Environmental Science An Introduction

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Environmental Science, Environment, and Society
Environmental Science,
Environment, and Society:
An Introduction
R-Jay P. Quiambao, CIE
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Environment: the total of our

surroundings
All the things around us with which we interact:
Living things
Animals, plants, forests, fungi, etc.
Nonliving things
Continents, oceans, clouds, soil, rocks
Our built environment

Buildings, human-created living centers
Social relationships and institutions
[1] Environmental Science, Environment, and Society: An Introduction
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Built Environment
refers to the totality of all that humans have
changed or rearranged within the natural
environment. (Bartuska and Young, 1996)
refers to the man-made surroundings that

provide the setting for human activity,
ranging from the large-scale civic
surroundings to the personal places.
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Environment
A general term referring to man's surroundings.
It includes the air, water, land and socioeconomic conditions in which man or society
lives.
The term may also be defined as the sum

of all external conditions and influences
affecting the life, development and ultimately,
the survival of an organism, including man
himself.
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Humans exist within the

environment
Humans exist within the environment and are
part of nature.
Our survival depends on a healthy, functioning
planet.
We are part of the natural world.

Our interactions with its other parts matter a
great deal.
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Humans and the world around us
Humans change the environment, often in ways not

fully understood
Humans depend completely on the environment for
survival.
Enriched and longer lives, increased wealth, health,
mobility, leisure time
But natural systems have been degraded
Pollution, erosion, and species extinction
Environmental changes threaten long-term health
and survival.
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Humans and the world around us

Environmental science is the study of:
How the natural world works
How the environment affects humans and
vice versa
With environmental problems come

opportunities for solutions.
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Global Human Population Growth

More than 7 billion humans
Why so many humans?
Agricultural Revolution
Stable food supplies
Industrial Revolution
Urbanized society
powered by fossil fuels
Sanitation and medicines

More food
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Thomas Malthus and human population:

An Essay on the Principle of Population (1789)
Thomas Malthus
Population growth must be restricted, or it will
outstrip food production
Starvation, war, disease
Neo-Malthusians
Population growth has disastrous effects
Paul and Anne Ehrlich, The Population Bomb (1968)
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Resource consumption exerts impacts

Garrett Hardins Tragedy of the Commons (1968)
Unregulated exploitation leads to resource depletion
Soil, air, water
Resource users are tempted to increase use until the

resource is gone
Solution?
Private ownership?
Voluntary organization to enforce responsible use?
Governmental regulations?
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The Ecological Footprint

The environmental impact
of a person or population
Amount of biologically
productive land + water
for raw materials and to
dispose/recycle waste
Overshoot: humans have

surpassed the Earths
capacity
We are using 30% more of the planets resources than are available on a
sustainable basis!
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Environmental science: how does

the natural world work?
Environment impacts Humans
It has an applied goal: developing
solutions to environmental
problems
An interdisciplinary field
Natural sciences: information
about the world
Social sciences: values and
human behavior
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From Industrial Revolution to Environmental Revolution

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
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Industrial Revolution
Started in England in 18th century

Substituted machine power for human labor
Industrial - where the central element is
technology or invention, as applied to the
manufacturing industry
transformation from agricultural to industrial
economy
primary concern was simply making production more
efficient
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Environmental Revolution in Industry

Three phases:
First phase: Up to the 1960s
voluntary effort to protect the environment from
degradation

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Three phases:
Second phase: 1960s 1980s
characterized by the nearly exponential increase in

environmental laws and regulations resulting in
companies addressing contamination problems but
not preventing the problems from occurring
so-called end-of-pipe method
compliance with the law
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Three phases:
Sustainable development phase
Sustainable manufacturing via more proactive
approaches instead of end-of-pipe treatment

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Brundtland Report
The Brundtland Commission, formally the World
Commission on Environment and
Development (WCED), known by the name of its
Chair Gro Harlem Brundtland, was convened by
the United Nations in 1983.

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Brundtland Report
The Report of the Brundtland Commission, Our
Common Future, was published by Oxford
University Press in 1987. The Report was
welcomed by the General Assembly in its
resolution 42/187

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Brundtland Report
The report deals with sustainable
development and the change of politics needed
for achieving that. The definition of this term in
the report is quite well known and often cited:

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Brundtland Report
"Sustainable development is development
that meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs."

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Brundtland Report
It contains within it two key concepts:
the concept of 'needs', in particular the essential

needs of the world's poor, to which overriding
priority should be given; and
the idea of limitations imposed by the state of
technology and social organization on the
environment's ability to meet present and future
needs."
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Sustainability
A guiding principle of environmental science
Living within our planets means
The Earth can sustain humans AND other organisms

for the future
Leaving our descendants with a rich, full world
Developing solutions that work in the long term
Requires keeping fully functioning ecological systems
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Sustainability
We are increasing our burden on the planet
each year.
Population growth, affluence, consumption
Natural capital: the accumulated wealth of

Earth
We are withdrawing our planets natural capital 30%

faster than it is being produced
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The most prolific evidence of the Industrial

Revolutions impact on the modern world can
be seen in the worldwide human population
growth

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The developed nations are demanding

environmental sustainability while the
developing nations are arguing that they should
be given the chance to catch up socially and
economically with the developed world.

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Human prosperity and environmental integrity

are closely intertwined because the fulfillment
of basic human needsfood, clothing,
materials, energyultimately depends upon the
availability of natural resources.

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Sustainability is measured by the use or misuse

of resources, both material and energy
The central idea is that we should use resources
(anything that is useful for creating wealth or
improving lives) in ways that do not diminish
them.

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In the last fifty years, we gradually rediscovered the

importance of protecting vital resources, such as soil,
air, water, trees, and other organisms.
What began as a fringe movement in the 1960s has
evolved into a mainstream concern, as economists and
politicians have gradually recognized that we are
depleting fossil fuel resources and pumping
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at an alarming
rate.
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The good news is that we are no longer in

denial, but the bad news is that we cant seem
to break our old habits.

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Early 2000s two authoritative reports appeared, involving

hundreds of scientists around the world, which left little
doubt about the urgency of the situation.
The International Panel on Climate Change confirmed the
rapid increase in global warming due to greenhouse gas
emissions, and Al Gore wisely used the cinematic medium
to sound a public alarm about the inconvenient truth of
climate change.
Less well publicized, but equally significant was the

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, which confirmed the
rapid degradation in ecosystems due to industrialization
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The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

The most comprehensive scientific assessment
of the condition of the worlds ecological
systems
Major findings:
Humans have drastically altered ecosystems

These changes have contributed to human wellbeing and economic development, but at a cost
Environmental degradation could get much worse
Degradation can be reversed, but it requires work
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CURRENT ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
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Population & Consumption

Human population growth exacerbates all
environmental problems
The growth rate has slowedbut we still add more
than 200,000 people to the planet each day
Our consumption of resources has risen even

faster than our population growth.
Life has become more pleasant for us so far

However, rising consumption amplifies the demands
we make on our environment.
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Ecological footprints are not all equal

The ecological footprints
of countries vary greatly
The U.S. footprint is almost

5 times greater than the
worlds average
Developing countries have
much smaller footprints
than developed countries
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We face challenges in agriculture

Expanded food production led to increased
population and consumption
Its one of humanitys greatest achievements,
but at an enormous environmental cost
Nearly half of the planets land surface is used for
agriculture
Chemical fertilizers
Pesticides
Erosion
Changed natural systems
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We face challenges in pollution

Waste products and artificial chemicals used
in farms, industries, and households
Each year, millions of people die from pollution

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We face challenges in climate

Scientists have firmly concluded that humans are
changing the composition of the atmosphere
The Earths surface is warming
Melting glaciers
Rising sea levels
Impacted wildlife and crops
Increasingly destructive weather
Since the Industrial Revolution, atmospheric carbon

dioxide concentrations have risen by 37%, to the
highest level in 650,000 years
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Global warming is only one of many disturbing trends

identified by the scientific community
sea level is rising, fresh water growing scarce, running
out of arable land, our disappearing forests, and loss of
biodiversity due to changes in natural habitats.
Meanwhile, global population continues to increase.

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We face challenges in biodiversity

Human actions have driven many species extinct,
and biodiversity is declining dramatically
Biodiversity loss may be our biggest environmental

problem; once a species is extinct, it is gone forever
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PRINCIPLES OF MATTER AND

ENERGY
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MATTER
the material of which things are made
exists in interchangeable physical forms: gases,
liquid and solid
neither created nor destroyed but recycled

over and over again (under ordinary
circumstances) but is recycled over and over
again
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The elements in the body have been recycled

through many other organisms, over millions of
years.
Matter is transformed and combined in
different ways but doesnt disappear;
everything goes somewhere.
Law of Conservation of Matter
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Matter is recycled endlessly through living

things, but this recycling is made possible by
something that cannot be recycled: ENERGY
ENERGY is reused but it is degraded from higher

quality to lower quality forms as it moves
through living systems
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ENERGY
Energy takes many different forms (heat, light,
electricity, chemical energy, etc.)
Energy as the capacity to do work:
Kinetic Energy: energy contained in moving objects

Potential Energy: energy stored that is latent and
available for use
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Thermodynamic and Energy Transfers
Thermodynamics
the study of how energy is transferred, its rates of
flow and transformation from one form or quality to
another

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FIRST LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS: Energy is
conserved: it is neither created nor destroyed
under normal conditions. It may be transferred
or transformed, but the total amount of energy
remains the same.
Law of Conservation of Energy
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SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS - The
tendency of all natural systems to go from a
state of order toward a state of increasing
disorder
Law of Entropy
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There is no loss of total energy, but there is a

loss of useful energy.
Example: coal burned in a power plant to produce
electrical energy; however, large amounts of useless
heat energy are also produced (combustion)

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All organisms including humans are in the

process of converting high quality energy into
low-quality energy
Waste heat is produced when chemical bond
energy in food is converted into energy needed
to move, grow, or respond.
PROCESS IS CALLED RESPIRATION (CELLULAR

RESPIRATION)
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An unfortunate consequence of energy

conversion is pollution
The heat from energy conversion is a pollutant,
the emissions from power plants pollute
Therefore, if we use less energy, there would be
less waste (heat) energy, hence less pollution

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Our energy choices will

affect our future
The lives we live today are due to fossil fuels
Machines
Chemicals
Transportation
Products
Fossil fuels are a one-time bonanza; supplies will

certainly decline
We have used up of the worlds oil supplies; how
will we handle this imminent fossil fuel shortage?
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Natural resources: vital to human survival

Natural resources = substances and energy sources needed for survival
Renewable resources:
Available: sunlight, wind, wave energy
Renew themselves over short periods: timber, water, soil
These can be destroyed
Nonrenewable resources: can be depleted
Oil, coal, minerals
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Resources and natural amenities, including

wildlife and natural beauty and open space,
should be preserved so that future generations
can still enjoy them.

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Types of Resources
Nonrenewable resources exist in finite
amounts: minerals, iron, fossil fuels, and also
groundwater that recharges extremely slowly
are all fixed at least on a human time scale
Renewable resources are naturally

replenished and recycled at a fairly steady
rate: fresh water, living organisms, air, food
resources are all renewable
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Types of Resources
Nonrenewable resources can be extended
through more efficient use (cars use less steel
now, precious metals like gold are mixed with
other metals to form alloys to extend their use).
Substitution of materials (renewable in place of

the nonrenewable) also reduces the demand for
certain resources
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Recycling also extends supplies of

nonrenewable resources
The only limit to recycling is the relative costs of
extracting new resources compared with
collecting used materials
New technology or methods also expand the
sources of nonrenewable resources
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Renewable resources can become

exhausted if managed badly.

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Will we develop in a sustainable way?

The triple bottom line: sustainable solutions
that meet
Environmental goals
Economic goals
Social goals
Requires that humans apply knowledge from

the sciences to
Limit environmental impacts
Maintain functioning ecological systems

Environmental Science An Introduction

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ENVISOC

Environmental Science, Environment, and Society

Environment: the total of our

Our built environment

Buildings, human-created living centers

Social relationships and institutions

[1] Environmental Science, Environment, and Society: An Introduction

R-Jay P. Quiambao, CIE

refers to the man-made surroundings that

[1] Environmental Science, Environment, and Society: An Introduction

R-Jay P. Quiambao, CIE

The term may also be defined as the sum

Humans exist within the

R-Jay P. Quiambao, CIE

We are part of the natural world.

Humans and the world around us

R-Jay P. Quiambao, CIE

Humans change the environment, often in ways not

Humans and the world around us

R-Jay P. Quiambao, CIE

With environmental problems come

[1] Environmental Science, Environment, and Society: An Introduction

Global Human Population Growth

R-Jay P. Quiambao, CIE

Sanitation and medicines

[1] Environmental Science, Environment, and Society: An Introduction

Thomas Malthus and human population:

R-Jay P. Quiambao, CIE

[1] Environmental Science, Environment, and Society: An Introduction

Resource consumption exerts impacts

Resource users are tempted to increase use until the

R-Jay P. Quiambao, CIE

[1] Environmental Science, Environment, and Society: An Introduction

The Ecological Footprint

R-Jay P. Quiambao, CIE

Overshoot: humans have

Environmental science: how does

R-Jay P. Quiambao, CIE

[1] Environmental Science, Environment, and Society: An Introduction

From Industrial Revolution to Environmental Revolution

R-Jay P. Quiambao, CIE

Started in England in 18th century

[1] Environmental Science, Environment, and Society: An Introduction

Environmental Revolution in Industry

R-Jay P. Quiambao, CIE

Environmental Revolution in Industry

R-Jay P. Quiambao, CIE

characterized by the nearly exponential increase in

[1] Environmental Science, Environment, and Society: An Introduction

Environmental Revolution in Industry

R-Jay P. Quiambao, CIE

R-Jay P. Quiambao, CIE

R-Jay P. Quiambao, CIE

R-Jay P. Quiambao, CIE

R-Jay P. Quiambao, CIE

R-Jay P. Quiambao, CIE

the concept of 'needs', in particular the essential

[1] Environmental Science, Environment, and Society: An Introduction

R-Jay P. Quiambao, CIE

The Earth can sustain humans AND other organisms

[1] Environmental Science, Environment, and Society: An Introduction

Natural capital: the accumulated wealth of

R-Jay P. Quiambao, CIE