Chapter 1 Outline, Objectives, and Vocabulary
Goals
See bulleted list of questions on p. 6 of text.
Objectives
1. Define exponential growth. Describe the connection between exponential growth and
environmental problems.
2. Distinguish between solar capital and natural capital. Evaluate the significance of these forms of
capital in the development of human societies.
3. Distinguish between living on principal and living on interest. Analyze which of these behaviors
humans are currently illustrating. Evaluate the possibility of continuing to live in our current
style.
4. Define globalization. What factors affect globalization? Summarize the advantages and
disadvantages of globalization.
5. Distinguish between developed countries and developing countries. Describe changes in the
wealth gap between these groups of countries.
6. Distinguish between the following terms:
7. physically depleted and economically depleted resources;
8. nonrenewable, renewable, and potentially renewable resources;
9. reuse and recycle. Draw a depletion curve. Explain how recycling and reuse affect depletion
time.
10. Define sustainable yield. Describe the relationship between sustainable yield and environmental
degradation. Describe the tragedy of the commons. Summarize how most environmentalists
alleviate this type of tragedy.
11. Distinguish between the following terms:
12. point source of pollution and nonpoint source of pollution;
13. nonpersistent, persistent, and nondegradable pollutants.
14. pollution prevention and pollution cleanup. Evaluate the effectiveness of these two approaches
in decreasing pollution.
15. Summarize underlying causes of environmental problems. Describe a simple model of
relationships among population, resource use, technology, environmental degradation, and
pollution. Evaluate which model is most useful to you. Assess which model would be most useful
in explaining these relationships to young children and which more closely resembles reality.
16. Summarize strategies humans can use to work closely with the earth.
Key Concepts (from 18th edition)
1. Living More Sustainably
a. Nature has been sustained for billions of years by relying on solar energy, biodiversity,
and chemical cycling.
b. Our lives and economies depend on energy from the sun and on natural resources and
ecosystem services (natural capital) provided by the earth.
c. We could shift toward living more sustainably by applying full-cost pricing, searching for
win-win solutions, and committing to preserving the earth’s life-support system for
future generations.
2. How are our ecological footprints affecting the earth?
a. As our ecological footprints grow, we are depleting and degrading more of the earth’s
natural capital.
3. Why do we have environmental problems?
a. Major causes of environmental problems are population growth, unsustainable resource
use, poverty, avoidance of full-cost pricing, and increasing isolation from nature.
b. Our environmental world views play a key role in determining whether we live
unsustainably or more sustainably.
4. What is an environmentally sustainable society?
a. Living sustainably means living off the earth’s natural income without depleting or
degrading the natural capital that supplies it.
Key Terms
(Terms are listed in the same font style as they appear in the text.)
Pay special attention to underlined terms.
exponential growth (p. 5)
biodiversity (p. 5)
environment (p. 6)
ecology (p. 6)
environmental science (p. 6)
natural world (p. 6)
cultural world (p. 6)
environmentalism (p. 6)
capital (p. 6)
solar capital (p. 6)
solar energy (p. 6)
wind power (p. 6)
hydropower (p. 6)
biomass (p. 6)
natural resources (p. 6)
natural capital (p. 6)
resources (p. 6)
ecological services (p. 6)
biological income (p. 6)
environmentally sustainable society (p. 6)
living sustainably (p. 6)
economic growth (p. 7)
gross domestic product (GDP) (p. 7)
per capita GDP (p. 7)
economic development (p. 7)
developed countries (p. 8)
developing countries (p. 8)
globalization (p. 8)
perpetual resource (p. 9)
renewable resource (p. 9)
sustainable yield (p. 9)
environmental degradation (p. 9)
common-property (p. 10)
free access resources (p. 10)
tragedy of the commons (p. 10)
per capita ecological footprint (p. 10)
nonrenewable resources (p. 11)
energy resources (p. 11)
metallic mineral resources (p. 11)
nonmetallic mineral resources (p. 11)
recycling (p. 11)
reuse (p. 11)
pollution (p. 11)
point sources (p. 12)
nonpoint sources (p. 12)
pollution prevention (p. 12)
input pollution control (p. 12)
pollution cleanup (p. 12)
output pollution control (p. 12)
malnutrition (p. 13)
affluenza (p. 14)
shop-till-you-drop virus (p. 14)
law of progressive simplification (p. 14)
technological optimists (p. 16)
environmental pessimists (p. 16)
environmental worldview (p. 16)
environmental ethics (p. 16)
planetary management worldview (p. 16)
stewardship worldview (p. 16)
environmental wisdom worldview (p. 16)
environmentally sustainable economic
development (p. 17)
environmental (sustainability) revolution (p. 17)
Outline
1-1 Living More Sustainably
A. Three goals of environmental science are:
1. To learn how nature works
2. To understand how we interact with the environment
3. To find ways to address environmental problems and embrace sustainability
The biosphere is the natural world: plants, animals, soils, air, and water.
The culturesphere is defined by technological, economic, cultural, and political aspects of our
world.
B. Environment considers everything that affects a living organism.
C. Ecology studies relationships between living organisms and their environment.
D. Environmentalism is a social movement dedicated to protecting life support systems for all
species.
E. Life and economies depend on solar capital (energy from the sun, one way or another) and
natural capital (Earth’s resources and ecological services). Capital is wealth (I know, in class i
said “capita” comes from the Latin word for head, Somehow capitaL ended up meaning wealth.)
1. Solar capital/energy creates renewable energy such as:
i. wind power, hydropower from flowing water,
ii. biomass that is solar energy (photosynthesis stores it in biological form, ex:
wood.
2. Natural capital includes:
i. natural resources such as air, water, soil, wildlife, minerals, etc. and
ii. ecological services such as nutrient recycling, pollution control, pest and disease
control
Humans, as a newcomer species, is endangering quality of life for us and other species. Silly
humans.
F. Human must protect our solar and natural capital and live off the resources they provide.
1. For an environmentally sustainable society we must not compromise the needs of
future generations.
2. ***A path toward sustainability includes three overarching themes:
i. Reliance on solar energy
ii. Biodiversity
iii. Chemical or nutrient cycling
3. Biological income (renewed supplies) from fish, grasslands, and underground water can
be
sustained, IF we don’t deplete it.
4. One view is that man must live sustainably by eliminating waste and discontinuing the
depletion and degradation of resources.
5. A different view is that man can overcome these problems with ingenuity, economic
growth,
and
technology.
6. Humans, as a newcomer species, is endangering quality of life for us and other species.
Silly
humans.
G. ***An environmentally sustainable society meets the current and future basic resource needs of
its people in a just and equitable manner by protecting natural capital and living off its income.
1. The shift to sustainability involves building social capital, which involves bringing
together people
with different views and values and finding common ground.
Individuals matter
H. Individuals matter
1. It takes only 5-10% of a community to bring about major social change.
2. Significant social change can occur very rapidly.
1-2Population Growth, Economic Growth, Economic
Development, and Globalization
A. Human population growth continues to be more rapid than the earth can support—about
211,000 people per day.
B. ****Exponential growth occurs when a population increases by a fixed percentage per unit of
time.
C. Economic growth provides people with the goods and services needed.
a. Gross domestic product (GDP), also called gross national income (GNI), is the market
value for goods and services produced within a country.
b. Standard of living is the GDP divided by the total population at midyear.
D. Economic development is improving living standards through growth. Most developed countries
have high industrialization and high per capita income. Developing countries have moderate to
low income; they represent about 97% of the projected increase in world population.
a. Economic developments reflect good and bad economic news.
i. Poverty produces harmful environmental effects.
ii. Soil, water, and forests are depleted.
iii. Pollution levels are high.
iv. Infant mortality rate is 8 times higher than in developed countries.
v. Wages are very low with poor working conditions as the norm.
b. Developed countries enjoy a higher standard of living, including:
i. a longer life expectancy.
ii. a decrease in infant mortality.
iii. greater food production than food needs.
iv. decreased air and water pollution.
v. a decrease in poverty overall.
E. Globalization leads to a world socially, economically, and environmentally more interconnected.
a. Technology, international trade, and human mobility allow people to interact with
others.
b. Environmentally sustainable development rewards sustainable activities and
discourages harmful activities.
1-3 Resources
A. Natural capital/natural resources is anything obtained from the environment to meet our
needs: food, water, air, shelter, petroleum, etc. They can be classified as perpetual, renewable,
or nonrenewable.
a. Perpetual Resource: is renewed continuously. ex: solar energy.
b. Renewable Resources can be replenished in the foreseeable future. They must not be
used up
faster than they are able to be replaced. Ex: grasslands, fresh water
and air, fertile soil, etc.
c. Non-renewable resources are found in fixed quantities and are not renewable on a
human time
scale.
B. Sustainable yield Is the most you can use a resource and still have it able to replenish itself. It is
the highest rate of use on an indefinite scale without degradation or depletion.
C. Environmental degradation (aka natural capital degradation) occurs when the use of resources
exceeds the rate of replacement. These resources become depleted.
D. The Tragedy of the Commons describes the overuse or degradation of freely available resources
such as ocean pollution, abuse of national parks, air pollution, etc.
a. The cumulative effect of many users exploiting a common resource can degrade it such
that no
one can benefit from it. Limiting access to these resources is one
possible way to protect them.
b. Reducing the population might also allow these resources to be used below estimated
sustainable
yields.
c. Converting free-access resources to private ownership is another possible means to
protect them.
i. Private owners may not actually protect the resources.
ii. Global resources such as oceans, air, and migratory birds cannot be divided up
and made private property.
iii. Access to the resources is eliminated/reduced for many people.
iv. Governments have laws and treaties that regulate access to commonly owned
resources.
E. What is our ecological footprint, our impact on the environment?
a. The per capita ecological footprint is the biologically productive land and water needed
to supply renewable resources and absorb waste for each individual.
b. Currently, each person’s ecological footprint is at least 30% greater than can be
sustained indefinitely. As a result, we have polluted air and water, waste overload,
poorer health, less biodiversity, etc.
c. We need four more planet Earths to meet the consumption levels of the U.S.
F. What are nonrenewable resources?
a. Nonrenewable resources are those that exist in fixed quantity or stock in the earth’s
crust. The resource is economically depleted when it costs too much to obtain what is
left.
b. These include energy resources (oil, coal, natural gas, etc.), metallic mineral resources
(copper, iron, aluminum, etc.), and nonmetallic minerals (salt, clay, sand, phosphates,
etc.).
c. There are solutions for an economically depleted resource, which include:
i. trying to find more of the resource.
ii. recycling the resource and buying products made from recycled material, or
reusing the
resource in the same form.
iii. wasting less.
iv. using less.
v. trying to develop a substitute for the resource.
vi. waiting millions of years for more to be produced.
vii.
1-4 Pollution
A. Definition: Pollutants are any presence at high enough levels in the environment to harm living
organisms
B. Biodegradable pollutants break down over time and nonbiodegradable pollutants cannot break
down.
C. Where do pollutants come from?
a. Natural Sources (ex: volcanic eruptions)
b. Human Activities (ex: burning coal; pollution tends to occur in or near urban and
industrial areas.
D. Point sources vs Non-Point Sources
a. Point Sources: single, identifiable sources. They are easier to identify and control than
non-point sources.
ex: automobiles or industrial plants.
b. Non-point sources: are dispersed. They are difficult to identify.
ex: Pesticides sprayed into the air and water runoff may be carried from their source.
E. Three unwanted effects of pollutants:
a. They can disrupt or degrade life-support systems of any organism.
b. They damage human health, wildlife, and property.
c. They can produce nuisances in noise, smells, tastes, and sights.
F. Solutions: What can we do about pollution? Two basic approaches to deal with pollution.
a. Pollution prevention/input pollution control reduces or eliminates the production of
pollutants.
b. Pollution cleanup/output pollution control cleans up or dilutes pollutants after they
have been.
Problems with pollution cleanup:
i. It is a temporary bandage without long-term pollution control technology (like
the catalytic
converter).
ii. The pollutant is removed but may cause pollution in another place (for example,
burning
garbage/burying it).
iii. It is expensive to reduce pollution to an acceptable level. Prevention is less
expensive in the long run.
1-5 Environmental and Resource Problems: Causes and
Connections
A. Six major causes of environmental problems:
a. Population growth
b. Wasteful resource use
c. Poverty occurs when people are unable to fulfill their basic needs. Poverty conditions in
heavily populated areas can have significant environmental impacts.
i. The focus is on survival at the expense of forests, soil, grasslands, and wildlife.
ii. People live in areas with a greater risk of natural disasters.
iii. People generally work in unsafe and unhealthy conditions for low wages.
iv. Life expectancy is reduced.
v. There are no government-sponsored health plans or retirement plans.
vi. People die from preventable causes (malnutrition, normally nonfatal infectious
diseases,
lack of clean drinking water, and respiratory problems).
d. Bad environmental accounting
e. Ecological ignorance
f. An inadequate understanding of how the earth works
B. Affluence is the addiction to over-consumption of material goods.
a. Symptoms include high debt level, declining health, increased stress, and more
bankruptcies.
b. Solutions include admitting the problem, shopping less, and avoiding malls and other
shopping addicts.
c. Toynbee’s law of progressive simplification: transfer energy and attention to the
nonmaterial side of life.
d. Affluence of developed countries can lead to environmental improvements.
i. Money is available for technological improvements.
ii. Compared to 1970, air and water are cleaner.
iii. Money was spent on environmental improvements.
C. IPAT: Environmental impact (I) = population (P) X average resource use/person (Affluence) X
effects of technologies (T) (Some forms of technology are environmentally harmful, others are
environmentally beneficial.)
a. Developing countries have large populations that result in degradation of renewable
resources.
b. Developed countries have high per capita consumption (U.S. use 35–100 times more
than other countries).
1-6 Is Our Present Course Sustainable?
A. Environmental news centers on improvements in the quality of life and protecting the
environment. But, there are many serious problems not addressed and/or ignored.
B. If degradation of the environment is not halted, sustainable development is not possible.
1. The technological optimists tell us not to worry.
2. Environmental pessimists see the problem as hopeless.
C. ****The ecological tipping point refers to an irreversible shift in the behavior of a natural
system. We currently face three potential tipping points:
1. Fish populations collapsing from overfishing
2. Species extinction from overharvesting and habitat destruction.
3. Climate change from burning coal and oil
D. *****Culture describes a society’s knowledge, beliefs, technology and practices. Three major
cultural changes have occurred in human history
1. Agricultural revolution
2. Industrial-medical revolution
3. Information-globalization revolution
4. And now a fourth, called the sustainability revolution
E. Worldviews and ethics determine the way people view the seriousness of environmental
problems.
1. The planetary management worldview holds that nature exists to meet our needs.
2. The stewardship worldview holds that we manage the earth, but that we also have an
ethical responsibility to be stewards of the earth.
3. The environmental worldview holds that we are connected to nature and that nature
exists for all species equally.
F. Present and future environmental problems:
1. Poverty and malnutrition—biggest threats
2. Smoking and air pollution
3. AIDS
4. Climate change and water shortages
5. Decrease in biodiversity
6. Earth’s natural capital will be degraded so that living organisms are at even greater risks.
G. Most serious environmental risks in terms of people:
1. Biodiversity loss and climate change
2. Same as in F above
H. To live more sustainably, we must:
1. identify how the earth has sustained itself.
2. apply this information to our lifestyles and economies.
3. use economic rewards to encourage more sustainable forms of economic growth.
4. use economic penalties to discourage unsustainable forms of economic growth.
I. Change comes from dedicated, committed people; 5–10% of a population can bring major social
change.
J. Guidelines for working with the earth:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Never leave the earth worse than you found it.
Take only what you need.
Do no harm.
Sustain diverse living organisms.
Maintain earth’s capacity for self-repair and adaptation.
Do not waste; do not pollute.
Decrease population; reduce poverty.
Summary
1. All life depends on energy from the sun—solar capital—and the resources and ecological services of
the earth—natural capital—to survive. An environmentally sustainable society provides for the current
needs of its people without undermining the ability of future generations to do the same.
2. The world’s population is growing about 1.2% per year, which adds about 77 million people per year.
Economic growth increases a country’s capacity to provide goods and services to its people. Economic
development uses economic growth to improve standards of living. Globalization is a process of
increasingly interconnecting people through social, economic, and environmental global changes.
3. The earth’s main resources are perpetual resources like solar energy, renewable resources like forests
and freshwater, and nonrenewable resources like oil and gas. The resources can be depleted or
degraded by overuse, waste, pollution, and man’s increasing “ecological footprint.”
4.The principle types of pollution are air, water, soil, and food pollutants. We can prevent pollution or
clean up pollution. Prevention is far preferable because cleaning up pollution often causes additional
pollutants in another part of the environment.
5. The basic causes of today’s environmental problems are population growth, wasteful use of
resources, the tragedy of the commons, poverty, poor environment accounting, and ecological
ignorance. They are interconnected because of political and economic practices that are not equitable
for various populations, in resource consumption and in technological applications.
6. The world’s current course is not sustainable. Environmentally sustainable development encourages
environmentally beneficial forms of economic growth and discourages environmentally harmful growth.