Environmental Biology: Unit 3 Compilation

The following is a unit compilation for chapters 4, 14 (14.1,14.2, 14.3, 14.5), 13, 9 (9.1-9.3)

Table of Contents

Chapter 4

Topic: Human Populations

Subtopic:

Family Planning

Population Growth

Cause and Consequences

Factors of Population

Reproductive Pressures

Demographic Transition

Family Planning

In the case study of Thailand’s family planning we find the success story of the non-government organization of the PDA or Population and Community Development Association. This organization promotes safe sex and family planning by using humor. They pass out condoms, make funny advertisements, and the people of Thailand are taking the message to heart. The average number of children per woman has decreased from 7 to 1.7. The PDA also preaches and promotes the overall wellness of the community. Population control, clean water, and rural development are all aspects of a richer community.

www.evilmilk.com • Accessed 3/18/12

Population Growth

The human population is in a state of constant growth. The balance of life and death is unequal. Each year more people are born than people die. With this constant increase of humans some fear overpopulation will lead to resource depletion and other issues. Some view the steady growth of the human population as a benefit. The more people there are the more workers, more ideas, and more productivity.

There is a recent growth in the human population. This is due to developments in medicines, environment control, and the ability to supply food. When looking at the population growth we see a dramatic spike in population at the industrial revolution that continues to increase still today.

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/human_pop/human_pop.html • accessed 3/11/12

Cause and Consequences

Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) thoughts on population were that humans would grow in population as long as there was more food than people. He felt that the amount of food available would remain constant and that within time the humans would exceed the food and start to die off. He believed that it was inevitable that humans would out grow their food supply and starve. With the developments in technology we are able to feed more and more people.

Karl Marx (1818-1883) believed that population growth was a byproduct of poverty. Joel Cohen estimates that the human population will outgrow what the planet can sustain by 2100. Some say that birth control should be our top priority.

There are consequences of the large human population and we can see this in pollution. The formula I = PAT looks at the impact we have on the environment. (I) Impact = (P) population (A) times affluence (T) technology used. To understand what our impact is environmentally we can look at our ecological footprint. This estimates the amount of land and resources we use.

In the world today we consume energy faster than the world can produce it. This puts future generations in danger. When looking at the average American ecological footprint we find that it would take 3.5 earths to support the world’s population according to an American lifestyle.

Factors of Population

The Census Bureau tries to collect as much information to get an educated guess about the worlds demographics. This is only considered a guess do to the fact that it is hard to count all the people in the world. Constantly people are dieing and being born, people are homeless or other wised displaced.

Through the information that is gathered we can see that the older more established countries are decreasing in population and that the less established countries are increasing. It is found that these places where politics and economics are not at rest there is a low use of contraceptive and high birth rate.

Through the data collected we can see that poorer areas are expected to produce 90% of future population growth. Yet we do have the factor that some of the poorer countries also will have shrinking populations due to bad economies and diseases like AIDS.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/photography/aids/aids1.htm • Accessed 3/29/12

Fertility is a factor in population. The crude birth rate determines the number of births in a year per one thousand people. The number of children a woman has during her years of being reproductive is called the total fertility rate. Before the invention of birth control an upper class women would have 25 – 30 pregnancies. In some areas of the world the birth are equal to the deaths and this is called a zero population growth or ZPG. With the developments and social acceptance of birth control the World Health Organization states that one-third of the world is now reproducing under the replacement rate which is 2.1 children per couple.

The mortality rate effects the population. The mortality rate depends on the area. For and example you would expect a higher rate of death in a retirement community than you would in a college community.

A big player in population growth is life expectancy. This is an average age that a person is alive. We have seen a rise in less fortunate countries do to clean water, better nutrition and medicines. We can also see a correlation between the wealth of a community and life expectancy. The longest life that was ever recorded was 122.

Age 117
http://www.infoniac.com/breaking/the-worlds-oldest-woman-dies-age-117.html • Accessed 3/29/12

China created a one-child policy to decrease the demands of a growing population. China had great concern on how to feed and house the growing population. The creation of this policy enforced the law that couples could only have one child. This policy decreased the population but a new problem rose. There were no longer enough people to support the elderly. This is called a dependency ratio or ratio of the number of worker compared to non-workers.

A factor in the increasing population is an increase in human sewage but the real issue according to "Environmental Case Study North Precarious Toilets: Rising Estrogen in Human Sewage" is that people are flushing hazardous waste down the toilet. I personally found this shocking. When people dump toxic waste down drains it dilutes and can contaminate larger amounts of water. Items such as patricides, cleaning agents, and other solvents should be disposed of properly.
Accessed 4/7/12 • http://www.mhhe.com/Enviro-Sci/CaseStudyLibrary/Regional/North/CaseStudy_PrecariousToiletsRising.pdf

Reproductive Pressures

Pronatalist pressures are things that increase the desire to have children. Children can give you status in society and a sense of accomplishment. Children can provide care for the parents when the parents are no longer able to provide for themselves. In some societies people have children to help with chores and other needs.

Financial factors come into play with the decision to have children. In good, prosperous economies people feel secure in starting families. When the economy is doing poorly people take into consideration the cost of raising a child. A woman that makes good money at a job might decide not to have as many children so that she can continue to working.

Demographic Transition

Demographic transition shows the connection between the growth of a population and the developments in the economy in comparing the birth and death rates. When an economy is in social development you see the death rate drop and the birth rate increase. Pre-development you see stability in that there is a high birth rate and high death rate. After the economies development stabilizes you see the stabilization of the birth and death rates at a lower rate.

Most areas in the world are in a transition stage of demographics. It is said that the world’s population will stabilize in the next century. Ways that we can stabilize the populations are: stabilizing economies, communications, technology, education and family planning resources. Family planning includes contraception, abortions, and embryo implantation.

Table of Contents

Chapter 14 (sections 14.1-14.2, 14.3, 14.5)

Topic: Economics and Urbanization

Subtopics:

Car Free World

City Populations

Urban Development and Planning

Sustainable Development and Economics

Development, Jobs and Trade

Car Free World

In the case study of a town in German we find a town that has banded cars from the streets. Looking at images of this town you really start to see all the space that car take up such as parking lots, garages, the streets, and the roads. They also add in notice and air pollution. The people of this town have simply reorganized the town to be car-less. The have closely nit communities and you can sustain a good life all within walking distance.

http://www.studyabroadphoto.com/2011/01/wisteria-blooms-in-freiburg.html • Accessed 3/18/12

City Populations

Cities are growing in size. The growth of current cities poses problems in trying to keep up with roads, sewage treatment, schools, and other human needs. The term urban agglomerations are the merging of towns or sections of cities into one. This term reminds me of driving down the Florida coastline. It is becoming difficult to tell were Jacksonville ends and the next town begins. Cities with populations over ten million are considered megacities.

In the year 1900 only 13 cities had a population over one million but in 2007 300 cities had populations over one million. Rural areas are also growing in some places in the world.

There is a constant push and pull of people. Some factors that make people immigrate to a new areas are loss of jobs, food, poverty and new opportunities. Over-congestion of cities leads to pollution of the water, shortages in supplies, and congested streets.

One community that is making an outstanding effort to recover from pollution is the neighborhood of Altgeld Gardens in the south side of Chicago. This area is polluted by nearby steel mills, oil refineries, railroad yards, coke ovens, factories and waste disposal. Barack Obama worked with the People for Community Recovery or the PCR to help clean up this area. Visit http://www.altgeldgardens.com/ to read more about this area.

Accessed 3/19/12 • http://blogs.rowlandhs.org/groups/mrselderssummerschoolclass/wiki/f3788/

A big outcome of over populated cities is lack of sufficient housing. It is estimated that one billion people in the world live in unsanitary slums and one hundred million have no homes at all. Shantytowns are areas where people have created houses out of found supplies. These are illegal settlements that lack clean water, sanitation, safe electrical power and waste disposal. Nearly 25 million people in Mexico City live in shantytowns. Do to the economic problems in America we are seeing shantytowns pop up in the bigger cities in the U.S.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26776283/ns/us_news-life/t/hard-times-tent-cities-rise-across-country/#.T3DUx5heHFI • Accessed 3/26/12

Urban Development and Planning

Developing cities have been finding ways to expand and provide for growing populations. Most city growth revolves around transportation. With the invention of the car the cities started to sprawl or spread out. The more communities that sprawl out increases need of more highways. The more people that commute leads to more traffic jams and more traffic jams leads to waste in time and fuel.

Accessed 3/19/12 • http://www.fxguide.com/featured/de-compiling-the-vfx-of-source-code/

Smart growth is an option of urban development that uses existing infrastructure and land resources and encourages in-fill development. Portland Oregon is a smart growth city. It actively enforces the boundaries of the city and forces all development to take place within the city limits. Portland is considered the best city in America because of its urban amenities.

Some smart growth design principles are:

• Compact buildings (filling in homes in the spaces between detached homes)

• Discourage use of vehicles and encouragement of walking or biking

• Locating shopping, service areas, and jobs within walking distance from homes

• Looking at protecting the environment before the advance of development

• Maintain green spaces or greenbelts around the city

• Limit the size of the city

• Efficiency

• Public transit

• Bike and walking routes

• Conservation of farmland

• Production of locally grown food

• Utilizing alternative energy and energy conservation

• Recycling programs

• Green roof gardens

Accessed 3/19/12 • http://www.decohot.com/category/going-green/

Sustainable Development and Economics

Sustainable development is an effort to meet the “needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

Classical economics assumes that the resources and finite. With a free market the cost of a resource fluctuates with supply and demand. The marginal cost is that of a good or product that takes into consideration the total cost to produce one unit.

The idea of a steady-state economy was developed by John Stuart Mill. This idea states that most resources are finite but that an economy can achieve equilibrium. He stated that as development continues the economy will stabilize.

In neoclassical economics includes resources like knowledge, labor, and capital. Capital is any form of wealth that contributes to producing future wealth. There are different types of capital like:

• Natural capital or goods and services provided

• Human capital or human enterprise, knowledge, and experience

• Manufactured capital or tools, roads, and technology

A neoclassical economy looks at the throughput as a view of wealth. In terms of the goss national product, the amount of products and services measures the wealth of an economy.

Natural resource economics is similar to the neoclassical economics but it treats natural resource as an equal importance.

Ecological economics utilizes the resources and recycles. With this there is no waste. Also there are ecological services such as purifying wastewater and processing air pollution. Most ecological economist supports the idea of a steady-state economy.

Some of out resources are nonrenewable such as fossil fuels and underground water. Others are renewable like living organisms and air. Nonrenewable resources need to be used effectively. Finding other renewable materials to use in place of nonrenewable materials is very important. We also need to be careful with renewable resources. We can over harvest a resource to extinction.

http://screwble.wordpress.com/page/2/ • Accessed 3/29/12

When faced with economic challenges new solutions are created. With this in mind it is difficult to predict the out come. The only thing we know for sure is that we are heading down hill unless we make changes or continue to make changes.

One big change that would be better for the environment and the people living in it is communal living. This is where people live together and provide for each other in different ways. They “share”. The communal resource management systems have a number of features but with anything there are pros and cons.

Development, Jobs and Trade

“A sustainable society requires some degree of equitable resource distribution: if most of the wealth is held by just a few people, the misery and poverty of the majority eventually lead to social instability and instability of resource supplies.” (Cummingham, Page 359)

Accessed 3/20/12 • http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/10/news/economy/occupy_wall_street_protest/index.htm

International trade is a double-edged sword. On one hand you have a wealth country buying cheep goods from a less fortunate country, stimulating growth for the less fortunate and provide cheep products for the wealthy country to supply. The dark side of trade is the environmental cost to these less fortunate countries. An example is the U.S. has costly environmental regulations so we buy products from countries with no regulations to get the product cheaper at the cost of the environment. This is a long video but watching it will give you more insight on the evils of the W.T.O.

"Environmental Case Study

Battle in Seattle"

In 1999, riots broke out in protest of the World Trade Organization in Seattle Washington. Most of the 50,000 protester were peaceful but a had full of people got out of control and that is what made public news. Before the riots not many people had heard of the WTO and because of the riots many people missed the point of the protest. "

WTO judges are trade bureaucrats, usually corporate lawyers with ties to the industries being regulated. There are no rules against conflicts of interest, nor are there requirements that judges know anything about the culture or circumstances of the countries they judge. No appeal of WTO rulings is allowed. A country that loses a trade dispute has three options: (1) amend laws to comply with WTO rules, (2) pay annual compensation—often millions of dollars—to the complainants, or (3) face nonnegotiable trade sanctions. Critics claim that the WTO always serves the interest of transnational corporations and the world’s richest countries."

Accessed 4/7/12 •http://www.mhhe.com/Enviro-Sci/CaseStudyLibrary/Topic-Based/CaseStudy_BattleInSeattle.pdf

Please follow this link and watch the video.

Accessed 3/20/12 • http://youtu.be/BcX2UlJ1yR4

Banks have played a big part in developing better life’s in low-income areas. Dr. Yunus won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work in Bangladesh. He realized that the people were not about to prosper and that all they really needed was a hand up. He started making loans to the people to help them with their businesses with the Grameen Bank. With only small amounts of money “a young mother can expand her business and help provide for her family.” (Cummingham, Page 360)

Table of Contents

Chapter 13

Topic: Waste

Subtopics:

Recycling Garbage

Types of Waste Produced

Garbage Disposal

Reducing Waste

Hazardous Wastes

Recycling Garbage

We are limited in that amount of space we have for landfills. New York has no room and they have been shipping their garbage to other states. Burning the garbage is just as bad for the environment and air quality. One good way to deal with the over abundance of trash is to repurpose it. Taylor Recycling sells and recycles 97% of the garbage that it receives.

Gasifier is an enclosed oxygen-free cooker that uses pressure to convert biomass into natural gas. Europe supports this industry by making it illegal to toss organic materials into the landfills. China imports garbage in order to repurpose it for their benefit.

accessed 3/24/12 • http://www.nexterra.ca/technology/index.cfm

Types of Waste Produced

The U.S produces 11 billion tons of waste in a year; half of which is agricultural waste. The mine industry waste is responsible for one-third. Industrial waste is produces 400 million metric tons. Municipal solid waste or the garbage from our home amounts to 250 million metric tons per year. The big problem with municipal waste is that plastic, paper, and biomaterial is all mixed together and not easily recycled.

The term that refers to the steadily flow of trash that we produce is called waste stream. A lot of what we dispose of could be considered a valuable resource but the fact that we have collected it with other materials and compacted the materials together makes it hard to retrieve the resource that are valuable. A big issue with the waste stream is when hazardous materials get into the mix. Some hazardous materials include: cleaning solvents, smoke detectors, plastics, sprat cans, pesticides, and batteries.

Garbage Disposal

Accessed 3/26/12 • http://awonderfulblog.com/2009/09/smokey-mountain-then-and-now/

In many poor countries unregulated dumps are the method of waste disposal. The image above is of a dump in Manila, in the Philippines. The locals call it “Smoky Mountain” because of the smoldering fires. People live by the dump and scavenge the area for food and other resources that they can recycle.

Unregulated dumping is subjected to wind blowing the trash out of control. The trash washes in to rivers, sewers, and oceans. The deep blue toilet; I mean the ocean. Throughout the years we have been using the ocean to dispose of our industrial waste and sewage.

Please follow this link and watch the video.
Video Accessed 3/26/12 • http://youtu.be/Ft11F2uyWi0

“The Hollywood sewage outfall is positioned 3050 m offshore at a depth of 28.5 m. This outfall is a single port discharge pipe with a port diameter of 1.52 m. The permitted discharge of the Hollywood outfall is 47.5 MGD which is the combined permitted flow from Hollywood, Cooper City and Davie Wastewater Treatment Plants” by ‪HABteam on Mar 11, 2009

“In 1997 caption Charles Moore discovered the Great Parcific Garbage Patch. “Capt. Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation first discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch -- an endless floating waste of plastic trash. Now he's drawing attention to the growing, choking problem of plastic debris in our seas.” by ‪theonlytruecate on Apr 17, 2009

Please follow this link and watch the video.

Video Accessed 3/26/12 • http://youtu.be/FrAShtolieg

In 1960 only 6% of waste was recycled in the U.S. We have come a long was since then and now 33% is recycled. Besides recycling we have modern landfills or sanitary landfills that are designed to contain waste. These landfills make considerable efforts to control pollution. The U.S. has had strict regulation on landfills since 1994.

Before 2006 it was common practice for richer countries to sell their trash or abandon it in less fortunate countries. Currently e-waste is a prominent material that is seen going to developing countries. With the swiftness in which the electronic age moves there is an increase of e-waste. 50 million tons of e-waste is produced each year and only 20% of it is being recycled.

Another way that waste is dealt with is by incineration. A mass burn unit is used to burn waste. In return the energy created by the burn waste is use to heat building or for electricity. The call this Energy Recovery but it comes at a cost. If the toxic elements are not removed and are burned with the rest of the trash this can pollute the air and the ash that is created is also a pollutant.

Reducing Waste

The best in comparison of dealing with trash is recycling. There are problems that recycling faces like equipping communities with resources and systems. Communities are beginning to find that recycling saves space, money and energy. Japan has one of the most successful recycling programs in the world with up to 30 or 40 different categories including clothing. If we recycle then the demand for raw resources declines. It also reduces the consumption of energy. Seeing the value in recycled materials also reduces litter.

Some communities have outlawed organic material as in the landfills. This forces people to create personal compost piles. Compost piles create rich organic materials that are great for gardens and help to prevent erosion.

Reusing material is even better than recycling them. A common place we see people reusing materials is in car parts, old wood, bricks, glass, and brass fittings.

Accessed 3/26/12 • http://www.takepart.com/article/2008/10/10/trash-my-house-please

Hazardous Wastes

It is shocking but over 40 million metric tons of toxic waste is released by the U.S. each year. This pollutes our water, air, and land. Petroleum industries are the leader or largest source of these toxins.

Hazardous waste is anything that is fatally harmful to humans and animals. It is also anything that is highly explosive.

The U.S does have regulations on hazardous waste. The two laws that regulate this in the U.S. are The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 and The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act that was passed in 1980. The Superfund Amendment and Reauthorization Act created the “right to know”. Toxic Release Inventory keeps the public informed and maintains a list of where hazardous materials are stored and located.

Superfund is money and resources set aside to aid in clean up of areas posing imminent hazards. The U.S. is spending anywhere from $370 billion to 1.7 trillion a year on hazardous waste clean up.

Accessed 3/26/12 • http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/badguys/070430/top_10_toxic_waste_states.htm

Brownfields are environments that have been abandoned due to the pollution and toxins of the environment. Many parts of the world are cleaning up these Brownfields and turning them into parks and are trying to repurpose the land.

So what do we do with the hazardous waste created? There are places in which this waste is stored and it is called permanent retrievable storage. Usually stored on a salt mines or bedrock caverns. The most popular solution is however secure landfills.

Table of Contents

Chapter 9 (sections 9.1-9.3)

Topic: The Climate and Air Pollution

Subtopics:

Changes in Our Climate

The Atmosphere

Causes of Climate Change

Increasing Climate Changes

Changes in Our Climate

Changes in our climate are subtle and it is hard for policymakers to establish laws or rules to make improvements for the sake of our climate. Some of the subtle changes we see are warmer winter and summers, more insect due to the warmer winters, sea-levels rising, and the melting of the ice caps.

http://www.theresilientearth.com/?q=content/himalayan-glaciers-not-melting

• Accessed 3/28/12

We have seen a dramatic increase in Carbon dioxide, Methane, and Nitrous oxide since the industrial revolution. This increase of gases is what is affects the climate and causing the rise in temperature.

Some actions that we can take to reduce gasses and improve out climate are reducing our reliance on cars, improving power plants and their operations, using green sources of power, preventing deforestation, and overall making our lives more energy efficient.

The Atmosphere

The atmosphere surrounding the earth has four distinct zones. The Troposphere is the zone closest to the earth’s surface. This is the zone that all weather occurs in. It also contains aerosols that are tiny particles and liquid droplets. Along with water vapors, aerosols play a part in the earth’s energy budget and rain production. Convection currents are located in the troposphere zone and are the circulation of air. This is the thickest of the zones and contains 75% of the total atmospheric mass.

The temperature drops the higher you go up in the Troposphere. The next zone is the Stratosphere in this zone ozone molecules are absorbing ultra violet radiation making the zone warmer than the Troposphere. This creates a barrier to hold in world’s gases.

After the Stratosphere is the Mesosphere were the temperature is again very cool. This zone is highly charged with radiation and charged particles that glow. This zone is the source of the aurora borealis or the northern light. The last zone in our atmosphere is the Thermosphere.

http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/geol100/lectures/33.html

• Accessed 3/28/12

The sun supplies energy. On albedo or reflective surfaces like ice, snow, or sand the energy is reflected up to 85 -90 percent. On low albedo surfaces like pavement, water, and black soil the energy is absorbed. The greenhouse effect is a term for the capture of energy by the gases in the atmosphere.

Most of the solar energy is used by water evaporation. Large amounts of energy are released in thunderstorms, hurricanes, and tornadoes.

Oceans currents are big redistributors of heat. Surface wind blows the oceans currents, pushing the surface water then deep water comes up to replace it. This is what creates the ocean currents. Thermohaline is a term that defines how the water circulates due to temperature and salinity. The salt in the water and temperature make contrasts in the waters density and steer its movement.

Causes of Climate Change

The world’s climate has changed over time. We can study some of the climate’s changes by looking at ice cores. We can look at several aspect of the world as it was when looking at ice cores. We can test the atmosphere by analyzing tiny bubbles of air trapped in the ice. We can also see how much moisture there was in a season by looking at the thickness of the layers.

From looking back in history and examining the ice cores we can see climatic swings. Some things that have been found to cause these swings are the Milankovitch cycle or the earth’s orbit and tilt and the 11 year peak of incoming solar energy. The axial wobble also has a big effect on climate. Another factor that leads to climate change is when a volcano erupts.

El Niño or Southern Oscillation (ENSO) occurs in the Pacific. Ocean and atmosphere oscillations cause heavy monsoons or devastating droughts. El Niño occurs every three to five years and has far reaching effects. Some people feel that El Niño is occurring more often due to the warming of the climate.

To find out more about El Niño please visit and watch this video. http://youtu.be/7FVZrw7bk1w

http://www.procprblog.com/el-nino-conditions-return-to-affect-weather • Accessed 3/29/12

Increasing Climate Changes

Scientist started to measure the changes in the climate in 1895. The most important issue of our time is anthropogenic global climate change or human caused climate change. Climate change is a challenging issue to analyze and for this reason scientist worldwide work together in collecting and sharing data. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the most a collaboration of 130 countries that review evidence and resent causes and effects of anthropogenic climate change.

The IPCC spent 6 years collaborating information in order to produce different scenarios of that was to come. You can read the report here http://www.ipcc.ch Since published in 2007 we can see the IPCC were conservative in their scenarios and thus far we have excelled past the worst case scenario. Temperatures and seal levels rise, along with greenhouse gas emissions and energy use along with other issues.

http://www.koshland-science-museum.org/exhibitgcc/causes02.jsp • Accessed 3/29/12

CO2, CH4, and N2O are the main greenhouse gasses. There is a steady increase in CO2 due to the use of fossil fuels. Methane (CH4) is less abundant then CO2 but it absorbs more infrared energy that CO2. N2O is Nitrous oxide and this is the least abundant of the gases in the atmosphere. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s) along with N2O are responsible for 17 percent of anthropogenic global warming.

Some of the evidence is overwhelming. When looking at the evidence of climate change we see a drastic increase in global temperatures, leading to an increase of insects that kill trees and plants, the increase of the melting ice caps, the rising temperature in the oceans, rise of sea levels, drought, changes in animal migrations, the dieing of coral reefs, and we have all felt the increase of devastating storms.

One last thing to leave you with http://youtu.be/bikxUoABYxU