J-shaped curve. 60,000 years: to reach 1 B 130 years: to add the second billion 30 years (in 1960): to add the third billion 17 years (in 1977): to add the fourth billion 12 years (in 1989): to add the fifth billion 10 years (in 1999): to add the sixth 13 years (in 2012): to add the seventh 13 years (in 2025) to add the eight

Growth and The Wealth Gap

How rapidly is the human population growing? Recent studies by researchers in Conservation International suggests that: Roughly 48% of the earths total area: have been partially or totally modified by human activities. If unhabitable areas of rock and ice are excluded, 73% of the habitable area of the planet has been altered by human activities Question: What will happen to the earths remaining diversity of widlife habitats and wildlife species if the human population increases from 5.9 B to 8 B between 1998 to 2025 and perhaps to 11 B by 2050?

Growth and The Wealth Gap

What is economic growth? Virtually all countries seek economic growth: an increase in their capacity to provide goods and services for peoples final use. Such growth is normally achieved by increasing the flow or throughput of matter and energy resources used to produce goods and services through an economy: Measures of economic growth: 1. Gross national product (GNP) - the market value in current dollars of all goods and services produced within and outside of a country by the countrys business for final use during a year. 2. Gross domestic product (GDP) - the market value in current dollars of all goods and services produced within a country for final use during a year.

Growth and The Wealth Gap

Measures of economic growth (cont) 3. Per capita GNP - the GNP divided by the total population The United Nations broadly classifies countries as: 1. Developed highly industrialized high average per capita GNPs (above $4,000) with 1.2 B people (20% of the worlds population in 1998), command about 85% of the worlds wealth and income use about 88% of its natural resources generate about 75% of its pollution and wastes (including 90% of the worlds estimated hazardous wastes) US, Japan and Germany: account for of the worlds economic output.

Growth and The Wealth Gap

The United Nations broadly classifies countries as (cont): 2. Developing low to moderate industrialization and per capita GNP Most are in Africa, Asia and Latin America 4.7 B people (80% of the worlds population in 1998) have only 15% of the worlds wealth use only 12% of the worlds natural resources In this context, development is the change from a society that is largely rural, agricultural, to one that is mostly urban, industrial, educated and wealthy with slow-growing or stationary population.

Growth and The Wealth Gap

What is the wealth gap? Since 1960 and especially 1980, the gap between the per capita GNP of the rich, middle income and poor has widened Today: one person in five lives in luxury the next three are middle income the fifth struggles to survive on less than $1per day one person in six is hungry or malnourished or severely undernourished and lacks clean drinking water, decent housing and adequate health care one in every three lacks enough fuel to keep warm and to cook food more than half of humanity lacks sanitary toilets

Growth and The Wealth Gap

What is the wealth gap? (cont) Today: 1.3 B desperately poor people in developing countries struggle for survival Parents, some with nine or more children, are struggling to live on a cash income equivalent of $1 a day or less having many children makes good sense to most poor parents because their children are a form of economic security desperately poor tend to have many offspring because many of their children die at an early age Two to three who live to adulthood will help their parents survive in old age Another 1.7 B poor people struggle to survive on a cash income of about $3 per day

Growth and The Wealth Gap

What is the wealth gap? (cont) Today: when poor families have several children, the result is often far more people than local resources can support poor people have little choice to live in areas with highest levels of air and water pollution and with great risk of natural disasters take jobs that often subject them to unhealthy and unsafe working conditions at very low pay each year, at least 10 M of the desperately poor, or an average of 27,400 people per day (half of their children under age 5) die from malnutrition or related diseases and from contaminated drinking water

Growth and The Wealth Gap

What is the wealth gap? (cont) This premature dying of human beings is equivalent to 69 jumbo jet planes, each carrying 400 passengers, crashing every day with no survivors

Growth and The Wealth Gap

What is Sustainable Development? Economic growth is concerned with increasing the flow rate (throughput) and quantity of goods produced. Economic development involves using economic systems to produce the quality of peoples lives and the environment. Most ecologist, environmental scientists, and a growing number of economists contend that the current form of economic growth is not sustainable in the long run because of the limits imposed by finite supplies of resources and the capacity of the environment to absorb, detoxify and recycle our wastes.

Growth and The Wealth Gap

What is Sustainable Development? Sustainable Development as defined in Our Common Future, a 1987 report of the World Commission on the Environment and Development as meeting present needs without preventing future generations of humans and other species from meeting their needs This ethical concept that future generations should receive undiminished earth capital and economic opportunity is called intergenerational equity. To some people, however, sustainable development means continuing present patterns of earth-degrading economic growth with only minor modifications. For this reason, many environmental scientists prefer to use the terms sustainable use of the planet or sustainability instead of sustainable development.

Resources
What is a resource? Ecological vs. Economic Resources Ecological resource is anything required by an organism for normal maintenance, growth and reproduction. ex. habitat, food, water and shelter Economic resource is anything obtained from the environment (the earths life support system) to meet human needs and wants. Ex. food, water, shelter, manufactured goods, transportation, communication and recreation Classification of material resources: 1. Renewable 2. Potentially renewable 3. Non-renewable

Resources
What are renewable resources? Renewable or perpetual resource in a human time scale, is a resource like solar energy that is inexhaustible. Solar energy is expected to last at least 6 B years as the sun completes its cycle. Potentially renewable resource can be replenished fairly rapidly (hours to several decades) through natural processes One potentially renewable resource: biological diversity or biodiversity which consists of the different life forms (species) that can best survive the variety of conditions currently found on earth

Resources
What are renewable resources? Kinds of biodiversity: 1. Genetic diversity variety in the genetic makeup among individuals within a single species 2. Species diversity variety among the species or distinct types of living organisms found in different habitats of the planet. 3. Ecological diversity variety of forests, deserts,grasslands, streams, lakes, oceans, wetlands and other biological communities

Resources
What are renewable resources? Potentially renewable resources can be depleted. Sustainable yield the highest rate at which potentially renewable resources can be used indefinitely without reducing its available supply. Environmental degradation when the resources natural replacement rate is exceeded, the available supply begins to shrink

Resources
What are nonrenewable resources? Nonrenewable resources resources that exist in a fixed quantity in the earths crust and thus theoretically can be completely used up. These resources include: 1. Energy resources coal, oil, natural gas, uranium which cannot be recycled. 2. Metallic mineral resources iron, copper and aluminum which can be recycled. 3. Nonmetallic mineral resources salt, clay, sand, phosphate which are usually difficult or too costly to recycle

Resources
What are nonrenewable resources? Mineral is any hard, usually crystalline material that is formed naturally. ex. soil and most rocks consist of two or more minerals In practice we never completely exhaust a nonrenewable mineral resource. However, such a resource becomes economically depleted when the costs of exploiting what is left exceed its economic value. At that point we have five choices: 1. Recycle or resuse 4. Develop substitute 2. Waste less 5. Do without 3. Use less

Figure 1-15 Full production and exhaustion cycle of non-renewable resources. Usually, a non-renewable resource is considered economically depleted when 80% of its total supply has been extracted and used. Normally, it costs too much to extract and process the remaining 20%.

Resources
What are nonrenewable resources? Resource experts believe that the greatest danger may not be the exhaustion of nonrenewable resources but the damage that their extraction, processing and conversion to products do to the environment in the form of energy use, land disturbance, soil erosion, water pollution and air pollution.

Resources
What are nonrenewable resources? Recycling involves collecting and reprocessing a resource into new products. ex. bottles can be crushed and melted to make new bottles Resuse involves using a resource over and over in the same form. ex. glass bottles can be collected, washed and refilled many times Reserves published estimates of the supply of a given nonrenewable resource. Known deposits from which a usable mineral can be profitably extracted at current prices

Resources
Resources

Renewable

Nonrenewable

Direct solar energy

Winds, tides, flowing water

Fossil fuel

Metallic minerals (iron, copper, aluminum)

Nonmetallic minerals (clay, sand, phosphates

Potentially Renewable Fresh Air Fresh Water Fertile Soil Plants and Animals (biodiversity)

Pollution
What is pollution and where does it come from? Pollution any addition to air, water, soil or food that threatens the health, survival or activities of humans or other living organisms Forms of pollutants: 1. Solid 2. Liquid 3. Gas 4. Unwanted energy emissions a. excessive heat b. noise or c. radiation

Pollution
Types of pollutant sources: 1. Point sources pollutants that come from single, identifiable sources ex. Smokestack Exhaust pipe Drain pipe 2. Non-point sources pollutants that come from dispersed and often difficult to identify sources ex. Run-off of fertilizers and pesticides Pesticides sprayed into the air It is easier and cheaper to identify and control pollution from point sources than from widely dispersed non-point sources.

Pollution
What types of harm are caused by pollutants? Unwanted effects of pollutants: 1. Disruption of life-support systems for humans and other species 2. Damage to wildlife 3. Damage to human health 4. Damage to property 5. Nuisances a) noise b) unpleasant smells, tastes and sights

Pollution
Three factors that determine the severity of the effects of a pollutant: 1. Chemical nature: how active and harmful it is to living organisms 2. Concentration: the amount per unit volume or weight of air, water, soil or body weight 1 part per million (ppm) : 1 part pollutant per million parts of gas, liquid or solid mixture in which the pollutant is found 1 part per billion (ppb): 1 part of pollutant per billion parts of the medium in which it is found 1 part per trillion (ppt): 1 part of pollutant is found in trillion parts of the medium

Pollution
In gas mixture: reference is usually ppm, ppb or ppt by volume In liquids and solids: reference is usually ppm, ppb or ppt by weight 3. Persistence: how long it stays in the air, water, soil or body degradable or no-persistent pollutants: are broken down completely or reduced to acceptable levels by natural, physical, chemical and biological processes. biodegradable pollutants: complex chemical pollutants that are broken down (metabolized) into simpler chemicals by living organisms (usually by specialized bacteria)

Pollution
Many substances we introduce into the environment take decades or longer to degrade. ex. Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) Most plastics Non-degradable pollutants: cannot be broken down by natural processes ex. Toxic elements: lead and mercury Best ways to deal with non-degradable pollutants: a) avoid releasing them into the environment or b) recycle or resuse them

Pollution
Facts that matter: 90% of the 72,000 synthetic chemicals: we know little about their possible harmful effects Effects of the other 10%: our knowledge is limited because: a. difficult b. time-consuming c. expensive 1,000 new chemicals are added each year Even if we determine the main health and other environmental risks associated with a particular chemical, we know little about its possible interactions with other chemicals or about the effects of such interactions on human health, other organisms and life-support processes

Pollution
Solutions: What can we do about pollution? Two basic approaches: 1. Pollution prevention or input pollution control: prevent it from reaching the environment or clean it up if it does - it slows or eliminates the production of pollutants by switching to less harmful chemicals or processes 4 Rs of pollution prevention: R efuse R - use R - educe R ecycle 2. Pollution cleanup or output pollution control: involves cleaning up of pollutants after they have been produced

Pollution
Solutions: What can we do about pollution? Problems with pollution clean-up: a) It is only a temporary bandage as long as population and consumption levels continue to grow without corresponding improvements in pollution control technology b) Pollution cleanup often removes a pollutant from one part of the environment only to cause pollution in another c) Once pollutants have entered and become dispersed in the air and water (and in some cases, the soil) at harmful levels, it usually costs to much to reduce them to acceptable levels

Pollution
Approaches to encourage application of pollution prevention and cleanup: 1. Carrot approach: uses incentives such as various subsidies and tax write-offs 2. Stick approach: uses regulations and taxes Combination of both: probably best because excessive regulation and too much taxation can incite resistance and cause political backlash. Achieving the right balance is often difficult.

Environmental and Resource Problems: Causes and Connections

What are key environmental problems and their root causes? Figure 1-17; we face a number of interconnected environmental and resource problems

Figure 1-17 Major environmental and resource problems

Environmental and Resource Problems: Causes and Connections

First step in dealing with environmental problems is to identify their underlying causes: 1. Rapid population growth 2. Rapid and wasteful use of resources 3. Simplification and degradation of parts of the earths life-support systems 4. Poverty drive people to use potentially renewable resources unsustainably for short term survival and often expose them health risks and other environmental risks 5. Failure to encourage earth-sustaining forms of economic development and discourage earthdegrading forms of economic growth

Environmental and Resource Problems: Causes and Connections

First step in dealing with environmental problems is to identify their underlying causes: 6. Failure to have market prices include the environmental costs of an economic good or service 7. Our urge to dominate and manage nature for our use with far to little knowledge about how nature works How are Environmental Problems and Their Root Cause Connected? Figure 1-18: Three Factor Model

Figure 1-18 Simplified model of how three factors-population, affluence and technology-affect the environmental impact of a population

Figure 1-19 Environmental impact of developing countries (top) and developed countries (bottom) based on relative importance of the factors in the model.

Environmental and Resource Problems: Causes and Connections

How are Environmental Problems and Their Root Cause Connected? Developing countries: P (population) and T (degradation of potentially renewable resources) are key factors in total environmental impact Developed countries: A (affluence or high rates of per capita consumption) and T (high levels of pollution and degradation per person) are key factors in determining environmental impact Estimates: Average US citizen: consumes 35x as much as the average citizen of India and 100x as much as the average person in the worlds poorest countries

Environmental and Resource Problems: Causes and Connections

How are Environmental Problems and Their Root Cause Connected? Thus, poor parents in a developing country would need 70-200 children to have the same environmental impact as 2 children in a typical US family Leading scientists warn that if we keep adding 80-90 M people each year (all of whom want to be affluent), our life-support systems in many parts of the world will be overwhelmed Some forms of technology, such as polluting factories, motor vehicles and energy wasting devices increase I by raising the factor T

Environmental and Resource Problems: Causes and Connections

How are Environmental Problems and Their Root Cause Connected? Other technologies such as pollution control, solar cells and more energy-efficient devices lower I by decreasing T The three factor model helps us understand how key environmental problems and their root causes are connected However, the interconnected problems we face involve a number of poorly understood interactions among many more factors than those in the three factor model

Figure 1-20 Environmental, resource and social problems are caused by a complex poorly understood mix of interacting factors.

Environmental and Resource Problems: Causes and Connections

How are Environmental Problems and Their Root Cause Connected?
There is an urgent need for greatly increased interdisciplinary research designed to explore the connections between the physical, chemical and biological environment, human health, the economy, political systems, social justice, national and global security and the worldviews that guide our actions toward one another and the earth

Cultural Changes and Sustainability

What major human cultural changes have taken place?
Hunter-gatherers

10,000-12,000 years ago Agricultural revolution

275 years ago Industrial Revolution

60,00 years Homo sapiens has existed

Two major cultural shifts: 1. Agricultural revolution 10,000 12,000 y.a. 2. Industrial Revolution 275 y.a.

Cultural Changes and Sustainability

How did ancient hunting and gathering societies affect the environment? During the 60,000 year of our existence, we were hunter-gatherers who survived by collecting edible wild plant parts, hunting, fishing and scavenging meat from animals killed by other predators Our hunter-gatherer ancestors lived in small bands (< 50 people) who worked together to get enough food to survive Most groups are nomadic and moving from place to place as needed to find enough food

Cultural Changes and Sustainability

How did ancient hunting and gathering societies affect the environment? Earliest hunter-gatherers survived through earth wisdom: expert knowledge of their natural surroundings Their sources of energy: 1. Sunlight 2. Fire 3. Their own muscle power Gradually improved tools and hunting practices increased their harmful effects on the environment Advanced hunter gatherers had greater impact on their environment. Their use of fire converted forest into grasslands

Cultural Changes and Sustainability

How did ancient hunting and gathering societies affect the environment? Hunter-gatherers exploited their environment to survive but their environmental impact was usually limited and local Most of the damage they caused was easily repaired by natural processes because of their small groups and frequent migrations How has the agricultural revolution affected the environment? Shift from nomadic to one centered on settled agricultural communities Cultivated wild plants and domesticated wild animals

Cultural Changes and Sustainability

How has the agricultural revolution affected the environment? Planted mixture of food crops and tree crops, an ancient and sustainable form of agro-forestry To prepare land for planting, they cleared small patches of tropical forests by cutting down trees and other vegetation and then burning the underbush (Fig. 1-23) The ashes fertilized the nutrient poor soils in this slash and burn cultivation These early growers also used various forms of shifting cultivation (Fig 1-23) They have limited impact because they only use muscle power and cultivate only small plots

23

Cultural Changes and Sustainability

The gradual shift from hunting and gathering to farming had several significant effects: Using domesticated animals to plow fields, haul loads, and perform other tasks increased the average energy use per person and thus their ability to expand agriculture Birth rates rose faster than death rates and population increased, mostly because more reliable food supply support more people People cleared increasingly larger fields and built irrigation systems to transfer water from one place to another People began accumulating material goods

Cultural Changes and Sustainability

The gradual shift from hunting and gathering to farming had several significant effects: Farmers could grow more than enough food for their families Urbanization- the formation of villages, towns and cities-became practical Conflict between societies became more common as ownership of land and water rights became crucial economic issues The survival of wild plants (treated as weeds)and animals (competed with livestock), once vital to humanity, became less important The spread of agriculture meant that most of the worlds population gradually shifted from huntergatherers to shepherds, farmers and urban dwellers trying to tame and manage nature to survive and prosper

Cultural Changes and Sustainability

How has the Industrial Revolution affected the environment? Began in England in 1700 and spread to the US in the 1800 Production, commerce, trade and distribution of goods all expanded rapidly A shift on dependence from potentially renewable wood and flowing water to dependence on nonrenewable fossil fuels Coal-fired steam engines were invented to pump water and perform other tasks An array of new machines were developed, powered by coal The new machines led to a switch from small scale, localized production of hand made goods to large scale production of machine made goods

Cultural Changes and Sustainability

How has the Industrial Revolution affected the environment? Fossil fueled farm machinery, commercial fertilizers and new plant breeding techniques increased per acre crop yields These important benefits of industrialized societies have been accompanied by the resource and environmental problems we face today Industrialization also isolates more people from nature and reduces understanding of the important ecological and economic services nature provides

Cultural Changes and Sustainability

How might the Information Revolution affect the environment? We are now in the midst of a new cultural shift , the information revolution in which new technologies such as telephone, radio, television and computers are enabling people to deal with more information more rapidly. Four major areas in which information technology is advancing: 1. Information collection is becoming increasingly automated 2. Information storage involves building larger and large databases

Cultural Changes and Sustainability

How might the Information Revolution affect the environment? Four major areas in which information technology is advancing: 3. Information communication involves instantaneous transmission of large amounts of data 4. Information processing and use involves making sense of information and doing useful things with it.

Is Our Present Course Sustainable?

Are Things Getting Better or Worse? There are conflicting views about how serious our population and environmental problems are and what should be done about them. Some analysts (mostly economists) contend that: 1. The world is not overpopulated and that people are our most important resource, as consumers and producers and as sources of technological innovation 2. Human ingenuity and technological advances will allow us to clean up pollution to acceptable levels, find substitutes for any resources that are scarce and keep expanding the earths ability to support more humans 3. They dont acknowledge any insurmountable limits to population growth or economic growth

Is Our Present Course Sustainable?

Are Things Getting Better or Worse? Some analysts (mostly economists) contend that: 4. They accuse scientists and environmentalists of exaggerating the seriousness of the problems we face and of failing to appreciate the problem On the other hand, environmentalists contend that: 1. We are depleting and degrading the earths natural capital at an accelerating rate and that is leading to serious environmental and economic harm 2. They warn that we are modifying the earths physical, chemical and biological systems in new ways, at faster rates and over large areas than any time in human history

Is Our Present Course Sustainable?

Are Things Getting Better or Worse? On the other hand, environmentalists contend that: 3. They are encouraged by the progress but point out how much more must be done to help make the earth more sustainable for present and future human generations and for other species that support us and other forms of life. Whom Should We Believe?

Environmental Worldviews and Sustainability

How Do Major Environmental Worldviews Differ? There are conflicting views about how serious our environmental problems are and what should we about them. These conflicts arise mostly out of differing environmental worldviews: 1. How people think the world works 2. What they think their role in the world should be 3. What they see as right and wrong environmental behavior

Environmental Worldviews and Sustainability

How Do Major Environmental Worldviews Differ? Planetary management worldview Basic environmental beliefs of this worldview: 1. We are the planets most important species and we are in charge of the rest of nature 2. There is always more (unlimited supply of resources, we find substitutes if we deplete a resource, invent technologies to clean up pollution) 3. All economic growth is good, more economic growth is better, and the potential fro economic growth is essentially limitless 4. Out success depends on how well we can understand, control and manage the earths life support systems for our benefit

Environmental Worldviews and Sustainability

How Do Major Environmental Worldviews Differ? Earth-wisdom worldview Basic environmental beliefs of this worldview: 1. Nature exists for all the earths species not just for us. 2. There is not always more (resources not wasted but used sustainably) 3. Some forms of economic growth are environmentally beneficial and should be encouraged, but some are environmentally harmful and should be discouraged. 4. Our success depends on learning to cooperate with one another and with the rest of nature by learning how to work with the earth.

Environmental Worldviews and Sustainability

How Can We Live More Sustainably? Working with the Earth Keys: 1. Earth Wisdom: learning as much as we can about how the earth sustains itself and adapts to everchanging environmental conditions and integrating such lessons from nature into the ways we think and act. 2. Individuals matter. Anthropologist Margaret Mead has summarized our potential for change: Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Thank you very much for your attention!!