 Interdisciplinary science – ecology,geology,chemistry,  politics,engineering,economics,ethics  Connections and interactions between humans and the rest of nature  Validity of data questioned – many variables

 Ability of a specified system to survive and function over a period of time  Our research leads us to believe that in the face of drastic environmental changes, there are three overachiving themes relating to the long-term sustainability of life on this planet.

 Meeting present needs without preventing future generations from meeting theirs

 Reliance on Solar Energy  Biodiversity  Chemical (Nutrient) Cycling

 Natural Capital= Natural Resources + Natural Services  Natural resources- materials and energy in nature that are essential or useful to humans  Natural Services- process in nature, such as purification of air, water and renewal of topsoil.  Degrading of Natural Capital  Solutions

 Resource- Anything that we can obtain from the environment to meet our needs and wants.  Perpetual Resource- The Sun  Renewable- A resource that takes anywhere from several days to several hundred years to be replenished, through natural processes.  As long as we don’t consume if faster than nature can renew it.  Forest, grasslands, fish populations, freshwater, etc.

 Non-Renewable- A resource that exist in a fixed quantity, or stock, in the earths curst.  Ex: Coal, oil, salt, sand

Ecological – Renewable Non renewable Potentially renewable

 Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.

 Economic Growth- An increase in a nation’s output of goods and services.

 Gross National Productive- Market value in current dollars of all goods and services produced by a country  Per Capita GNP – GNP/Total population

 Gross Domestic Product- (GDP)- Market value in current dollars of all goods and services produced WITHIN a country for use during a year

 1.2 billion (19%)  Highly industrialized  85% of world wealth and income  Use 88% of world resources  Generate 75% of waste US,Canada,Japan,Australia,New Zealand,most of Europe

 4.9 billion (81%)  Low to moderate industrialized  15% of world wealth and income  Use 12% of world resources  Asia, Latin America, Africa

Pollution- any presence within the environment of a chemical or other agent such as noise or heat at a level that is harmful to the health, survival, or activities of humans or other organisms. Natural – volcanoes Anthropogenic – human activities (burning of coal or dumping of chemicals into rivers and oceans.

Point Source Pollution- pollutants that are single, identifiable source. Ex: smokestack from a coal burning powerplant, drainpipe of a factory, exhaust from an automobile. Non-point Source Pollution- are dispersed and often difficult to identify. Ex: Pesticides blown from the land into the air, runoff of fertilizers, pesticides, and trash from the land into streams and lakes.

 We have tried to deal with pollution in two very different ways  Pollution Cleanup- involves cleaning up or diluting pollutants AFTER we have produced them.  Pollution Prevention- reduces or eliminates the production of pollution

 Three types of property-  Private  Common Property (right to certain resources are held by a large group of individuals. 1/3 of land in US is owned by all US Citizens and run by the government. (Parks)  Open-Access Renewable- owned by no one and available for use for cheap or mostly free.  Clean air, open ocean and its fish &,wildlife species,

 Many common-property and open access and renewable resources have been degraded.  1968, Biologist Garrett Hardin ( ) called this degradation Tragedy of the Commons  Solving Environmental Problems is result of struggle between:  Short term welfare  Long term environmental stability and societal welfare

 In less developed countries, the individual use of resources and the resulting environmental impact is low, where as in more developed countries individuals are more affluent (wealthy) and consume resources far beyond their basic needs.

 The average amount of land, water and ocean required to provide that person with all the resources they consume. Earth’s Productive Land and Water 28.2 billion acres Amount Each Person is Allotted (divide Productive Land and Water by Human Population) 4.7 acres Current Global Ecological Footprint of each person 5.7 acres

 Ehrlich and Holdren (Scientist in the 1970’s) developed a simple model showing how population size, affluence, beneficial and harmful effect help to determine environmental impact  I= PxAxT  I (Impact)= P (population) x A (affluence) x T (technology)

 Pollution  Environmental Degradation  Population growth  Wasteful and unsustainable resource use  Poverty  Pollution

 Exponential Growth– quantity increases by a fixed percentage of the whole in a given time. (ex 2%)  This starts of slow but doubles again and again and grow to enormous numbers.

 Rule of 70: 70/ percentage of growth rate= Doubling Time  Ex: If the growth rate is 3 % what is the doubling time?  70/3%= 23.3 yrs, it will take that population 23.3 years to double its population  At the current rates of exponential growth, the human population will reach 8 billion by 2025.

Rapid population growth Wasteful use of resources Poverty Failure to encourage earth sustaining economic development Failure to include overall economic cost

 Maximum number of organisms an environment can support over a specified period of time

 Social, economic and environmental change that leads to an increasingly integrated world  economic, information and communication,environmental effects

 Poverty is defined as people who are unable to fulfill their basic needs for adequate food, water, shelter, health, and education.  2008 Study- 1/5 people on this planet live in extreme poverty. (Live on less than $1.25 a day)

 Those that live in poverty do degrade potentially renewable forests, soils, grasslands, etc…they do not have the luxury of worrying about long term.  But many time the converse is true. Pollution and environmental degradation have a severe impact on the poor and can increase their poverty.

 Most of the world's desperately poor die prematurely from 4 preventable disease. All of which are made worse by degrading environmental issues.  Malnutrition  Increased susceptibility to normally nonfatal infectious diseases (diarrhea and measles.)  Lace of clean drinking water  Severe Respiratory disease. (breathing smoke from open fires, poorly vented stoves, etc)

 Planetary Management or (ANTHROPOCENTRIC-) “we are in charge of nature, always more to use, all economic growth is good”  The Stewardship Worldview- holds that we should manage the earth for our benefits, but that we have an ethical responsibility to be caring and responsible managers, or stawards of the earth.  Earth Wisdom –”nature for all of earth’s species, not always more to use, make a judgment call about economic growth

International trade of goods increased Transnational corporations from 7,000 to 53,000 Phones –from 89 to 850 million Passenger kilometers – from 28 million to 2.6 trillion Infectious microbes transported

Hunter gatherers – 12,000 years ago Agricultural revolution – 10,000-12,000- Industrial revolution-275 years ago Technological revolution – 50 years ago

 nomadic, living in small bands,  population in balance with food supply  high infant mortality,life expectancy yr.  3 energy sources - sun, fire, muscle power

 settled communities  slash and burn cultivation to fertilize nutrient poor field by ashes  shifting cultivation  subsistence farming

 Urbanization and agricultural expansion, cut down forests, destroyed habitats, soil erosion and desertification  birth rate faster than death- population increase

 wood used up - coal usage  steam generation  fossil fuel powered farm machinery- less farmers needed- moved to cities  The Industrial Societies began many of the environmental problems we still see today.

 increase in agricultural products  lower infant mortality  improved health  increase in longevity  net population increase

 1903-Theodore Roosevelt, Pelican Island,Florida to save the Brown Pelican  Gifford Pinchot - US Forest Service  “resources should be saved to be used for the greatest good, for the greatest number, for the longest time ”

 John Muir, Sierra Club  “fundamental right of organisms to exist for it’s own sake”

 1962-, Rachel Carson “Silent Spring”, threats of pollution and toxic chemicals  David Brower and Barry Commoner,Paul Ehrlich,Garret Hardin -relationship between population growth, resource use,pollution

 air pollution in New York  Laundry detergent in water  Cuyahoga in Ohio  Love Canal, New York  pollution of Lake Erie  Extinction -grizzly,bald eagle,whooping crane,falcon

 1972-UN- Human development  OPEC oil embargo  Roland and Molina - CFC’s cause ozone depletion  Carter creates Superfund to clean hazardous waste sites(Love Canal)  Three Mile Island

 Ronald Reagan - sagebrush philosophy  1986-Chernobyl disaster  1987-Montreal Protocol - fade out CFC’s  Exxon Valdez disaster

 1991-Persian Gulf war - protect oil  UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil  UN Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, Egypt.  US Congress,reduce environmental spending - vetoed by Clinton  Kyoto- global warming

 Clinton protects large areas in national forests from roads and logging - designated as national monuments

 remove most lands from federal ownership and turn over to States  great supporter - Ronald Reagan

  pollution cleanup to prevention  waste disposal to waste reduction  species protection to habitat protection  increased resource use to conservation