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Chapter 1

The document discusses future environmental challenges and how societies may respond. It covers topics like climate change, water accessibility issues, the need for international cooperation, and how economic and political systems can address environmental problems.

Uploaded by

Maheen Masood
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© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
21 views

Chapter 1

The document discusses future environmental challenges and how societies may respond. It covers topics like climate change, water accessibility issues, the need for international cooperation, and how economic and political systems can address environmental problems.

Uploaded by

Maheen Masood
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Chapter 1

Visions of
the Future
Chapter 1 Visions of the Future

• Introduction
• Future Environmental Challenges
• Meeting the Challenges
• How will Societies Respond?
• The Road Ahead

1-2 © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.


Introduction

• The Self-Extinction Premise


– The premise that societies can germinate the seeds
of their own destruction has long fascinated
scholars
– In 1798, Thomas Malthus published An Essay on
the Principle of Population, in which he
hypothesized that unchecked population growth
would cause starvation and death
– Malthus’s warning lied on the premise that since
population grew geometrically and food supply
grew arithmetically, populations would eventually
surpass the earth's capacity to produce food.

1-3 © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.


Introduction

• The Self-Extinction Premise


– Some Historic Examples
• The Roman empire
• The Mayan civilization
– Food production failed to keep pace with population
growth
– Consequences: high infant and adolescent mortality
and malnutrition, collapse of royal dynasty
• Eastern Island
– Heavy reliance on wood and rising population
– Social responses: war and cannibalism

1-4 © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.


Future Environmental
Challenges

• Climate Change
– Greenhouse effect: Energy from the sun drives
the earth’s weather and climate. Incoming rays
heat the earth’s surface, radiating energy back
into space. Atmospheric greenhouse gases trap
some of the outgoing energy.
– Life on earth would not be possible without this
natural greenhouse gas effect

1-5 © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.


Future Environmental
Challenges

1-6 © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.


Future Environmental
Challenges

• Climate Change
– Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have
increased dramatically since the Industrial
Revolution, enhancing the heat-trapping
capability of earth’s atmosphere
– Global warming is unequivocal and human
influence is clear
– Global warming is expected to affect humans
and ecosystems
• Heat waves, droughts, smog, rising sea levels, and
increased storm intensity
• Ecosystems will adapt, migrate, or go extinct

1-7 © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.


Future Environmental
Challenges

• Climate Change
– Climate change has an important moral
dimension
– Developing nations, which have produced
relatively small amounts of GHGs are expected
to be the hardest hit
– Dealing with climate change requires
coordinated international response

1-8 © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.


Future Environmental
Challenges

• Water Accessibility
– About 40% of the world’s population live in
areas with moderate-to-high water stress. By
2025, about 2/3 of the world’s population will
live in areas facing moderate or severe water
stress.
– Water stress is not uniformly distributed
• California drought (2011-2017)
• Aral Sea
• Lake Chad
• Cape Town

1-9 © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.


Future Environmental
Challenges (Ifrane, Morocco)

Summer 2012 Summer 2017

1-10 © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.


Future Environmental
Challenges

• Water Accessibility
– About 90% of sewage and 70% of industrial
wastes in developing countries are discharged
without treatment.
– Climate change is expected to reduce water
supply and increase demand
– Countries have compensated for low supply by
using aqueducts, reservoirs, dams, and water
desalination plants.

1-11 © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.


Meeting the Challenges

• International Cooperation is essential and must


incorporate our obligation to future generations
• Such cooperation is not a foregone conclusion
since climate change consequences are not
uniformly distributed
• Industrialized countries may adopt stringent
environmental policies at no cost to their
economies due to offsetting increases in income
and employment in industries that supply
renewable, cleaner energy, and pollution control
equipment
• Developing nations may require a helping hand

1-12 © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.


Meeting the Challenges

• The market system is resilient in how it


responds to challenges.
• Prices provide incentives for the wise use of
current resources and for promoting
innovations that can expand our future menu
options.
• Market incentives are not always consistent
with promoting sustainable outcomes.
• Business as usual is desirable most of the
time
– Atlantic cod stocks
– Conventional farming and fertilizer/pesticide use
– Coal

1-13 © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.


How Will Societies Respond?

• Positive feedback loops


– Positive feedback loops refer to those in which
secondary effects tend to reinforce the basic
trends.
• Emissions of methane and global warming.
• Shortage of commodities may lead to hoarding,
potentially depriving us of the seeds that ensure our
survival
• Negative feedback loops
– A self-limiting process
• The Gaia hypothesis, which suggests that the earth is
a living organism with a complex feedback system that
seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment

1-14 © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.


How will Societies Respond?

• The Role of Economics


– Economic analysis provides useful tools to
understand and/or modify human behavior
– Market resilience is embodied in negative
feedback loops
– Economic analysis helps identify sources of
market failure and potential remedial actions
– Both ecological economics and environmental
economics can contribute to our understanding.

1-15 © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.


1-16 © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
How will Societies Respond?

• The Use of Models


– In economics, we use models, which are
simplified characterizations of reality, to
investigate complex subjects
– Although useful, models can yield wrong
conclusions
– The validity and reliability of models can be
tested empirically using various econometric
tools or within controlled settings

1-17 © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.


The Road Ahead

• The Issues
– Is the problem correctly conceptualized as
exponential growth with fixed, immutable
resource limits? Does the earth have a finite
carrying capacity? Do current levels of
economic activity exceed the carrying capacity?
– How does the economic system respond to
scarcities? Is the process mainly characterized
by positive or negative feedback loops?

1-18 © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.


The Road Ahead

• The Issues (contd.)


– What is the role of the political system in controlling
these problems? In what circumstances is
government intervention necessary? What forms of
intervention work best?
– Can our economic and political institutions respond
to the uncertainty imposed by environmental
problems in reasonable ways or does uncertainty
become a paralyzing force?
– Can the economic and political systems work
together to eradicate poverty and social injustice
while respecting our obligations to future
generations? Or do our obligations to future
generations conflict with our immediate needs to be
fair and to alleviate poverty?

1-19 © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.


The Road Ahead

• The Issues (contd.)


– Is sustainable development feasible? If so, how
can it be achieved?
– What does the need to preserve the
environment imply about the future of
economic activity in industrialized and less-
industrialized nations?

– The rest of the textbook suggests answers to


these complex questions.

1-20 © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.


An Overview of the Book

• Chapters 2-5: Introduction to environmental


problems, decision making, and methods
• Chapters 6-13: The different resources available
and what they provide economically
• Chapters 14-18: Pollution control and policies
• Chapters 19-21: Environmental justice and
sustainable development
• Chapter 22: The future

1-21 © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.


1-22 © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Pessimistic view

• Society will run out of nonrenewable resources


within 100 years or less with no major change in
the physical, economic or social relationships, and
it will cause a collapse of the economic system.

• Piecemeal approaches to solving individual


problems will not work.

• Only by an immediate limit on population and


pollution and a cessation of economic growth can
the overshoot and collapse be avoided.

1-23 © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.


Optimistic View

• The standards of living have been rising


with population for as long as records have
been kept and as such there is no reason
to believe the trends will not continue.

1-24 © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

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