PHILOSOPHY AND FUNDAMENTAL
CONCEPTS
There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.
-Marshall McLuhan
Outline
·
The
story of Polynesian people in Easter Island: Increase in human population è more and more land
cleared for agriculture è remaining trees used for fuel è deforestation è soil erosion è agricultural base of the
society was diminished.
o
The
lesson learned: limited resources can not support an ever-growing human
population.
o
There
is fear today that our planet (an isolated island in space) may be reaching the
same threshold that faced the people of Easter Island in the 16th
century.
o
Consider
what will happen in the next 24 hours:
·
230,000
people (nearly a quarter million!) will be added to the world population.
·
A
huge amount of tropical rain forest will be leveled to make room for farms,
roads, dams, mines, and towns. The daily loss comes to about 440 km2 (170
sq.miles) That is equivalent to a swath 170 miles long and 2 miles wide.
·
In
the same period, 180 km2 (70 sq. miles) of land will turn to desert,
in large part because of poor farming practices, overgrazing, and a warming
trend that may be caused by greenhouse effect.
o
Current
course of virtually all nations of the world is unsustainable. Two important
driving forces: continuing growth in both economic output and population.
o
Develop
a sustainable global economy that ensures the survival of our resource base and
other living things on earth, or suffer the consequences.
o
In
1995 UN announced that the world population growth was slowing. Beginning of
the Sustainable Revolution?
·
Environmental
geology is applied geology. It is the use of geologic information to help us
solve conflicts in land use, to minimize environmental degradation, and to
minimize the beneficial results of using our natural and modified environments.
The application of geology to these problems includes the study of:
o
Natural
hazards
o
Landscapes
for site selection, land-use planning, and environmental impact analysis.
o
Earth
materials
o
Hydrologic
processes
o
Geologic
processes
·
The
environment is the total set of circumstances that surround an individual or a
community. Includes
o
physical
conditions: air, water, gases, and landforms
o
social
and cultural conditions such as ethics, economics, and aesthetics.
·
The
scientific method:
o
observations
è
hypotheses è theory (inductive reasoning)
·
Culture
and Environmental Awareness:
o
How
can we expect poor, developing societies to respect the environment when
wealthier industrial societies remain largely unwilling to do so?
·
Environmental
Ethics
o
Statesman
and conservationist Stewart Udall: The Quiet Crisis (1963). “A crisis of
survival.”
o
Land
ethic: we are responsible not only to other individuals and society but also to
the total environment. We are the land’s citizens and protectors, not its
conquerors.
·
The
Environmental Crisis
o
Demands
on diminishing resources by a growing human population, along with the
ever-increasing production of human waste.
o
Result
of overpopulation, urbanization, and industrialization.
·
Deforestation
and accompanying soil erosion and water and air pollution.
·
Mining
of resources such as metals, coal, and petroleum.
·
Development
of both ground and surface water resources resulting in loss and damage to many
environments on a global scale.
o
Inventiveness
of human beings è expanded niche è larger population è greater demands on
resources.
Fundamental Concepts of
Environmental Science
1.
Population
Growth:
·
The
number-one environmental problem is the ever-growing human population.
·
Total
environmental impact of population is equal to the product of the impact per
person times the population. Population increases è total impact increases.
·
Population
bomb : exponential growth: 1.4 %.
·
Impossible
to supply resources and a high-quality environment for the billions of people.
·
Defuse
the population bomb? Pessimistic and optimistic approaches.
2.
Sustainability:
1.
Using
environmental resources faster than they can be naturally replenished
unsustainability. All environmental problems result from the fact that human
systems such as energy production and agriculture are unsustainable. They are
inefficient in their use of resources, and most of them rely heavily on finite
supplies of fossil fuels whose combustion creates many problems.
Sustainability: ensuring that future generations have equal opportunity to the
resources that our planet offers. Save our planet… Is the planet in danger? Or
the quality of the human environment on earth?
2.
Sustainable
global economy.. Sustainable Development according to World Commission on
Environment and Development: “development that meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.”
o
careful
management and wise use of the planet and its resources.
o
under
present conditions the global economy is not sustainable.
o
How
do we define sustainable economy:
§
populations
of humans and other organisms in harmony with the natural support systems such
as air, water, and land.
§
an
energy policy that does not pollute the atmosphere, cause climatic
perturbations such as global warming.
§
a
utilization plan for renewable resources such as water, forests, etc. that does
not deplete the resources or destroy ecosystems.
§
a
resource utilization plan for nonrenewable resources that does not damage the
global environment and provides for a share of our nonrenewable resources to be
available to future generations.
§
a
social, legal, and political system dedicated to a sustainable and socially
just global economy.
o
To
achieve a sustainable global economy, it is necessary that:
§
we
develop an effective population-control strategy.
§
we
completely restructure our energy programs. Sustainable global economy is
impossible if it is based upon use of fossil fuels.
§
We
institute economic planning, including development of a tax structure that
encourages population control.
§
We
institute social, legal, political, and educational changes that have as their
goal the maintenance of a quality local, regional, global environment.
3.
Systems
·
Any
defined part of the universe that we select for study.
·
Understanding
the earth’s systems and their changes is critical to solving environmental
problems. The earth itself is an open systems with respect to energy, but
essentially a closed system with respect to materials.
·
The
Earth as System: atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, lithosphere.
·
Principle
of environmental unity: everything effects everything else.
·
Feedback:
output from the system is an input (back into the system) causing change.
o
Negative
feedback: moderating the process è steady state.
o
Positive
feedback: the outcome of a change amplifies the initiating event.
·
Growth
rate (measured as percentage)
·
Doubling
time
·
Predicting
changes in systems
o
Input-output
analysis
o
Average
residence time
·
Complex
Systems and Earth System Science
o
Balance
of nature: natural systems untampered with by human activity tend toward some
sort of equilibrium.
o
How
widely applicable is the equilibrium model.
o
Changes
in systems are best described in terms of complex response, thresholds, and
disturbance.
o
Earth
System Science: understanding the entire planet in terms of its systems.
§
How
atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and lithosphere have formed, evolved, and
been maintained;
§
How
they interact with each other
§
How
they will continue to evolve over periods ranging from a decade to a century.
4.
Limitation
of Resources
·
The
earth is the only suitable habitat we have, and its resources are limited.
·
Finding
resources is not so much a problem as finding ways to use them. In other words,
the entire earth, including the ocean and atmosphere, has raw materials that
can be made useful if we can develop the necessary technology.
·
Cornucopian
Premises: finite resource base cannot support an exponential increase of
population forever.
·
We
are in a resource crisis for a number of reasons:
o
medical
progress è
longevity è
over population
o
unrealistic
view of the necessity of an ever-increasing gross national product based on
obsolescence and waste.
o
finite
nature of minerals
o
increased
risk of irreversible damage to the environment as a result of overpopulation,
waste, deforestation, burning of fossil fuels, and overuse of many resources.
5.
Uniformitarianism
6.
Hazardous
Earth Processes
o
Production
and maintaining constant food supply è population increase and
concentration è impact of hazardous processes increases.
o
The
magnitude and frequency of these processes depend on such factors such as
climate, geology, and vegetation.
7.
Geology
as a Basic Environmental Science
o
An
understanding of our complex environment requires knowledge on:
o
geomorphology
o
petrology
o
sedimentology
o
tectonics
o
hydrogeology
o
pedology
o
economic
geology
o
engineering
geology
8.
Our
Obligation to the Future
o
Early
men… The relationship between people and the environment existed until about
800,000 years ago, when our ancestors developed skill in the use of fire.
o
Use
of fire and hunting had significant effect on the environment.
o
Emergence
of agriculture about 7,000 BC. Artificial land use capable of modifying the
natural environment.
o
Settlements
in at clusters of sites. First areas of waste disposal and soil erosion.
o
Increase
in human population = increase in the number of extinctions among birds and
mammals.
o Cities and farms increase è demand for
diversification of land use increases.
o More soil and rock is
moved by human activities than any other earth process.
o One generation of people
replaces another, but productive soils destroyed by erosion are seldom
restorable and never replaceable.