1. Toward Sustainability

2. Living in an Exponential Age Miller Jr., G. Tyler. Living in the Environment, 12 th edition. Toronto: Brooks/Cole, 2002

3. Toward Sustainability?

4. This graph shows the relationship between the earth’s carrying capacity and the load that human activities put on the earth.

5. The carrying capacity of Earth has increased only slightly over the last two centuries, as people have found uses for parts of the environment they didn’t use before. For example, we now use various chemicals to improve crop yields and uranium to make electricity.

6. The load that the world’s population places on Earth has grown substantially because the population has increased along with the rate of consumption.

7. This marks the final point of sustainability. Beyond this point, the load on Earth exceeds its carrying capacity.

8. This indicates the point where Earth is today. We are in a situation called an ecological overshoot, in which the worldwide ecological footprint exceeds Earth’s carrying capacity. Global warming, loss of topsoil, shortage of fresh water, destruction of forests, loss of fisheries, depletion of the ozone layer, and many other problems all reflect the fact that we have reached an overshoot condition.

9. Earth can operate temporarily in an overshoot only by using up its supply of non-renewable resources.

10. Earth’s carrying capacity will start to decline as we deplete the supply of non-renewable resources, and as renewable resources deteriorate through overuse.

11. The load on Earth will decline sharply as the population drops dramatically. This decrease in population will occur when the resources no longer exist to support it at its former size.

12. Major Environmental Problems Miller Jr., G. Tyler. Living in the Environment, 12 th edition. Toronto: Brooks/Cole, 2002

13. Major Environmental Problems Cunningham, William P. et. Al. Environmental Science: A global Concern. Toronto: McGraw- Hill Ryerson, 2005

14. Relative Ecological Footprint Miller Jr., G. Tyler. Living in the Environment, 12 th edition. Toronto: Brooks/Cole, 2002

15. The Brandt Line Miller Jr., G. Tyler. Living in the Environment, 12 th edition. Toronto: Brooks/Cole, 2002