1. Environmental Sciences: Towards a Sustainable Future Chapter 1
Introduction: Sustainability, Stewardship and Sound Science

2. The Course Introduction
Global environmental concerns
Three unifying themes
Sustainability
Stewardship
Sound science
The process of science

3. Association Between People and the Land
Developing Nations:
Closely tied to land because survival depends on it.
Developed Nations:
Totally isolated from the natural world.

4. What Happened to Easter Island
Society fails to care for the environment and sustain it.
Population increase beyond carrying capacity.
Disparity between rich and poor widens.

5. How To Prevent a Global Version of the Easter Island Disaster
Understand how the natural world works
Understand how human and natural systems interact
Accurately assess the status and trends of crucial natural ecosystems
Establish long-term sustainable relationships with the natural world

6. The Global Environmental Picture
Rapid human population growth and increasing consumption per person
Decline of vital life-support ecosystems
Global atmospheric changes
Loss of biodiversity

7. Rapid Human Population Growth

8. Indicators of Decline of Vital Ecosystems
Depleted water supplies
Agricultural soils degraded
Oceans over fished
Forests cut faster than they can grow

9. Global Atmospheric Changes

10. Contributors to Loss of Biodiversity
Habitat alteration
Exploitation
Pollution

11. Three Unifying Themes
Sustainability
Stewardship
Sound science

12. Four Dimensions to Sustainable Development
Environmental
Social
Economic
Political

13. How Stewardship Is Demonstrated
Recognition that a trust has been given.
Responsible care for something not owned.
Desire to pass something on to future generations.

14. Environmental Justice or Racism?
Placement of waste sites and hazardous facilities in nonwhite communities

15. The Environmental Movement
Rachel Carson: Silent Spring
Effect of DDT in the food chain

16. Successes of the Environmental Movement
Environmental protection agency (EPA)
Environmental laws
Pollution abatement
Species saved from extinction

17. Assumptions of the Process of Science
We perceive reality with our five basic senses
Objective reality functions according to certain basic principles and laws

18. Assumptions of the Process of Science
Causes and effects are explainable
We have tools and capabilities to understand basic principles and natural laws

19. How the Process of Science Works

20. True or False Concerning the Process of Science
There are no controversies or arguments among scientists.
Progress in science can be slow.
We are continually confronted by new observations.
Some observed phenomena may not lend themselves to simple experiments.

21. True or False Concerning the Process of Science
Science is incapable of providing absolute proof for any theory.
The process of science can be used to test value judgments.
The validity of science is based on the ability to do experiments.

22. Junk Science Presentations of selective results
Public distortions of scientific works
Publication in quasi-scientific journals