Module 3
Population, Resources & Environment
Too many people? Too much consumption?
45:211: Environmental Geography
OUTLINE
• Population Growth
– Current Population Trends
– Developed and Developing countries
• Demographic Transition
– A materializing economy
• Growth in consumption
– Materials and energy
• Economies need ecosystems
– Humans need Nature
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Sustainable Development
• Sustainable development integrates
economic progress, social development and
environmental concerns.
– The goals of economic and social development
must be defined in terms of environmental
sustainability in all countries of the world –
developed and developing (Our Common
Future, WCED, 1987).
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Agenda 21: Principles
1: Human beings are at the centre of concerns for
sustainable development. They are entitled to a
healthy and productive life in harmony with
nature.
4: In order to achieve sustainable development,
environmental protection shall constitute an
integral part of the development process and
cannot be considered in isolation from it.
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Agenda 21: Principles
7: States shall cooperate in a global partnership to
conserve, protect and restore the health and
integrity of the Earth's ecosystems.
• The developed countries acknowledge the particular
pressures that they place on the global environment.
8: To achieve sustainable development and a higher
quality of life for all people, States should:
• reduce and eliminate unsustainable patterns of
production and consumption and
• promote appropriate demographic policies.
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Scarcity and Abundance
• 200 years ago, there were abundant
resources and scarce people
• Today, there are abundant people and scarce
resources
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Population and Consumption
• Is Overpopulation the root cause of most
environmental problems?
– Is the population growth in developing
countries causing most of the world's
environmental problems?
• The global environmental problem isn't just
about the number of people, but the amount
we all consume.
45:211: Environmental Geography
World Population - the numbers
1850 - 1.26-billion
1900 - 1.65-billion
1950 - 2.52-billion
1960 - 3.02-billion
1970 - 3.70-billion
1980 - 4.44-billion
1990 - 5.27-billion
1999 - 6.00-billion
2020 - 7.50-billion
2050 - 8.91-billion
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World Population Growth
The Logisitic Curve
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Population and Growth Rates
Country
Population
(1998)
Doubling
Time
Germany
U.K.
Japan
Canada
China
Turkey
India
Mexico
Ethiopia
Togo
82.3
59.1
126.4
30.6
1242.5
64.8
988.7
97.5
58.4
4.9
433
330
136
69
45
37
32
28
19
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Demographic Transition
• A model of population growth based on
historical, social, and economic
development of Europe and N. America.
– Stable pop. (high birth and death rates)
– Death rate falls, population grows
– Industrialization (economic development) birth rate falls
– Death rates and birth rates equilibrate
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Population Growth Slowing
Down?
• In 1998, the United Nations released its population
update, reducing the projected world population
for 2050 from 9.4 billion to 8.9 billion.
– Of the 500 million drop, roughly two thirds is because
of falling birth rates, but one third is the result of rising
death rates.
• Two regions where death rates are rising are subSaharan Africa and the Indian subcontinent, which
together contain 1.9 billion people, or one third of
humanity.
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Current Population
• World population stands at about 6 billion.
– Expect ~8 billion by 2025
– Largest increase expected in developing
countries.
• Populations in the developed countries have
stabilized:
– But per capita material consumption has not.
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Human Population Impacts
• Several factors determine the impact of a
society on natural resources and the
environment.
– Population size
– Population density
– Level of materials and energy consumption
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Standard of Living
• Standard of living:
– The necessities and luxuries essential to a level
of existence that is customary within a society
or culture.
– Standard of living appears to be closely tied to
energy consumption
• This is a proxy for economic development
• Developing countries aspire to the higher
standard of living of developed countries
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Consumption
• CONSUMERISM is a social and economic
creed that encourages us to aspire to greater
and greater consumption, regardless of the
consequences
• …. but there are consequences:
– especially the environmental consequences of
manufacturing and waste disposal
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Within a span of 200 years, the per capita
energy consumption of industrialized
nations has increased eight-fold.
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Per capita energy use, 1989
Kg of coal equivalent
United States
FSU
Germany
Japan
10127
6546
5377
4032
Mexico
Turkey
China
Brazil
1689
958
810
798
India
Indonesia
Nigeria
Bangladesh
307
274
192
69
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Growth in Consumption
• Worldwide since 1950, the per capita
consumption of materials and energy has
skyrocketed:
– Copper, meat, energy, steel, timber have
doubled
– Car ownership, cement have quadrupled
– Plastic by 5-times
– Aluminum by 7-times
– Air travel by 33-times
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Consumption of Resources
Good
Industrial
Countries
share (%)
Consumption
gap (ratio)
Aluminum
Chemicals
Paper
Iron and steel
86
86
81
80
19
18
14
13
Timber
Energy
Meat
Fertilizers
76
75
61
60
10
10
6
5
Cement
Fish
Grain
Fresh water
52
49
48
42
3
3
3
3
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Human Carrying Capacity
• The human population cannot increase
indefinitely
• In 1798, Thomas Malthus published his
Essay on Population
– Human population increases at a faster rate than
the growth in the food supply
– Therefore, the population will outgrow the
ability of the Earth to feed us all
• His timing might be off but many people feel that
his original prediction is now coming true
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Human Carrying Capacity (2)
• In range management, carrying capacity is
defined as the maximum population of a
given species that can be supported
indefinitely in a specified habitat without
impairing the productivity of that habitat.
• Because of our seeming ability to increase human
carrying capacity by eliminating competing species,
importing locally scarce resources, and through
technology, this definition does seem so directly
applicable to humans.
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Humans and Nature
• Despite our technical, economic and
cultural accomplishments, humans remain
ecological beings.
– Like all other species, we depend for both basic
needs and the production of artifacts on energy
and material resources extracted from nature.
– Furthermore, all energy and matter is
eventually returned to the ecosphere as waste,
where it must be assimilated.
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The secret life of a cup of coffee
• From Colombia
• Forest clearance
• Pesticides
• Local Pollution, water use, etc
 To New Orleans
• By freighter
• Processing
• Packaging, etc
 To you
• Transportation, merchandising, preparation, waste
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Stuff: The Secret Lives of
Everyday Things
by John Ryan and Alan Durning
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Ecological Footprint
• The land (and water) area required to
support a defined human population and
material standard indefinitely.
– The index is expressed in terms of the area of
ecologically-productive land used per capita by
a population.
• The global fair share of eco-productive land
is 1.5 hectares per person
– The average North American’s footprint is 8 to
10 hectares
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Ecosystem Services
• The Earth's human economies would soon
collapse without fertile soil, fresh water,
breathable air, and an amenable climate
– These are Nature's life-support services
• The human economy depends on
ecosystems
– It’s not the other way around
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Natural Capital
• Natural capital consists of three major
components:
– non-renewable resources such as oil and
minerals that are extracted from ecosystems,
– renewable resources such as fish, wood, and
drinking water that are produced and
maintained by the processes and functions of
ecosystems,
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Natural Capital (cont.)
– environmental services such as maintenance of
the quality of the atmosphere, climate,
operation of the hydrological cycle including
flood controls and drinking water supply, waste
assimilation, recycling of nutrients, generation
of soils, pollination of crops, provision of food
from the sea, and the maintenance of genetic
diversity (biodiversity).
• All these crucial services are generated and
sustained by the functioning of ecosystems
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Forest Ecosystems
Goods
Timber
Fuelwood
Drinking and irrigation water
Fodder
Non-timber products (vines,
bamboos, leaves, etc.)
Food (honey, mushrooms, fruit,
and other edible plants; game)
Genetic resources
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Services
Remove air pollutants, emit
oxygen
Cycle nutrients
Maintain array of watershed
functions (infiltration,
purification, flow control, soil
stabilization)
Maintain biodiversity
Sequester atmospheric carbon
Moderate weather extremes and
impacts
Generate soil
Provide employment
Provide human and wildlife
habitat
Contribute aesthetic beauty and
provide recreation
Global Forests
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Sustainability: Two Sides
Ecological sustainability underpins
socioeconomic sustainability
• The necessary conditions for developing
sustainability:
– Securing a satisfactory quality of life for all
(socioeconomic imperative). While
– Reducing the Ecological Footprints of the
industrialized countries (ecological
imperative).
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Sustainability Gap
• While the residents of the developed world
consume on average three-times their fair
share of sustainable global output, the basic
needs of the world’s billion plus chronically
poor are not being met.
– More material growth, at least in the poor
countries, seems essential for socioeconomic
sustainability.
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Ecology Gap
• According to Ecological Footprint analysis,
the current level of global human
consumption already exceeds the available
ecological capacity of the Earth by 30%.
– From this, any global increase in material and
waste throughput seems ecologically
unsustainable.
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The Sustainability Challenge
• If we rely on conventional economic strategies
and technologies to fix development problems,
the additional material growth would further
degrade already stressed global ecosystems.
– Sustainable development is more than simple
economic reform.
– How can we decrease humanity’s total ecological
impact while providing adequately for the needs of
all humankind?
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Summary
• Conventional wisdom:
– Global population cannot grow indefinitely
• Unconventional wisdom:
– Material consumption cannot grow indefinitely
– Carrying capacity is limited by ecological
resources
• Sustainability means finding an ecological
footprint that doesn’t stamp out global
ecosystems
45:211: Environmental Geography