INTRODUCTION TO
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
OBJECTIVES
At the end of the session, the students will be able to:
1. define environment and environmental science,
2. list several major environmental themes and some ways to
address them,
3. explain the ideas of resource use and conservation,
4. explain the idea of sustainability and some of its aims; and
5. compare the different environmental ideas and attitudes.
ENVIRONMENT
• Everything that affects a living
organism (any unique form of life)
• The complex of physical, chemical,
and biotic factors that act upon an
organism or an ecological
community and ultimately
determine its form and survival.
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
• The study of the environment, the
processes it undergoes and the
problems that are arise generally
from the integration of humans
with the environment.
• A multidisciplinary field which
includes basic science, social
science, engineering,
management and other various
disciplines.
MAJOR THEMES OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
Environmental Human Population Natural Resources
Quality and Well-Being
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
Climate Change Clean Water Air Quality
CLIMATE CHANGE
• The atmosphere retains heat near the
earth’s surface, which is why it is
warmer here than in space but
concentrations of heat-trapping
“greenhouse gases,” especially CO2,
increased dramatically
• Burning fossil fuels, clearing forests and
farmlands, and raising billions of
methane-producing cattle are some of
the main causes.
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
CLEAN WATER
• At least 1.1 billion people lack access
to safe drinking water, and twice
that many don’t have adequate
sanitation.
• Polluted water contributes to the
death of more than 15 million
people every year, most of them
children under age 5.
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
AIR QUALITY
• Worldwide, the United Nations
estimates, more than 2 billion
metric tons of air pollutants (not
including carbon dioxide or
windblown soil) are released each
year.
• These air pollutants travel easily
around the globe.
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
HUMAN POPULATION AND WELL - BEING
Population Growth Hunger and Food Information and
Education
POPULATION GROWTH
• There are now over 7.7 billion
people on earth, about twice as
many as there were 40 years ago.
Adding about 80 million more
each year.
• The impact of that many people
on our natural resources and
ecological systems strongly
influences many of the other
problems we face.
HUMAN POPULATION AND WELL -BEING
HUNGER AND FOOD
• Over the past century, global food
production has increased faster than
human population growth.
• Despite this abundance, hunger
remains a chronic problem worldwide
because food resources are unevenly
distributed.
• In a world of food surpluses, currently
more than 850 million people are
chronically undernourished, and at
least 60 million people face acute food
shortages due to weather, politics, or
war.
HUMAN POPULATION AND WELL -BEING
INFORMATION AND EDUCATION
• Rapid exchange of information on the
Internet also makes it easier to quickly
raise global awareness of
environmental problems, such as
deforestation or pollution, that
historically would have proceeded
unobserved and unhindered.
• Improved access to education is
helping to release many of the world’s
population from cycles of poverty and
vulnerability.
HUMAN POPULATION AND WELL -BEING
NATURAL RESOURCES
Biodiversity Conservation of Marine Energy
Loss Forest and Natural Resources Resources
Reserves
BIODIVERSITY LOSS
• The United Nations Environment
Programme reports that over the past
century more than 800 species have
disappeared and at least 10,000 species
are now considered threatened.
• At least half of the forests existing before
the introduction of agriculture have been
cleared, and many of the ancient forests,
which harbor some of the greatest
biodiversity, are rapidly being cut for
timber, for oil extraction, or for
agricultural production of globally traded
commodities such as palm oil or soybeans.
NATURAL RESOURCES
CONSERVATION OF FOREST AND
NATURAL RESERVES
• Although exploitation continues, the
rate of deforestation has slowed in
many regions.
• Nature preserves and protected areas
have increased sharply over the past
few decades.
• Ecoregion and habitat protection
remains uneven, and some areas are
protected only on paper
NATURAL RESOURCES
MARINE RESOURCES
• More than a billion people in developing
countries depend on seafood for their main
source of animal protein, but most
commercial fisheries around the world are in
steep decline.
• According to the World Resources Institute,
more than three-quarters of the 441 fish
stocks for which information is available are
severely depleted or in urgent need of better
management.
• Some marine biologists estimate that 90
percent of all the large predators, including
bluefin tuna, marlin, swordfish, sharks, cod,
and halibut, have been removed from the
ocean.
NATURAL RESOURCES
ENERGY RESOURCES
• Fossil fuels (oil, coal, and natural gas)
presently provide around 80 percent of the
energy used in industrialized countries.
• The costs of extracting and burning these
fuels are among our most serious
environmental challenges, this includes air
and water pollution, mining damage, and
violent conflicts, in addition to climate
change.
NATURAL RESOURCES
IDEAS ON RESOURCE USE AND CONSERVATION
• Throughput
• Ecosystem Services
• Planet Boundaries
THROUGHPUT
• The amount of resources we use
and dispose of.
• A household that consumes
abundant consumer goods, foods,
and energy brings in a great deal of
natural resource–based materials;
that household also disposes of a
great deal of materials. Conversely
a household that consumes very
little also produces little waste.
RESOURCE USE AND CONSERVATION
ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
• Services or resources provided by
environmental systems.
Provisioning services - most obvious service we
require. Ex. Burning of fuels
Supporting services - less obvious until you start
listing them. Ex. Water purification, production of
food and atmospheric oxygen by plants, and
decomposition of waste by fungi and bacteria.
Regulating services - maintenance of temperatures
suitable for life by the earth’s atmosphere and
carbon capture by green plants, which maintains a
stable atmospheric composition
Cultural services - include a diverse range of
recreation, aesthetic, and other nonmaterial
benefits.
RESOURCE USE AND CONSERVATION
PLANET BOUNDARIES
• Thresholds of abrupt or irreversible
environmental change
• Studies by Johan Rockstrom and colleagues
at the Stockholm Resilience Centre have
identified nine major systems with these
critical thresholds.
• The boundaries simply define the regions
of global environment space that, if human
activities push the Earth system into that
space, would lead to unacceptably
deleterious consequences for humanity as
a whole.
RESOURCE USE AND CONSERVATION
SUSTAINABILITY
• A search for ecological
stability and human
progress that can last
over the long term.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
• According to World Health • The term development refers
Organization Director Gro to improving access to health
Harlem Brundtland it is care, education, and other
conditions necessary for a
“meeting the needs of the healthy and productive life,
present without especially in regions of
compromising the ability of extreme poverty.
future generations to meet
their own need “
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
1. Combating poverty
• Ten key factors necessary for
2. Reducing resource consumption
sustainable development
according to Agenda 21. 3. Population Growth
4. Health Care
5. Sustainable cities
6. Environmental Policy
7. Protection of the atmosphere
8. Combating deforestation and protecting
biodiversity
9. Combating desertification and drought
10. Agricultural and rural development
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
• The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development, adopted by all United Nations
Member States in 2015, provides a shared
blueprint for peace and prosperity for people
and the planet, now and into the future.
• At its heart are the 17 Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs), which are an
urgent call for action by all countries -
developed and developing - in a global
partnership
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
• It also known as the Global Goals,
were adopted by all United Nations
Member States in September 2015 as
a universal call to action to end
poverty, protect the planet and
ensure that all people enjoy peace
and prosperity by 2030.
• They are integrated—that is, they
recognize that action in one area will
affect outcomes in others, and that
development must balance social,
economic and environmental
sustainability.
ENVIRONMENTAL IDEAS
UTILITARIAN CONSERVATION MODERN ENVIRONMENTALISM
The resources should be used “for the It claims that living things other
greatest good, for the greatest number, for than humans, and the natural
the longest time.” environment as a whole, are
deserving of consideration in
PRESERVATION OF NATURE reasoning about the morality of
political, economic, and social
The nature deserves to exist for its own sake, policies.
regardless of its usefulness to us.
It seeks to improve and protect the
This outlook prioritizes preservation because it quality of the natural environment
emphasizes the fundamental right of other through changes to
organisms—and nature as a whole—to exist and environmentally harmful human
to pursue their own interests. activities.
ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDES
DEVELOPMENT ETHIC
• Based on individualism and egocentrism CONSERVATION ETHIC
• It assumes that the human race is and should be Recognizes the limitations of
the master of nature; therefore, the earth and its natural resources on Earth and
resources exist for our benefit and pleasure. states that unlimited economic or
population growth is not feasible.
PRESERVATION ETHIC
It is also a utilitarian standard that
• It considers the special value of nature. calls for prudent, efficient and
sustainable resource extraction and
• Unchanged nature should be protected for its own use of the natural resources.
inherent value.
• Some preservationists assert that all life forms have
rights equal to those of humans