Ecological Footprint
and Sustainability:
Unit 1: Environmental Problems,
Their Causes and Sustainability
Monday, August 10th, 2015
3 Goals of Environmental Science
• Learn how nature works
• Understand how we interact with the
environment
• Find ways to deal with environmental issues
to live more sustainably
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
Earth's Life-Support System
Human Culture Sphere
Air
(atmosphere)
Water
(hydrosphere)
Population
Size
Worldviews
and Ethics
Soil and
rocks
(lithosphere)
Life
(biosphere)
Economics
Politics
To Review…
Ecology- study of interaction of organisms with
each other and their environment
Species- organisms capable of reproducing and
producing viable young
Ecosystem- defined area within which organisms
interact with each other and their environment
(smaller piece of a biome – biotic + abiotic)
Environmentalism- social movement
dedicated to protecting life support
systems for all species
Overview Questions
• What keeps us alive? What is an environmentally
sustainable society?
• What is the difference between economic growth,
economic development, and environmentally
sustainable economic development?
• What are the four scientific principles of
sustainability and how can we use them and shared
visions to build more environmentally sustainable
and just societies during this century?
Key Concepts
• Nature has sustained itself for billions of years
by relying on solar energy, biodiversity, and
nutrients cycling
• Lives and economies depend on energy from
the sun, natural resources and natural services
(natural capital)
What is sustainability?
• Living sustainably means acting in a way such
that activities that are crucial to human
society can continue.
• Sustainable development is the balance of
current human well-being and economic
advancement with resource management for
the benefit of future generations (think about the
“tragedy of the commons”)
3 Principles of Sustainability
Long-term sustainability rests on:
• Solar energy
• Biodiversity
• Nutrient (chemical)
cycling
Solar Energy
• Warms planet, necessary for photosynthesis
(essential for most life on planet)
• Powers indirect forms of solar energy- wind,
flowing water (hydroelectric power)
Biodiversity
• (Astounding) variety of life
• Natural systems that support life (biomes)
• Natural services such as:
topsoil renewal
pest control
air and water purification
Chemical Cycling
• Indefinite recycling of chemicals from
environment through organisms and back
again
• AKA nutrient recycling
CHECKPOINT
1. What is sustainability and why
should we care about it?
2. What are 3 principles nature has
used to sustain itself for billions of
years?
3 Components of Sustainability
• Natural capital
• Natural resources
• Natural services
Natural Capital
• Natural resources and natural services
• Supports Earth’s diversity
• Provided by solar energy
ex: ozone layer (resource) + UV protection(service)
Natural Resource
• Material from environment that meet needs/wants
• Vary in renewal time after use:
 nonrenewable- exist in fixed stock in terms of
human time (energy, metallic minerals, nonmetallic
minerals)
 perpetual- continuous supply (sunlight)
 renewable- days to years for renewal (some fish
species)
 potentially renewable- continuous supply as long as
we don’t consume them more quickly than they can
be replenished.
Natural Resource
• Material from environment that meet needs/wants
• Vary in renewal time after use:
*sustainable yield- highest rate renewable resource
can be used without reducing it
The Tragedy of the Commons Review
(overexploiting shared renewable resources)
described by biologist, Garrett Hardin
• Open-access renewable resources: owned by no
one, used by anyone (air, open ocean, marine
life)
• Leads to: “If I don’t use the resource, someone
else will and any damage I do to the resource
will be too small to matter”
• Results in: exploitation and possibly complete
degradation of common resource (no one can
use it anymore)
Natural Services
• Natural consequence of energy flow
• Provide ecological services
• Purify, recycle and detoxify
ex: bee pollination of crops
rocks, sand purifying stream water
marshes controlling flood waters
soil formation from eroding rock,
decaying organisms
Sustainability - Altogether Now
CHECKPOINT
1. Create a concept map showing a
connection between the
following terms: perpetual,
renewable and nonrenewable
energy.
2. Give examples of each type of
resource.
Humans and Sustainability
• Economic growth- increase in nation’s output
of goods, sevices
• Gross domestic product (GDP)- annual
market value of goods, services produced
within nation (measure of economic growth)
• Per capita GPD- GPD ÷ total population at
midyear (measures economic
growth/person)
Sustainability and Economic
Development
Nations are classified as:
• More-developed- high average income
*19% of population use ≈88% of planet’s
resources; produce ≈75% of planet’s waste
(US, Canada, Japan, Australia)
• Moderately-developed (China, India, Brazil)
• Less-developed- middle-low income (poverty)
*81% of world’s population
(Nigeria, Ethiopia, Somalia)
Developed vs Less-Developed
Countries
Economics: Global View
CHECKPOINT
1. What is the difference between GDP and per
capita GDP?
2. Distinguish between more-developed and
less-developed countries?
Ecological Footprint
• Ecological footprint- amount of biologically
productive land and water required to
support an individual and absorb his/her
pollution
• Per capita ecological footprint- average eco
footprint of an individual in an area
Ecological Footprint
Natural Capital Degradation
• unsustainable resource use by wasting,
depleting and degrading natural capital
• accelerating exponentially
• includes:
air pollution, aquifer depletion, declining
ocean fisheries, species extinction
desertification
Natural Capital Degradation
Ecological Tipping Point
• threshold level at which natural capital
degradation is irreversible
• current tipping points:
1. collapse of some fish populations due to
overfishing
2. premature extinction of species due to
overhunting, habitat destruction
3. long-term climate change due to burning
fossil fuels