Ecologies of Construction

Global Impacts and Measures

©john e. fernández sa+p:mit – building technology program

Learning objective
Purpose: To introduce the various measures used to determine the impact of individual, societal and
global human activities. To discuss in some depth the ecological footprint and the notion of
‘overshoot’ as it relates to work in the limits of growth (Meadows), resource depletion (Hubbert
and Graedel) and degradation of biocapacity (again, Meadows and systems thinking and
Wackernagel).

Primary reference texts for lecture:

Donnella, D. Randers, J. and D. Meadows 2004. Limits to Growth – 30 year update. Chelsea Green
Publishing Company.
Wackernagel, M. et al. 2002. "Tracking the Ecological Overshoot of the Human Economy." PNAS 99, no.14, 9266-9271.

1
global impacts (of human activity)

Input - Impact
I. Energy - Fossil fuels, environmental degradation
• M.K. Hubbert’s Peal Oil Production

II. Material - Material depletion, waste production

• D&D Meadows, J. Jacobs, T. Graedel

Output - Impact
I. CO2 emissions - global warming
• R. Revelle and Global Warming

II. Pollution – human health, biodiversity

III. Toxic substances – health, biodiversity
IV. Loss of resilience or ‘wealth’
• M. Wackernagel and Ecological Footprint

2
measures (of human activity)

I. Individual Consumption
II. Ecological footprint

3
 Total neolithic* human
*11k-7.5k BC material consumption
This periods
includes the
period that Breath 5.1
defines the end
of the Stone Age
when farming
was developed
and spread and
ends with the
invention and
use of metal 6 0.8
tools (the
Bronze Age).

Excreta

+0

Solid waste 0.1

Unit: tonnes/cap-yr
Sources: various

4
 Total modern* human
*20th c.,
developed
material consumption
economy

Offgas 19

89 61

Sewage

+6

Solid waste 3

Unit: tonnes/cap-yr
Source: various

Clearly modern consumption has increased dramatically.

Are there limits?

What characterizes the process of reaching and exceeding a limit?
Who has been instrumental in articulating the actual limits that we face?

5
 “Our ignorance is not so vast as our
failure to use what we know.”

“The end of the oil age is in sight,' says

U.S. petroleum geologist M. King
Hubbert.... If present trends continue,
Dr. Hubbert estimates, production will
peak in 1995 -- the deadline for
alternative forms of energy that must
replace petroleum in the sharp drop-off
that follows." from "Oil, the Dwindling
Treasure," National Geographic
M. King Hubbert

(June, 1974)

Hubbert’s contention was that after Peak Oil Production occurs, demand will quickly tighten and
prices will rise dramatically. Yet, despite higher prices, catastrophic economic consequences will
follow because demand – at any price – will progressively outstrip supply at greater rates, leading to
the possibility of violent conflict, aggressive supply hoarding and distribution control and volatile
prices in oil, oil-related fuels, plastics and many manufactured products. Countries will become
increasingly alarmed at the trend and decisive steps will be taken to secure the largest oil reserves
(US in the Middle East, China in Africa and Canada). Prolonged recessions will reduce consumption
but not enough to offset the structural change in the dynamics between supply and demand of this
resource.

The M. King Hubbert Center(Petroleum Engineering Department) at the Colorado School of Mines
published in Hubbert Center Newsletter #2002/2003 (July 2002), reminds us that there is a
fundamental disagreement between monetary economics and natural scientists on this question. The
Newsletter offers Professor M.A. Adelman’s opinion that…”Minerals are inexhaustible and will never
be depleted. A stream of investment creates additions to proven reserves from a very large in-ground
inventory…How much was in the ground at the start and how much will be left at the end are
unknown and irrelevant.”

This contrast sharply with those predicting a looming energy crisis, especially with regard to
transportation energy.

Oil provides 40% percent of global energy needs and 90% of global transportation energy.

6
 40 80% in 64 years
80% in 58 years
Production (109 Barrels Per Year)

30

20

10

0
1900 1925 1950 1975 2000 2025 2050 2075 2100
Cycle of World Oil Production is plotted on the basis of two estimates of the amount of oil
that will ultimately be produced.

Ryman's estimate of 2,100 X 109 barrels

Ryman's estimate of 1,350 X 109 barrels
2005 2012

Figure by MIT OCW.

The M. King Hubbert Center(Petroleum Engineering Department) at the Colorado

School of Mines published in Hubbert Center Newsletter #2002/2003 (July
2002), predicts that Peak Oil will be reached between 2005 and 2012.

By the way, Peak Oil Production in the US was reached in 1970, forty years
after Peal Oil Discovery.

World Peak Oil Discovery occurred in 1964. It follows that it is possible that Peak
Oil Production will occur in the time period listed above.
There is greater consensus than ever that this will be the case because of the
enormous economic activity of China and India – especially since China has
been building roads and producing cars at an alarmingly high rate.

Today, roughly World Oil numbers are as follows:

1. Produced to date: 875 billion barrels (45%)
2. Discovered reserves: 900 billion barrels (47%)
3. Possible undiscovered reserves: 150 billion barrels (8%)

7
 To a reporter asking why he had
received the National Medal of Science
in 1991, Revelle said “I got it for being
the grandfather of the greenhouse
effect.”

Roger Revelle

In 1896 Svante Arrhenius, working in Stockholm Sweden, calculated the effect of global temperature change
due to changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. He calculated that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 would
raise average global temperatures about 5-6 degrees C. Around this time, others were noting the fact that
industry was increasingly adding CO2 to the atmosphere. Yet, Arrhenius and others working at the time
calculated that rates of CO2 emissions would not affect temperatures for many hundreds, if not thousands of
years (a conclusion resulting partly from their overestimate of the moderating effects of the absorption of CO2
by oceans). Therefore, warming by anthropogenic CO2 emissions was largely left as a footnote in geological
and meteorological research.

In 1938, the theory was picked up by an English steam engineer, Guy Stewart Callendar who became
interested as a popular movement attempted to explain recent warming of the seasons. He concluded that over
the previous 100 years, the concentration of the gas had increased 10% - an amount that he asserted explained
the recent warming.

Revelle took up this topic as a by-product of his work in the chemical composition of the sea. Essentially the key
component of Revelle’s work was to show that oceans did not absorb nearly as much CO2 as had been
previously predicted. Therefore, the buffering of the sea had been overestimated. Revelle was the first to note
that exponential increases in anthropogenic CO2 emissions would lead to greenhouse effect warming
that…”may become significant during future decades if industrial fuel combustion continues to rise
exponentially.”

While others had described the chemistry of global warming and CO2 absorption of he oceans, Revelle was the
first to make a direct connection between increased modern human industrial activities and warming due to the
greenhouse gas effect.

Revelle writing in 1957 (with Hans Suess):

“Human beings are now carrying out a large scale geophysical experiment of a kind that could not have
happened in the past nor be reproduced in the future.”

Curiously, but not inconsequentially, Revelle went on to become very interested in the question of population –
that is, the P in the IPAT equation.

8
 Northern Hemisphere

Departures in temperature (oC) from the 1961 to 1990 average

0.5

0.0

-0.5

Data from thermometers (Blue)

-1.0
and from tree rings, corals, ice
cores and historical records (Green).

1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000

Year

Figure by MIT OCW.

1938
Callendar

Adapted from: Houghton, J.T. et al. (2001) Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK: pg. 29

Note the prescience of Callendar who noted the rise in temperatures as a

result of CO2 concentrations.

9
Global Climate Change (IPCC 2007)

The Climate Change 2007 Report of the IPCC states that,

“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal…” How have
you assimilated this fact into your life, especially since CO2
additions will not likely plateau for some time to come?

Does a lack of will have a solution?

Will knowledge of the systems behavior aid in understanding

the need for change (or is it just too complex)?

Source (reading): IPCC 2007. Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. IPCC Secretariat. .

10
 “The necessity of taking the industrial
world to its next stage of evolution is
not a disaster – it is an amazing
opportunity. How to seize the
opportunity, hot to bring into being a
world that is not only sustainable,
functional, and equitable but also
deeply desirable is a question of
leadership and ethics and vision and
courage, properties not of computers
models but of the human heart and
soul.”
Donella Meadows

Limits to Growth – The 30-year update.

(2004)

Meadows comes from the line of researchers synthesizing methods and tools for
systems analysis. Worked with one of the preeminent systems people – Jay
Forrester at MIT.

Kay, (An ecosystem approach for sustainability) and Holling (Understanding the
complexity), both establish the intellectual and theoretical foundation for systems
analysis. Others then have taken these theories and tried to develop tools and other
instruments that allow application in the field.

11
 Meadows, D., Randers, J. and D.
Meadows. 2004. Limits to Growth –

The 30-Year Update. Chelsea Green.

Excerpt

It’s very courageous to provide an update on a prediction of the future because

predictions of the future are easy to make and easy to defend – they are
predictions.

In the 30 year update, Meadows, Randers and Meadows reassert their contention
that anthropogenic activities are approaching possibly catastrophic conditions
resulting from dramatic ‘overshoot’ of consumption versus natural capital.

Read Excerpt from Limits to Growth.

Pages x-xiv, Author’s Preface

12
 Complex systems (Holling)

How are limits and the adaptive capacity of a complex system

related? (Holling, Meadows)

What is your assessment of Holling’s diagrammatic

representations of hierarchies and adaptive cycles?

What is meant by a panarchy?

Source (reading): Holling, C.S. 2001. Understanding the complexity of economic, ecological, and social systems. Ecosystems. 4:390-405.

Question 1:
See Holling: “Potential, or wealth, sets limits for what is possible – it determines the number
of alternative options for the future.” Therefore, it would seem that adaptive capacity, is
somewhat dependent on wealth in that, the resilience of the system is greater when
there is greater access to larger forms of wealth.
Also, given overshoot conditions, it is likely that a system will be less resilient as it carries
less capital to use in adjusting to changes. Thus resilience and wealth are intimately
linked.

Example: City of New Orleans. The system of levees was not resilient partly because the
actual wealth of the system (as a measure by the quality and extent of the construction
of the levees) was very low.

Holling’s diagrams, while seemingly representative of his theories, seem unnecessarily

complex and convoluted.

Panarchy is the ‘meta’-hierarchy of a complex system. Holling defines it as the, “evolving

nature of complex adaptive systems. Panarchy is the hierarchical structure in which
systems of nature (for example forests, grasslands, lakes, rivers, and seas) and humans
(for example, structures of governance, settlements, and cultures), as well as combined
human-nature systems (for example, agencies that control natural resource use)… are
interlinked in never-ending adaptive cycles of growth, accumulation, restructuring, and
renewal.”

13
 IMPORT/EXPORT
IMPORT/EXPORT

PROCESS- FABRICA- USE DISCARD

WASTE
ING TION MGT.

ORE ENVIRONMENT

STAF Project
© Yale University 2004 Next five slides courtesy of T. Graedel, Yale University

Courtesy of Thomas E Graedel. Used with permission.

14
 Japan Waste Management
WM

Import/Export +120

Old 120
Scrap

Discards
Collection,
Separation
Incineration
500

Landfilled
200 Waste,
Dissipated
Old Scrap
180

Units: Gg/yr Landfill +200

© STAF Project, Yale University

Courtesy of Thomas E Graedel. Used with permission.

15
 Japan Copper cycle: One Year Stocks and Flows, 1990s

Import/Export -830

Concentrate Blister New Semis,

Scrap, Cathode Old
finished Products 120
1100 1 170 Scrap
Ingots
16 500
52
180 Prod. Cu
Ore
Cathode Discards
Production
Fabrication & 950 Use Waste
Mill, Smelter,
2 Manufacturing 700 Management
Refinery 7
1200 Prod. Alloy 500
Stock Stock
240
Tailings 34 280
Landfilled
New Scrap 200 Waste,
0.3 120
Dissipated
Old Scrap
80
180
18 Slag

Lith. -2 Environment +200

© STAF Project, Yale University System Boundary Japan

Units: Gg/yr

Courtesy of Thomas E Graedel. Used with permission.

16
Zambia’s Copper Cycle: One Year Stocks and Flows, 1994

Units: Gg/yr

Courtesy of Thomas E Graedel. Used with permission.

17
China’s Copper Cycle: One Year Stocks and Flows, 1994

Units: Gg/yr

Courtesy of Thomas E Graedel. Used with permission.

18
 population
resources

technology
innovation

continuous growth

Source (reading): Meadows, D., Randers, J. and D. Meadows. 2004. Limits to Growth – The 30-Year Update. Chelsea Green.

Limits to Growth specifies several typologies of curves that relate resources and
population. Another way to consider these curves is resources and consumption.

These curves illustrates the case in which technology is always ahead of

population increases and thus, growing consumption demands.

19
 population
sustainable
resources consumption

sigmoid approach to equilibrium

Source (reading): Meadows, D., Randers, J. and D. Meadows. 2004. Limits to Growth – The 30-Year Update. Chelsea Green.

These curves illustrate the condition in which long-term sustainable consumption

is slowly approached. A convergence of the population and resource curves
suggests that a sustainable situation has been achieved (one way of another).

20
 Short-term
‘overshoot’ shortages

technology shifts

population
resources

overshoot and oscillation

Source (reading): Meadows, D., Randers, J. and D. Meadows. 2004. Limits to Growth – The 30-Year Update. Chelsea Green.

These curves demonstrate both the independence of the consumption and

resource curves that typifies many real-world situations. They also illustrate the
delayed feedback (or lag time) between overshoot and correction. Again here the
situation resolves to correct itself along a sustainable path in which demand is
satisfied by sustainable supply.

21
 severe
societal
crises

population
resources

overshoot and collapse

Source (reading): Meadows, D., Randers, J. and D. Meadows. 2004. Limits to Growth – The 30-Year Update. Chelsea Green.

What characterizes overshoot and collapse is not only societal crises, huge political
and economic disruptions, conflict and massive social disorder, but a vast and quick
degradation of resource supplies. Thus a rapid downturn in the resource curve.

22
 “To our knowledge, no government
operates comprehensive accounts to
assess the extent to which human use
of nature fits within the biological
capacity of existing ecosystems.
Assessments like the one presented
here allow humanity, using existing
data, to monitor its performance
regarding a necessary ecological
condition for sustainability: the need to
keep human demand within the amount
that nature can supply.”
Mathis Wackernagel

Wackernagel, M. et al. 2002. Tracking the

ecological overshoot of the human economy.
PNAS. Vol.99, No.14:9266-9271.

Mathis Wackernagel and the ecological footprint.

So, now let’s turn to the ecological footprint.

From Living Planet 2006 (page 38)

“The ecological footprint measures the amount of biologically productive land and water area required to
produce the resources an individual, population, or activity consumes and to absorb the waste they generate,
given prevailing technology and resource management.”

This area is expressed in global hectares – that is, a hectare of land of average productivity. Different kinds of
land (forest, crop-land, wetland) have different productivity levels and therefore these need to be weighted to
arrive at a total world biocapacity.

The ecological footprint does not:

•Attempt to predict the future – it is a snapshot of the recent past,
•Account for non-renewable resource consumption (but renewable resources used for extraction and
processing is counted),
•Account for intensity of use of any particular area,
•Pinpoint specific location-based biodiversity issues,
•Evaluate social and economic issues.

Also, the ecological footprint does account for the biocapacity (mostly forests) needed for natural sequestration
of CO2 that is not sequestered by humans less that absorbed by the oceans. One 2003 global hectare can
absorb the CO2 released by burning approximately 1,450 litres of petrol per year.

23
 Humanity's Ecological Footprint, 1961-2003
1.8

1.6

1.4
Number of Planet Earths

1.2

1.0 6 billion

0.8
3 billion
0.6

0.4

0.2
0
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 03 06

Adapted from (reading): Living Planet Report 2006

Figure by MIT OCW.

Ecological Footprint
The ecological footprint – humanity’s demand on the biosphere in terms of the
area of biologically productive land and sea required to provide the resources
we use and absorb the wastes we produce.

Humanity’s footprint first grew larger than the global biocapacity in the late 1980s.

Today, per capita ecological footprint demand = 2.2 gha/person. (ha = hectare, 100
x 100 meters or 2.47 acres)
Biocapacity per capita = 1.8 gha/person
Demand exceeds supply by about 25 percent today (2003).

That is, we would need 1.25 earths to satisfy our needs (1.25 x biologically
productive land area).
Or another way to say it – we would need one year and three months for the earth
to produce the ecological resources we used in that year.

24
 Three Ecological Footprint Scenarios, 1961-2100
1.8

1.6

Number of Planet Earths 1.4

1.2

1.0

0.8

0.6 2003-2100, Scenarios

Moderate business as usual (to 2050)
0.4 1961-2003
Slow shift
Ecological footprint Rapid reduction
0.2

0
1960 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060 2080 2100

Figure by MIT OCW.

Adapted from (reading): Living Planet Report

Overshoot scenarios

25
 Ecological Demand and Supply in Selected Countries, 2003

Total ecological Per capita

footprint ecological Ecological
(million footprint Biocapacity reserve/deficit
2003 gha) (gha/person) (gha/person) (-) (gha/person)

World 14 073 2.2 1.8 -0.4

United States of America 2 819 9.6 4.7 -4.8
China 2 152 1.6 0.8 -0.9
India 802 0.8 0.4 -0.4
Russian Federation 631 4.4 6.9 2.5
Japan 556 4.4 0.7 -3.6
Brazil 383 2.1 9.9 7.8
Germany 375 4.5 1.7 -2.8
France 339 5.6 3.0 -2.6
United Kingdom 333 5.6 1.6 -4.0
Mexico 265 2.6 1.7 -0.9
Canada 240 7.6 14.5 6.9
Italy 239 4.2 1.0 -3.1

Figure by MIT OCW.

Adapted from (reading): Living Planet Report

26
 2003 Global Hectares Per Person

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

United Arab Emirates

United States of America
Finland
Canada
Kuwait
Australia
Estonia
Sweden
New Zealand
Norway
Denmark
France
Belgium Luxembourg
United Kingdom
Spain
Switzerland
Greece
Forest

Ireland
Cropland

Austria
Czech Rep.
Built-up Land

Saudi Arabia
Israel
CO2 from Fossil Fuels

Germany
Lithuania
Russian Federation
Netherlands
Japan
Portugal
Italy
Grazing Land

Korea Rep.
Ecological Footprint Per Person, by Country, 2003

Fishing Ground
Nuclear Energy

Kazakhstan
biocapacity
1.8 gha/person
per capita global

Figure by MIT OCW.

27
Adapted from (reading): Living Planet Report
 Vietnam Algeria
Central African Rep. Botswana
Peru Cuba
Togo Tunisia
Iraq Ecuador
Zimbabwe Korea, DPR
Yemen Albania
Mali Gabon
Cameroon Thailand
Ethiopia Gambia
Benin El Salvador
Kenya Egypt
Lesotho Bolivia
Georgia Guatemala
India Colombia
Cote D'Ivoire Moldova Rep.
Sierra Leone Honduras
Eritrea Mauritania
Cambodia Kyrgyzstan
Madagascar Nicaragua
Tanzania, United Rep. Nigeria
Nepal Senegal
Burundi Swaziland
Liberia Namibia
Guinea-Bissua Niger
Rwanda Armenia
Tajikistan Uganda
Mozambique Indonesia
Zambia Philippines
Congo Chad
Pakistan Angola
Congo, Dem. Rep. Sudan
.

Haiti Sri Lanka

Malawi Burkina Faso
Bangladesh Ghana
Adapted from (reading): Living Planet Report

Somalia Guinea
2003 World Average Biocapacity Per Person: 1.8 Global Hectares, Ignoring the Needs of wild Species

Afghanistan Myanmar
Lao PDR
Morocco
Figure by MIT OCW

28
Map 6: Ecological Debtor
and Creditor Countries, 2003
National Ecological Footprint
relative to nationally available
biocapacity.
Ecodebt
Footprint more than 50% larger than biocapacity
Footprint more than 0-50% larger than biocapacity

Ecocredit
Biocapacity 0-50% larger than footprint
Biocapacity more than 50% larger than footprint
Insufficient data

Figure by MIT OCW.

Adapted from (reading): Living Planet Report

29
 Ecological Footprint and Biocapacity by Region, 2003
10

2003 Global Hectares Per Person North America Latin America Europe EU
and the Caribbean
8 Europe Non-EU Asia-Pacific Africa

Middle East and Biocapacity available

6 -3.71 Central Asia within region
+3.42
+0.82

-2.64
2
-1.20
+0.24
-0.60

0
326 454 349 270 535 3.489 847
Population (millions)

Figure by MIT OCW.

Adapted from (reading): Living Planet Report

30
 Footprint by National Average per Person Income, 1961-2003
7

6
2003 Global hectares per person

5
High-income Countries
Middle-income Countries
4 Low-income Countries
Note: Dotted lines reflect estimates
due to dissolution of the USSR.
3

0
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 03

Figure by MIT OCW.

Adapted from (reading): Living Planet Report

31
 Business-as-usual Scenario and Ecological Debt

24

Biocapacity is assumed to fall

1961-2003
20 to the productivity level of 1961
Billion 2003 Global Hectares

Ecological footprint or below if overshoot continues

Biocapacity to increase. This decline might
accelerate as ecological debt grows,
16 Accumulated ecological and these productivity losses
debt may become irreversible.

12

8 2003-2100, Moderate
business as usual
Ecological footprint (to 2050)
4 Biocapacity

0
1960 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060 2080 2100

Figure by MIT OCW.

Adapted from (reading): Living Planet Report

Notice the fall in the biocapacity curve due to overburden (deforestation,

desertification, eutrophication, etc.)

32
 Slow-shift Scenario and Ecological Debt
24

1961-2003
20
Billion 2003 Global Hectares

Ecological footprint
Biocapacity Accumulated biocapacity buffer
16
Accumulated ecological debt

12

8
2003-2100, Slow shift
Ecological footprint
4 Biocapacity

0
1960 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060 2080 2100

Figure by MIT OCW.

Adapted from (reading): Living Planet Report

33
 Rapid-reduction Scenario and Ecological Debt
24

1961-2003
20
Billion 2003 Global Hectares

Ecological footprint
Biocapacity Accumulated
ecological debt
16

Accumulated
12 biocapacity buffer

8
2003-2100, Rapid reduction
Ecological footprint
4 Biocapacity

0
1960 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060 2080 2100

Figure by MIT OCW.

Adapted from (reading): Living Planet Report

34