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GLOBAL ISSUE AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, NUR ATIQAH BINTI SHAHRIZAN…
GLOBAL ISSUE AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Multinational Corporations
Technology Transfer
Environmental Ethics
Sustainable Development
Overview
Response to Techno-Optimism
Population
Resources
Pollution
A Different Paradigm
Planetary Boundaries
Risk
Sustainability
Growth vs. Progress
Techno-realism: How engineers can help save the world
Limit: Population & Food
Global food supply
The food yields worldwide are increasing.
Impact of Food Production
Fertilizers
Pesticides
Marginal production land
Mono-crops
Mechanized equipment
Irrigation
Still Not Enough
Starvation (36 Million deaths related to malnutrition each year)
Maximum sustainable population using renewable reources only 2 Billion
Overpopulation
Overshoot
Limits: Resources & Energy
Resource Limits
Non-renewable resources are finite. Some we can recycle, others are used up.
Renewable resources can be, and have been, exploited beyond their capacity to regenerate
Using Prices to Infer Scarcity (What determines market prices?)
Production, Scarcity/Abundance, Subsidies (supply-side)
Utility, Substitutes, Speculation (demand-side
Other costs: Discovery/Extraction Costs, Transportation Costs
Market Prices (What's Missing?)
Contamination of air, water, and soil, due to extraction, production, transportation, consumption, and disposal.
Effects on ecosystems
Depletion/degradation of natural capital
Market Prices (Negative Externality Examples)
i. Driving
Health costs from respiratory illness
Contribution to climate change
ii. Produce
Contaminated water bodies from fertilizers/pesticides
Health costs of worker exposure to pesticides
iii. Wood products
Damage to fish spawning habitat
Extinction of wildlife (BC spotted owl)
iv. Farmed salmon
-impact on natural stocks
Limits: Pollution
Pollution
Air pollution (Smog, particulate matter, ozone-depleting substances)
Water pollution (Effluent, leaks, spills, leaching)
Soil contamination (Herbicides, pesticides, heavy metals)
Radioactive contamination
Thermal pollution
World Polluted Places
Factors
No environmental management plans
No regulations
Illegal operation
Poor technology
Accidents,leaks
Indiscriminate emissions/dumping
Effects
Cancer
Skin illnesses
Respiratory diseases
Gastrointestinal disorders
Infertility
Birth defects
Pregnancy complications
Impaired mental/physical development
Tuberculosis
World's Top Ten Pollution Problems 2008
Artisanal Gold Mining
Contaminated Surfaced Water
Indoor Air Pollution
Industrial Mining Activities
Groundwater Contamination
Metals Smelting and Processing
Radioactive Waste and Uranium Mining
Untreated Sewage
Used lead batteries
Urban Air Quality
Uncertainty & Risk
Precautionary Principle: Method to approach complex problems with potentially severe consequences
Always have some element of risk present
( Risk = Probability* Magnitude of outcome)
Cannot focus solely on one aspects of problem (economic, biophysical, social, or technological)
Sustainability
Weak Sustainability
Different types of capital: natural, human, man-made, etc
Weak sustainability assumes that different forms of capital are substitutable with one another
Sustainability can be achieved by keeping the total capital at least constant
Strong Sustainability
Natural and human capital are complements not substitutes
Certain natural capital has no substitute
keep a non-declining natural capital stock
"Ecological Economics Approach"
Ecological Economics Ideals
i. Resource consumption
Renewable - exploitation should not exceed the rate of regeneration
Non-renewable - extraction should be consistent with the development of renewable substitutes
ii. Waste and pollution
Non-persistent - discharge should be less than absorptive/assimilative capacity of the environment
Persistent pollutants - discharge should be zero (environment has no capacity)
Growth and Prosperity
Gross Domestic Product
Economic activity indicator only
Measures consumption
Promotes drawdown of natural capital
Includes "bad" economic growth
Genuine Progress Indicator
Attempts to measure welfare of society more accurately
Discounts uneconomic "growth"
-includes indicators for well being
Techno-realism
While technological innovation is necessary for humanity to progress it does not seem to be sufficient as we also need other things such as:
Institutions
Laws
Trust
Peace
-Freedom
A degree of equity
Meaning/purpose
How Engineers can Help Save the Worls
Engineering is part of the solution
By designing, inventing, building the technological innovation (Environmental and energy innovation ex. LEED)
Acknowledging future risks and trade-offs
By not being technocrats
Participating in the public policy process
NUR ATIQAH BINTI SHAHRIZAN (AE170135)
SECTION 4