CHAPTER 1

• Sustainability


  Capacity of the earth's natural systems to survive, flourish, or adapt to changing environmental conditions indefinitely
• Biomimicry


  Learning from the earth and living things to live more sustainably
• Biomimicry example


  • Inventing a tape that uses same gripping manner as geckos' feet
• Environment


  All living and nonliving things with which we interact
• Environmental science


  Studies connections in nature, how the earth works and has survived and thrived, how humans interact with the environment, and how we can live more sustainably
• Ecology


  Branch of biology focusing on interaction of living things with their environment
• Species


  Each living thing belongs to a species
• Ecosystem


  Set of organisms interacting in a defined area
• Environmentalism (environmental activism)


  Social movement dedicated to protecting the earth's life and resources, practiced in realms of politics and ethics
• Findings of environmental science can provide evidence for environmentalism
• Three scientific principles of sustainability


  • Dependence on solar energy
  • Biodiversity
  • Chemical (nutrient) cycling
• Natural capital


  Keeps humans and other species alive and supports economies
• Natural resources


  • Inexhaustible (e.g. solar energy)
  • Renewable (e.g. forests, grasslands, topsoil, fishes, air, freshwater)
  • Nonrenewable (e.g. oil, coal, natural gas, copper, salt, sand)
• Maximum sustainable yield


  Highest rate of renewable resource use without reducing its supply
• Human activities can degrade natural capital by using renewable resources too fast and overloading air, water, and soil with wastes and pollutants
• Humans must provide solutions to environmental problems
• Conflicts between environmental protection efforts and economic effects can be resolved with trade-offs
• Each individual plays a role in sustainability
• Full-cost pricing


  Include harmful environmental and health costs in market prices of goods and services
• Win-win solutions


  Look for solutions that will benefit people and the environment
• Responsibility to future generations


  Leave planet's life-support system in same or better condition than it is now
• Economic development and resource use


  • More-developed countries (17% of world population, use 70% of world's natural resources)
  • Less-developed countries (83% of world population, use 30% of world's natural resources)
• Many people have a better quality of life due to human development of useful materials and products, increasing life spans, reducing poverty, improving food supply, and reducing exposure to toxic chemicals
• Humans have protected some endangered species and ecosystems, and taken steps to restore cleared lands
• Human activities directly affect 83% of earth's land surface through urban development, crop and energy production, mining, timber cutting, and more
• Species are becoming extinct at least 100 times faster than in prehuman times
• Open-access resources


  Atmosphere, ocean and its fishes, grasslands, forests, streams, and aquifers
• Tragedy of the commons


  Cumulative effect of many people exploiting a shared resource can degrade, exhaust, or ruin it
• Solution to tragedy of the commons

  Use resource at a rate well below its sustainable yield, through mutual agreement or access regulation
• Ecological footprint


  Amount of biologically productive land and water needed to supply a population with renewable resources and recycle wastes
• Biocapacity


  The ability of an area's ecosystems to regenerate renewable resources
• Ecological deficit


  Footprint larger than biological capacity for replenishment
• IPAT


  Simple environmental impact model: I = P x A x T (I = Impact, P = Population, A = Affluence, T = Technology)
• Ecological capacity


  The ability of an area's ecosystems to regenerate renewable resources
• IPAT


  Simple environmental impact model: I = P x A x T, where I = Environmental impact, P = Population size, A = Affluence or resource consumption, T = Technology
• IPAT model


  Discuss how the next several decades will progress for developed and developing countries, with one partner as an optimist and the other as a pessimist
• Major cultural events


  • Agricultural revolution
  • Industrial–medical revolution
  • Information–globalization revolution
  • Sustainability revolution
• Major environmental problems


  • Climate change
  • Loss of species and habitats
  • Ocean acidification
  • Diminishing access to freshwater
  • Resource waste
  • Hazardous pollutants
• Basic causes of environmental problems

  • Population growth
  • Unsustainable resource use
  • Omission of harmful environmental costs in market pricing
  • Increasing isolation from nature
  • Competing environmental worldviews
• Human population has grown exponentially, currently at 7.6 billion and could reach 9.9 billion by 2050