A summary of the book Living in the Environment (19th edition) by George Tyler Miller and Scott Spoolman for the course of Sustainable Development. The summary contains all the concepts and the main ideas, arguments, and solutions. The summary is 37 pages and covers Chapters 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 10, 12, ...
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Living in the environment 19th edition | Ceelen, D.N. (Daan)
Conten
1. The environment and sustainability...................................................................................................2
2. Science, Matter, Energy and systems.................................................................................................5
3. Ecosystems: What are they and how do they work?..........................................................................8
6. The human population.....................................................................................................................10
9. Sustaining biodiversity: Saving species and ecosystem services......................................................11
10. Sustaining biodiversity: Saving ecosystems and ecosystem services..............................................13
12. Food production and the environment..........................................................................................15
13. Water resources.............................................................................................................................17
14. Geology and mineral resources......................................................................................................20
15. Nonrenewable energy....................................................................................................................22
16. Energy efficiency and renewable energy........................................................................................24
17. Environmental hazards and human health.....................................................................................27
19. Climate Change...............................................................................................................................29
20. Water pollution..............................................................................................................................32
23. Economics, environment and sustainability...................................................................................34
24. Politics, environment and sustainability........................................................................................36
1.The environment and sustainability....................................................................................................2
2. Science, Matter, Energy and systems.................................................................................................5
3. Ecosystems: What are they and how do they work?..........................................................................7
6. The human population.......................................................................................................................9
9. Sustaining biodiversity: Saving species and ecosystem services.......................................................11
10. Sustaining biodiversity: Saving ecosystems and ecosystem services..............................................12
12. Food production and the environment..........................................................................................14
13. Water resources.............................................................................................................................17
14. Geology and mineral resources......................................................................................................19
15. Nonrenewable energy....................................................................................................................21
16. Energy efficiency and renewable energy........................................................................................23
17. Environmental hazards and human health.....................................................................................26
19. Climate Change...............................................................................................................................28
20. Water pollution..............................................................................................................................32
23. Economics, environment and sustainability...................................................................................34
24. Politics, environment and sustainability.........................................................................................35
, Living in the environment 19th edition | Ceelen, D.N. (Daan)
1. The environment and sustainability
Sustainability is the capacity of the earth’s natural systems to survive or adapt to changing
environmental conditions indefinitely
1.1 What are some key principles of sustainability?
- Focus on: Solar energy, biodiversity and chemical cycling and natural capital. These concepts play a
important role in the six principles of sustainability.
Environment: Everything around you; all living and non-living things.
Environmental Science focusses on 1) how the earth works 2) how humans interact with it and 3)
how we can live more sustainable.
Ecology: the branch of biology that focuses on how living organisms interact with the living and non-
living parts of their environment.
Species: a group of organisms within a defined area of land or volume of water
Environmental activism: social movement dedicated to protecting the earth’s life and its resources.
We focus on three scientific principles of sustainability
Dependence on solar energy: The sun warms the planet and provide energy
Biodiversity: The variety of genes, species, ecosystems and ecosystem processes. Biodiversity
provides ways for species to adapt to changing environmental conditions.
Chemical Cycling: the circulation of chemicals and nutrients.
Nutrients: The chemicals that plants and animals need to survive.
We know some key components of sustainability.
Natural capital: the natural resources and ecosystem services.
Natural resources: materials and energy provided by nature.
- Inexhaustible resources: e.g. solar energy. It is expected to last indefinitely
, Living in the environment 19th edition | Ceelen, D.N. (Daan)
- Renewable resources: a resource that can be replenished by natural processes
- Nonrenewable or Exhaustible resources: exist in a fixed amount in the earths crust.
Ecosystem services: Natural services that support life and human economies.
Human activities can degrade natural capital. We do this by using renewable resources faster than
nature can restore them. A third component of sustainability is therefore creating solutions.
We focus on Three additional principles of sustainability, build around economics, politics and
ethics.
Full cost pricing (economics): Include the harmful environmental and health costs of producing and
using goods and services in their market prices.
win-win solutions (politics): Solutions based on cooperation and compromise, that will benefit
people as well as the environment.
Responsibility to future generations (ethics): The belief that we should leave the planet’s life-
support systems in a condition that is as good or better than it is now.
Using biomimicry is a major tool for learning how to live more sustainable.
More-developed countries: industrialized nations with high average incomes per person. These
countries, with 17% of the world’s population, use 70% of the earth’s natural resources.
The less-developed countries with 83% of the world’s population use about 30% of the world’s
natural resources.
1.2 How are our ecological footprints affecting the earth?
- Humans dominate the earth with the power to sustain or degrade the natural capital. As our
ecological footprints grow, we deplete and degrade mor of the earth’s natural capital.
Globally, life spans are increasing, infant mortality is decreasing, education is on the rise, some
disease are being conquered and the population growth rate has slowed. At the same time we waste,
deplete, and degrade much of the earth’s life-sustaining natural capital. A process known as
environmental degradation or natural capital degradation. Human activities directly affect about
83% of the earth’s land surface. We are destroying forests and grasslands, withdrawing water from
rivers and underground aquifers faster than nature replenishes them, and harvesting many fish
species faster than they can be renewed. Renewable forests are shrinking, deserts are expanding,
and topsoil is eroding. The lower atmosphere is warming, floating ice and many glaciers are melting
at unexpected rates, sea levels are rising, and ocean acidity is increasing. There are more intense
floods, droughts, severe weather and forest fires. Species are becoming extinct at least 100 times
faster than in pre-human times.
Some renewable resources are not owned by anyone and can be used by almost anyone (shared
resources). The degradation of these resources is often referred to as the tragedy of the commons
(Garrett Hardin)
(Per capita) Ecological footprint: the amount of biologically productive land and water needed (per
person) to supply a population and to absorb and recycle the wastes and pollution such resource use
produces.
Biocapacity: The ability of its productive ecosystems to regenerate the renewable resources and to
absorb the resulting wastes and pollution.
If the total ecological footprint is larger than its biocapacity, the area is said to have an ecological
deficit.
, Living in the environment 19th edition | Ceelen, D.N. (Daan)
While the ecological footprint model emphasizes the use of renewable resources, the IPAT model
includes the environmental impact of using both renewable and non-renewable resources.
China has two-thirds of the most polluted cities: The western economic model – fossil fuel based,
automobile-centered, throwaway economy- is not going to work for china or for the other
development countries.
In the past 10.000 years three major cultural changes have occurred:
- the agricultural revolution (10.000 years ago) when humans learned how to grow and breed plants
and animals. They had a more reliable source of food and produced more children who survived
childhood.
- industrial medical revolution (300 years ago) when people invented machines for the large-scale
production of goods. This included learning how to get energy from fossil fuels and gaining medical
advances that allowed people to live longer.
- information-globalization revolution (50 years ago) when we got new technologies for gaining rapid
access to all kinds of information and resources on a global scale.
Each of these cultural changes gave us more energy and new technologies that allowed the
expansion of the human population, which resulted in greater resource use, pollution and
environmental degradation.
1.3 What causes environmental problems and why do they persist?
-Causes of environmental problems are population growth and wasteful and unsustainable resource
use. Our environmental worldviews play a key role.
The major causes of today’s environmental problems are:
- Population growth
- Wasteful and unsustainable resource use
- Poverty
- Omission of the harmful costs of goods and services
- Increasing isolation from nature
- Competing environmental worldviews.
Exponential growth: when a quantity increases at a fixed percentage per unit of time.
The human population has grown exponentially to the current population of 7.3 billion people.
Poverty: a condition in which people lack enough money to fulfil their basic needs. Poverty causes a
number of harmful environmental and health effects. These individuals often are too desperate for
short-term survival to worry about long-term environmental quality or sustainability. Environmental
degradation can have severe health effects on the poor: malnutrition and other illnesses caused by
limited access too sanitation and clean drinking water.
Companies providing goods for consumers generally are not required to pay for most of the harmful
environmental and health costs. This problem grows when some subsidies encourage the depletion
and degradation of natural capital. We can increase our beneficial environmental impact by including
the harmful environmental and health costs of the goods and series into market prices and placing a
monetary value on the natural capital (full cost pricing).
Two ways to do this: 1) shift from harmful government subsidies to environmentally beneficial
subsides (subsidy shifts or 2) increase taxes on pollution and wastes (tax shifts).
There are different views about environmental problems:
Environmental worldview: set of assumptions and values concerning how the natural world works
Environmental ethics: the study of what is right and wrong with how we treat the environment
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