Chapter 1: Environmental
Problems, Their Causes, and
Sustainability
This chapter is supposed to
scare you into wanting to act…it
did me! It starts with exponential
growth…how would you describe
that?
Exponential Growth
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Read story in text about kings playing chess and
loser giving grain by exponential growth (1 grain
of wheat on the first square of board; double that
for each square; so 4 grains on 3rd square all the
way to square 64; how many grains of wheat
there?)…bad deal for the loser king!
Exponential Growth is defined as quantity
increases at a fixed percentage per unit of
time…starts off slowly but grows to enormous
numbers; so often it doesn’t seem so dangerous
at the start
The effect of Human Population Growth
on our Earth, Resources, and Future
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Yikes! 8-10 billion people on planet
Earth by 2100?
Not everyone lives like us
though…in fact 53% of people in
world try to survive on a daily
income of <$2…and 1 in 6 survive
on <$1/ day!
Poverty affects environmental
quality because to survive many of
poor must deplete and degrade
local forests, grasslands, soils,
water, and wildlife.
Human activities are estimated to
cause premature extinction of
species at an exponential rate of
0.1 to 1% per year…an irreversible
loss
Is our exponential growth in human activities
changing the earth’s climate? Ruining
farmlands? Shifting water supplies? Altering
and reducing biodiversity? Disrupting
economies in parts of the world? What does
the future look like if human pop keeps
growing?
So what can we do about our
growing population and needs?
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Here’s the silver lining to this scenario: there are some
things we can do to protect the environment upon which we
all rely for our physical sustenance.
Enter: Environmental Science which is the relatively new
study of how the earth works, how humans interact with the
earth, and how to deal with environmental problems
In AP Environmental Science (APES), we will focus on
indentifying and dealing with the problems. In order to do
that, you need to know the background information about
the earth (natural science) and human societies (social
science). This means you MUST keep up with your
readings and assignments on all this background
info…such as these powerpoints, online assignments and
quizzes. Any questions?
10 Big Questions for chapter 1
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The remainder of this powerpoint will
address the 10 background questions for
APES
We will address each question in much
more detail as we move through our
text…however, a brief look now starts us all
off on roughly the same foot.
You might start a separate page of notes
for each question to be revisited at later
moments in the course
1. What are the major themes
of AP Environmental Science?
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Environment: biotic and abiotic/ limited resources/ the earth
is one interconnected system
Ecology: relationships between living organisms and their
environment/ all of these relationships are based on energy
transformations
Sustainability: using resources in such a way as to survive
indefinitely/ human activity alters natural systems so people
must consciously move to sustainability in order for the
human race to survive in this limited, interconnected
environment
Environmentalism: social and political movement to protect
the earth’s life support systems/ this is both cultural and social
in nature/ science is a process so we’re developing answers
for sustainability as we identify the problems
Concept Map of
Environmental Science
Environmental Science
Ecosystems:
Ecology
Matter Cycling
Energy Flow
Human Systems:
Resources:
Politics/ Economics
Energy Resources
Populations
Matter Resources
Sustainable Societies (land, water, air, food)
Resource Use
Renewable/nonrenewable
2. What keeps us alive? What is
an environmentally sustainable
society?
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Simply stated: sustainability is the ability of
earth’s various systems, (including the
human cultural systems and economies) to
survive and adapt to changing
environmental conditions indefinitely
An environmentally sustainable society
meets basic resource needs of its people in
a just and equitable manner without
degrading or depleting the natural capital
that supplies these resources
Steps to Sustainability
1. Start with environment…understand our
natural capital: energy and matter
2. Recognize human activities degrade
natural capital by using normally renewable
resources faster than nature can renew
them
3. Find some workable solutions to preserve
natural capital for each resource we need
4. Know that solutions (changes in the way
we do things) involve some conflicts…and
we all must make trade offs or
compromises to reach solutions
5. In the search for solutions individuals
matter…whether it’s the scientist that
designs a more efficient engine or the
community group that teaches about
recycling…we all are part of the solution
3. How fast is the human
population growing?
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Exponential growth of world
population has slowed (from
22% in 1963 to 1.23% in
2006)…but now it is
unequally distributed
between rich and poor
countries
A quick way to calculate
doubling time is rule of 70:
70÷percentage growth rate.
So 70/1.23=57 years world
population will double
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If you haven’t done so
before, check out the
really amazing world
population clock from
the Office of Population
Research at Princeton
University. Its
synchronized with US
Census Bureau and
provides an estimation
of world population.
http://opr.princeton.edu/
popclock/
What can we surmise about the country
from its population pyramid?
4. What is the difference between economic
growth, economic development, and
environmentally sustainable economic
development?
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Economic Growth is an increase in the capacity of
a country to provide people with goods and
services. Economic growth is measured by the
percentage change in the country’s gross
domestic product (GDP). GDP is the annual
market value of all goods and services produced
in the country. To see the GDP per person its
called per capita GDP. An additional measure for
GDP is called PPP or Purchasing Power Parity.
This measures the value of goods and services
based on exchange rates of different currencies.
In terms of GDP-PPP, the world’s 6 largest
economies in 2006 were, in order, US, China,
Japan, India, Germany and France
ID which items are consumer goods and services
(C ), government purchases of goods and services
(G), or investment goods (I)
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Public Library
Expansion
Canned fruits and
vegetables
Frozen meats and fish
Dresses and suits
Park maintenance
Video rentals
Laundry services
Furniture
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New fruit and vegetable
warehouses
New meat and fish
freezing machines
New roads, bridges and
schools
Books
Construction equipment
Police and fire protection
New housing
Compute the GDP for this year…
Then calculate the GDP percentages
for C, G, I
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Library: 2,500 rolas
Canned fruits 19,300 rolas
Frozen meats 5,700 rolas
Dresses and suits 23,600 rolas
Park maintenance 8,200 rolas
Video rentals 5,200 rolas
Laundry services 4,100 rolas
New fruit warehouses 8,900 rolas
New meat freezing machines 3,200
rolas
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New roads, bridges and
schools 12,100 rolas
Books 9,600 rolas
Construction equipment
2,400 rolas
Police and fire protection
2,500 rolas
New housing 1,800 rolas
Furniture 1,900 rolas
Economic Development is the
improvement of human living standards
by economic growth.
The United Nations (UN) classifies the world’s countries as
economically developed or developing, based primarily on their
degree of industrialization and their per capita GDP-PPP
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Developed Countries
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Developing Countries
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U.S., Canada, Japan, Australia, New
Zealand, and most European countries
Roughly 1.2 billion people live in these
developed countries
Developed countries contrast to
developing countries not only in
increased wealth and income, but also
in decreased population growth,
increased resource use and increased
pollution and waste produced
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Most of the nations in Africa, Asia,
and Latin America. Some of these
countries are considered
moderately developed such as
China, India, Brazil and Mexico.
These countries have primarily
middle income earners. The others
are considered low income
countries.
An estimated 5.4 billion people live
in these countries
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Environmentally Sustainable
Economic Development
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Use political and economic systems to
“encourage” environmentally beneficial and
sustainable forms of economic development
If you are a developing country, however, you
don’t have the economic power and
sometimes lack the political system to
effectively move towards environmentally
sustainable economic development.
4. What is the difference between economic growth,
economic development, and environmentally
sustainable economic development?
Answer this question in 3 paragraphs. Include
 a description of terms and appropriate use of per capita
GDP and PPP,
 a comparison of developed and developing countries,
 discussion on exponential growth of some developing
countries (for instance China’s economy has been growing
at an astonishing rate of 9.5% per year since 1985. How
long until it doubles its economic output? How might this
affect sustainable practices?), and
 Specific examples of how citizens of developing countries
may choose to continue non-sustainable practices to earn a
living
5. What are the earth’s main types of
resources? How can they be depleted or
degraded?
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From a human standpoint, a resource is anything
obtained from the environment to meet our needs and
wants.
Resources are classified as perpetual (sunlight),
renewable (water, wood, soil, animals, fresh air), and
nonrenewable (fossil fuels)
Resources can also be directly available (such as
wind, surface water) or not directly available, such as
fossil fuels, groundwater and modern bioengineered
crops
Renewable vs. non-renewable…
of which do you use more?
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Renewable resources: on
a human time scale can be
replenished fairly quickly…
(hours to decades) through
natural processes.
Renewable resources are
not used faster than they
can be replaced
Can be depleted or
degraded by using too
quickly, but conversely,
can be used indefinitely by
reducing available supply
to a “sustainable yield”
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Non-renewable resources exist in a
fixed quantity or stock in the earth’s
crust.
Non-renewable resources can be
replenished but only on a time
scale of millions to billions of years
by geological processes
Examples: energy resources such
as coal, oil, natural gas; metallic
mineral resources such as copper,
iron and aluminum; and nonmetallic
mineral resources such as salt,
clay, sand and phosphates
These often become “economically
depleted” then the costs of
extracting and using them exceeds
its economic value
Tragedy of the Commons
One cause of environmental degradation of renewable resources is the overuse
of common-property or “free-access” resources
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Biologist Garrett Hardin
in 1968 named this
degradation of freeaccess resources the
“Tragedy of the
Commons”. People think
“if I don’t use this,
someone else will…the
little bit I pollute won’t
matter”
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Solutions to “tragedy of
the commons” could be
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Regulation of access or
use of these resources
(usually by government)
Convert to private
ownership (but will all
owners protect
resources as an
investment?)
Ecological Footprints
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The ecological footprint
is the amount of
biologically productive
land and water needed
to supply an area with
resources and to absorb
the wastes and pollution
produced by such
resource use.
Overall, humanity’s
ecological footprint
exceeds by 39% earth’s
biocapacity to replenish
renewable resources
and absorb waste and
pollution
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To determine your own ecological
footprint and educate yourself…check
out the following websites:
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http://www.myfootprint.org/en/
http://www.earthday.net/footprint/inde
x.html
Strategy for
conserving resources:
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Reduce: First and easiest strategy to
conserve…just don’t use as much of a particular
resource. List 3 ways you can reduce use of
nonrenewable resources.
Reuse: Listed second because requires some
energy but not as expensive as last strategy…how
can you reuse nonrenewable resources?
Recycle: May cost some, but not as degrading as
continuing to extract and use nonrenewable
resources. What do you recycle?
5. What are the earth’s main types of
resources? How can they be depleted
or degraded?
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Now that you’ve learned a little about types of
resources and how they are depleting…guess
what?
Right! Write about it!  Answer question 5 in
two parts. In the first part describe types of
resources and who has access to these
resources. In part 2, describe how or why
nonrenewable resources are being depleted,
who is depleting these resources and how we
can address this problem.
6. What are the principal types of
pollution, and what can we do
about pollution?
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 Pollution can:
Pollution is
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Enter environment naturally or by human
the presence
activity
of chemicals
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Contaminate area where its produced or be
at high
carried to other areas by water or wind
enough
Most human pollution is caused by urban areas,
levels in air,
industrial areas, or industrialized agriculture.
water, soil, or
Pollutants we produce come from 2 sources:
food to
threaten the
A. Point source pollutants have single identifiable
health,
sources such as a smokestack, drainpipe or exhaust
survival, or pipe
activities of
B. Non-Point source pollutants have a larger,
humans or dispersed and often difficult to identify source, such as
other living pesticides sprayed into air, runoff of fertilizer, erosion
organisms. into waterways
Three unwanted effects of
pollutants
1.
2.
3.
Disrupt or degrade life-support systems for humans and
other species
Damage wildlife, human health, and property
Create nuisances such as noise, unpleasant smells, tastes,
and sights
Solutions for Pollution:
Prevention vs. Cleanup
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Prevention/
Input Pollution
Control:
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Technology
Government
incentives
Cost benefit
ratio for
investors
Better for
environment
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Cleanup/ Output Pollution
Control:
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Only temporary if not working on
technology to reduce output
Cleanup often removes one
pollutant and puts others into
environment
Once pollutants have entered
environment, impossible to truly
remove all of them…even to
acceptable levels.
7. What are the basic causes of today’s
environmental problems, and how are
these causes connected?
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Most of today’s environmental and resource
problems are a result of:
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Exponential growth of population
Unsustainable resource use
Poverty
Not including the environmental costs of
economic goods and services in market prices
Trying to manage and simplify nature with too
little knowledge of how it works
How are these causes
connected?
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Economy!
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Culture!
Others way to look at the
issue:
or
Note the introduction of social and economic equity
or “justice” into the quest to sustainable growth and
environmental resource protection
8. What are the harmful
environmental effects of poverty and
affluence?
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Poverty is defined as the
inability to meet one’s basic
economic needs.
Many people in poverty are
homeless
Their daily lives focus on
getting enough food, water
and fuel for cooking and
heating to survive
They are desperate for land
to grow food and deplete and
degrade forests, soil,
grasslands, wildlife all for
short-term survival
They do not have the luxury
of worrying about long-term
environmental quality or
sustainability
Poverty affects population
growth
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Poor people have many
 Many poor die prematurely
children as a form of
from four preventable health
economic security. Children
problems:
can:
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Malnutrition (kwashiorkor)
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Help gather fuel
Haul drinking water
Tend crops and livestock
Work or beg for money
Help parents survive in old age
before death (in 50s for
poorest countries)
* So what does the overall population look
like in a poor country with these
characteristics?
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Susceptibility to normally
nonfatal infectious diseases such
as diarrhea and measles
Lack of access to clean drinking
water
Severe respiratory disease from
inhaling indoor air pollutants by
burning wood or coal in open
fires or poorly vented stoves for
heating and cooking
Affluenza
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This is the new term to describe the
unsustainable addiction to overconsumption
and materialism exhibited in the lifestyles of
many affluent consumers in the United States
and other developed countries and rising
middle class in countries such as China and
India
“Too many people spend money they haven’t
earned to buy things they don’t want, to
impress people they don’t like” Will Rogers
Effects of Affluenza on
Environmental Resources
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Pros
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Provides money for
developing
technologies to
reduce pollution,
environmental
degradation,
resource waste
Cleaner water &
food supply
Reduce waste with
recycling
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Cons
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Huge ecological
footprints!...means we use
lots or resources and
subsequently create lots of
waste and pollution
Often clean up immediate
environments and end up
transferring waste and
pollution to distant locations
where we don’t need to
think about it
Formula to compare impact on
environment by countries
Population x Consumption
per person x
P x
Average Family in
Developed
Country: Parents
and 2 children
Average Family in
Developing
Country: Parents
and 5 children
A x
Technological Environmental
impact per unit impact of
of
population
consumption =
T=
I
PxAxT=I
helps us with quantitative analysis
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The average US citizen consumes about
100x as much as the average person in the
world’s poorest countries (those big
ecological footprints!)
This means that poor parents in such
developing countries would need 60-200
children to reach the same lifetime family
resource consumption level as 2 children in a
typical US family
9. What three major human cultural
changes have taken place since humans
arrived?
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Many scientists interpret fossil evidence to suggest that Homo
sapiens sapiens have walked on earth between 90,000 to
150,000 years…not long compared to a 3.7 billion old earth.
Man started out as hunter-gatherers.
First come agricultural revolution (10,000 to 12,000 years ago)
during which people settled in villages and raised crops and
livestock
Next the industrial-medical revolution, (275 years ago) led to
shift from rural villages and animal-powered agriculture to
urban society using fossil fuels for manufacturing, agriculture
and transportation. In addition science helped improve
sanitation and control disease
Finally, the information-globalization revolution, (started 50
years ago until today) uses new technology to gain rapid
access to much more information on a global scale.
Each “cultural revolution” has
its trade-offs
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Advantages
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Mass production of
useful and affordable
products
Higher standard of living
for many
Lower infant mortality
Longer life expectancy
Increased urbanization
Lower rate of population
growth
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Disadvantages
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Increased air pollution
Increased water pollution
Increased waste
production
Soil depletion and
degradation
Groundwater depletion
Habitat destruction and
degradation
Biodiversity depletion
Eras of US Environmental
History
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Tribal era
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Frontier era (1607-1890)
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The “frontier environmental worldview” was that North
America was a continent of vast resources to be conquered
and managed
Early Conservation era (1832-1870)
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Native Americans occupied North America for at least
10,000 years before European settlers
Some people become alarmed at scope of resource
depletion, such as Henry David Thoreau, but little response
Present Day Conservation era (1870 to present)
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Increased role in federal government and private citizens in
resource conservation, public health and environmental
protection.
So Where Are We Now? Are
things getting better or worse?
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Experts disagree about how serious our population
and environmental problems are…and what we
should do about them.
Some suggest human ingenuity and technology will
allow us to clean up pollution to acceptable levels
and find substitutes for scarce resources
Others disagree and believe that our global
economy is outgrowing the capacity of the earth to
support it.
The answer to whether things are getting better or
worse is really…both. Don’t rest in either
technological optimism or environmental
pessimism.
Environmental Worldviews
and Ethics
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Your worldview is a set of assumptions and
values about how you think of the world works
and what you think your role in the world
should be.
Environmental Ethics concern your beliefs
about what is right and wrong with how we
treat the environment.
People with different worldviews and ethical
beliefs can take the same data, be logically
consistent, and arrive at very different
conclusions.
Some questions to ponder
1.
2.
3.
Why should we care about the environment?
Are we the most important species on the
planet or are we just one of the earth’s
millions of species?
Do we have an obligation to see that our
activities do not cause the premature
extinction of other species? Should we try to
protect all species or only some? How do we
decide which species to protect?
Questions continued
4.
5.
Do we have an ethical obligation to pass .on
to future generations the extraordinary natural
world we have inherited in as good condition,
if not better, as we inherited it?
Should every person be entitled to equal
protection from environmental hazards
regardless of race, gender, age, national
origin, income, social class, or any other
factor? This is the central ethical and political
issue for what is known as the environmental
justice movement
Three Environmental
Worldviews
1.
Planetary Management Worldview
Nature exists to meet human needs and we can use
technology to manage earth’s systems
2.
Stewardship Worldview
We can manage earth for our benefit but we have an
ethical responsibility to be good stewards of the earth’s
resources
3.
Environmental Wisdom Worldview
We are part of and totally dependent on nature and
nature exists for all species, not just us. Our success
depends on learning how the earth sustains itself and
integrating this wisdom into the ways we think and act.
10. What are 4 scientific principles of
sustainability and how can they help us build
more environmentally sustainable and just
societies?
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We can live more sustainably by copying nature. Below are
four basic components of Earth’s natural sustainability:
 Reliance on Solar Energy
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Biodiversity
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A great variety of genes, species, ecosystems and processes
provide many ways to adapt to changing environments
Population Control
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Who’s at the bottom of the energy pyramid?
Competition for limited resources limits population growth
Nutrient Recycling

Natural processes recycle all chemicals and nutrients. There is
little waste in nature.
Taking Steps towards
Sustainabilitity
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Many scientists interpret data to indicate that we have
perhaps 50 – 100 years to make a cultural change for
sustainable living
One key to this is “building social capital”…this
involved getting people with different views and
values to work together and find trade-off solutions
Another important key is grassroots “individuals
matter” action. “Never dobut that a small group of
thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Margaret
Mead
Story of Chattanooga and
Vision 2000
Before and After Signs along
Tennessee River
Chattanooga is a great example of what
can happen for the environment when you
build human capital