Note: blue highlighted bullet points = lecture notes; red bullet points = discussion questions

Chapter 1
The Environment and Sustainability
Basic Vocabulary
● Sustainability = capacity of the earth’s natural systems to survive or adapt to changing
environmental conditions
● Biomimicry = scientific effort to mimic the ways that nature has sustained life on earth for so
long
● Ecology = branch of biology, how living things interact with the living and nonliving parts of the
environment
● Species = group of organisms that have a unique set of characteristics that set it apart from other
groups
● Ecosystem = biological community of organisms within an area of land/water that interact with
each other
● Environmentalism = social movement dedicated to protecting earth’s life-support system

Core Case Study: Learning from the Earth

● Geckos little hairs on their feet that allow them to walk on surfaces
○ Led to the development of “gecko tape” which replaces toxin-containing glues and tapes
○ AKA an example of biomimicry

Key Principles of Sustainability

1. Life on earth has been sustained by solar energy, biodiversity, and chemical cycling.
2. Our lives and economies depend on energy from the sun and on natural resources and ecosystem
services provided by the earth.
3. We can live more sustainably by following six principles.

1.1 What Are Some Key Principles of Sustainability?

Environmental Science Is a Study of Connections in Nature
● Environmental science studies:
○ 1) How the earth works and has survived
○ 2) How humans interact with the environment
○ 3) How humans can live more sustainably
● Ecology studies ecosystems

Learning from the Earth: Three Scientific Principles of Sustainability

● 3 scientific principles of sustainability:
○ Solar energy - sun’s energy warms the planet and provides energy that plants use to
produce nutrients
■ Original energy source to life
○ Biodiversity - variety of genes, species, ecosystems, and ecosystem processes;
interactions prevent populations from growing too large and ways for species to adapt to
changing environmental conditions
 ○ Chemical cycling - circulation of nutrients from the environment (like soil and water)
through various organisms and back to the environment

Key Components of Sustainability

● Natural capital = natural resources and ecosystem services that keep humans and other species
alive
● Natural resources can be inexhaustible, renewable, or nonrenewable
○ Inexhaustible = expected to last forever
■ Solar energy, wind energy, geothermal energy
○ Renewable = can be used repeatedly
■ Forests, grasslands, fertile topsoil, fishes, clean air, fresh water
■ Sustainable yield = rate at which people can use a renewable resource
indefinitely without reducing its available supply
○ Nonrenewable = exist in fixed amount
■ Take millions to billions of years to form
■ Oil, natural gas, coal, metallic minerals like copper and aluminum
● Ecosystem services = natural services provided by healthy ecosystems at no monetary cost
○ Forests purify air and water, reduce soil erosion, regulate climate, and recycle nutrients
○ Air purification, waste treatment, soil renewal, food production, nutrients, climate
control, population control, cultures
● People are replacing biologically diverse mature forests with simplified crop plantations that
require large and costly inputs of energy, water, fertilizer, and pesticides
● Human activities add pollutants to the air and dump chemicals and wastes faster than they can be
cleansed
● Plastics and synthetic materials poison wildlife and disrupt nutrient cycling because they can’t be
broken down
● 5 subthemes:
○ 1) Natural capital
○ 2) Human activities degrade natural capital
○ 3) People finding solutions to the environmental problems
○ 4) Both sides must make trade-offs
○ 5) Individuals matter

Three Additional Principles of Sustainability

● Full-cost pricing (economics)
○ Include in market prices the harmful environmental and health costs of producing and
using goods and services
○ Give consumers information about the harmful environmental impacts of the goods and
services
● Win-win solutions (political science)
○ Benefit the largest number of people and environment
○ Okay, honestly this seems like a no-brainer which is why I hate politicians because they
say the most useless and obvious stuff
● Responsibility to future generations (ethics)
 ○ Responsibility to leave the planet’s life-support systems in good or better condition than
what we inherited for the benefit of future generations

Countries Differ in Their Resource Use and Environmental Impact

● UN classifies world countries as developed based on average income per person
● More-developed countries: US, Japan, Canada, Australia, Germany, and most of Europe
○ 17% of world’s population but use 70% of earth’s natural resources
○ US has 4.4% of world’s population but use 30% of world’s resources
● Middle-income, moderately developed countries: China, India, Brazil, Thailand, and Mexico
● Low-income, least-developed countries: Nigeria, Bangladesh, Congo, Haiti
○ 83% of world’s population but use 30% of world’s natural resources

1.2 How Are We Affecting the Earth?

How We Affect the Earth
● Humans dominate the earth wit the power to sustain, add, or degrade the natural capital
● We deplete and degrade more of the earth’s natural capital that sustains us

Good News: Many People Have a Better Quality of Life

● Humans decide whether forests are preserved or cut down
● Human activities affect the temperature of the atmosphere and temperature/acidity of the ocean
and which species survive or become extinct
● Creative thinking, scientific research, political pressure, and regulatory laws have improved
quality of life for many
● Affluence and education have spurred improvements

Bad News: On the Whole, We Are Living Unsustainably

● Environmental degradation/natural capital degradation = people keep wasting, depleting, and
degrading life-sustaining natural capital
● Human activity directly affects 83% of the earth’s land surface
○ Uses land for urban development, growing crops, grazing livestock, mining, timber
cutting, energy production
● Problems:
○ Shrinking forests, expanding deserts, eroding topsoil, warming atmosphere, melting
glaciers, rising sea levels, increasing ocean acidity
○ More intense floods, droughts, severe weather, forest fires
○ 20% of world’s coral reefs are gone
○ Species are becoming extinct 100 times faster, which will increase another 100-fold
● Human activity has overused 60% of ecosystem services

Degrading Commonly Shared Renewable Resources: The Tragedy of the Commons

● Open-access resources = not owned by anyone and can be used by almost anyone
○ Examples: atmosphere, open ocean and fish
● Less open but shared resources
○ Examples: grasslands, forests,streams, and aquifers (underground bodies of water)
 ● Tragedy of the commons = degradation of renewable resources
○ Each person keeps using it because they think they’re only one person, but it all adds up
● Solutions:
○ Use renewable resources at a rate below its estimated sustainable yield
■ Agree to use less of a resource, regulating access, or both (honestly do both)
○ Convert shared renewable resources to private ownership

Our Growing Ecological Footprints

● Ecological footprint = measure of the total harmful environmental impacts of individuals, cities,
and countries on natural resources, ecosystem services, and life-support system
● Per capita ecological footprint = average ecological footprint of an individual
● Carrying capacity = maximum number of species an environment can support indefinitely
● Biocapacity = ability of ecosystems to regenerate renewable resources and to absorb wastes and
pollution
○ Ecological deficit = ecological footprint > biocapacity
■ Occurs when people deplete natural capital instead of living off renewable
resources and ecosystem services
■ DQ: does Canada have more sustainable life form than the US?
● Solutions:
○ Replant forests on degraded land, restore degraded wetlands/grasslands, protect species
from extinction
○ DQ: how can an environment be made sustainable?

IPAT Is Another Environmental Impact Model

● Environmental Impact = Population x Affluence (resource consumption per person) x
Technology
○ Technology
■ Harmful: polluting factories, gas-guzzling motor vehicles, coal-burning power
plants
■ Beneficial: pollution control and prevention technologies, fuel-efficient cars,
wind turbines, solar cells
● Biomimicry
■ DQ: which countries have population as a more important factor? Which
countries have affluence o r technology as more important factors?
● When determining country’s environmental impact
○ Moderately developed country = population size is more important than affluence
○ Highly developed country = affluence is more important than population size

Cultural Changes Can Increase or Shrink Our Ecological Footprints

● As hunter-gatherers, humans lived in small groups, consumed few resources, had few
possessions, and moved when needed
● 3 major cultural changes:
○ 1. Agricultural revolution
■ Learned to grow and breed plants and animals for food, clothing, etc.
 ■ Began living in villages
■ Had a more reliable source of food, lived longer, and produced more children →
population growth leads to more pollution
○ 2. Industrial-medical revolution
■ Invented machines for large-scale production of goods in factories
■ Moved from rural villages to cities
● AKA learned how to get energy from fossil fuels and how to grow large
quantities of food
■ Medical advances allowed people to live longer → population growth leads to
more pollution
○ 3. Information-globalization revolution
● Sustainability revolution = people learn to live more sustainably and avoid degradation/depletion
of natural capital
○ How? Biomimicry

1.3 What Causes Environmental Problems

The Human Population is Growing at a Rapid Rate
● Exponential growth = quantity increases at a fixed percentage per unit or time
○ Starts slowly but grows enormously
○ Each doubling is twice the total of all earlier growths
○ Looks like the letter J
○ DQ: consider the human population growth chart. Why are there multiple dotted line
from about 2000-2100 rather than a single line?
● Solutions:
○ Slow population growth by reducing poverty, promoting family planning, elevating status
of women

Affluence and Unsustainable Resource Use

● Because people are earning higher incomes, more and more lifestyles are built on growing
affluence = resource consumption per person → total resource consumption and average resource
consumption per person increase
● Statistics about how wasteful the US is:
○ US (4.4% of total population) is responsible for 23% of global ecological footprint
○ Average American consumes 30 times the amount of resources that the average Indian
consumes and 100 times the amount consumed by the average person in the world’s
poorest countries
○ If everyone lived in America, we would need five Earths
● Affluence allows for:
○ Widespread/better education → people become more concerned about environmental
quality
○ Makes more money available for developing environmentally-friendly technology

Poverty Has Harmful Environmental and Health Effects

 ● Poverty = people lack enough money to fulfill basic needs for food, water, shelter, health care and
education
● 2.5 million people (1 in 3) live on less than $3.10 a day
● 900 million people (3x the population of US) live in extreme poverty and on less than $1.90 a day
● Harmful effects:
○ Poor people are too desperate for short-term survival to worry about long-term
environmental quality of sustainability → may degrade forests, topsoil, and grasslands
and deplete fisheries and wildlife populations to stay alive
○ Tend to have more children → contributes to adverse population growth
● Positive effects:
○ Poor people plant and nurture trees and conserve the soil as part of their survival
● Environmental degradation can affect health of the poor
○ Malnutrition = lack of protein and other nutrients
○ Illness caused by limited access to adequate sanitation and clean drinking water
○ Indoor air pollution from open fires and poorly vented stoves

Prices of Goods and Services Rarely Include Their Harmful Environmental and Health Costs
● Companies don’t pay for the harmful environmental and health costs of producing their goods
○ Example: timber companies pay to clear forests but not for the environmental degradation
and loss of wildlife habitat
○ Goal of a company is to maximize profits, not add costs to prices
○ Prevents consumers and decision makers from evaluating harmful environmental effects
● Governments sometimes give subsidies to companies
○ Can encourage depletion and degradation of natural capital
● 2 ways to implement full-cost pricing:
○ 1. Shift from environmentally harmful government subsidies to environmentally
beneficial subsidies
■ Example: give subsidies that reward sustainable forest management, replanting of
degraded lands, sustainable agriculture, and use of wind and solar power
○ 2. Increase taxes on pollution and wastes + reduce taxes on income and wealth

People Are Increasingly Isolated from Nature

● More than 50% of people and ¾ people live in urban areas
● Nature deficit disorder = people can suffer from stress, anxiety, depression, etc.
○ Experiencing nature can reduce stress, improve mental health, activate imagination and
creativity, and lead to better health
○ When people are isolated from nature, they are more likely to harm the environment

Differing Environmental Worldviews

● Environmental worldview = set of assumptions and values about how the natural world works
and how one should interact with the environment
○ Determined by environmental ethics = what you believe about what is right and wrong in
your behavior toward the environment
● 3 environmental worldviews:
 ○ 1. Human-centered
■ Natural world = primary support system for human life
■ Planetary management vs. stewardship
● Both agree that humans are separate from and in charge of nature and
that society should mandate the earth for the benefit of humans
○ If we degrade or deplete a natural resource, we can just use
technology to find a substitute
● Stewardship = people have responsibility to be caring and responsible
managers AKA stewards of the planet
○ 2. Life-centered
■ All species have value in fulfilling their ecological roles, regardless of use
■ People should protect species from extinction at all costs
○ 3. Earth-centered
■ People are part of and dependent on nature
■ Economic success and long-term survival depends on learning about
sustainability

The Rise of Environmental Conservation and Protection in the United States

● George Perkins Marsh = founder of conservation movement
● Movement into two factions: preservationist vs. conservationist
○ Preservationist = some wilderness areas on public land should be left untouched and
preserved indefinitely, ex.: John Muir
○ Conservationist = all public lands should be managed wisely and scientifically to provide
resources for people, ex.: Teddy Roosevelt
● Aldo Leopold = preservationist but was originally conservationist
○ Helped found the US Wilderness Society
○ Argued that the role of human species should be to protect nature, not conquer it
● In 20th century, conservation broadened to include preservation of quality
● Between 1940-1970, US underwent rapid economic growth and industrialization → caused air
and water pollution
○ Growing publicity led American public to demand government action
○ Led to Earth Day and creation of EPA
○ 1970s = decade of the environment

1.4 What is an Environmentally Sustainable Society?

Protecting Natural capital and Living on Its Income
● Environmentally sustainable society = protects natural capital and lives on its income
○ Example: if you win $1 million in a lottery and invest with 10% interest, you can live on
the interest income of $100,000 AKA you can spent $100,000 a year and not deplete your
capital
■ If you spent $10,000 more per year, you would lose all your money
■ The point? Protect your capital and live on the income it provides
● Natural income = renewable resources
○ Examples: plants, animals, soil, clean air, and clean water
Science Focus 1.1: Some Biomimicry Principles
● 3 levels:
○ 1. Mimicking characteristics of species, believed to have enhanced long-term survival
■ Examples: whale fin’s bumps, bird’s wings/feather
○ 2. Mimicking processes
■ Examples: how species make shells, feathers, etc.
○ 3. Mimicking long-term survival strategies and beneficial environmental effects
■ Examples: forests, coral reefs
● Basic concepts:
○ Run on sunlight
○ Do not waste energy
○ Adapt to changing environmental conditions
○ Depend on biodiversity for population control and adaptation
○ Create no waste because the matter outputs of one organism are resources to another
○ Do not pollute environment
○ Do not produce chemicals that cannot be recycled