Understanding Our Environment

Objectives
• Define the terms environment, ecology and
environmental science
• Discuss the history of conservation and the different
attitudes toward nature revealed by utilitarian
conservation and biocentric preservation
• Briefly describe some major global environmental issues
• Understand the connection between poverty and
environmental degradation, as well as the division
between the wealthy, industrialized countries and the
poorer, developing countries of the world
• Recognize some of the reasons for feeling both optimistic
and pessimistic about our environmental future

Outline
• Introduction
• Historical Perspective
• Global Environmental Issues
• A Divided World
• Sustainable Development

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 What is the Environment?

– French “_________” to encircle or surround

– Circumstances or conditions that surround an organism
or groups of organisms.
– All external conditions and factors, living and non-living
(chemicals and energy) that affect a person during its
lifetime
– Aggregate of the physical, chemical, biological, social,
cultural, political, religious, national, global, universal
factors that affect human existence
– _________________________________

Worlds of our Environment

Ecology

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What is Environmental Science?

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
4thBC – Plato: deforestation and erosion
1273: Edward I – Use of coal in London
Modern Environmental Movement - 1800

• Four Distinct Stages

– Pragmatic Resource Conservation
– Moral and Aesthetic Nature Preservation
– Health and Ecological Damage Concerns
– Global Environmental Citizenship
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Pragmatic Resource Conservation

• “Greatest good for the greatest number for the longest
time”
• George Perkins Marsh - Early Conservationist
– wrote Man and Nature in 1864
– warned of the ecological consequences of poor environmental
stewardship
– Sir Clifford Sifton
– believed that forests should be preserved not only for
their beauty but also for economic harvesting
– Gifford Pinchot (early 1900)
– "There may be just as much waste in neglecting the
development and use of certain natural resources as
there is in their destruction.“
– this concept lead to "multiple use policies" - e.g. forests
can be used for logging as long as the resource is 9
managed properly

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 Moral and Aesthetic Nature
Preservation
• Biocentric Preservation
– Nature deserves to exist for
its own sake regardless
of degree of usefulness
to humans.
• John Muir
– First president of Sierra Club
• Sierra Club has been instrumental
in preserving wilderness, wildlife
and nature's most splendid wild
places for over 100 years
• oriented toward the preservation
of nature in its purest state
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• often at odds with the Forest Service

Health and Ecological Damage Concerns

Modern Environmentalism
• Environmentalism
– concerned with both environmental resources and pollution
– encompasses research and activism
• Industrial explosion of WW II added new concerns to the
environmental agenda.
– Rachel Carson – Silent Spring (1962)
• awakened the public to the threats of
pollution and toxic chemicals to humans
as well as other species
• Environmental Agenda expanded
in 1960’s and 70’s to include:
– Atomic Weapons Testing
– Fossil Fuel Issues
– Air and Water Pollution
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– Forest Protection

__________– First Earth Day

20 million people in 2,000 communities marched to
demand improved environmental quality

___________ World Environment Day

___________ Environment Month 12

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 Global Environmental Citizenship
Global Environmentalism
• Increased technology has greatly expanded international
communications.
– Daily events now reported worldwide instead of locally or regionally.
– Increased feeling of connectedness.
• What happens in one side of the globe will have an
impact on other parts of the globe
– What is our proper place in nature?
– What should we be doing and what
can we do to protect the irreplaceable
habitat that produced and protects us?
• International Agreements
– Montreal Protocol
– Earth Summit
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– Kyoto Protocol

CURRENT CONDITIONS
• Global Environmental Issues

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Major Causes of Environmental Problems

1. P

2. C

3. Po

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5
 POPCLOCK

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North/South Divisions

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RICH / POOR: A DIVIDED WORLD

• Poor countries tend to be located in Southern
Hemisphere.
• World Bank estimates1.4 billion people live in
acute poverty of < $1 (U.S.) per day.
– Daily survival necessitates over-harvesting resources
thus degrading chances of long-term sustainability.
– Poor are often victims and agents of environmental degradation.

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 RICH / POOR: A DIVIDED WORLD
• Wealthy countries tend to be located in the
Northern Hemisphere.
• About 1/5 of world population live in countries
with per capita income > $25,000.00 (U.S.).
– Poor people exist here as well.
• Gap between rich and poor continues to increase.
– Wealthiest 200 people in the world have combined
wealth of $1 trillion - more than total wealth of
poorest half (3 billion) of the world’s population.

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Vital Stats
• Half the world's population lives on under $2 a
day;
• 1 billion live on less than a dollar a day;
• 600 million will not see their 40th birthday;
• 800 million cannot get primary health care;
• 200 million children suffer from lack of food;
• 140 million people of working age have no job;
• 500 million young people will arrive on the job
market in the next ten years seeking jobs.

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 World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity
ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
Critical Environmental What we must do:
Stresses: • control environmental
• atmospheric damage
• water resources • manage resources more
• oceans effectively
• soil • stabilize populations
• forests • reduce or eliminate
• living species poverty
• ensure sexual equality 22

Ecological Footprint
• How many planets it will take to support your lifestyle
• http://www.footprintnetwork.org/gfn_sub.php?conten
t=calculator
• Choose West Australia
• Carbon Footprint
• How much land area does it take to support your
lifestyle? Take this quiz to find out your Ecological
Footprint, discover your biggest areas of resource
consumption, and learn what you can do to tread more
lightly on the earth.
• How many global hectares of the earth’s productive
area support your lifestyle

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Yosemite National Park 24

8
 Yosemite National Park

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Sequoia Park 26

Grand Canyon 27