Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and Sustainability
Living in the Environment
Chapter 1: Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and Sustainability
One’s environment is everything that surrounds them except for themselves. And sustainability of the environmental resources is an important practice for humans to survive on this planet which continues to exist through the ages by three means:
1. Solar energy
2. Biodiversity
3. Nutrient cycling
There are three types of resources:
I. Renewable resources. Ex: soil, air, water, forests
II. Non-renewable resources. EX: Petroleum, Coal, Natural Gas, metallic minerals, non metallic minerals
III. Perpetual resources. Ex: Solar Energy
The sustainable yield of resources is the maximum yield that humans can utilize without reducing available supply or causing that resource to seize to exist
An economic growth is a growth in a nation’s GDP. And per capita GDP is a measure of a country’s economic development
Environmental (natural capital) degradation is the depletion of the earth’s natural resources
Ecological footprint is the amount of biologically productive land and water needed to provide the people in a particular country or area with an indefinite supply of renewable resources and to absorb and recycle the wastes and pollution produced by such resource use.
Pollution is any presence within the environment of a chemical or other agent such as noise or heat at a level that is harmful to the health, survival, or activities of humans or other organisms. And it can occur from a number of sources:
1. Point Sources: single and identifiable sources.
a. Mobil: aircrafts, automobiles exhausts
b. Non-Mobil: Factories drain pipes
2. Non-Point Sources: dispersed and often difficult to identify. Ex: waste from unknown places.
There are two main types of pollutants:
1. Degradable: that can be broken down by natural processes
2. Non-degradable: cannot be broken down by natural processes
Unwanted effects of pollutants:
1- Degrading and disrupting life supporting
Chapter 1: Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and Sustainability
One’s environment is everything that surrounds them except for themselves. And sustainability of the environmental resources is an important practice for humans to survive on this planet which continues to exist through the ages by three means:
1. Solar energy
2. Biodiversity
3. Nutrient cycling
There are three types of resources:
I. Renewable resources. Ex: soil, air, water, forests
II. Non-renewable resources. EX: Petroleum, Coal, Natural Gas, metallic minerals, non metallic minerals
III. Perpetual resources. Ex: Solar Energy
The sustainable yield of resources is the maximum yield that humans can utilize without reducing available supply or causing that resource to seize to exist
An economic growth is a growth in a nation’s GDP. And per capita GDP is a measure of a country’s economic development
Environmental (natural capital) degradation is the depletion of the earth’s natural resources
Ecological footprint is the amount of biologically productive land and water needed to provide the people in a particular country or area with an indefinite supply of renewable resources and to absorb and recycle the wastes and pollution produced by such resource use.
Pollution is any presence within the environment of a chemical or other agent such as noise or heat at a level that is harmful to the health, survival, or activities of humans or other organisms. And it can occur from a number of sources:
1. Point Sources: single and identifiable sources.
a. Mobil: aircrafts, automobiles exhausts
b. Non-Mobil: Factories drain pipes
2. Non-Point Sources: dispersed and often difficult to identify. Ex: waste from unknown places.
There are two main types of pollutants:
1. Degradable: that can be broken down by natural processes
2. Non-degradable: cannot be broken down by natural processes
Unwanted effects of pollutants:
1- Degrading and disrupting life supporting