Environmental Science Lecture 1

1. Environmental Science
A Study of Interrelationships
Thirteenth Edition
Enger & Smith
Chapter 1
The nature of Environmental Science
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

2. 1.1 The Nature of Environmental
Science
 Environmental science is interdisciplinary, and
includes scientific and social aspects of human
impact on the world.
• It is a mixture of traditional science, individual and
societal values, and political awareness.

3. 1.1 The Nature of Environmental
Science
 Environment is
everything that affects
an organism during its
lifetime.
Environmental science

4. Interrelatedness Is a Core Concept
 Interrelatedness among seeming unrelated
factors.
 Tug on anything at all and you’ll find it
connected to everything else in the universe.
John Muir

5. Interrelatedness Is a Core Concept
 The reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone
National Park has resulted in many changes.

6. Interrelatedness Is a Core Concept
 The Yellowstone wolves are connected to social,
economic, and political realms of human activity.
 Wolves caused
• water flow changes in the park
• increases in willow and aspen trees, songbirds, foxes,
rodents, hawks, and owls.
• Coyote and elk have declined
 Ranchers could lose money if wolves killed
livestock.

7. Decision Making in Ecology
 Interrelatedness also exists in environmental
problems
 Many factors impact decisions to handle these
problems
• These factors are interrelated
 Political
 Economic
 Ethics

8. Emerging Global Issues
 Air pollution
 Political
• China air pollution
affects U.S.
 Economic
• Companies move
to regions with less
restrictive policies
 Ethical
• People in these countries (regions) suffer from
diseases due to air pollution

9. Regional Issues
 Extensive flooding of Mississippi or drought in
California
 Political
• Impacts on one body of water
can affects multiple states
 Economic
• Developmental strategies ignore
Ecosystem needs
• Hurricane Katrina and destruction
of coastal wetlands
 Ethical
• Endangering animal and human
life

10. Environmental Science
A Study of Interrelationships
Thirteenth Edition
Enger & Smith
Chapter 2
Environmental Ethics
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

11. 2.2 Environmental Ethics
 Ethics is one branch of philosophy; it seeks to
define what is right and what is wrong.
• can help us understand what actions are wrong and
why they are wrong.
 Not all cultures share the same ethical
commitments.
 Despite the presence of some differences, there
are many cases in which ethical commitments
can and should be globally agreed upon.

12. Ethics and Laws
 In the case of environmental issues,
• when it is appropriate to legislate something ?
• when action should be left to the individual‟s sense of
right and wrong?
Recycling?

13. Conflicting Ethical Positions
 Sometimes an individual‟s ethical commitments
can conflict with each other.
• A mayor might have an ethical commitment to
preserving land in a city but
• Also have an ethical commitment to bringing in jobs
associated with construction of a new factory.
 In many cases, what is good for the environment
is also good for people.
• While forest protection may reduce logging jobs, a
healthier forest might lead to new jobs in recreation,
fisheries, and tourism.

14. Three Philosophical Approaches to
Environmental Ethics
 Anthropocentrism (human-centered)
• This view holds that all environmental responsibility is
derived from human interests.
– Assumes that only humans are morally significant.
– Assumes nature is an instrument for human manipulation.

15. Three Philosophical Approaches to
Environmental Ethics
 Biocentrism (life-centered)
• All life forms have an inherent right to exist.

16. Three Philosophical Approaches to
Environmental Ethics
 Ecocentrism
• This view maintains that the environment deserves
direct moral consideration,
• not consideration derived from human or animal
interests.

17. Sustainable Development
 Sustainable
Development is a
middle ground
 Seeks to promote
development
 while still preserving
the ecological health
of the landscape.

18. 2.4 Environmental Justice
 Environmental justice as fair treatment,
meaning:
• “No group of people, including racial, ethnic, or
socioeconomic groups, should bear a
disproportionate share of the negative environmental
consequences
• industrial, municipal, and commercial operations
– (landfills, toxic waste facilities, chemical plants)
• Environmental justice is closely related to civil rights.

19. 2.4 Environmental Justice
The direct action in Warren County, NC, marked the birth of the environmental
justice movement in the U.S.

20. 2.4 Environmental Justice
 Cases in our own backyard
 North Omaha
• Coal power plant
• 16th worst environmental justice offender
• http://www.naacp.org/pages/coal-blooded1
• https://www.facebook.com/OmahaBeyondCoal

21. 2.4 Environmental Justice
 Environmental justice encompasses a wide
range of issues, including:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Where to place hazardous and polluting facilities
Transportation
Safe housing, lead poisoning, and water quality
Access to recreation and environmental info
Exposure to noise pollution
Exposure to natural disasters (e.g., Hurricane Katrina)
• Jobs are created…but how to compare benefit
w/loss?

22. Discussion
 Split into groups
 Environmental ethics
• Handout

23. Aldo Leopold
 Land ethic
• Sand county almanac
• “We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce
green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have
known ever since, that there was something new to
me in those eyes—something known only to her and
to the mountain. I was young then, and full of triggeritch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more
deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise.
But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that
neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a
view.”
- Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 1949
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4edMwhmRvz

24. 2.5 Societal Environmental Ethics
 Environmental ethic product of individuals,
businesses, and national leaders
 Western societies have long acted as if the earth
has:
• Unlimited reserves of natural resources.
• An unlimited ability to assimilate wastes.
• “growth mania”
 When will it be „enough‟?

25. 2. 6 Corporate Environmental Ethics
 Economic growth and resource exploitation were
the dominant orientations
 Change through Corporate environmental
ethics
• Primary purpose is to generate a financial return
(profit) for its shareholders,
• Shareholders, employees or executives can demand
an environmental ethic

27. Is There a Corporate
Environmental Ethic?
 If corporation follow unethical environmental
practices
• Release industrial wastes into river
• Public is the one that suffers
 Corporations can be encouraged into adopting
more environmentally friendly practices
http://www.ceres.org/companynetwork/company-directory

28. Is There a Corporate
Environmental Ethic?
 In 1997, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
was established.
 At least 2000 companies around the world
voluntarily report information on their economic,
environmental, and social policies.
 https://www.globalreporting.org/reporting/reportservices/featured-reports/Pages/default.aspx

29. 2.7 Individual Environmental Ethics
 Ethical changes in society and business must
start with individuals.
 Our individual actions have a bearing on
environmental quality
• Each of us bears some responsibility for the quality of
the environment in which we live.
 Individual choices can make a difference

30. 2.8 The Ethics of Consumption
 North Americans represent 5% of the world‟s
population.
• North Americans consume one-fourth of the world‟s
oil.
• They use more water and own more cars than
anybody else.
• They waste more food than most people in subSaharan Africa eat.

31. 2.9 Personal Choices
 Lifestyle changes that significantly reduce their
personal impact on the planet.
• Eating food produced locally
• Eating food that is low on the food chain
(fruits/vegies)
• Buying durable consumer products
• And reusing or repairing products with usable life
reduces the raw materials that must be extracted from
the ground.

32. 2.9 Personal Choices
• Conserving energy at home and on the road can
lessen the amount of fossil fuels used to support your
lifestyle.
• Lobbying for protection of wild areas
• Voting for officials who take environmental issues
seriously
– https://www.facebook.com/pages/League-of-WomenVoters-of-Greater-Omahas-Douglas-County-VotersGuide/109817185721956

33. Ecological footprint
 Help individuals measure their environmental
impact
 www.earthday.org/footprint/info.asp

34. Environmental Science
A Study of Interrelationships
Thirteenth Edition
Enger & Smith
Chapter 3
Environmental Risk:
Economics, Assessment, and Management
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

35. 3.3 Environmental Economics
 Economics
• study of how people choose to use resources to
produce goods and services,
• and how those goods and services are distributed to
the public.
• How are resources distributed?
• Businesses must know the economics of the
environment!

36. Resources
 Economists look at resources as the available
supply of something that can be used.
 There are three categories of resources:
• Labor (human resources)
• Capital (technology and knowledge)
• Land (natural resources)

37. Resources
 Natural resources
• structures and processes humans can use for their
own purposes but cannot create.
– Wind, sunlight, rainfall
• Renewable resources
– can be formed or regenerated by natural processes.
• Nonrenewable resources
– are not replaced by natural processes, or the rate of
replacement is so slow as to be ineffective.

39. Assigning Value to Natural Resources
 We assign value to natural resources based on
our perception of their relative scarcity.
• If a natural resource has always been rare, it is
expensive (gold)
• If the supply is very large and the demand is low, the
resource is often perceived to be free (sunlight)
• Even renewable resources can be overexploited
– (fish, wildlife, forests)

40. Ecosystem Services
 Ecosystems are a tangible source of economic
wealth
 The challenge lies in disentangling complex
natural systems into more discrete commodity
units
• Translate ecosystem value into something tangible?
– Ask questions
– Use people’s behavior?

41. Ecosystem Services
 But under uncertainties….
• Different value sets
 It is possible to weight the benefits from an
activity such as dam construction
against its negative impacts
• on fishing
• livelihoods of nearby communities
• and changes to aesthetic values

42. Environmental Costs
 How do you weight the costs?
 Environmental costs of resource exploitation
•
•
•
•
Pollution
Species extinction
Resource depletion
and loss of scenic quality

43. Cost-Benefit Analysis
 Cost-benefit analysis
• method of assessing costs and benefits of competing
uses of a resource
• and deciding which is most effective.
• Reduce Lead in drinking water
– Costs = $125 million
– Benefits = 1 billion

45. Incentives for Environmental
Stewardship
 Subsidy
• Consumer rebates environmental friendly products
• Renewable energy home Loans
• Tax credits

46. Economic tools to address
Environmental problems
 High degree of protection at low cost
 Give entrepreneurs choice of most economical
• Tradable emissions permits give companies the
right to emit specified amounts of pollutants.
– Permits can be sold or banked for future use.
– Used frequently by carb carbon emissions in Europe
– Cap and Trade http://www.edf.org/climate/how-capand-trade-works

47. Market-Based Instruments
• Emission fees and taxes provide incentives for
environmental improvement by making damaging
activities and products more expensive.
• Performance bonds are fees collected to ensure
proper care is taken to protect environmental
resources.

48. 3.5 Economics and Sustainable
Development
 So many humans!
• So much pollution
• Earth is one big ecosystem
– Air pollution from U.S. can affect people in Asia
– The decisions our ancestors made, affect us today
 How do we sustain human life and not destroy
all the resources for us and our children?

49. Sustainable development
 Sustainable development
• meets present needs without compromising the
needs of future generations
• Keep natural resources
• Maintain human living standards
• Example: Solar Energy

50. 3.5 Economics and Sustainable
Development
 Schools of thought:
• Economic growth finances the investments necessary
to prevent pollution
• Science and technological advances can solve many
environmental problems (wind, solar, geothermal)
• Economic and environmental well-being are mutually
reinforcing

51. 3.5 Economics and Sustainable
Development
 High-income developed nations with high
education levels are in a position to promote
sustainable development
• http://www.mccneb.edu/cps/green/
 Transfer of modern, environmentally sound
technology to developing nations

52. Regional Studies
Introduction to Homework:
Case Study

53. Forest and mineral exploitation
Alaska
 Political
 Economic
• Oil
• Native Americans
 Ethical
• Contamination
• Conservation

54. Caribou migration to coastal plain for calf birthing

55. Fertilization use
Midwest
 Political
 Economic
• Doubled food production in last 40 years
 Ethical
• Prices of fertilizer entwined with prices of oil
• Some farmers cannot avoid fertilizers

56. Water use
Western U.S.
 Politics
• Pumped from Colorado River to Salt Lake City,
Denver, Los Angeles
• 30 million people rely on its water
 Economics
 Ethics
• Reduced water table
• Reduction Colorado river basin
– Plant and animal life

57. Forest Policy
Western U.S.
 Value of old growth forests
• Political
• Economic
• Ethical
Climate change?

58. Great Lakes example
 Political:
8 U.S. states, 2
Canadian provinces,
Native American tribes
Economic:
Ethical:
pollution, exotic
species, over fishing

59. 10 Things You Can Do to Protect Your
Environment





1. Reduce driving
2. Save electricity
3. Recycle
4. Conserve water
5. Safely dispose of hazardous waste

60. 10 Things You Can Do to Protect Your
Environment




6. Eat locally
7. Donate reusable items
8. Buy in bulk
9. Learn how to avoid the use of insect
repellants
 10. Be an informed and active citizen

61. Environmental Problem Solving
Assignment
 See Handout