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Human Population Growth & Sustainability - Coggle Diagram
Human Population Growth & Sustainability
Jonas Salk
"If all insects were to disappear from the Earth, within 50 years all life on Earth would end.
If human being disappeared from the Earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish"
his discovery of the Polio vaccine gave him lots of insight on the importance of insects
e.g. nutrient cycling
he warns us about the insect population extinction, and also our negative impact on Earth
might be a causal relationship
HUMAN POPULATION GROWTH
Intro
home to 7.9 billion human beings which is already too many
max capacity being 10 - 11 billion
Increasing Human Population Drives:
resource use
pollultion
landcover change
biodiversity loss
collapse of ecosystems
climate change
(effects have a causal & sometimes interactive relationship)
I = P . A . T
= a model to help us understand human impacts
a model to help us understand human impacts and conceptualise out impact
P - POPULATION
total number of people in a given area
large population doesn't equal large impact
A & T plays bigger roles
A - AFFLUENCE
economic goods / services that are consumed per capita / consumption per capita
wealthier / more developed countries have 5 times the ecological footprint than the other countries do
how resource intensive our lives are
e.g. hand fan vs. air conditioning
T - TECHNOLOGY
pollutant emitted per economic good / service consumed
pollutant per economic good
how resource intensive the production of affluence is
the environmental impact is involved in creating, transporting, consuming and disposing of the goods, services and amenities used
improvements in efficiency can reduce resource intensiveness, therefore reducing the T multiplier
one aspect multiplies the effect of the next:
the magnitude of P depends on A and T
we have to look at the life cycle of everything we consume and strive for the least resource-intensive & negatively impactful choice
ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT
measures how fast be consume resources and generate waste compared to how fast nature can absorb our waste and generate new resources
helps:
countries improve sustainability and well-being
local leaders optimise public project investments
individuals understand their impact on the planet
measure in gha (global hectare), high gha = high impact
Impact = balance between e-footprint (demand) and bio-capacity (supply)
Malaysia vs US:
3.91
__
8.04 (EF)
2.29
__
3.45 (BioC)
both countries are in deficit
not sustainable lifestyles, overuse of resources as footprint exceeded the sustaining limit
MALTHUS' (1798)
PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION
Malthus' Prediction
Sooner or later, populations will get checked by famine and diseases
believed that population size can never surpass the amount of food that it can sustain
Relevance on our modern society:
contradicts, as we have the ability to overcome pandemics in short time periods
food production increases (along with population) due to advancing technology and increased globalization
we changed the slope of the food line to better keep pace with population growth
its not relevant when we have the knowledge we do now, but we can never do it sustainably
But we're not solving anything:
our intelligence has allowed us to find ways of setting back. delaying the catastrophe by increasing the carrying capacity (K)
We avoided the "Malthusian catastrophe" - population growth outpaced food production, leading to war and famine, subsequently depopulation
we're just delaying the consequences or overpopulation but can never avoid it
IMPACTS OF HUMAN POPULATION GROWTH + POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS
Overwhelming medicine and health welfare systems
pressure to discover new medicines, vaccines
has to house too many elderlies
increases demand of energy use
short on man power
Aging populations due to increased lifespan
young supports old
economic pressure on younger generations
maybe elderlies are forced to contribute to society
technologies to minimise impact of population growth are not yet capable of neutralising its effects
Planetary boundaries - Raworth's Donut
tells us which aspect we need to focus our efforts on
looks @ things on a global scale
we need to keep everything within the ideal operating space
SUMMARY
Human Population has a major impact ( I & P )
How we live is also critical (A & T)
we have been able to set back K - carrying capacity
IPAT & ecological footprint models are useful ways to conceptualise our impact
We are now at such a critical point that we may need new radical approaches to deal with IMPACT