Standard 14:
HUMAN ACTIONS MODIFY THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT
•
Just about every human action has some physical or environmental
impact – positive and/or negative; intended and/or unintended
Lavender Copper Mine Pit in Bisbee, AZ
Society and Environment
Whether it’s mining an ore; or cultivating farmland; or
razing a desert to build a sub-division; or delaying
legislation that would lead to more stringent regulations
on CO2 emissions; or building a light rail for mass
transit; humans’ actions and technologies have had a
great impact on the natural environment.
HUMAN ACTIONS MODIFY THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT
•
There are consequences and costs, merits and drawbacks, when the natural world is modified.
•
They might be political, societal (like health), or economic reasons. For example, a mine may be an important part of a town’s or state’s
revenue while it is booming, like the Lavender Mine that we saw in the first slide in this unit, but once the ore is depleted, the economy
falters.
•
What to do next to reinvigorate an old town? In the case of Bisbee, Arizona, where the Lavender Mine is located, the town became an
artsy tourist town, as seen below, and in 2005, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named Bisbee one of America’s Dozen
Distinctive Destinations .
Human adaptation to and modification of
physical systems are influenced by the
geographic context in which people live,
their understanding of that context, and
their technological ability and inclination
to modify the physical environment.
To survive people depend on the
physical environment.
They adapt to it and modify it to suit their
changing needs for things such as food,
clothing, water, shelter, energy, and
recreational facilities. In meeting their
needs, they bring knowledge and
technology to bear on physical systems.
Consequently, humans have altered the
balance of nature in ways that have
brought economic prosperity to some
areas and created environmental
dilemmas and crises in others.
Human Impact on the Environment
•
Clearing land for settlement, mining, & agriculture provides homes and livelihoods for some but alters physical
systems & transforms human populations, wildlife, & vegetation.
By-products, such as garbage, air & water
pollution, hazardous waste, or overburden
and waste from strip mining are
unavoidable. In addition, they place
enormous demands on the capacity of
physical systems to absorb & accommodate
them.
How much solid waste, toxic waste, air and
water pollution can Earth’s ecosystems
absorb before gasping their final breath and
collapsing?
Intended and Unintended Impacts on Physical Systems
•
•
Vary in scope and scale
They can be:
– Local and small-scale (e.g., like acid stream pollution in eastern Pennsylvania),
– Regional and medium-scale (e.g., an urban heat island with its microclimatic effects in Chicago),
– Global and large—scale (e.g., the clearing of the forests of North America for agriculture or the
depletion of the ozone layer by chlorofluorocarbons).
Human Impact on the Environment &
Implications on Human Health & Well-Being
Asthma, the most common chronic disease in
children and the primary cause of missed
school days, is responsible for more than 14
million missed days per year. In 1980, that figure
was 6.6 million days.
Work absences due to asthma attacks have
increased as well, from 6.2 million days in 1982
to 14 million days in 1999. If current rates
continue, the country will have 29 million people
with asthma by the year 2020.
Source: The Department of Health and Human Services
in a report by: http://www.ncsl.org/default.aspx?tabid=13185
Standard 9: Wrap-Up
• Understanding global interdependence begins with an
understanding of global dependence-the modification of Earth’s
surface to meet human needs.
• When successful, the relationship between people and the physical
environment is adaptive; when the modifications are excessive the
relationship is maladaptive.
• Increasingly, students will be required to make decisions about
relationships between human needs and the physical environment.
• They will need to be able to understand the opportunities and
limitations presented by geographical contexts and to set those
contexts within the local to global continuum.
By Elizabeth Larson, PhD
Lecturer, School of Geographical
Sciences and Urban Planning,
Arizona State University, 2011