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Samenvatting Living in the Environment
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Zeer uitgebreide samenvatting van alle lesstof voor het vak Duurzame Ontwikkeling aan de UU. Chapter 1,2,3,5,6,9,10,12-25
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Chapter 11.1
Environment: everything around you.
Environmental science: study of connecton nature:
- How earth works and survived
- How humans interact with environment
- How we can live more sustainably
Key component of environmental science is ecology (biological science that studies
relatonship between living organisms and their environment.. Major focus is study of
ecosystems set of organisms within defned area that interact with one another and with
their environment of nonliving mater and energy. Example: forest ecosystem consists of
plants and animals, these interact with one another with solar energy etc.
Environmentalism: social movement dedicated to protectng the earth’s life and its
resources.
Three scientfc natural factors play key roles in the long-term sustainability of the planet’s
life:
- Dependence on solar energy: sun’s energy warms planet and provides energy to
produce nutrients (plants and animals need these to survive.
- Biodiversity: variety of species. Interactons among these provide vital ecosystem
services and keep any populaton from growing too large.
- Chemical cycling: circulaton of chemicals needed to sustain life from the
environment through various organisms and back to the environment. Wastes of
dead bodies and organisms become nutrients, waste = useful resources.
Key components of sustainability:
- Natural capital: natural resources and ecosystem services that keep humans alive
and support economies. Consists of natural resources (provided by nature and
essental to humans. and ecosystem services (fnatural services provided by healthy
ecosystems that support life and human economies.
o Natural resources categories
Inexhaustble: expected to last forever (sun.
Renewable: can be replenished by natural processes (forest.
Nonrenewable: fxed amount (oil.
o Ecosystem services are natural: forests help purify water and reduce soil
erosion. Our lives and economies are sustained by energy from the sun and
natural resources.
o Nutrient cycling: circulaton of chemicals necessary for life. Without nutrient
cycling there would be no plants disrupts the ecosystem services.
- Human actvites can degrade natural capital. Happens when using renewable
resources faster than nature can restore them.
- Creatng solutons to environmental problems we face. Conficts can arise when
environmental protecton has a negatve economic efect on groups of people or
certain industries compromises.
, - Individuals materr
Three additonal principles of sustainability
- Economics. Full-cost pricing: some economists urge us to fnd ways to include the
harmful environmental and health costs in their market prices. This gives consumers
informaton about harmful environmental impacts.
- Politcs. Win-win solutons: politcal scientsts look for this to environmental problems
based on cooperaton and compromise that will beneft humans and environment.
- Ethics. Responsibility to future generatons: ethics is a branch of philosophy devoted
to studying ideas about what is right or wrong.
These six principles of sustainability can serve as guidelines for beter future.
UN classifes the world’s countries as economically more or less developed.
- More developed: industrialized natons with high average incomes per person
- Less developed: all natons which aren’t more developed.
1.2
We are living unsustainably, process known as environmental degradaton. We waste,
deplete and degrade much of earth’s life.
Human actvites directly afect 83% of the earth’s land surface, used for e.g. urban
development.
UN with report; human actvites overused d % of ecosystem services since 195 . Human
actvity is putting such a strain on natural functon that ability to sustain is not sure.
Some resources are not owned and can be used by anyone; open ocean and its fshed. Also,
less open resources; grasslands and forests. Tragedy of the commons. Degradaton occurs in
these cases because: the litle bit that I use or pollute is not enough to mater, it’s a
renewable resource. Level of use is very high, so it’s huge if everybody thinks this way.
Soluton: use open access renewable resource at a rate well below its estmated sustainable
yield regulaton.
Soluton: convert shared renewable resources to private ownership, this way you’ll feel more
protectve. Most of the tmes this stll doesn’t work.
Using renewable resources benefts us but can result in natural capital degradaton and
polluton. This impact is called ecological footprint: amount of biologically productve land
and water needed to supply a populaton in an area with renewable resources and to absorb
and recycle the wastes and polluton such resource use produces.
Measurement relates to bio capacity: ability of ecosystems to regenerate renewable
resources and absorb wastes and polluton. The per capita ecological footprint is the average
ecological footprint of an individual in a given country.
If total ecological footprint is larger than its bio capacity, the area is said to have an
ecological defcit.
We need 1.5 planets to sustain world’s rate of resource in the far future. We can help the
earth by replantng. What we do to the earth is what we do to ourselves.
,IPAT model shows environmental impact (i. of human actvites is the product of three
factors: populaton size (p., afuence (a. and efect of technologies (t.. I=PxAxT.
Includes the environmental impact of renewable and nonrenewable resources.
T factor can be harmful or benefcial; factories can be pollutng but also trying to decrease
polluton.
China has many inhabitants which pollute but is also planning on being most
environmentally friendly by producing efcient cars e.g.
Since hunters and gatherers tme three cultural changes:
- Agricultural revoluton; more reliable food source and produced more children who
survived to adulthood
- Industrial-medical revoluton; fossil fuels and grow larger quanttes of food, medical
advances made people live longer
- Informaton-globalizaton revoluton; technologies made us gain more informaton
All three gave us more energy and ability to control the planet. Allow expansion of human
populaton and greater resource use.
Also, some technological leaps have enabled us to shrink our ecological footprints by
reducing our use of energy and mater resources and our producton of wastes and
polluton.
Sustainability revoluton in which we could learn to live more sustainably during this century.
Involves avoiding degradaton and depleton of natural capital that supports all life and our
economies and restoring natural capital that we have degraded.
1.3
Major causes of today’s environmental problems:
- Populaton growth
- Wasteful and unsustainable resource use
- Poverty
- Omission of the harmful environmental and health costs of goods and services in
market prices
- Increasing isolaton from nature
- Competng environmental worldviews
Exponental growth occurs when a quantty increases at a fxed percentage per unit of tme.
Starts slowly but afer a few doublings it grows to enormous numbers because each doubling
is twice the total of all earlier growth.
Lifestyle’s of world’s expanding populaton are built on growing afuence. Big consequences.
But, afuence can allow for widespread and beter educaton that can lead people to
become more concerned about environmental equality.
Poverty is a conditon in which people lack enough money to fulfll their basic needs. Poverty
causes a number of harmful environmental and health efects; forced to degrade forests
(this is not always the case.. Environmental degradaton can have severe health efects on
the poor; malnutriton.
, Another basic cause of environmental problems has to do with how the marketplace prices
goods and services. Companies providing goods for consumers generally are not required to
pay for most of the harmful environmental and health costs of supplying such goods.
Because they do not include these costs, consumers have no efectve way to know the harm
caused by what they buy.
Another problem arises when governments give subsidies to assist them with using
resources to run their business. Subsidies encourage depleton and degradaton of natural
capital.
We could increase our benefcial environmental impact by including these costs into market
price, and support economies of natural capital. = full-cost pricing. You can implement this in
two ways:
- Increase taxes on polluton and wastes
- Reduce taxes on income and wealth
Shif from rural to urban living is contnuing at rapid pace isolatng people from natural
world. This is called nature-defcit disorder. People can gain benefts from outdoor actvites;
beter health and beter connecton to earth’s life-support system.
Environmental worldview is your set of assumptons and values concerning how the natural
world works and how you think you should interact with the environment.
Environmental ethics, the study of varying beliefs about what is right and wrong with how
we treat the environment, helps us examine worldviews.
Three major categories of environmental worldviews:
- Human centered: sees natural world as support system for human life.
o Planetary management; humans are separate from and in charge of nature,
we should manage the earth for our beneft.
o Stewardship; humans are separate from and in charge of nature, we should
manage the earth for our beneft. Calls us for being responsible managers of
earth for future generatons
- Life centered: all species have value in fulflling their partcular role within the
biosphere, regardless of their potental.
- Earth centered: we are part of nature and the earth’s capital exists for all species.
Our economic success and survival depends on learning how life has sustained.
Biomicrimy: reveals that life created conditons conductve to life. Three levels:
- Mimicking characteristcs of species like bumps on whale
- Mimicking the processes that species use to make shells and feathers
- Mimicking the long-term survival strategies and benefcial environmental efects of
forests/reefs.
1.4
Environmentally sustainable society protects natural capital and lives on its income. Protect
your capital and live on the income it provides. Living sustainably means living on natural
income, which is renewable. Living more sustainability means more learning to live within
limits imposed on all life by the earth and the unbreakable scientfc laws that govern our use
of mater and energy.
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