Please enable JavaScript.

Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.

Chapter 12 - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Built with financial support of the world bank
      - Can really damage the environment
      - Largest Dam on Earth is in China, the Yangtze river
        
        Displaced two million people, submerged 1350 towns
        
        Lots of environmental and social concerns
- - - - Tropical timber
      - Cattle production
      - Poor communities using the land for subsistence farming
    - - A major cause of species extinction, as 50% of all species live in the rainforest. These species could be used for many different things
      - Climate Change. Carbon is stored in this trees and when they are burnt this carbon enters the atmosphere
      - When trees are removed, CO2, Methane and NO2 from the osil are released
  - - - Most of these activities are due to population pressure, poor land management etc.
      - Human causes tend to be related to the pressure on local people by capitalist imperatives in their farming systems
    - - Past efforts by the UN to help failed for two reasons
        
        Technical solutions applied to areas where key causes were economic, social and political
        
        local populations were not involved in the search for solutions
- - - - This is due to human's removing and destablizing their environments
- - - - Specifically fossil fuel use, increased fertilizer use, increased animal husbandry and deforestation
    - - Agriculture also adds CH4 and N2O to the atmosphere
    - - .9C in the past hundred years, and if it remains unchecked, 1.4-2,6 by 2050, and up to 4.8 by 2100
    - - 15% of egypts arable land will be at risk, and many coastal cities would be below sea level
  - - - Agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions reached in 1997
        
        USA never ratified the agreement
      - Canada failed miserably, increasing emissions by 17%
      - 4 Future meetings yielded further agreements
        
        Details were finalized, such as penalties for not succeeding
        
        Carbon Capture and Sequenstration technologies were promoted
        
        A fund was set up to help less developed countries cope
        
        The Paris Agreement was signed in 2015
      - Some argue that these agreements are not the best solution
        
        People argue that emissions need to be lowered to zero, and that lowering a bit isnt good enough
        
        Some also argue that global warming may have good results, such as longer growing seasons, the opening of the northwest passage, and oil drilling in the north
    - - There is significant uncertainty in the results of climate change, despite sureness that it is occurring
      - Scientists are confident that polar regions will be most seriously affected, but unsure about overall outcomes for most regions
      - Warming in lower latitudes is less clear, but the next several decades will see a poleward retreat of cld areas, a corresponding advancement of forests and agricultural areas and rising sea levels
      - High precipitation and meting of snow in northern areas will increase river discharge in the arctic and north atlantic. this decrease in ocean salinity will disturb the balance of flow and lead to north atlantic glacial mode that will lower temps in northwest europe
- - - - The oil sands are a mixture of sand, water and crude oil, after the forest is cleared,, the oil is extracted from the sand using natural gas and water
        
        This water cannot be reused and ends up in tailing ponds
  - - - Erosion
      - Chemical changes
  - - - Ozone serves as a sunscreen for the earth by absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation
      - Depletion of ozone was first recognized in 1985
      - The depletion of Ozone was largely the result of the use of CFCs and other greenhouse gases
        
        CFCs were commonly used as coolants, used widespread since WW2
        
        As CFCs rise into the atmosphere, chemical reactions occur and ozone is destroyed
      - Set goals from Montreal weren't fully achieved, but the Ozone hole is recovering
  - - - about 9,000km cubed is readily available for human use. This is enough for 20 billion people
    - - Agriculture consumes 73% of global water, of inefficiently
      - Industry uses about 10%, in second place
      - Shortages of water are common in some places, such as Bahrain, which has no fresh water and relies on desalinization
      - Many of the worlds great rivers no longer reach the sea, such as the Huang He, Murray-Darling, Indus, Rio Grande and Colorado
      - Water usage is growing due to increased population, living standards and climate change
      - Growing 1kg of wheat uses about 1000 litres of water, and 1kg of beef uses about 15,000
    - - Water passing through the water cycle is polluted in two ways
        
        Organic waste
        
        Biodegradable, but still problematic because of oxygen depletion and contamination
        
        Industrial waste
        
        not easily degraded, enter the water via pipes from industrial plants and diffuse sources, as well as acid rain
        
        Love Canal was polluted with toxic waste
      - Inland water, and oceans are suffering the consequences of pollution
      - Acid Rain
        
        A consequence of increased sulphur and nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere due to urban and industrial activities
      - International cooperation is one of the major challenges when trying to stop pollution
        
        Tragedy of the commons, many states exploit oceans, but none are ready to assume responsibility for it
        
        3 percent of all oceans are un polluted
      - Dead zones are areas close to land that are starved of oxygen due to fertilizer, and result in loss of fish
      - Remote sensing allows objective assessments of water pollution
- - - - Groups of interrelated parts
      - Used to explain complicated things in simple ways
      - Open and closed systems
        
        Open systems interact with elements outside of the system
        
        Closed systems lack inputs and outputs
    - - The study of organisms and their environments
    - - Integrate ecology and systems
      - Study of organisms and their environment
      - Variety of spatial scales
    - - Comprised of atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere
      - One main input, which is the sun
      - self-sustaining based on the cycling of matter
  - - - Agricultural revolution is an example of this
- - - - Catastrophists
        
        Present the situation in totally negative terms. A nightmarish future of environmental catastrophe, including flooding, mass extinctions, food shortages, disease and conflict
      - Cornucopians
        
        The Gravity of current problems has been greatly exaggerated and human ingenuity and technology will overcome the moderate problems that do exist
  - - - People adjust their individual and collective behaviour in the face of a particular set of circumstances
  - - - Refers to the idea that our way of life, based on ever-increasing consumption could not continue and that we would need to find a more sustainable way of life
    - - Introduced by Our Common Future, an influential report
        
        The Earth is a closed system that matter circulates within. It can reach a stage of equalibreum that would not collapse
        
        Sustainable development would represent a similar state of dynamic equalibreum
      - Became a key feature of the UN conference in Rio in 1992
      - An attempt to blend sustainability and development, which are usually seen as opposites. sustainable development looks at resolving this conflict
      - Poor countries should strive for sustainable development, and rich ones should look at converting
      - How?
        
        Recognize that humans are part of nature, and to destroy it is to destroy ourselves
        
        Account for the environmental costs in all our economic activities
        
        Understand that all humans deserve to achieve acceptable living standards, no poor people
        
        Be aware that even small local impacts can have global consequences.
        
        Think globally, act locally
- - - - The first sign of a shift in appreciation of Human impacts came with Rachel Carson's Silent Spring
      - Two early explanations for environmental damage
        
        Failings of capitalism
        
        There are many problems, and all of them are interwined in the operations of a capitalist world economy
        
        Judeo Christian belief that humans had been placed on earth to subjugate nature
        
        Too simplistic
    - - Environmental concerns entered the political arena with the creation of the EPA in the 70s
      - By the late 80s, the environment was on the national agenda of many countries
      - Green parties became common in the 80s and 90s
      - All countries agree on the need for international policies, but many are unwilling to sacrificce their own sovereignty
      - Montreal Protocol
        
        Aimed at CFCs, and their eventual limitation
      - Kyoto Protocol
        
        Limiting of Greenhouse Gases
    - - The environment and the economy
        
        Market forces are unlikely to solve environmental problems
        
        Few economic decision makers consider the environment at all
        
        Economic growth also leads to a reduction of environmental problems, AS LONG AS the growth is accompanied by good governance
        
        The richer a country is, and the better it is governed, the more it will invest in environmental protection
      - Environmental problems are increasingly affecting relationships between countries
        
        Environmentalists are anxious to impose their standards on other countries
        
        Payment is a solution to this problem
        
        International disapproval leads to compliance
        
        Trade policies are one of the few weapons available to governments to pressure others into better behaviour
      - The behaviour of individuals needs to shift from anthropocentric to ecocentric
        
        Anthropocentric
        
        Humans are the source of all value
        
        Land exists for human use
        
        Energy is unlimited
        
        Ecocentric
        
        We need to work with, not against nature
        
        A central goal of human activity is the preservation of ecosystems