,Chapter 1
1.1
CONCEPT 1.1A Life on the earth has been sustained for billions of years by solar energy, biodiversity,
and chemical cycling.
CONCEPT 1.1B Our lives and economies depend on energy from the sun and on natural resources
and ecosystem services (natural capital) provided by the earth.
CONCEPT 1.1C We could live more sustainably by following six principles of sustainability
Sustainability
- Is the capacity of the earth’s natural systems and human cultural systems To survive, flourish
and adapt to changing environmental conditions Into the very long-term future.
Enviroment is everything around us.
Environmental science, an interdisciplinare stydy of how humans interact with the living and non
living part of the environment
3 goals of environmental sciene:
1- to learn how life on the earth has survived and thrived
2- to understand how we interact with the environment
3- to find wats to deal with environmental problems and live more sustainbaly
Ecology= the biological science that studies how organismes interact with one another and with their
environment.
Ecosystem= a set of organisms within a defined area or volume that interact with one another and
with their encironment of nonliving matter and energy.
Environmentalism= a social movement dedicated to trying to protect the earths life-support system.
3 scientific principles of sustainability
- Dependence on solar energy: sun warms planet and provides energy, plant produce
nutrients. Also Indirectly solar energy.
- Biodiversity: variety of genes, organisms, species and ecosystems. Provides ways of life to
adapt to changing environmental conditions.
- Chemical cycling/nutrient cycling: circulation of chemicals necessary for life from the
environment everything of plants needs to be recycled becaus the earth doesn't get new
supplies.
Key components sustainability
natural capital= the natural resources and services that keep us and other pecies alive and
support human economies
o Natural resources are materials and energy in nature that are essential or useful to
humans
o Natural services/ecosystem services are processes provided by healthy ecosystems.
One vital natural service is cheamical/nutrient cycling.
Topsoil is important component of cycling.
o Natural capital is also supported by energy from the sun.
To recognize that many human activities can degrade natural capital by using normally
renewable resources such as trees and topsoil faster than nature van restore them and by
overloading the earth's normally renewable air and water systems with pollution and wastes.
Solutions
, o In making a shift toward sustainabilit, the daily action of each and every individual are
important.
Ecosystem services are natural services provided by healthy ecosystems that support life and human
economies at no monetary cost to us
- A vital ecosystem service is nutrient cycling, which is a scientific principle of sustainability
Social science principles of sustainability
Full-cost pricing (from economics): wouold give consumers better information about the
encironmental impacts of their lifestyles, and it would allow them to make mor einformed
choices about the goods and services they use.
Win-win solutions (from political science): shit from i win you lose to i win, you win and the
earth wins.
A responsibility to future generations.
Inexhausted resource: continuous supply is expected to last for at least 6 billion years (until the sun
dies)
Renewable resource: can be replenished by natural processes.
Sustainable yield: highest rate at which we can use a renewable resource indenfinitely without
reducing its available supply
Nonrenewable/exhaustible resources: fixed quantity (stock) exist in eart crust. We cant recycle it
From sustainability viewpoint, the protities for more sustainable use of nonrenewable resources
should be, in orde: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Each step helps to extend supploes and to
reduce the environmental impacts of using these resources.
1.2
CONCEPT 1.2A Humans dominate the earth with the power to sustain, add to, or degrade the natural
capital that supports all life and human economies.
CONCEPT 1.2B As our ecological footprints grow, we deplete and degrade more of the earth’s natural
capital that sustains us
- We are living unustainable by waisting, depleting, and degrading the earths's natural capital.
A proccess called environmental degradation/natural capital degradation.
- “human activity is putting such a strain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of
the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted.
- What needs saving is our own civilization and perhaps the existence of our species if we
continue to degrade the earth’s life-support system that sustains our economies and us.
- tragedy of the commons. Degradation of such shared or open-access renewable resources
occurs because each user reasons, “The little bit that I use or pollute is not enough to
matter, and anyway, it’s a renewable resource.”
o One way to deal with this difficult problem is to use a shared or open-access
renewable resource at a rate well below its estimated sustainable yield
o Another way is to convert shared renewable resources to private ownership.
- Using renewable resources benefits us but can result in natural capital degradation,
pollution, and wastes. This harmful environmental impact is called an ecological footprint
ecological footprint—the amount of biologically productive land and water (biocapacity) needed to
supply a population in an area with renewable resources and to absorb and recycle the wastes and
pollution such resource use produces
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