CHY1001 Environmental Studies

A Brief Review: Sustainability, Ethics,

Consumerism and Human Population

Dr. R. Paramasivam
Department of Chemistry
VIT-AP University
Amaravati

26 June 2021, 2 pm

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ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

Environmental Education is to create an

awareness and understanding of the
evolving social and physical environment
as a whole, its natural, man-made, cultural,
spiritual resources together with the
rational use and conservation of these
resources for development.

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ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
Objectives
Environmental education helps students and
general public towards:
a. Awareness to acquire sensitivity to the total
environment and its allied problems.
b.Acquire skills to identify environmental problems.
c. Knowledge to conservation of natural resources.
d.Evaluation ability to evaluate environs measures
and education programmes in terms of social,
economic, ecological and aesthetic factors.
e. Attitude and participation.
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ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
Principles
To consider environment in its totality (natural, artificial,
technological, ecological, moral, aesthetic).
To consider a continuous life process.
To be interdisciplinary in approach.
To focus on current, potential environmental situations.
To emphasize active participation in prevention and
control of pollution.
To examine root cause of environmental degradation.
To provide an opportunity for making decisions and
accepting their consequences.
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ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
Programmes
1. Environmental Studies:
It is concerned with environmental
disturbances and minimisation of their impacts
through changes in social sciences.
2. Environmental Science:
It deals with the study of the processes in
water, air, soil and organisms which lead to
environmental damage.
3. Environmental Engineering:
It involves the study of technical processes
used to minimise pollution.
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Text books for: CHY1001 Environmental Studies course
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 CHY1001
Environmental Studies
Module 5
⚫Sustainability
⚫Environmental Ethics
⚫Consumerism
⚫Human Population

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 Sustainability
Sustainability: The capacity of the earth’s natural
systems that support life and human economic
systems to survive or adapt to changing
environmental conditions indefinitely.
Sustainable living is a lifestyle with goals to:
 reduce the consumption of our planet’s natural
resources.
 mitigate serious environmental problems
(depletion of natural resources, deforestation, global
warming, endangerment of species, several kinds
of pollution, waste production etc.)
 improve our ecological footprint and reduce our
harmful impact on our planet.
 Sustainable Development
• Several programmes have been initiated in the
name of sustainable development.
• A proposal for sustainable development should
answer
• Does it protect our biodiversity?
• Does it prevent soil erosion?
• Does it slow down population growth?
• Does it increase forest cover?
• Does it cut off the emissions of CFC, SOx,
NOx and CO2?
• Does it reduce waste generation and does it
bring benefits to all?
 Sustainable Development
• Practicing sustainable development is challenging because
people must learn to live on the world’s ecological interest and
not on ecological capital (totality of the assets)

• Areas need to be organized for sustainable development

• Improving energy efficiency • Planning cities better

• Saving forests
• Safeguarding biodiversity
• Adopting water resources
• Managing coastal zones
• Arresting pollution
• Accomplishing green revolution
• Stabilizing world population
• Stopping environmentally
destructive subsidies
 Sustainable Development
• Intra-generational equity: Emphasize that the
development processes should seek to minimize the
wealth gaps within and between nations.
• Human Development Report of United Nations (2001)
emphasizes that the benefits of technology should
seek to achieve the goals of intra-generational equity.
• Technology should address the problems of the
developing countries, producing drought tolerant
varieties, vaccines for infectious diseases, clean fuels
for domestic and industrial use, and also support the
economic growth of the poor countries and help in
narrowing the wealth gap and lead to sustainability.
 Sustainable Development
• Inter-generational Equity: Emphasizes
that we should minimize any adverse
impacts on resources and environment
for future generations.
• We should hand over a safe, healthy and
resourceful environment to our future
generations.
• This can be possible only if
over-exploitation of resources, waste
discharge and emission are reduced.
Measures for Sustainable Development
• Using appropriate technology: Technology should use less
resources, eco-friendly and should produce minimum waste.
• Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle approach: It minimizes the
consumption of resources and production of waste, by
reducing the resource use, reusing again and again instead
of passing it on to the waste stream, and recycling the
materials.
• Prompting environmental education and awareness: Making
environmental education as the centre of all learning
process will greatly help in changing the thinking and
attitude of people towards earth.
• Resource utilization as per carrying capacity: The
consumption/demand of natural resources should not cross
the ability that environment can provide (carrying capacity).
 Environmental Ethics
• Some important ethical guidelines known as
Earth Ethics (OR) Environmental Ethics.
• We should love and honour the earth since it has
blessed us with life and governs our survival.
• We should not hold ourselves above other living
things and have no right to drive them to extinction.
• We should be grateful to the plants and animals which
nourish us by giving us food.
• We should limit our off-springs because too many
people will overburden the earth.
 Environmental Ethics
• We should not waste our resources on destruction
weapons.
• We should not run after against at the cost of nature,
rather should strive to restore its damaged majesty.
• We should not conceal from others, the effects we have
caused by our actions on earth.
• We should not steal from future generations their right
to live in a clean and safe planet by polluting it.
• We should consume the material goods in moderate
amounts so that all may share the earth’s precious
treasure of resources.
 Consumerism & Waste Products
• Consumerism refers to the consumption of resources by the
people.
• Early human societies used to consume much less resources.
• With industrialization, the consumerism has shown an exponential
rise.
• Consumerism is related both to the increase in the population
size and increase in the demands due to change in lifestyle.
• Earlier, we lived a much simpler life and used to have fewer
wants.
• In modern society, our needs have multiplied and so consumerism
of resources has also multiplied
• We have crossed the population of 7.5 billion that influences the
consumerism of natural resources and generation of wastes.
 Consumerism & Waste Products
• Two types of conditions of population and consumerism exists
• Over Population: It occurs when more number of people
are there than the supply of food, water and other important
resources in the area.
•
• This occurs in Less Developed Countries (LDCs)
•
• Due to large number of people, adequate resources are not
available.
• Over Consumption: It occurs in the More Developed
Countries (MDCs).
•• In MDCs, the population size is smaller while the resources are
in abundance and due to luxurious lifestyle, per capita
consumption of resource is very high.
Family in Bhutan vs.
family in USA
 Consumerism & Waste Products
• Paul Ehrlich and John Hodlren model to understand
the impact on the environment (IPAT impact equation)
I =P×A×T
I : Human impact on environment
P : Population (number of people)
A : Affluence (per capita use of resource)
T : Technology (waste generated per unit of
resource used)
• In LDCs, the number of people is very high, but per
capita use of resources and waste generated are less
• In MDCs, the number of people is low, but per capita
use of resource and waste generated are very high.
HUMAN POPULATION GROWTH
Revolutions : Agricultural, Industrial,
Medical, Information-Globalization
Understanding Population Pattern
Study of trends in human population is called demography
• Birth Rate: Number of births per thousand people in a
geographical area in a year. Birth rates depend on the fertility
rate.
Birth rate need to decline on an average to have controlled
population. Birth rates vary significantly between developed and
developing countries.
The average birth rate in the world is 18.5 per 1000 people (in
2016). Niger (in Africa) has the highest birth rate of 51.2. Monaco
has lowest birth rate of 6.72. Birth rate of India is 19.3.
Understanding Population Pattern
Death (or Mortality) Rate: The number of deaths per 1000
people in a geographical area in a year.
Advances in thefield of medicines led to the lesser number of
Deaths.
Death rate can change unexpectedly due to diseases, wars and
other catastrophes.
As per 2016 report from World Fact Book:
Death rate of Qatar is 01.53
Death rate of Lesotho is 14.90
Death rate of India is 07.30
Understanding Population Pattern
Migration: The rate of change in population for a specific area,
which is affected by the movement of people into and out of
the area.
Many developed countries are experiencing an increase in
population because of continuing arrival of immigrants, for
the sake of job opportunities and settle down with families
Contributes for both positive and negative development
(Movement of skilled persons or continue to the transmission
of diseases)
 Causes of Population Growth
• Conquest of diseases: The remarkable increase during past few
decades because of the improvement in medical facilities and
cure of diseases.
• Improved knowledge about nutrition, vaccination, better public
health practices and the development of new medicines have
led to lower death rate than before.

• Improvement in public sanitation: More number of people can

now meet the basic needs such as food, water and housing.
• Many diseases like cholera, typhoid, which are related to
unclean drinking water, were reduced because of the access to
safe drinking water availability.
 Causes of Population Growth
• High infant mortality: The countries that have successfully
reduced their population growth are generally those that have
also reduced their infant mortality rate, by providing adequate
nutrition, safe drinking water and providing proper medical care.
• Poverty: People below the poverty line believe that more
children means additional hands to work. However they are
unable to provide enough food or provide them with proper
education due to which most of these children remain illiterate
and unskilled and hence remain poor throughout their life.
• Illiteracy: Illiterate people have no access to information related
to family planning. Spreading awareness and educating the
people control the high birth rate.
 Causes of Population Growth
• Preference for sons: Most disturbing trend in India is the
preference for son. It is not restricted to poor and uneducated
people.
Sons inherit the family’s name and property.
After marriage daughters move away and sons are
expected to look after the parents.
Dowry system causes enormous financial burden on family.
• Early marriages: Marrying off the young children even before
they attain the suitable age (particularly in rural areas) caused
to start having children early.
 Population Age Structure
• Population pyramid (or Age pyramid) is a graphical illustration
that shows the distribution of various age groups in a
population in a country, which forms the pyramid when the
population is growing.

• Overall age distribution of a population can be visualized.

• Population pyramid contains continuous stacked-histogram
bars.
• Population size is depicted on the X-axis and Age-groups on Y-
axis. Males are conventionally shown on the left and females on
the right. They may be measured by raw numbers or as
percentage of total population.
 Population Age Structure
• A great deal of information about the population broken down by
age and gender can be read from population pyramid, and this
shed the light on the extent of development
• There tends to be more
females than males in the
older age groups, due to
females’ longer life expectancy
• Population pyramid gives a clear picture of how a country
transitions from high fertility to low fertility rate. The broad base
of the pyramid (shown in figure)means the majority of population
lies between ages 0 - 14.

• There is a higher dependency ratio of younger population over the

working population, and lesser older population due to shorter life
expectancy (around 60 years)
Countries with Fertility Rates
Countries with Highest & Lowest Fertility Rates

India : 2.43
 Types of Population Pyramids
• Stationary Pyramid: The percentage of
population (both age and gender)
remains constant over time.
• Stationary population is when a
population contains equal birth rates
and death rates.
• Expansive Pyramid: A population pyramid that is very wide
at the younger ages, characteristic of countries with high birth
rate and low life expectancy.

• Population is said to be fast-

growing and the size of each
birth cohort gets larger than the
size of the previous year
• Constrictive Pyramid: Population pyramid that is narrowed at
the bottom.
• Population is generally older on average, as the
country has long life expectancy, a low death
rate but also a low birth rate.
• The percentage of younger population is
extremely low, this can cause the issues with
dependency ratio of the population
 Human Population Control
Human population control:
The intention to control the growth rate of
the human population.
Advantages of Population Control:
1. Avoid overpopulation
2. Ensure sustainability on our planet
3. Mitigation of the resource depletion issue
4. Reduction in pollution levels
5. Protection of natural habitats
6. Reduction in global warming
7. Reduction in poverty
8. Mitigation of illegal actions
9. Fewer unwanted children
10. Better treatment of children
11. Changes in the traditional role of women
 Human Population Control
Downsides of Population Control
1. Ethical concerns
2. Religious concerns
3. Interference with freedom and human rights
4. Only effective if there is a global agreement
5. Differences in countries’ population structures
6. Reduction in genetic diversity
7. Increase in abortions
8. Increase in orphanism
9. Frustration
10. Introduction implies large financial burden
for one generation
11. Birth tourism
12. Migration
13. Economic downsides
 Alternatives to Conventional
Population Control Measures
1. Improve education levels
2. Strengthen women rights
3. Adjustments in our consumption behavior
4. Reduction in waste production
5. Better social security and health insurance
6. Transition to a sustainable global human behavior
7. Elimination of tax advantages for children
Thank you