1. Understanding Our Environment
Chapter 1 Outline
William P. Cunningham University of Minnesota
Mary Ann Cunningham Vassar College
Copyright © McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.

2. Outline Introduction Current Conditions Historical Perspectives
A Divided World
Sustainable Development
Indigenous People
Environmental Ethics
Environmental Justice
Environmental Racism

3. Introduction
Humans have always inhabited both a natural world and a social world.
Environment -
circumstances or conditions that surround an organism or group of organisms
complex of social or cultural conditions that affect an individual or community

4. Introduction
Environmental Science is the systematic study of our environment and our proper place in it
This subject draws on many disciplines, skills, and interests.
Interdisciplinary and Integrative:
Natural Sciences
Social Sciences
Humanities
Focused on understand and resolving environmental problems humans have created.

5. Many kinds of knowledge contribute to our understanding in Environmental Science
FIGURE 1.2

6. Current Conditions Human Population is > 7.6 Billion
Climate Change: burning fossil fuels causes global climate change.
Hunger: food is inequitably distributed across the globe and 2/3 of agricultural lands show signs of degradation.
Clean Water: may be the most critical resource in the 21st century.
Energy: fossil fuel use causes pollution, there is a shift to using more renewable energy resources.
Biodiversity Loss: species are being lost at a rapid rate.
Air Pollution: air quality has worsened dramatically in many areas.

7. Signs of Hope Progress has been made on many fronts.
Population & Pollution: Many cities are more livable today than a century ago due to human birth rate stabilization and clean technology use.
Health: Incidence of life-threatening diseases has been reduced in most countries.
Information and Education: Expanding access to knowledge is essential to progress.
Sustainable Resource Use and Habitat Conservation: Tropical forest destruction has slowed & habitat protection has improved in some areas.

8. Signs of Hope Progress has been made on many fronts.
Renewable Energy: Progress is being made in the transition to renewable energy sources.
Carbon Markets and Standards: Cap-and-trade programs help limit greenhouse gas emissions.
International Cooperation: Some international environmental protection agreements have been highly successful, while others lack enforcement.

9. Historical Perspective
Over time there were four distinct stages
Pragmatic Resource Conservation
Ethical and Aesthetic Nature Preservation
Concern About Health and Ecological Damage
Global Environmental Citizenship
These stages are not mutually exclusive and
parts of each persist today in the environmental movement.

10. Stage 1. Pragmatic Resource Conservation
George Perkins Marsh - Man and Nature published in 1864
Influenced Theodore Roosevelt and his conservation advisor, Gifford Pinchot.
Pinchot’s policy was one of
Pragmatic Utilitarian Conservation
“For the greatest good for the greatest number for the longest time”
Reflected today in the Multiple Use Policies of USFS

11. Stage 2. Ethical and Aesthetic Nature Preservation
John Muir - President Sierra Club
Nature deserves to exist for its own sake - regardless of degree of usefulness to humans.
Biocentric Preservation – “Why ought man to value himself more than…the one great unit of creation”. He opposed Pinchot’s view.
Aldo Leopold –
A student of Pinchot’s
Authored “The Land Ethic” – “we abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us.”

12. FIGURE 1.9

13. Stage 3. Modern Environmental Movement
The industrial expansion after WW II added new concerns to the environmental agenda.
Rachel Carson – awakened the public to the environmental threat posed by pesticides in her book Silent Spring (1962)
David Brower – introduced the use of litigation, regulatory intervention, and the use of mass media to environmental activists.
Barry Commoner – an activist scientist who spoke out about environmental hazards emphasized the link between science, technology and society .
Wangari Maathai – founded the Green Belt Movement in 1997 to organize poor rural African women to restore the local environment by planting trees, also promoting justice and equality

14. Modern Environmental Leaders
FIGURE 1.11

15. Stage 4. Global Environmentalism
Modern information technology now allow for increased international communications.
Local and regional environmental leaders increasingly have a worldwide impact.
Today’s Global Environmental Leaders include:
Wangari Maathai--Kenya
Yu Xiaogang—China
Muhammad Yunus—India
Gro Brundtland--Norway
FIGURE 1.12

16. A Divided World
World Bank estimates more than 700 million people live in extreme poverty earning < $1.90 (U.S.) per day.
Poor are often both victims and agents of environmental degradation. They are trying to meet their present survival needs at the cost of long term sustainability.
Cycle of poverty continues over generations as people who are malnourished and ill cannot work productively and raise healthy children.

17. A Divided World
About 1/6 of the world’s population live in the richest countries with per capita income > $41,000 per year (U.S.).
About 1/6 live in the least-developed countries with per capita income less than $2,500.
The remaining 2/3 lives in middle or low income countries.
Gap between rich and poor continues to increase.
The gap affects many quality of life indicators.

18. Environmental indicators
FIGURE 1.17

19. Is There Enough for Everyone?
Wealthy nations consume an inordinate share of the world’s resources and produce an unsustainable amount of pollution.
The U.S. makes up 4.6% of the world’s population, but consumes 20% of all oil production, produces 15% of all carbon, and generates 50% of all toxic wastes in the world.
If all the residents of China were to match American consumption, it would take almost another enitre earth’s worth of resources planet Earths to support them using current technology.

20. Sustainable Development
“Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” (Brundtland 1987)
Benefits must be available to all humans, rather than to a privileged few.
Economic growth alone is not enough. Political stability, democracy, and equitable economic distribution are needed to ensure that all benefit.

21. Sustainable Development
Many ecologists view continual growth as impossible in the long run due to limits imposed by nonrenewable resources and the capacity of the biosphere to absorb wastes (Cassandrans).
Others argue that through the use of technology and social organization, we can manage to meet our needs and provide long-term (but not infinite) growth (Cornucopians).

22. Sustainable Development Goals
FIGURE 1.19

23. Ecosystem services
FIGURE 1.21

24. Tragedy of the Commons
1968
Garret Hardin
“Population growth leads inevitably to overuse then destruction of common resources

25. Successful Managing the Commons
Effective and inexpensive monitoring of resource use
Ability to exclude outsiders, who do not understand rules of use
Frequent face-to-face communications and strong social networks among users, which reduce distrust and promote communication about the state of the resource

26. Indigenous People
Indigenous (native) people are often the least powerful, most neglected people in the world.
At least half the world’s 6,000 distinct languages are dying.
Indigenous homelands may harbor vast percentage of world’s biodiversity.
Recognizing native land rights and political rights may often be a solid ecological safeguard as indigenous people have a rich knowledge of local habitats.

28. Environmental Ethics & World Views
Ethics is a branch of philosophy concerned with what actions are right and wrong.
Environmental ethics deals with our moral obligations to the world around us.
Worldviews - sets of basic beliefs, images and understandings that shape how we see the world around us. Worldviews also determine what questions are valid to ask.
How we relate to the environment depends largely on our values and world view.

29. Who or What has Moral Value?
Moral extensionism - extending moral values to others
Should moral extensionism include granting some degree of moral value to animals, plants and the environment?
Value - a measure of the worth of something
Inherent value - intrinsic right to exist or innate worth
Instrumental value - items have worth only because they are of use to or valued by another person

30. FIGURE 1.23

31. Religious Traditions
Ethical and moral values are often rooted in religious traditions.
Stewardship - taking care of the resources we are given.
Calls for both environmental stewardship and human domination over nature can be found in most world religions.
Increasingly, many churches and religious leaders today are promoting faith based environmental stewardship and conservation.
EG – the Ohito Declaration

32. Environmental Justice
Because of their economic status, minorities in the U.S. and globally may be subjected to a disproportionate amount of environmental health risks in their neighborhoods and work places.
The field of environmental justice combines civil rights with environmental protection to demand a safe and healthy environment for everyone.
LULU – Locally Unwanted Land Use
Minority communities twice as likely to live in a LULU than in communities without them

33. FIGURE 1.26

34. Environmental Racism
Environmental Racism is an inequitable distribution of environmental hazards based on race.
Lead poisoning in children as a result of drinking water from aging plumbing or eating paint chips in older buildings is an example of this phenomenon.
At all income levels, black children are 2 to 3 times more likely to suffer lead poisoning in the U.S. than are white children.

35. Toxic colonialism
Toxic colonialism is the practice of targeting poor communities or communities of color in developing nations as waste disposal areas.
For example, Native Americans have been subject to numerous attempts to set up hazardous waste sites, landfills or incinerators on their reservations.
The short-term economic incentive of such attempts can be overwhelming for a poverty stricken population.