Green decline 'may bring irreversible change'

1. Define Sustainable development and briefly explain, using examples

from the text, why environmental degradation and resource over use will
lead to unsustainable development. (4 marks)

Sustainable development is an organizing principle for meeting human

development goals while also sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the
natural resources and ecosystem services on which the economy and society
depend. In short, "Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of
the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs".

In the text, for example “Air pollution indoors and outdoors is probably causing more
than six million premature deaths each year.” And “Greenhouse gas emissions are
on track to warm the world by at least 3oC on average by 2100”. It has been pointed
out that factors such as air pollution and climate change are also imposing costs on
the global economy such as in US, air pollution is calculated to cut crop yields by
$14-26bn each year.

2. Why is there often a conflict between economic growth in a country and

sustainable development in that country? (4 marks)

There is always a conflict because the economic growth in a country impacts

the sustainable development in that country, and vice versa.

Particularly in the developing country, the conflict is more acute because of

environment worsens with a high-speed economy increasing. Many
multinational enterprises have been invested following the all kinds of
increased industries and agricultures, for example machine, textile, chemical
plant, foodstuff, and so on, not only benefits the economic development, but
also provide a great deal of working opportunities for the labor market, and
reduce the burden of the country. That’s the positive influence, but it has the
negative impacts on the sustainable development like the transportation, air
pollution, Global warming, climate changes to have significant consequences
for agriculture production.

Along with economic development people will pay more attention to the
sustainable development. The sustainable development fund will also be
found and increased if necessary. Solving the problem, the government may
force the enterprises to carry out the sustainable development through the law
and regulation and economical tool like environment tax revenue. In order to

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 survive, the enterprises would put the external diseconomy in the production
cost and reflected to the product price. Hence it may impact the country
competitiveness and its national output per capita.

3. According to the above article, how much land is being currently used
to meet human needs and why will it increase further in the future?
(2 marks)

In the text, it has revealed that more than 40% of the Earth’s land is used for
human needs, including for the cities and farms. With the world population
set to grow by a further two billion by 2050, there could be able to exceed
50% of the Earth’s land to be used soon.

4. Deforestation in Brazil is occurring as soya bean farmers clear forest

areas. What is the opportunity cost to Brazil of this occurring? In what
way is this contributing to non-sustainable development?
(4 marks)

Millions of acres of Brazil's forest and grasslands have been cleared over the
past 30 years to grow soybeans, making the country the world's biggest
soybean producer. But the deforestation that facilitated Brazil's soybean boom
is now undermining it, bringing hotter and drier weather that makes soybeans
less productive.

The hotter temperatures which result from clearing natural vegetation already
are costing Brazil's soybean farmers more than $3 billion each year in lost
productivity. These local and regional temperature increases are on top of
global climate change, which also is intensified as deforestation adds carbon
dioxide to the atmosphere. It would affect the climate change, especially
rainfall patterns which increase the likelihood of more intense tropical storms
and will have significant consequences for agriculture production.

This economic harm to the soybean industry from these regional weather
changes still is outweighed by the profits that soybean farmers collectively can
gain by claiming more land.

It has also been pointed out that the vast deforestation in Brazil contributes to
a serious loss in biodiversity which are eroding the productivity, resilience and
adaptability of nature. This is in turn putting economies, livelihoods and well-
being at risk and of course contributing to non-sustainable development.

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 5. Spend 10 minutes researching beef farming in the USA and Brazil. From
your research and your own general knowledge outline why beef
farming is currently unsustainable and give two reasons why there has
been an increase in global demand for beef in the past 20 year.
(6 mark)

According to many recent researches, beef farming at its current levels is

unsustainable with the following reasons. Firstly, beef livestock uses a
disproportionally large amount of land. Of the 51 million km 2 of agricultural
land, 77% is used for livestock and feeding livestock. Despite this, only 17%
of global caloric consumption comes from animals, with plant-based foods
supplying 83% of global caloric intake. Only 33% of global protein intake
comes from meat and dairy.

Secondly, beef is a very inefficient source of nutrition. World’s population is

expected to hit 10 billion in 2050. In order to feed the whole population, which
will require a 70% increase in global food production that will detrimental to
the environment. If the world adopted an entirely plant based diet, current
agriculture could easily produce enough food to feed the growing population.

Thirdly, the meat industry is also a major source of environmental damage.

Agriculture is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, with carbon
dioxide from soil cultivation, methane from cattle, nitrous oxide from fertiliser,
water stress and manure being major contributors. Expansion of livestock
production i.e. beef farming is a major factor in deforestation. Also antibiotics,
fertilisers and pesticides run into rivers and oceans, causing eutrophication,
coastal "dead" zones and degradation of coral reefs. Pollution associated
with animal agriculture and habitat destruction from pasture creation is a
major threat to biodiversity, with the loss of species estimated to be running
50 to 500 times higher than would be expected from the fossil record.

Indeed, there has been an increase in global demand for beef in the past 20
year. In the last 20 years up to 2018, developing countries, i.e. China has
54% and Indonesia has 89% increment on meat, accounted for around 85%
of the rise in global meat consumption. It is mainly because of the changing
on consumer preferences and income growth. Rising incomes are a major
driver of increased meat consumption.