Ecology — How Much Can One Planet Take? Environmental Crisis Chapter 12: Ecology

Question

Ecology — How Much Can One Planet Take?

Environmental Crisis

Chapter 12: Ecology: How Much Can One Planet Take?

Videos:  "11th Hour" and "Climate Refugees"

Human society has been largely shaped by its means of subsistence: the way the people get food and basic needs. Humans have lived as hunter-gatherers, horticulturalists, herders agrarian farmers, industrial workers and in post-industrial service and technology driven societies. Human activity has encouraged the spread of deserts, the depletion of soils and the destruction of forests, both in temperature and tropical regions. Global trade and movement has also brought invasive species to new locations and disrupted or even destroyed many ecosystems. Sustainability has become a key criterion in the quest for economic and social development that respects the natural environment.

Learning Objectives:

After reading Chapter 12, the student should be able to:

Compare and contrast the diverse methods of subsistence utilized by hunter-gatherers, horticultural, pastoral, agrarian, and industrial societies.

Describe what is meant by “industrial agriculture” and “agribusiness” and their consequences.

Discuss briefly the views of dependency and modernization theorists regarding the role of food in development.

Discuss the impact of pollution on the environment, especially in terms of water and solid waste.

Discuss deforestation and desertification and their impact around the world.

Discuss what is meant by “ecotourism” and its potential impact on awareness and social change.

Discuss how global trade and movement have facilitated the spread of invasive species to new locations and the impact these have had in their new homes.

Discuss the concept of sustainability.

Briefly describe how the poor around the world have been impacted by the degradation of the environment.

Key Concepts:

hunter-gatherers • horticultural societies • pastoral societies • agrarian societies • industrial revolution • food regime • development theory • dependency theorists • modernization theorists • desertification • deforestation • reforestation • sustainability ecology • economy

Learning Units:

1) Lecture PowerPoint for Week 8 under Lectures folder
2) Chapter 12 under eText folder

3) Videos: "11th Hour" and "Climate Refugees"

4) Additional resources under Required Resources folder

Assignments:

Write a short abstract (200 words) of your final term paper. Be precise and describe the main question of your interest.

2. Final Term Paper Abstract

Explanation / Answer

Environment protection means protection of natural environment for the benefit of nature as well as humans. pressure Putforth by over consumption, wastages, biophysical environment has been degraded many times, sometimes even physically.

Main priorities of environment protecttion are as below

* Action on climate change

* Improving Air quality

* assuring safety of chemicals

* Cleaning up communities

* Protecting water resources

* Expanding conservation efforts and ensuring justice

* Building State & Tribal partnership

Above are some dedicated efforts that are to be taken by Government, people & Organization. However present human activities is not focussed on sustainability and hence they cause ir-reversible damage to planet earth. For example when we pluck flowers from our garden and use it to prepare a beautiful garland, this is reversible effort as new flower will be produced the next day, But if we cut down the tree for want of wood it becomes an irreversible damage as group of species, birds, insects which were dependant on such tree were totally destroyed and re-creation of tree will take years.

Sustainable development is thus developing the economy without causing irreversible damage to earth. sustainability means longevity.

Industrial agriculture

Industrial agriculture is a technological triumph that enables the world to feed itself in a productive way. It focusses on monoculture which means growing single crop intensively but it relies heavily on fertilizers. Due to heavy dependence of fertilizer and growing single crop, soil nutrients are damaged irreversibly. Also it causes global warming as there is green house gas emission due to heavy application or manufacturing of fertilizers.

This also causes Weeds, bacteria which can be used as chemical weapon. Thus this type of agriculture should be replaced by much more healthy and sustainable technique

Deforestation, desertification and re-forestation

Deforestation refers to depletion of green covers, replacing forest covers by industrial areas. This causes desertification of forest land. desertification means land degradation and dry area of land becomes increasingly arid through over exploutation.

Reforestation refers to creation of natural wealth back which are destroyed by de-forestation or desertification.

Thus our ultimate aim is to create any development with doesn't trade off environment, environment is to be protected and handed over to next generation in same way as we got or in a better way than how we got it.

The real pleasure is not sophesticated gadgets, it is getting pure air, water to live. One example of sustainable development is using renewable sources of energy like WIND, Solar power.

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