Living in the environment
1 the environment and sustainability
1.1 what are some key principles of sustainability
- 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 provided by the earth
- concept 1.1C we could live more sustainably by following six principles of sustainability.
the environment is everything around you. It includes all living things (plants animals) and the non-
living things (air, water, sunlight).
Environmental science is a study of:
- How the earth (nature) works and has survived and thrived
- How humans interact with the environment
- And how we can live more sustainably (duurzaam/duurzaamheid)
A key component of environmental science is ecology: the biological science that studies how
organisms interact with one other and with their environment.
Each of the earths organisms belongs to a species (een soort): a group of organisms having a unique
set of characteristics that set it apart from other groups. A major focus of ecology is the study of
ecosystems. An ecosystem is a set of organisms, within a defined (bepaald) area of land or water,
that interact with one other and with their environment. Environmental science and ecology should
not be confused with environmentalism or environmental activism. Which is a social movement
dedicated to protecting the earths life and its resources.
Three scientific principles of sustainability (de drie wetenschappelijke principes of duurzaamheid)
Three scientific natural factors play key roles in the long-term sustainability of the planets life.
- Dependence on solar energy (zonne-energy)
- Biodiversity: the variety of genes, species and
ecosystems in which organisms exist and
interact. Keep any population from growing too
large and provides countless ways for life to
adapt (aanpassen) to changing environmental
conditions.
- Chemical cycling: is the circulation of chemicals
necessary for life from the environment (mostly
from soil (bodem) and water) through
organisms and back to the environment. The
earth receives no new supplies of these
chemicals. Through billions of years of interactions with their living and non-living
environment, organisms have developed ways to continually recycle the chemicals they
need to survive. Wastes and decayed (vervallen) bodies of organisms become nutrients for
other organisms. In nature waste = useful resources.
,Sustainability has certain key components:
- Natural capital: the natural resources and ecosystem services keep humans and other species
alive and that support human economies
- Natural resources: materials and energy provided by nature that are essential or useful to
humans
Inexhaustible resources. Solar energy is an inexhaustible resource because it is expected
to last for at least 5 billion years
Renewable resources. Any resource that can be replenished (bijgevuld) by natural
processes within hours to centuries, as long as people do not use the resource faster
than natural processes can replace it. Examples are forests, clean air and fresh water.
Non-renewable resources. We can use these resources faster than we can replace them.
Examples are fossil fuel energy resources such as oil, coal and natural gas.
Ecosystem services are natural services provided by healthy ecosystems that support life and human
economies at no monetary cost to us (zonder dat het iets kost, het gaat vanzelf). For example: forest
help purify the air and water, reduce soil erosion (verminderd bodemerosie) and recycle nutrients.
An essential ecosystem service is nutrient cycling, which is a scientific principle of sustainability. A
second component of sustainability is that human activities can degrade natural capital. We do this
by using renewable resources faster than nature can restore them and by overloading the earths
normally renewable air, water and soil with pollution (vervuiling) and wastes. For example the rain
forest that are being replaced for soybean fields.. we also add pollutants to the air and dump wastes
into rivers and oceans faster than they can be cleansed through natural processes. This poisons
wildlife and disrupt nutrient cycles because they cannot be broken down and used as nutrients by
other organisms.
,Solutions
Creating solutions to the environmental problems we face. For example, a solution to the loss of
forests is to stop burning or cutting down forests. This cannot be done unless citizens become
educated about the ecosystem forests provide. And governments pass laws to protect forests. There
can be conflicts’ when environmental protection has negative economic effect on groups of people
or certain industries. Dealing with these conflicts involves both sides making compromises or trade-
offs. Each of us can play a role in learning how to live more sustainably. Individuals matter.
Economics, politics and ethics can provide us with three additional (aanvullende) principles of
sustainability.
- Full-cost pricing (from economics): some
economists urge us to find ways to include
the harmful environmental and health
costs of producing and using goods
(Goederen) and services in their market
prices. this would give consumers
information about the harmful
environmental impacts of products.
- Win-win solutions (from political science):
political scientists often look for win-win
solutions to environmental problems based
on cooperation (medewerking) and
compromise that will benefit the largest
number of people as well as the
environment.
- Responsibility to future generations (from ethics): ethics is a branch of philosophy who study
ideas about what is right and wrong. We should leave the planets life support systems in a
good condition that is as good as or better than it is now as our responsibility to future
generations.
More developed countries: industrialized nations with a high average income per person (countries
like: Japan, US, Canada, AUS and most of Europe). These countries, with 17% of the world’s
population, use 70% of the earth’s natural resources.
All other nations are classified as less developed countries, most of them in Africa, Asia and Latin
America. Some are middle income, moderately developed (redelijk ontwikkeld) countries such as
China, India, Brazil, Thailand and Mexico. Others are low income, least developed countries such as
Nigeria, Congo and Haiti.
, 1.1 how are our ecological footprints affecting the earth
- Concept 1.2A humans dominate the earth with the power to sustain (in stand houden), add
to, or degrade (verminderen) the natural capital that supports all life and human economies
- Concept 1.2B as our ecological footprints grow, we deplete (uitputten) and degrade
(verlagen) more of the earth’s natural capital that sustains us.
As the world’s dominant animal, we have awesome power to degrade or sustain our life support
system. Our activities affect the temperature of the atmosphere and the ocean. We also contribute
to the extinction of species. At the same time our creativity, economic growth, scientific research etc.
have improved the quality of life for many of the earth’s people. We have invented robots to do our
work, computers to extend our brains and electronic networks for global communication. Globally
life spans are increasing (levensverwachting neemt toe), infant mortality is decreasing (kindersterfte
neemt af), education is on the rise, water and air are getting cleaner in many parts of the world and
the population growth rate has slowed.
However according die scientific evidence we are living unsustainably.
We waste, deplete and degrade much of earths life sustaining natural
capital. A process known as environmental degradation or capital
degradation. Human activities directly affect about 83% of the earth’s
land surface. This land is used for urban development
(stadsontwikkeling), growing crops (gewassen), energy production,
mining and other purposes. In parts of the world, we are destroying
forests, we add pollutants to the air, soil, oceans and lakes, deserts
are expanding, ice and glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising and
species become 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: the
atmosphere, de ocean and it’s fishes etc. other examples of less open, but often shared resources,
are forests, grasslands and rivers. Many of these renewable resources have been environmentally
degraded. Degradation of such shared renewable resources occurs (komt voor) because each user
reasons. The little bit that I pollute is not enough to matter. When the level of use is small, this logic
works. But eventually it can degrade it and exhaust or ruin it. Then no one benefits and everybody
loses.
- One way to deal with this is to use a shared renewable resource at a rate well below its
estimated sustainable yield (onder de geschatte maximale duurzame opbrengts te blijven).
This is done by mutually agreeing to use less of the resource or regulating access to the
resource
- Another way is to make the resource a private ownership. The reason is, if you own
something you are most likely to protect your investment. This is not possible for open
access like the atmosphere or the open ocean etc.
Ecological footprint: the amount of biologically productive land
and water needed to supply a population in an area with
renewable resources and to absorb and recycle the wastes and
pollution such resource use produces.
