“7 billion people! A controversial issue…”

Fenia-julia

 

The purpose of this analysis is the human population problem which exists nowadays.The rapid growth of the world’s population over the past one hundred years results from a difference between the rate of birth and the rate of death. The human population will increase by 1 billion people in the next decade. The growth in human population around the world affects all people through its impact on the economy and environment. The current rate of population growth is now a significant burden to human well-being.

Causes of rapid population growth

Until recently, birth rates and death rates were about the same, keeping the population stable. During the Industrial Revolution, a period of history in Europe and North America where there were great advances in science and technology, the success in reducing death rates was attributable to several factors such as:

• Improvement in public health

The priorities for getting rid of poverty, improving food supply, ending malnutrition, and providing adequate housing coincide at all points with those required for balanced population growth.

• Food production distribution

During the past 10 years, the world’s food production has increased by 24 per cent, outpacing the rate of population growth. However, this increase was not evenly distributed throughout the world. Lack of money to buy food is the problem of malnourishment. Poverty, in effect translates the world adequacy into national and local shortages. Within households, men and boys have priority for whatever food is available, while women and children, especially girl children are the first to suffer malnutrition. Few resources are available to women, even though they are often responsible the for food supply.

Cornucopians vs. Cassandras

Cornucopians state that environmental conditions are better and human ingenuity will solve any kind of problem. On the other hand, Cassandras state that environmental conditions are worse and predict doom and disaster.

 

Is it really problem?

There is controversy over whether population growth is good or bad. Our opinion about the human population problem is that really exists but that does not mean we cannot find a solution. Over-population and continuing population growth are making substantial contributions to the destruction of Earth’s life support systems. Population projections represent the playing out into the future of a set of assumptions about future fertility and mortality rates. More public education is needed to develop more awareness about population issues. Facts like the size or the growth rate of the human population should be in the head of every citizen. Schools should inform students about population issues in order for them to make projections about the future generations. Teachers, parents, other educators, politicians and other concerned citizens can practice how to make good decisions in everyday life. Decisions about family size and resource will affect the future generations. Through community forums, specific issues about the population growth can be discussed and possible action plans can be developed.

 

Paul Ehrlich

Paul Ralph Ehrlich (born 29 May 1932) is an American biologist and educator who is the Bing Professor of Population Studies in the department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University and president of Stanford’s Center for Conservation Biology. By training he is an entomologist specializing in Lepidoptera (butterflies), but he is known better as an ecologist and a demographer, specifically for his warnings about unrestricted population growth and limited resources. Ehrlich became well-knownafter publication of his controversial 1968 book The Population Bomb.

IPAT model

I=PAT is the lettering of a formula put forward to describe the impact of human activity on the environment.

I = P × A × T

In words:

Human Impact (I) on the environment equals the product of P= Population, A= Affluence, T= Technology. This describes how our growing population, affluence, and technology contribute toward our environmental impact.

The equation can aid in understanding some of the factors affecting human impacts on the environment.

 

Ehrlich’s predictions

Ehrlich’s views on the situation have evolved over time, and he has presented a number of different proposed solutions. However, he always has been a strong advocate of government intervention into population control. In Population Bomb he wrote, “We must have population control at home, hopefully through a system of incentives and penalties, but by compulsion if voluntary methods fail. We must use our political power to push other countries into programs which combine agricultural development and population control.” Voluntary measures he has supported include the easiest possible availability of birth control and abortions. He was not opposed to mandatory population control if necessary, including the suspension of food aid to countries which were considered “hopeless” to feed their populations.

Hans Rosling

Hans Rosling (born 27 July 1948 in Uppsala, Sweden) is a Swedish medical doctor, academic, statistician and public speaker. He is Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institute and co-founder and chairman of the Gapminder Foundation, which developed the Trendalyser software system.

On 21 August 1981, Rosling discovered an outbreak of konzo, a paralytic disease, and the investigations that followed earned him a Ph.D. degree at Uppsala University in 1986. He spent two decades studying outbreaks of this disease in remote rural areas across Africa and supervised more than ten Ph.D. students. Outbreaks occur among hunger-stricken rural populations in Africa where a diet dominated by insufficiently processed cassava results in simultaneous malnutrition and high dietary cyanide intake.

Rosling’s research has also focused on other links between economic development, agriculture, poverty and health in Africa, Asia and Latin America. He has been health adviser to WHO, UNICEF and several aid agencies. In 1993 he was one of the initiators of M.S.F. in Sweden. At Karolinska Institutet he was head of the Division of International Health (IHCAR) from 2001 to 2007. As chairman of Karolinska International Research and Training Committee (1998–2004) he started health research collaborations with universities in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. He started new courses on Global Health and co-authored a textbook on Global Health that promotes a fact-based world view.

New Work

Review test on chapters:1,2,3,4,6

Julia Apostolaki – John Oikonomou – Fenia Voulgari

The purpose of the assignment.

In my opinion the purpose of this assignment is to learn how to create a valuable test and make a review on the chapters that we have been teached. It helped us to be more productive, how to work with others and we now understood that is not an easy task for the teacher to create a test.

Chapter 1: Science and Sustainability: An Introduction to Environmental Science.

This chapter introduces us to what environmental science stands for by explaining the importance of natural resources and ecosystem services to our lives.

1) Sustainable development is:

a. The ability of future generations to meet their own needs

b. Incompatible

c. Called weak sustainability

d. The use of resources in a manner that satisfies our current needs

2 ) Our energy choices influence our:

a. past

b. present

c. future

d. present and future

3) Achieving sustainable solutions is:

a. vital

b. fatal

c. useful

d. vital and useful

4) The scientific method is:

a. a traditional approach to research

b. observational

c. scientific

d. none of the above

5) Industrial revolution, began in the mid:

a. 1700s

b. 1800s

c. 1900s

d. 2000s

6) Scientific research tells us that Easter Island had once been lushly forested and had supported a prosperous society of 60.000 to 300.000 people

a. true

b. false

7) Peer review is an essential part of the scientific process.

a. true

b. false

8) Match questions

A.

sustainable development involves

science goes through

the scientific process does not stop with

earths natural capital

environmental science explores

B.

our interactions with the world

scientific method

paradigm shifts

is accumulating wealth of resources

environmental protection

9) Explain what is  the tragedy of the commons

10) Sketch the ecological footprint of Greece

Chapter 2: This chapter introduce us to what energy consists of.

1) Nucleic acids direct the production of:

a. electrons

b. neutrons

c. proteins

d. none of the above

2) Carbohydrates include simple sugars that are:

a. 3 to 10 carbon atoms long

b. 3 to 8

c. 3 to 5

d. 3 to 7

3) At earth’s center is a dense core consisting mostly of:

a. iron

b. salt

c. fire

d. arsenic

4) Light energy from the sun powers:

a. un living systems

b. living systems

b. both

d. none

5) Photosynthesis produces food for:

a. plants

b. animals

c. humans

d. animals and plants

6) 71% of earths surface is water

a. true

b. false

7) 97% of earth is a oceans

a. true

b. false

8) Describe the three major sources of energy.

9) Illustrate water’s atom

Chapter 3:

this chapter introduce us to the biodiversity

 

1) Biodiversity refers to the:

a. variety of life

b. artificial selection

c. agricultural system

d. Hawaiian honeycreepers

2) Costa Rica is reach in:

a) biodiversity

b) volcano

c) gold

d) rise

3) Natality is the term that describes :

a) arrival of individuals from the population

b) deaths within the population

c) departure of individuals from the population

d) births within the population

4) The fossil record teaches us about life’s long

a) history

b) paleontology

c) chemistry

d) physics

5) Niche and specialization are key concepts in:

a) population ecology

b) ecology

c) population size

d) none of the above

6) Populations can be separated in many ways

a. true

b. false

7) Earth has not seen several episodes of mass extinction.

a. true

b. false

8)   A.

a) biosphere

b) ecosystem

c) community

d) population

e) organism

B.

a) An individual living thing

b) A group of individuals of a species that live in a particular area

c) A set of populations of different species living together in a particular area

d) A functional system consisting of a community

e) The sum total of living things on earth and the areas they inhabit

9) Explain the term of conserving biodiversity

10) Discuss  your view about eco-tourism

Chapter 4:

This chapter introduces us to the different interactions between the several aspects of life

 

1) Zebra Mussels had multiplied and reached all:

a. 3 of the Grate Lakes

b. 5

c. 8

d. 9

2) ”Some animals are more equal than others”, was written by:

a. Fish communities

b. Canadian journal

c. George Orwell

d. none of the above

3) Aquatic and coastal systems also show:

a. locations of biomes

b. climatographs

c. biome-like patterns

d. none of the above

4) Tropical rainforest is found in:

a. C. America

b. S. America

c. Southeast Asia

d. all of the above

5) Chaparral is limited to fairly:

a. small patches

b. big patches

c. medium patches

d. tiny patches

6) Competition can occur when resources are limited

a. true

b. false

7) Prey kills and consumes predators

a. true

b. false

8) A.

a) Parasite exploit

b) Some interactions have no effect on

c) Energy passes among

d) Herbirones exploit

e) Climate influences

B.

a) Some participant

b) living host

c) trophic levely

d) plants

e)  the locations of biome

9) Describe earth’s biomes

10) Demonstrate the several types of exploitative species interactions

Chapter 6:

This chapter introduces us to the different cultures and worldview of life.

1) Ethics and economics involve :

1. Values
2. Laws
3. Restrictions
4. Diagrams

2) We value things in :

a)    Many ways

b)   Two ways

c)   One way

d)   Three ways

3) Ecolabeling helps :

a)     address market failure

b)     inform consumers

c)     buying ecolabeled products

d)     all of the above

4) An assumption of neoclassical economics :

a)          Long-term effects are discounted

b)         Growth is good

c)         Resources are infinite or substitutable

d)         All of the above

5) Many factors shape our:

a)    cultures

b)   perceptions

c)   worldviews

d)   environment

6) Eco feminism is the most fair and equitable of all people regarding environmental issues

a) true

b) false

7) The economy does not exist within the environment.

a) true

b) false

8) A.

a) Option value

b) Aesthetic value

c) Scientific value

d) Educational value

e) Cultural value

B.

a) sustain or help define our culture

b) teach us about ourselves or the world

c) for their beauty or emotional appeal

d) may be subject of scientific research

e) we do not use now but might use later

9) Discuss environmental issues

10) Describe the price on nature in Australia’s Kakadu Region

Ecological Footprints

Global “Shoe-print” Network

Country	EF (hectares per person)	Proportion relative to world average	Proportion relative to world area available	GDP per capita
Colombia	1.3	0.58	0.73	6370
Sweden	7	3.13	3.93	26050
Bangladesh	0.6	0.26	0.33	1700
U.A.E.	9.9	4.43	5.56
Thailand	1.4	0.62	0.78	7010
Mexico	2.5	1.12	1.40	8970
Australia	7.7	3.45	4.32	28260
World  Average	2.23	1.0	1.25	Leave this cell empty
Your home country	5.4	2.42	3.03	18720
Iraq	1.1	0.49	0.61
France	5.8	2.60	3.25	26920
Ethiopia	0.7	0.31	0.39	780
California	3.5	0.67	0.84	1000
My personal footprint	1.90	1.66	0.75	Leave this cell empty

In ecology, we use a lot of terms, in order to express its complexity. For example, Global Footprint Network, and not shoe-print, (I wrote it previously just for fun), EF, Overshoot, and Carrying Capacity, are some terms that express mostly methods on how we can calculate ecological phenomena, in every day life.

First of all, we need to know what Global Footprint Network is exactly. Global Footprint Network is an international think tank working to advance sustainability through use of the Ecological Footprint, a resource accounting tool that measures how much nature we have, how much we use and who uses what. By making ecological limits central to decision-making, we are working to end overshoot and create a society where all people can live well, within the means of one planet.

This Global Footprint Network measures EF, which stands for Ecological Footprint; The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth’s ecosystems. It compares human demand with planet Earth’s ecological capacity to regenerate. It represents the amount of biologically productive land and sea area needed to regenerate the resources a human population consumes and to absorb and render harmless the corresponding waste. Using this assessment, it is possible to estimate how much of the Earth (or how many planet Earths) it would take to support humanity if everybody lived a given lifestyle. For 2006, humanity’s total ecological footprint was estimated at 1.4 planet Earths – in other words, humanity uses ecological services 1.4 times as fast as Earth can renew them. Every year, this number is recalculated, with a three year lag due to the time it takes for the UN to collect and publish all the underlying statistics.

Overshoot, in ecology, is the inevitable and irreversible consequence of continued drawdown, when the use of resources in an ecosystem exceeds its carrying capacity and there is no way to recover or replace what was lost. It takes many forms, depending on the system, but perhaps the clearest and in some ways the most touching is exemplified by Easter Island.

The carrying capacity of a biological species in an environment is the population size of the species that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water and other necessities available in the environment. In population biology, carrying capacity is defined as the environment’s maximal load, which is different from the concept of population equilibrium.

For the human population, more complex variables such as sanitation and medical care are sometimes considered as part of the necessary establishment. As population density increases, birth rate often decreases and death rate typically increases. The difference between the birth rate and the death rate is the “natural increase”. The carrying capacity could support a positive natural increase, or could require a negative natural increase. Thus, the carrying capacity is the number of individuals an environment can support without significant negative impacts to the given organism and its environment. Below carrying capacity, populations typically increase, while above, they typically decrease. A factor that keeps population size at equilibrium is known as a regulating factor. Population size decreases above carrying capacity due to a range of factors depending on the species concerned, but can include insufficient space, food supply and sunlight. The carrying capacity of an environment may vary for different species and may change over time due to a variety of factors, including: food availability, water supply, environmental conditions and living space.

Now, in order to understand more these ecological concepts, it’s best that we see how they apply in reality; as we can see, in the table, in the beginning of the text, there are the EF, the GDP, the relative proportion to world average and to world area available of each country, (including my EF also). So, what we notice, is that some countries have bigger EF than others, some have smaller, and some are close to be equal. For example, the bigger EF belongs first to United Arab Emirates, then to Australia, and then to Sweden. And this is because, the UAE imposes a high demand on nature: to produce the food and fibre it consumes; absorb the waste from the energy it uses; and provide space for its infrastructure. Its EF is 9.9 global ha/person. The country is not able to support its domestic consumption with its own supply of nature and, hence, imports ecological services from other places around the world.

Australia’s Ecological Footprint in the Living Planet Report 2008 was 7.8 global hectares (gha) per person. This is 2.8 times the average global Footprint (2.7 gha), and well beyond the level of what the planet can regenerate on an annual basis, an equivalent of about 2.1 global hectares per person per year. The most significant factor contributing to the Australian Ecological Footprint, as well as to the Sweden’s EF, is carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels (constituting approximately half of the total Australian and Sweden Footprint).

When it comes to the countries of small EF, Bangladesh comes first, and then the rest (Colompia, Ethiopia, Thailand, Iraq, Mexico, California). And that’s because, they are able to sustain the lives of 150 million people (half the population of America) in the size of one of America’s states (Iowa) with little natural resource endowment. So the reasons basically are: small population, little affluence and little technology and in general a not completely developed nation.

Of course, there are two countries, mine (Greece) and France that tend to be almost equal, considering the EF; and that’s because resource-scarcity is emerging as a growing risk factor to countries’ abilities not only to meet their debt obligations, but to secure quality of life for their citizens.

So, based on the data in our table, we can understand that, country’s Ecological Footprint should correlate with its GDP, because raising GDP generally involves placing more stress on biocapacity for both resource extraction and waste disposal. If a country’s GDP goes up or down its Ecological Footprint will tend to follow, so countries that increase in prosperity tend to add to the world’s ecological problems. But most important is that, reducing a country’s footprint while maintaining or increasing its GDP is going to be quite difficult.

To continue with, I was very curious about my ecological footprint and I took the test to find out. The results came out of four categories; the carbon, food, housing, and Goods and Services footprints. The Carbon EF is the amount of land and ocean area required to absorb the carbon emissions associated with a visitor’s home energy use and transportation, which is very important; the food EF is the amount of cropland, pastureland, and marine fisheries supporting annual food consumption plus the land and ocean area required to absorb the carbon emissions associated with food production, processing, and transportation, which is very complicated but also important; the housing EF includes the spatial area of land taken up by a particular housing unit, the forestland area needed to produce wood products used in construction and furnishing, the cropland area displaced by household water consumption, and the land and ocean area required to absorb the carbon emissions associated with housing construction and maintenance, which is very vital for our environment and we need to know all about it; and last but not least the Goods and services EF includes the amount of land and ocean area required to absorb the carbon emissions associated with manufacturing, transport, and disposal of goods, the land area used for commercial activities, and the forest area required to produce pulp and paper products, which is very crucial in nowadays.

In any case, the results were disappointing because if everyone on the planet lived my lifestyle, we would need 2.56 Earths!!!!! And if we compare it with my country or with Bangladesh, then I should be shamed, because I’m higher than the average of both of them. Only, compared to other nations like Australia or U.A.E., my EF is much smaller. But this is not an excuse; I must reduce my EF a lot, otherwise, I’m “pushing” Earth to its “death”.

Assignment 2

 

A.  Comparison of Easter Island to Other

Pacific Islands

Easter Island has long been the subject of curiosity and speculation; and that’s because is one of the most remarkable spots on the globe; for both its history and its immense famous Moai statues.

Easter Island today, with 4,888 citizens, remains one of the most unique places you will ever encounter; an open air museum showcasing a fascinating, but unfortunately lost, culture. The Rapanui, (how they call themselves today), are among the friendliest people you will ever meet, and the landscape is truly amazing – with its volcanic craters, lava formations, beaches, brilliant blue water, and archaeological sites.

The population of Easter Island reached its peak at perhaps more than 10,000, far exceeding the capabilities of the small island’s ecosystem. And this is why the resources, (which were mainly the big forests and lakes that existed at that time period), became scarce, and the once lush palm forests were destroyed – cleared for agriculture and moving the massive stones of Moai. Scientists looking at the soil layers on Easter Island show abundant plant and animal life dating back tens of thousands of years. There were many unique plants in Easter Island’s forests when the first settlers arrived around 400 A.D.

In just a few generations the people of Easter Island drove their plants and animals to extinction.  In this regard, Easter Island has become, for many, a metaphor for ecological disaster. Eventually, all of the Moai standing along the coast were torn down by the islanders themselves. All of the statues now erected around the island are the result of recent archeological efforts.

In order to understand more the “collapse” of the Easter Islands, we can compare it with another island of the Pacific Ocean; the Tikopia island. This island is placed east of Australia and New Guinea, west of Tonga and Fiji. What makes it so remarkable to compare and contrast with the Easter Island, is that Tikopia had a stable culture that has lasted at least 3,000 years, while the Easter Island had a fallen and failed culture. And that’s because of its inhabitants.

The Tikopians, also expanded their population too far, and who also ran up against their ecological limits; but they made three ecologically-driven decisions.

First, they limited their population to around 1,700 people, the most the island could sustain. They only allowed first-born sons to marry and have children; other sons could have partners, but not children; second they shifted from slashand-burn agriculture to permaculture, growing multi-storied orchards of fruit and nuts and carefully managed garden plots, where they raised roots and vegetables. They also built walls in the sea that trapped the fish at low tide; and third they gave up keeping and eating pigs, in spite of their high cultural value. The pigs did too much damage to their gardens, and ate too much of the food they needed to sustain themselves.

So, now we can understand that two different cultures, that were facing the same sustainability problems, approached different solutions. The Easter Island inhabitants, in this case, were the ones that lost it all; they probably had seen that they were depleting their resources, but it seems that they could not stop.

Unlike Easter Island, Tikopia’s society makes no distinction between the resources allocated to leaders and to the populace. Tikopian society does not reward environmentally destructive activity. The result is a stable population, kept carefully in balance for approximately 400 years by a range of practices that limit growth. All of these decisions were driven by a state of mind based on matching human impact with the island’s limited resources for the entire society.

In the end, what we really learned from both those islands, is that we can decide either to learn from the history of Easter Islands and act more wisely by conserving the resources, as the Tikopians did, either we leave as it is.

 

.

 

 

Assignment 1

Environmental Science

It’s an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physical and biological sciences, (including physics, chemistry, biology, soil science, geology, and geography) to the study of the environment, and the solution of environmental problems. Environmental science provides an integrated, quantitative, and interdisciplinary approach to the study of environmental systems.

Basically it’s called interdisciplinary because it crosses traditional boundaries between academic disciplines or schools of thought, as new needs and professions have emerged.

Originally the term interdisciplinary is applied within education and training pedagogies to describe studies that use methods and insights of several established disciplines or traditional fields of study.

Interdisciplinary involves researchers, students, and teachers in the goals of connecting and integrating several academic schools of thought, professions, or technologies in the pursuit of a common task.

In addition, environmental science can be combined, in a way with what I’m studying right now in the American college of Thessaloniki; which is management. Environmental management for example is a very interesting field that I might follow in the future. It basically integrates the rules of the nature or environment, into management(social and nature sciences are becoming one).  Environmental management involves the management of all components of the bio-physical environment, both living (biotic) and non-living (abiotic). This is due to the interconnected and network of relationships amongst all living species and their habitats. The environment also involves the relationships of the human environment, such as the social, cultural and economic environment with the bio-physical environment.

I believe that in the future, environmental management is going to be concerned a lot, because every manager is obliged to make from now on his/her business “greener”, in order to reduce the several environmental issues that our planet is facing.

HYPOTHESIS

In life, we face problems that we have to understand and solve. But in order to solve them we make several hypothetical plans so as to find the reason of their existence and in the end their solution. So the hypothetical stage, is very important, when it comes to solving very essential problems; like the ones that concern the environment.

A hypothesis basically is a tentative explanation for an observation, phenomenon, or scientific problem that can be tested by further investigation. A statement that explains or makes generalizations about a set of facts or principles, usually forming a basis for possible experiments to confirm its viability. It is a proposition that attempts to explain a set of facts in a unified way. It generally forms the basis of experiments designed to establish its plausibility. For example, if a geographic area that have been tasked to be examined by a plant ecologist, hasn’t present any form of life for a very long time, he/she is going to use the scientific method in order to make a hypothesis and then solve the problem.

The scientific method is a process for testing ideas with observations, which in the end will lead us to certain assumptions, like the universe works according to unchanging natural laws , events arise from causes, and cause other events , we use our senses and reason to understand nature’s laws, etc.

So in the example that had been posted earlier, the hypothesis that the plant ecologist is going to make is that periodic fires may prevent tree seedlings from becoming established in grassland. Which is possible to be true so as the ecologist can find a possible solution to this problem.

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