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Learning Objectives

■ Identify natural resources and explain why they are important to human well-being.

■ Examine the rates and patterns of natural resource consumption between nations, and explain what the differences of use between nations reveals about inequalities in the global economic system.

■ Discuss the ways in which environmental problems like deforestation and air and water pollution impact human welfare.

■ Describe ways local or regional environmental problems are linked to global economic and politi- cal forces.

■ Explain how international cooperation and negotiation can be used to address global-scale envi- ronmental problems, and discuss some of the major barriers to that cooperation.

■ Explain how global climate change affects the world, and explore the consequences of it on people in different regions.

Natural Resources and the Environment

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Section 7.1 Natural Resources and the Environmental Impacts of Their Use CHAPTER 7

In the early morning hours of December 26, 2006, a gasoline pipeline exploded in Lagos, Nigeria, immediately killing close to 300 people and severely burning hundreds of others. The pipeline explosion, which occurred in the densely populated Abule-Egba district of the city, was neither the first nor the last such incident in Nigeria. Between 1998 and 2008 there were at least nine major pipeline explosions killing approximately 2,500 people. These disasters usually occurred after armed criminal gangs—known locally as “bunkerers”—tapped into pipelines under cover of darkness to steal gasoline to sell ille- gally on the black market. In the Abule-Egba case the gang failed to seal the pipeline after tapping it, and hundreds of impoverished residents of the area rushed to the scene with buckets, cans, and plastic bags to take as much of the free gasoline as they could carry. Among the dead, burned beyond recognition by the massive fireball created in the explo- sion, were dozens of children who had come to help carry the gasoline back to their homes for use in stoves or lanterns (Whitaker, 2006).

Beyond the sheer tragedy of the Abule-Egba disaster lies a paradox. Nigeria is the world’s seventh-largest oil producing nation, yet residents of Lagos, that country’s largest city and financial capital, regularly face gasoline shortages and long lines at gas stations. The shortages have fueled the black market and emboldened armed gangs to engage in the risky practice of tapping into pipelines. It has also led to a situation where residents living near tapped pipelines risk their lives to collect a few gallons of gasoline. Such des- peration seems less surprising when you consider that a 5-gallon container of gasoline sells on the black market for the equivalent of two weeks’ wages for a poor Nigerian. At the same time, as residents of Lagos face fuel shortages, nearly 90% of the country’s oil is exported to richer countries. After the Abule-Egba disaster, Bode Kuforiji, a university lecturer in Lagos, wondered, “How can this be, that people are so poor in Nigeria that they will risk their lives for a little thing. But boats leave for America every day filled with oil” (Gilman, 2006).

The Abule-Egba example highlights that while adequate natural resource availability is often an important ingredient in economic and social development, there are coun- tries extremely well endowed with resources, such as Nigeria, that still face widespread poverty.

7.1 Natural Resources and the Environmental Impacts of Their Use

Any substance or element derived from the natural world that contributes to human survival is a natural resource. Examples of natural resources include water, trees, and minerals, but the term includes soil, sunlight, and the atmosphere that are essential to our existence. Natural resources are categorized based on whether they come from living or nonliving sources. Biotic resources would include things like trees and ani- mals, as well as so-called fossil fuels like oil and coal that formed from organisms living hundreds of millions of years ago. Abiotic resources are those that are nonliving such as metals, air, soil, and water. Natural resources are also categorized by whether they are renewable. If managed properly, a forest can continue to grow trees and a fishery can continue to yield fish even if we cut trees or catch fish on a regular basis. Likewise, the sun will continue to shine and the wind blow even if we put up solar panels to catch sun- light or wind turbines to convert wind into electricity. As such, these are all examples of

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renewable resources. In contrast, once minerals like copper or fuels like oil and coal are extracted from the ground, they are no longer available for our use. Therefore, these are known as nonrenewable resources.

As made clear by their definition, natural resources contribute to—and in the case of water and air are essential to—human survival. Yet natural resources are distributed unevenly across the planet, and natural resource consumption varies widely between countries. Resource availability or non-availability can have a profound influence on cultures, and human societies are known to respond to resource scarcities in creative ways. For exam- ple, societies in areas where forests are scarce have traditionally built structures made of stone, adobe, and other materials. Likewise, societies located in areas where a critical resource like water is scarce generally learn to be economical in its use. The growth of global trade and trends in globalization have allowed for the movement of some types of resources around the world, enabling countries to overcome some of their resource scarci- ties. However, such trade does not extend to all kinds of resources and, as shown in the Nigerian case, does not always provide clear benefits to the majority of the residents of the exporting country.

The environmental impacts of natural resource use are also an important consideration. For example, the combustion of nonrenewable energy sources like coal, oil, and natural gas causes local and regional air pollution problems such as smog and low-level ozone formation. This type of pollution imposes estimated billions of dollars in health care costs on society and results in upwards of 70,000 premature deaths annually in the United States alone (Environmental Protection Agency, 2010; International Center for Technol- ogy Assessment, n.d.). In addition, combustion of coal, oil, and natural gas results in emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trap heat energy radiating from the Earth’s surface. Increasing concentrations of green- house gases in the atmosphere are already causing global warming and global climate change, and continued growth in the use of energy sources like coal is adding to this problem. Because global climate change will affect precipitation patterns, the frequency and severity of storms, and other aspects of the climate system, it will have a profound

impact on many facets of every- day life. Water availability, agri- cultural productivity, infectious diseases, and dislocation from flooding and storms are all ways in which global climate change will affect our lives. Before pro- viding a more detailed overview of global climate change, the fol- lowing discussion will first exam- ine the distribution and use of two critical natural resources— energy and water. This will be followed by an examination of how resource use affects the envi- ronment at the local and regional level. Lastly, we will examine how human actions are influencing the

iStockphoto/Thinkstock.

This cliff dwelling is an example of a structure built using the natural resources available in the area.

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environment at the global scale, including the challenges of global climate change.

Energy

From the discovery of fire to the development of nuclear power, energy has been an essential resource for human development and progress. At its most basic level, energy is the capacity to do work. For example, the combustion of coal in a power plant converts the chemical energy stored in that fuel to electrical energy, enabling you to read this book on your computer. In this section, we use the term energy to refer to fuels like oil and coal as well as wind, sunlight, and water that allow us to do everything from drive cars to power machinery and light our homes.

The types, amounts, and ways of using energy have changed dramatically over time. Scientists believe that fire was first used for cooking, heating, and lighting some 500,000 years ago. Wind was first used to move boats on the Nile River 6,000 years ago and to turn windmills 1,400 years ago. Coal and oil were extracted and used on a limited basis as far back as 1,000 years ago (Withgott & Brennan, 2007). However, it has been only in the past 150 years that we have seen a dramatic increase in energy consumption. Beginning in the late-19th century, coal replaced wood as the most important source of energy in the United States. By around 1950, oil replaced coal as our primary source of energy (U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2010). This energy transition—from wood, water, human, and animal power to energy-dense fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas— was an essential component of the rapid expansion in human population and material standard of living witnessed during that time. Today, the average American family might consume 20 times more energy as a family living 100 years ago (Smil, 2000).

Given the importance of commercial energy supplies, it is not surprising that control over energy resources is a contributing factor in wars and conflicts. Both world wars and recent conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere were based at least in part on ensuring access to stable supplies of oil and other fossil fuels. Commercial supplies of fossil fuels, those fuels that can be extracted for less than their market price, are distributed unevenly around the planet, and this is often a source of tension and conflict between nations. Countries in the Middle East sit atop almost 60% of the world’s known oil reserves, with Saudi Arabia alone controlling nearly one-fifth of the world’s oil. Supplies of natural gas—an important fuel for home heating and cooking in many countries—are also highly concentrated, with only four countries accounting for 60% of known reserves The United States holds the largest known reserves of coal, followed by Russia, China, and India (British Petroleum, 2011).

Another aspect of energy worth exploring is the extreme differences in rates and types of energy use between nations. Residents of developed countries like the United States

AFP/Getty Images.

Saudi Arabia controls one-fifth of the world’s oil reserves.

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use 50 times or more the amount of energy consumed by an average person in a develop- ing country such as Bangladesh. An average American uses 10 times more energy than a Nigerian does, and 35 times more oil—a statistic that takes on a different meaning in light of tragedies like the Abule-Egba pipeline explosion. Overall, the 20% of the world’s popu- lation living in the most developed countries account for 70% of global energy consump- tion each year (British Petroleum, 2011). Such disparities in rates of energy and resource use is illustrated with an indicator known as the ecological footprint (see In Depth: The Ecological Footprint).

The types and uses of energy also differ dramatically between countries, and these dif- ferences have important consequences for human health and well-being. In developed countries, modern or commercial forms of energy—such as oil, coal, nuclear power, and hydroelectric power—tend to dominate, typically meeting well over 90% of all energy requirements. These commercial energy sources allow for mobility by car, plane, and rail, and personal comfort in providing climate control and lighting. In many developing countries, however, particularly in rural areas, energy use is dominated by traditional or subsistence forms of energy. Subsistence forms of energy include firewood, charcoal, agricultural, and animal residues. These fuels meet basic needs of cooking and heating for more than 2 billion people. However, their collection and use can impose serious health impacts on their users. This is particularly true of children and women who are often primarily responsible for the collection of these fuels and who spend more time indoors breathing the smoke from their combustion. Lastly, close to 2 billion people in develop- ing regions still lack access to electricity, and this impacts everything from food storage to schooling and the availability of vaccines.

In Depth: The Ecological Footprint

Nearly all human activities—from farming and fishing to cooking and cleaning—require the use of natural resources and have a negative impact on the environment. On an individual level, these activities, and the resources they require, may seem inconsequential. However, when individual actions are summed across a region, a nation or the entire planet, the col- lective impact of our behaviors and activities can be devastating to the environment.

Ecological economists William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel developed the concept of an ecological footprint to better understand the impact humans have on the environment. An ecological footprint is a measure of how much land and water area is required to produce the resources and absorb the (continued)

Hemera/Thinkstock

An ecological footprint is the measure of an individual or group’s impact on Earth’s natural resources.

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Water

Water is an essential natural resource for human survival and well-being. In fact, it is so essential that its availability was established as a universal “right” at the 1977 United Nations Water Conference in Mar del Plata, Argentina: “. . . all peoples, whatever their stage of development and their social and economic conditions, have the right to have access to drinking water in quantities and of a quality equal to their basic needs” (Gleick, 1996, p. 3).

The absolute minimum water requirement for fluid replacement in humans is estimated at roughly three liters (0.8 gallons) per day under average temperate climate conditions. In hotter, tropical conditions, the need can increase to as much as six liters per day. Minimum water requirements represent only the most basic physiological needs of humans and do not include water for other uses. Humans also require adequate water supply to for sanitation, bathing, cooking, and food production. Water expert Peter Gleick (1996) of the Pacific Institute recommends that governments adopt a basic water requirement standard for humans of 50 liters (roughly 13 gallons) per person, per day for drinking, sanitation, bathing, and cooking—not including water for agricultural production.

Given that water covers more than 70% of the Earth’s surface, it might be difficult to under- stand why its availability is of such concern. The explanation lies in the fact that only a tiny percentage of the water on the planet is available and/or suitable for human consumption. More than 97% of the world’s water is found in oceans as salt water. As Figure 7.1 shows, of the remaining 3% that is fresh water, more than three-fourths is frozen in ice and gla- ciers, making it unavailable for most human use. The remaining fresh water, just six-tenths of 1% of all of the water on the planet, is all that is available for human consumption, with most of it below ground in aquifers or underground water deposits (Jackson et al., 2001).

As with energy resources, fresh water supplies are distributed unevenly around the planet, and areas of high water availability do not always support large human populations. In fact, some densely populated areas are located in regions of the world that suffer from

waste products of a given person or group of people. As such, ecological footprints can be calculated at the level of the individual, family, business, university, city, state, or nation. The basic idea is to look beyond the piece of land that any one individual or group might occupy and consider all of the land, water, and other resources needed to support a given way of life.

In addition, the ecological footprint has emerged as a powerful tool in discussions of resource use disparities between countries. The per capita ecological footprint of an aver- age American or Canadian is approximately 8 hectares (20 acres), meaning that 8 hectares of productive land and water is required to produce the resources and absorb the wastes of a resident of these countries. In contrast, an average resident of Bangladesh has an eco- logical footprint of 0.7 hectares (1.7 acres), while for a person living in China this figure is 2.5 hectares, and for a person living in Mexico 3 hectares (Global Footprint Network, 2011). These differences reflect the disproportionate impact that consumption patterns in wealthier industrialized countries are having on resource depletion and environmental degradation.

In Depth: The Ecological Footprint (continued)

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regular water shortages. For example, the Amazon River Basin drains almost 15% of the world’s total rainfall but contains only a tiny fraction of the global population (Withgott & Brennan, 2007). In contrast, China and India combine to make up almost 40% of the world’s population but have access to a relatively small proportion of the world’s fresh water sup- ply. These two countries face enormous challenges in meeting their water requirements. China has undertaken massive dam building and water diversion projects to move water to where it is needed. Some of these projects, like the Three Gorges Dam, also provide a benefit by generating hydroelectricity. However, these projects have also displaced mil- lions of people, dried up rivers and lakes, and driven dozens of wildlife species to near extinction. In India, over-pumping of water from underground aquifers for irrigation of agricultural land has dried up thousands of wells and led to the abandonment of millions of acres of farmland (Brown, 2006). In the United States, high levels of water use for agri- culture, commercial, and residential purposes in the arid southwest region of the country also pose problems. The Colorado River, which once flowed from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California, is now usually dry long before reaching its destination.

Per person or per capita levels of water consumption and how that water is used also varies greatly between countries. Per capita rates of direct fresh water consumption for residential

Fully 97% of the world’s water consists of saline or salty water found in the oceans. Of the remaining 3% only a tiny sliver is surface water available for direct human use.

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purposes range from almost 600 liters (160 gallons) per person per day in the United States to under 50 liters per day in dozens of countries in developing regions of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (Gleick, 1996). Globally, almost 70% of fresh water use goes toward agriculture with roughly 23% for industry and only 8% for residential uses of drinking, sanitation, bathing, and cooking (Hinrichsen, 2003). How- ever, these proportions can vary greatly from country to country. In the United States, for example, 65% of fresh water use goes to industry, while in India as much as 92% of the total goes to agriculture alone (Cunningham, Cunningham, & Saigo, 2005).

Disparities in water use are even more pronounced if one considers the amount of water used indirectly to produce the goods and services we consume. This measure, sometimes referred to as virtual water or embodied water, is the amount of water it takes to produce a specific product or service. For example, it’s estimated that it takes 300 liters (80 gallons) of water to produce one liter of beer after accounting for all of the water needed to grow the ingredients and for the brewing and production process. Similarly, it takes 1,000 liters of water to produce a liter of milk, 650 liters of water to produce a pound of bread, and 8,000 liters of water to produce a pound of beef (Gleick, 2009). Since consumption of consumer goods like beer, bread, and beef is so much higher in the wealthy, developed nations of the world, their overall water consumption (direct and indirect) is also that much higher.

In addition to the importance of adequate quantities of water is the critical issue of water quality. An estimated more than 1 billion people around the world lack access to adequate clean drinking water supplies, and almost 2 billion people lack access to adequate sanita- tion. The health and welfare impacts of this situation are staggering. As many as 5 million people die every year from diseases caused by poor water quality, and most of these vic- tims are children (Pacific Institute, 2011). Basic investments in community wells, latrines, and education on water purification and sanitation can help to reduce water-related ill- nesses and deaths.

Pritchard’s Lifesaver Bottle

British engineer Michael Pritchard developed a “lifesaver bottle” that contains a filtration system able to purify thousands of liters of even the filthiest water. International aid and relief agencies have shown great interest in Pritchard’s invention since shipping fresh water to disaster areas can be quite expensive. Go to http://www.ted.com and search for "Michael Pritchard: How to make filthy water drinkable" to view the video.

George Doyle/Stockbyte/Thinkstock

Globally, more fresh water is used for agriculture than for any other purpose.

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Section 7.2 Local and Regional Environmental Challenges CHAPTER 7

The abundance of water on our planet masks serious issues of water management, distri- bution, and access in many regions of the world that can lead to conflicts between and within nations over water supplies. Increases in world population complicate efforts to provide people with adequate amounts of clean water, and experts argue that unless water is used more efficiently, population growth will put even more pressure on dwindling supplies. Meanwhile, global climate change alters weather and precipitation patterns in many parts of the world, with potentially serious impacts on water supplies for agricul- ture, industry, and residential purposes.

7.2 Local and Regional Environmental Challenges

Environmental problems like soil erosion, air pollution, and solid waste disposal can be considered as the flip side of concerns over resources. Whereas the study of resource issues—such as the preceding discussion of energy and water—focuses on inputs to economic activity and human needs, environmental issues are those that come about because of resource use or misuse. Recall the distinction between renewable and nonrenewable resources. If managed properly renewable resources, such as a fishery, have the ability to yield valuable goods and services from one period to the next. However, if overfishing occurs or fish habitat is destroyed, then yields will drop and the benefits of that resource will decline over time. When we use nonrenewable resources, such as copper or coal, we not only deplete their supply we also generate waste products or pollution in the process. Natural atmospheric and ecological processes have the ability to absorb and purify some of this pollution. However, when human societies produce too much pollution, it can accumulate and damage the environment as well as human health and well-being.

This section examines two specific environmental issues that tend to directly affect the local or regional level. They are tropical deforestation and air and water pollution. These differ from environmental issues felt at the global scale and discussed in the next section. Tropical deforestation, or the clearing of tropical forests by logging or burning, is wide- spread in many regions of Africa, Asia, and Latin America with often catastrophic conse- quences for local environments and human communities. While the immediate causes of deforestation might appear obvious—cutting trees for lumber, fuel, or to make way for farming—we will see that the root causes of this problem are much more complicated. The pollution of air and water has existed for as long as humans have used fire or dumped waste into rivers. However, as human populations have grown and our resource use has increased, the buildup of pollution becomes more of a problem. While developed coun- tries like the United States have made progress in reducing air and water pollution, there are still serious problems in many developing regions of the world. In particular, rapidly industrializing countries like China are struggling to get their pollution problems under control.

Scarce Water Supplies Lead to Conflicts near Ethiopia and Kenya

A 16-minute movie examines the issue of increasing conflicts over scarce water supplies in areas bordering Ethiopia and Kenya. http://e360.yale.edu/feature/when_the_water_ends_africas_climate_conflicts/2331/

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Tropical Deforestation

Tropical forests currently cover less than 10% of the Earth’s land surface, but they are home to roughly half of all species on the planet. This incredible abundance and diversity of life is called biodiversity. Tropical forests have the highest rates of biodiversity of any land type on the planet (Lindsey, 2007). A one-hectare (2.5 acre) patch of tropical forest can be home to hundreds of differ- ent types of trees and plants, and thousands of different species of animals and insects.

Tropical forests provide many direct and indirect benefits to human societies. They are home to millions of people who rely on them for food, fuel, medicines, and other essential resources. Tropical forests are also a source of many high-value timber species, non-timber forest products, such as rattan for furniture, and ingredients for the production of prescription drugs and pharmaceuti- cals. Perhaps even more important than the direct resource benefits provided by tropical forests are the environmental services they provide. Tropical forests play a key role in regulating rainfall by absorbing and storing water in soils and in plant tissue. Tropical forests also store vast amounts of carbon, a greenhouse gas; they produce an equally vast amount of oxygen; and they play a critical role in regulating climate at the regional and even global scale (Lindsey, 2007). These so-called ecosystem services are largely lost when tropical forests are cleared for agriculture and other purposes. Replacing tropical forests with fields or other land uses increases the amount of solar radiation reaching the ground. Water that had been stored in soils and in plant tissue evaporates, and conditions gener- ally become hotter and drier. Deforestation also releases to the atmosphere much of the carbon that had been stored in the forest, and this can worsen global climate change.

Tropical forests are now believed to cover only about one-half of the area they once occu- pied before large-scale tropical deforestation began in the last century. Rates of tropical deforestation vary by region and can be difficult to detect given the vast area involved and the remote location of some forests. Nevertheless, serious deforestation continues to occur in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Between 1990 and 2005, Brazil lost nearly 45 million hectares (over 100 million acres) of tropical forest, an area the size of California. Indonesia is experiencing deforestation of almost 2 million hectares each year, and that country’s for- ests are now only half of what they were in 1960. The central African country of Burundi has lost about half of its forests since 1990 (Worldwatch Institute, 2005; Lindsey, 2007).

Proximate Causes of Deforestation

The causes of tropical deforestation are often more complex than they first appear. Sci- entists studying this phenomenon often refer to immediate or proximate causes of

Rebecca Yale/Flickr/Getty Images

Though covering less than 10% of the Earth’s land surface, tropical forests have the highest rate of biodiversity of any land type on the planet.

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deforestation as well as the deeper, underlying causes of the problem (Geist & Lambin, 2002). The most common proximate causes for tropical deforestation are clearance for planting crops, raising cattle, wood extraction, and the expansion of infrastructure, espe- cially roads. However, underlying these processes are many interacting social, political, and economic factors. For example, international demand for high-value timber (e.g., mahogany) has been the driving force for much of the deforestation that has occurred in Southeast Asia in recent decades (see Country Case Study: Causes and Consequences of Deforestation in the Philippines). Developed-country demand for beef, soybeans, and coffee has also contributed to the clearance of millions of hectares of Amazon forest in Brazil. Therefore, while a local person holding a chainsaw or a machete may appear to be the cause of deforestation in a given location, there are usually a number of more national and even global factors that are driving this process.

In Indonesia, deforestation is often blamed on poor, rural residents and indigenous tribal groups that still practice slash-and-burn or shifting agriculture. This involves cutting a small area of forest, burning the area, and planting subsistence and cash crops for a few years before moving on to a new area. While such practices can be destructive if not done properly, they pale in comparison to two other major causes of deforestation in that coun- try—logging for high-value timber, and forest clearing for palm oil plantations. Logging of high-value trees for export has been a lucrative business in Indonesia for decades and is controlled by a small number of powerful politicians and businesspeople. In this process, loggers select trees with the highest economic value and leave others behind. While in theory this approach could be sustainable, in reality the construction of logging roads and the damage done to the trees left behind during logging make this a highly destructive practice. In contrast, sus- tainable forest management is an approach that allows for some extraction of timber and other products from the forest while maintaining the overall ecological health of the forest.

More recently, large areas of Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo, were burned to make way for palm oil plantations. Palm oil is used in food products such as margarine and cream cheese, in cosmetics, and increasingly for the production of biodiesel, a form of diesel fuel produced from plant material. Rapidly increas- ing demand for biodiesel, especially in Europe, appears to be part of the reason for the surge in palm oil plantations in recent years (Worldwatch Institute, 2011). Biodiesel is often marketed as a sustainable source of energy since the carbon absorbed by plants while they are growing offsets the emissions of carbon from burning this fuel. If the plant material used for making biodiesel, such as soybeans, canola, or palm plants, is grown in a way that minimizes damage to the environ- ment, then this fuel could be considered relatively

AFP/Getty Images

The increasing demand for biodiesel, produced with oil derived from the fruit of palm trees, has caused a surge in the number of palm oil plantations established on cleared forestland.

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sustainable. However, the clearance of tropical forests in Indonesia to grow palm oil plants for biodiesel fails to meet this standard. Likewise, if food crops such as corn or soybeans are used for the production of biodiesel or ethanol, then this might affect food supply and food prices. At least some of the global food supply shortages and price increases expe- rienced in 2007–2008 can be attributed to the increased use of food crops for fuel produc- tion. This has set up what has become known as a debate over food vs. fuel.

Given the complex proximate and underlying causes of tropical deforestation, there are no easy solutions to this problem. Designating forestland as a national park or protected area has little impact given both the pressing subsistence needs of poor residents in these countries and the influence of powerful politicians over forest management. Instead, many conservation groups have begun to emphasize more economic approaches to forest protection. These approaches assume that some level of use and extraction of tropical for- est products can be sustained over time under proper forms of management. Since tropi- cal forest logging and non-timber product extraction often result from demand for these products in developed countries like the United States and in Europe, the focus of these efforts is often on consumers in wealthy countries.

For example, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is an international organization that sets standards and certifies sustainable forest management. Consumers who purchase FSC-certified wood or furniture know that the wood used in that product came from a forest that was sustainably managed. Likewise, various coffee and tropical fruit certifica- tion systems, such as Bird Friendly and Rainforest Alliance, guarantee the sustainability of products while returning a price premium to growers in the tropics. These kinds of pro- grams, sometimes referred to as eco-labeling, allow consumers in developed countries to “vote with their wallet” as they support sustainable practices in producing countries. The basic philosophy of these certification systems is to emphasize incentives for sustainable forest management rather than rules or restrictions. If local people in places like Indonesia and Brazil can make money through sustainable management of their forests, then they have a strong incentive to conserve them.

Tropical deforestation is an issue that affects the lives of millions of people directly and indirectly. Because they often contain timber and other valuable resources, and because of poverty, corruption, and poor management in many countries, tropical forest loss has been occurring at staggering rates. Tropical deforestation deprives local residents of important natural resources and services while also exposing them to more serious floods and climate extremes. On a large enough scale, tropical deforestation can even impact the global climate system. Efforts to address tropical deforestation will be more effective if they focus on both the proximate and underlying causes of this process. In many cases, the underlying factors are rooted in developed countries’ demand for forest and agricultural products from tropical countries.

Air and Water Pollution

Pollution is broadly defined as the introduction of any sort of contaminant into a natural environment causing harm to humans or other organisms in the process. Air and water pollution are two of the most common forms of pollution and represent environmen- tal problems that we have all probably experienced or witnessed firsthand. Throughout human history, our everyday activities have generated pollution, but for most of that time,

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Country Case Study: Causes and Consequences of Defores- tation in the Philippines

The Southeast Asian nation of the Philippines consists of over 7,000 islands. The country’s warm climate, abundant rainfall, and fertile soils produced forests that are among the most biodiverse in the world. Yet since the end of World War II, roughly three- fourths or more of tropical forests in the Philippines have been lost due to logging and conversion to other uses. The underlying causes of this forest destruction include a combination of failed development policies, inequitable distribution of land and other resources, corruption of the political system, widespread pov- erty, population growth, and global demand for timber and agri- cultural products from the Philippines.

Despite abundant natural resources, a highly educated popula- tion, and strong ties to the United States, the Philippine economy underperformed relative to other countries in Southeast Asia in the decades after World War II. Agricultural land ownership remained highly concentrated in the hands of a small number of powerful families—a legacy of the country’s Spanish colonial past. The dem- ocratically elected president, Ferdinand Marcos, declared martial law in 1972 rather than give up power, and he ran the country as a dictator for the next 15 years. During this time, he amassed tens of billions of dollars in foreign debt that did little to improve the lives of ordi- nary Filipinos. Marcos also encouraged a system whereby political allies who supported his political party received lucrative timber contracts from the government. This resulted in massive road building into and logging of large, remote tropical forest areas, with most of the harvested timber destined for export.

If left alone, some of these logged over areas could have recovered and returned to forest. However, because economic conditions in the Philippines were so bad, and because a few families owned the best agricultural land, many poor Filipino families took the opportunity to follow the logging roads into remote areas and try to farm for a living. These families cut and burned whatever small trees were left behind by the loggers and attempted to eke out a living growing corn, root crops, and veg- etables. Geographers David Kummer and Billie Turner (1994) referred to this as a two-step deforesta- tion process—logging roads and timber clearance followed by impoverished families seeking open land to farm. While a casual observer might see such a family attempting to survive on burned-over, steep slopes and assume that they were the direct cause of the deforestation, a more thorough analy- sis suggests that they were merely one minor player in the whole drama.

For Filipinos the consequences of this deforestation have often been tragic. Since 1991 there have been at least six major landslides that have occurred after heavy rains washed away entire hillsides cleared of forests. Combined, these landslides have killed thousands of people with one 2006 incident alone blamed for the deaths of almost 1,800 people on the southern island of Leyte (Conde, 2006).

Critical Thinking Questions

1. What are the underlying causes of deforestation in the Philippines, and how do these differ from the proximate causes?

2. How would you focus your efforts if you were to direct an international program to halt or reverse deforestation in the Philippines?

3. What are the connections between deforestation in the Philippines and resource consumption patterns in developed countries?

AP Images/Bullit Marquez

Rampant, unregulated deforestation in the Philippines has produced catastrophic landslides and floods that have devastated rural populations.

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Section 7.2 Local and Regional Environmental Challenges CHAPTER 7

our populations were small enough, our resource consumption rates low enough, and our technologies simple enough that much of the pollution generated could be purified or assimilated by natural processes. This was no longer the case by the time of the Indus- trial Revolution when coal-burning factories and crowded cities spawned the kind of pol- luted urban landscape we might imagine in the 1854 story Hard Times by Charles Dickens (1812–1870).

Air and water pollution in developed countries of Europe and North America increased even more in the years following World War II when rapid economic growth increased energy and resource use dramatically. In October 1948, the small industrial town of Donora in southwestern Pennsylvania experienced an air pollution event that led to the death of at least 21 people and sickened close to half of the 12,000 residents of the town. The Donora pollution event was caused largely by sulfur dioxide and other emissions from a U.S. Steel plant in the town. Weather conditions at the time helped trap the polluted air for five straight days in the valley where Donora was located. Not until weather conditions changed was the bulk of the polluted air blown away.

Four years later a dense cloud of pollution known as smog (for smoke and fog) descended on London for three days, reducing visibility to less than 10 feet and causing people to get lost in their own neighborhoods. In the London event, the main causes were a stagnant air mass combined with cold weather. The cold weather led residents of the city to burn more coal to keep warm, and the stagnant air mass trapped the pollution from this coal-burning over the city. By the time the smog lifted, close to 5,000 people had died of respiratory- related illnesses. In the months that followed, another 8,000 people may have died from complications related to the smog event (Withgott & Brennan, 2007). On numerous occa- sions throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio, caught fire due to high concentrations of pollutants in the water. During the same time, many areas of Lake Erie and the other Great Lakes were deemed biologically dead; and fishing, swim- ming, and other uses of the water were banned (Cunningham et al., 2005).

Government Responses to Pollution

While tragic, these incidents helped to mobilize popular and political support for new leg- islation to address the pollution problem. In the United States, the Clean Air Act of 1963 and a series of amendments to this Act in 1970 set the stage for dramatic improvements in air quality. The Clean Air Act focuses on the measurement and regulation of “criteria pol- lutants” like sulfur oxides, lead, and nitrogen oxides. The Act authorizes the Environmen- tal Protection Agency (EPA) to set air quality standards in order to protect public health and to enforce those standards through fines and other penalties. Since taking effect, the Clean Air Act has helped reduce levels of all criteria air pollutants in the United States. Likewise, the Clean Water Act of 1972 did much to address many of the major sources of water pollution in the United States. Like the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act gives authority to the EPA to set and enforce water quality standards to ensure that the nation’s waterways are “fishable” and “swimmable.” The EPA first focused on point sources, or direct discharges of pollutants from factories and sewage treatment plants. As these were cleaned, the focus shifted to nonpoint sources, such as pollution that is washed off roads or farm fields into waterways. Today, pollution events like those on the Cuyahoga River are virtually unheard of in developed countries like the United States.

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Despite this progress in cleaning up the most noxious sources of pollution, there are less visible pollution hazards that are still a problem in developed countries. Furthermore, many of these pollution problems appear to have a disproportionate impact on minor- ity and low-income communities. The concept of environmental justice has emerged in recent decades to examine the links between the placement of what are sometimes referred to as locally unwanted land uses (or LULUs) and minority and low-income com- munities. Common examples of LULUs include incinerators, oil and chemical refineries, and garbage dumps. While it’s usually not suggested that such facilities are deliberately located in these communities, it’s often the case that more affluent communities are able to mobilize the resources to oppose construction in their area. This “not-in-my-backyard” or NIMBY mindset pushes LULUs into communities that lack the economic and political power to fight them.

In developing countries of the world, pollution problems that affected the United States and Europe in the 1950s and 1960s are a growing problem. China, in particular, faces enor- mous challenges as it tries to cope with pollution generated by rapid economic growth. Chinese factories and power plants, for the most part, are not required to install the kinds of pollution controls that are mandatory in developed countries. Consequently, many Chi- nese cities suffer from air pollution levels that are many times the levels recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). This air pollution—in the form of carbon monox- ide, sulfur oxides, lead, ozone, and particulate matter—can increase rates of heart attacks, trigger asthma attacks, and contribute to lung cancer. In advance of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Chinese authorities took aggressive measures to reduce air pollu- tion in the host city. They restricted private automobile use, encouraged the use of mass transit, and temporarily shut down polluting factories in and around the city. That did not prevent controversy, however, when members of the U.S. cycling team arrived at the Beijing Airport wearing facemasks.

Water pollution is also a major environmental concern in China. In 2007, one incident was so devastating that more than 2 million people were left without drinking water for more than a week (Stone, 2010). Lake Taihu in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu became a dumping ground for fertilizer runoff from farms and sewage from nearby homes and busi- nesses. The nutrients in the manure and sewage led to an explosive growth of algae in the lake. The algal growth became so bad that authori- ties were forced to shut down the water supply system for the city of Wuxi on the lake’s northern shore. There is some evidence that events like Lake Taihu and the magnitude of the air and water pollution prob- lem have caught the attention of the Chinese government, much in the same way that events in Donora and Cleveland contributed to environ- mental progress in the United States. Efforts are underway to clean up Lake Taihu and other bodies of water in China, and as with the

Imaginechina via AP Images

China faces an enormous pollution problem generated by rapid economic growth.

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Section 7.3 Global Environmental Challenges CHAPTER 7

run-up to the 2010 Summer Olympics in Beijing, there are highly successful and locally popular efforts to reduce pollution from factories, power plants, buses, and cars.

Some environmental economists argue that as countries like China industrialize and develop, they first experience rapid increases in pollution but that this is eventually fol- lowed by a period where investments are made in pollution control and cleanup. This the- ory, known as the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) seems to hold up if we look mainly at the most tangible and noxious forms of air and water pollution. Developed countries no longer deal with widespread problems of raw sewage or choking smog. The EKC would thus suggest that further economic development would usually lead to improvements in environmental conditions as countries are better able to afford pollution control and increasingly wealthier residents demand a cleaner environment. However, other econo- mists and environmental scientists caution that the EKC concept might not apply to less visible and tangible forms of pollution, such as greenhouse gas emissions or radioactive wastes. They also argue that some developed countries have at least partially addressed air and water pollution problems by shifting their dirtiest industries to poorer countries (Stern, 2003). While the EKC theory seems to have some relevance concerning highly vis- ible and noxious forms of pollution at the local level, it seems less applicable to pollution problems occurring at a global scale. These problems are the focus of the next section.

7.3 Global Environmental Challenges Environmental problems like tropical deforestation and air and water pollution are highly visible and often have an immediate impact on our health and well-being. Throughout human history environmental problems like these have been mostly local or regional in scale, prompting nearby populations to either take action to mitigate the problem or move on to another area. However, as the human population of the planet surpasses 7 billion, this is less of an option. In addition, as rates of energy and resource consumption grow exponentially, and as the complexity and reach of our technologies expand even further, we see more and more signs of environmental problems at a global scale.

Such problems introduce a new set of challenges. Whereas most local and regional envi- ronmental problems can be dealt with at the level of a local or national government, global environmental problems require international cooperation and coordination to address. Because the global environment, including the atmosphere and the oceans, do not belong to a single nation or group of nations, there is a tendency for individual countries to opt out of costly efforts to address global environmental issues. This kind of behavior is referred

Chinese Villagers Fight Back against Polluting Industries

This video chronicles the efforts of Chinese villagers who are fighting back against heavily polluting industries that are ruining their environment and overall health. http://e360.yale.edu/feature/the_warriors _of_ qiugang _a_chinese_village_fights _ back/2358/

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Section 7.3 Global Environmental Challenges CHAPTER 7

to as the Tragedy of the Commons, the idea that resources held in common (such as the atmosphere) are often prone to degradation due to the dominance of narrow self-interest over the broader interests of the group as a whole. While the theory of the Tragedy of the Commons was initially devised to explain the behaviors of individuals in a common property setting, such as a sheep pasture, it can also be applied to issues related to manag- ing the common global environment.

The next section will examine two of the most significant global environmental challenges of our time—stratospheric ozone depletion and global climate change. Often assumed to be the same problem, these two issues have very different sets of causes and consequences. Like- wise, the global response to these two issues has differed dramatically. While still a prob- lem, there is evidence that efforts to deal with stratospheric ozone depletion have begun to pay off and that within the next few decades the damage done to the ozone layer can repair itself. In contrast, while our understanding of the complex issue of global climate change has grown over time, international efforts to confront this problem have floundered.

Stratospheric Ozone Depletion

At ground level, ozone, a molecule made up of three oxygen atoms, is a dangerous pol- lutant that can damage lung tissue and trigger asthma attacks in sensitive individuals. However, in the stratosphere, the area of the atmosphere roughly 10 to 30 miles above the Earth’s surface, ozone plays a critical role in ensuring the survival of life on this planet. Concentrations of ozone in the stratosphere make up an ozone layer. This ozone layer absorbs most of the ultraviolet-B (UV-B) radiation emanating from the Sun and headed toward Earth, preventing it from reaching the surface. Since UV-B radiation can seriously damage skin and plant tissue, the presence of the ozone layer is of critical importance to human well-being.

In the late-1920s, scientists with the DuPont Chemical Company began work on a class of compounds known as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). These compounds were effective as a refrigerant and safe to use. In the decades that followed, and especially after the end of World War II, CFC production increased steadily as demand for refrigerators and air conditioners grew with post-war prosperity. Not until the early-1970s did a handful of scientists begin to speculate as to whether CFCs escaping from leaky refrigerators or air conditioning units might be causing problems in the atmosphere. In 1974, chemists F. Sherry Rowland (1927–) and Mario Molina (1943–) of the University of California, Irvine, theorized that CFCs might cause damage to the ozone layer. They believed that the chlorine atoms contained in CFCs could react with and destroy large numbers of ozone molecules in the stratosphere, depleting the ozone layer in the process.

In 1984, a group of British scientists working at the South Pole detected a 40% loss of ozone in the stratosphere above Antarctica. The following year a NASA satellite confirmed the existence of widespread ozone loss over Antarctica, and the concept of the “ozone hole” became a household concern. Remarkably, within only two years of the satellite confirma- tion of the ozone hole (see Figure 7.2), 45 countries with the world’s largest economies signed on to what became known as the Montreal Protocol. The Montreal Protocol origi- nally called for a 50% reduction in CFC production and use by the year 1998, but after fur- ther research showed ozone loss accelerating, this was changed to a complete phase-out of CFCs by 1996 (National Academy of Sciences, 1996).

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Section 7.3 Global Environmental Challenges CHAPTER 7

Eventually, more than 180 nations signed on to the Montreal Protocol, and this agreement is still the basis for efforts to protect the ozone layer. An interesting element of the Mon- treal Protocol was that it recognized the larger contribution made to the ozone depletion problem by developed countries, and it required these countries to set aside millions of dollars to help poorer countries shift away from using chemicals that cause ozone deple- tion. The availability of these funds and the technical support provided by developed countries has enabled nearly all of the world’s developing countries to transition com- pletely away from using CFCs.

The extent of the stratospheric ozone hole is greatest over the South Pole. This rendering of the Earth with the South Pole at the center shows that stratospheric ozone levels over Antarctica are only one-third or one-fourth what they are over other regions of the planet.

Total Ozone (Dobson Units)

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Figure 7.2: Global map of stratospheric ozone depletion

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Section 7.3 Global Environmental Challenges CHAPTER 7

The timely and robust response to stratospheric ozone depletion set the standard for coop- eration on global environmental problems. By 2010, almost 15 years after phasing out CFCs in the industrialized countries of the world, there were signs that earlier damage done to the ozone layer had begun to heal and that a potential global catastrophe had been averted. In contrast, international cooperation to address the issue of global climate change has done little to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases that contribute to this problem.

Global Climate Change

While most people assume that debates over global climate change are a recent phenom- enon, they actually go back as far as the 1820s. At that time scientists were able to confirm the presence of small quantities of gases in the atmosphere that had the ability to trap heat energy leaving the Earth’s surface. These gases acted something like the panes of glass in a greenhouse—allowing sunlight through but holding heat in—and were aptly named greenhouse gases. In the decades that followed, other scientists began to examine what might happen as human activities contributed to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Today we have a highly developed understanding of how greenhouse gases affect the Earth’s climate, and we also know with a high degree of certainty just how much atmo- spheric greenhouse gas concentrations have increased due to human actions. The primary greenhouse gas of interest is carbon dioxide or CO2. Before the start of the Industrial Revolution, CO2 concentrations were approximately 280 parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere: Today they are close to 400 ppm, the highest levels experienced on Earth in more than 400,000 years (Mann & Kump, 2009) . Most of the increase in CO2 concen- trations results from burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas. Since, as we just discussed, the largest consumers of these fuels are industrialized countries, they have a greater responsibility to address the problem of global climate change. It’s estimated that the top 25 leading emitters of greenhouse gases, mostly developed countries, account for 83% of current greenhouse gas emissions (World Resources Institute, 2005). As concentra- tions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, like methane and nitrous oxide, increase, the Earth gets warmer. Clear increases in surface temperature and the temperature of the oceans (see Figure 7.3) have already been recorded over the last century, and the 27 warm- est years on record (dating back to 1880) have all occurred within the last 30 years (Pew Center on Global Climate Change, 2011).

As global temperatures increase, there are ripple effects on other aspects of climate. This is why scientists prefer to call what we are experiencing global climate change rather than global warming. Possible impacts that could or are already being felt include stron- ger storms, more extreme weather events (droughts, floods), increased heat waves, and changes in precipitation patterns. Not all of these changes will necessarily be bad for the people affected, but generally, a change in climate conditions will require that societies be able to adapt to changing conditions. However, not all countries are equally equipped to adapt or respond to a changing climate. Some of the countries projected to experience the worst impacts of climate change are also among the poorest and least able to adapt. In particular, countries in sub-Saharan Africa, already unable to grow enough food to feed their populations, are expected to see more extreme droughts and changes in precipitation that could reduce agricultural output. Likewise, sea-level rise caused by warmer ocean

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Section 7.3 Global Environmental Challenges CHAPTER 7

waters and runoff from melting glaciers is already inundating low-lying islands and flooding coastal areas, displacing people from their homes, farms, and businesses. For example, the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific and other coral islands like it—home to 1 million people worldwide—could soon be uninhabitable because of sea-level rise. In 2006, the Indian island of Lohachara, once home to 10,000 people, disappeared under ris- ing seas (Lean, 2006). As small island nations and coastal communities are wiped off of the map, the number of environmental or eco-refugees will increase. Eco-refugees are people who have been displaced from their homes due to global climate change or other environ- mental factors.

Impact of Climate Change in Bangladesh

View this series of three short videos and photo essays that depict the impacts of climate change and sea-level rise on the people of Bangladesh. http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2234

From Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, Climate Change 101, Figure 1, www.c2es.org. Copyright © Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), formerly the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by permission.

In recent decades, both the average global surface temperature and the heat content of the oceans have been increasing steadily. Most scientists attribute the bulk of these changes to increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Figure 7.3: Changes in global surface temperature and ocean heat content, 1880–2010

1.8

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Ocean heat content down to 2,300 feet

1880–1920 baseline for surface temperature

1955–1975 baseline for ocean heat content

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Section 7.3 Global Environmental Challenges CHAPTER 7

Global Response to Climate Change

To date, political efforts have not adequately addressed the serious- ness of the climate change problem, though the United Nations formed a scientific assessment body called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to monitor and assess scientific research on this problem. IPCC reports provide evi- dence-based scientific understand- ing of the underlying causes of cli- mate change. They also spell out in detail the potential consequences of climate change in areas as diverse as agriculture, water, weather, health,

biodiversity, and infrastructure. Moreover, as of 2010 over 190 countries were signatories to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol calling for stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. However, the Kyoto Protocol has so far had little practical impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and the largest historical source of these emissions, the United States, has so far not signed on to the treaty. The latest rounds of international climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in 2009 and Cancun in 2010 broke down over disagreements on responsibility, compensation for damage from climate change, and numerous procedural issues regarding the future of these talks.

The main points of contention in climate change debates and in international climate nego- tiations center on how far and how fast to go in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Equally controversial is the issue of whether developed countries like those in Europe and the United States should act first in slashing their emissions while allowing developing countries and newly industrialized countries like China and India more time to reduce their emissions. So far, the U.S. position has been to argue that requiring developed countries to cut emissions while countries like China and India are given more time would further weaken U.S. competitiveness in the global economy. Since China surpassed the United States in 2007 as the world’s leading emitter of carbon

AP Images/Sunday Alamba

Due to climate change and rising sea levels, many islands and coastal communities are in danger of being wiped out by floods.

AFP/Getty Images

The United Nations formed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in order to monitor and assess scientific research on climate change.

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Section 7.3 Global Environmental Challenges CHAPTER 7

dioxide, the U.S. position has been that any international treaty that does not include emis- sion reductions from that country would fail to have a significant impact. However, the developing country position has been to point to historical emissions of greenhouse gases since these gases can stay in the atmosphere for decades. Therefore, their argument is that current and near-term climate change is largely due to the disproportionate historical emissions from developed countries. Developing countries also point out that when looked at on a per capita basis, developed-country greenhouse gas emissions remain far greater than what they contribute. For example, per capita carbon dioxide emissions in the United States are still over three times higher than in China. This impasse over how far to take emission reductions and who should act first will likely continue to complicate inter- national negotiations and encourage slow action on these issues.

Efforts to control global climate change contrast sharply with both the speed and the scope of the efforts made to address the stratospheric ozone depletion problem. First, mainly one class of chemical compounds caused ozone depletion, and by the time of the phase-out, effective substitutes were developed to replace them. In contrast, hundreds of different human and economic activities cause global climate change. In addition, in the case of fossil fuels it will take longer to develop and put in place possible alternatives.

Second, ozone depletion seemed like a more immediate and urgent problem—the ozone hole was getting bigger, rates of UV-B radiation reaching Earth were increasing, and the consequences (e.g., higher rates of skin cancer and cataracts) were visible and frightening to many people. With global climate change, the consequences are potentially more dra- matic and frightening, but the link between cause and effect seems less clear and longer term. A scientific explanation and understanding of ozone depletion was easier to achieve given the relatively limited scope of the problem and its causes. In contrast, the global cli- mate system is extraordinarily complex, and predicting how climate might respond in any one location to changes in greenhouse gas concentrations spread over the entire planet is much more difficult. Action is further complicated by the fact that in many countries, including the United States, debates over global climate change shifted from the scientific realm to the political.

Global climate change represents the single greatest environmental challenge of the 21st century. It is likely to have far-reaching consequences for the planet and its inhabitants. However, it is the poorest and most vulnerable communities that will withstand the worst of these changes and who are the least able to adapt to them. That these communities and the countries they are part of played such a small role in creating the global climate change problem in the first place is viewed by critics as a serious injustice.

The IPCC

Reports and other information from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) can be found by visiting their website. http://www.ipcc.ch/

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Chapter Summary CHAPTER 7

Chapter Summary

While many people take natural resource availability and environmental quality for granted, their presence is an absolute necessity for human life and welfare. Despite this, hundreds of millions of people around the world struggle daily to meet even their most basic needs for resources such as energy and water. Hundreds of millions of people suffer from the consequences of resource degradation, misuse, and the pollution it generates. Overcoming resource shortages and environmental degradation is possible, but it usually requires adequate levels of financial resources and technology. Wealthier countries of the world have these, and many of their resource needs are already m1et by importing raw materials from less-developed countries. Likewise, wealthier countries have made significant investments in pollution cleanup and control technology and eliminated the worst of these problems. In contrast, the poorer countries of the world still struggle to meet basic resource needs even while many of their resources are exported to wealthier countries. They also face serious pollution problems that undermine human health and economic progress. Global cooperation to address resource and environmental challenges has shown some success, but it is often challenging to overcome national self- interest in pursuit of what is a common, global goal.

Chapter Highlights

■ Energy is an essential resource for human well-being. Current rates of energy consumption in developed countries like the United States are many times greater than those in the developing countries of the world.

■ Water is another essential resource for human survival. As with energy, rates of water use vary greatly between countries. Ensuring an adequate quantity and quality of fresh water represents one of the greatest challenges of our time.

■ Tropical deforestation is caused by both immediate and proximate causes as well as by deeper or underlying causes. The destruction of tropical forests results in the loss of both forest products and ecosystem services for the local population.

■ Air and water pollution can have serious impacts on public health and well- being. Environmental regulations like the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts and improvements in pollution control technology have helped lower air and water pollution in most developed countries. In most developing countries, however, air and water pollution are still a serious problem.

■ Stratospheric ozone depletion is a global environmental problem with potentially serious health impacts on society. However, most of the world has signed the

Impact of Climate Change in Bolivia

This video discusses how climate changes influence communities in Bolivia that rely on water from nearby glaciers. http://bcove.me/abuxjc5m

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Chapter Summary CHAPTER 7

Montreal Protocol to address ozone depletion. As a result, there is evidence that destruction of the ozone layer has slowed or stabilized in recent years.

■ In contrast, global climate change represents a global environmental problem that continues to get worse. Addressing global climate change will affect many aspects of our economy and lives, and this has made reaching a political agree- ment challenging. Left unchecked, global climate change has the potential to have serious consequences on food production, water management, biodiversity, public health, and other areas. Some of the poorest nations of the world could be impacted the worst, and these nations are also the least able to adapt to these changes.

Key Terms

biodiversity A measure of the abundance and diversity of biological life on the planet.

eco-refugees People displaced by environmen- tal degradation and change, including residents of low-lying island nations and coastal areas forced to move due to rising sea levels caused by global climate change.

ecological footprint A measure of how much land and water area is required to produce the resources and absorb the waste products of a given person or group of people.

energy The capacity to do work. For example, the energy in gasoline allows your car to carry you from one place to another.

global climate change Modification of the Earth’s climate system, including temperature, precipitation, and other climate variables, due to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

greenhouse gases Gases present in the atmo- sphere in small quantities that have the ability to trap heat energy radiating from the Earth’s surface and moderate the planet’s climate in the process.

natural resource Any substance or element derived from the natural world that contributes to human survival.

nonrenewable resource A resource that once used is no longer available to us, such as oil or copper.

proximate causes The immediate causes of a given environmental problem, such as deforestation.

renewable resource A resource that can renew itself after being used, such as wind or sunlight.

sustainable A system that is as productive at the end of a given period as it was at the beginning. For example, a forest managed in a sustainable fashion can yield wood and non- wood products for our use at a certain rate and still be just as productive from year to year. However, if too many resources are taken out of that forest in one period, its productivity will decline in the next period.

Tragedy of the Commons A theory that resources held in common and not owned privately are prone to degradation due to self-interest.

tropical deforestation The clearing of tropical forests by logging or burning.

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Chapter Summary CHAPTER 7

Critical Thinking and Discussion Questions

1. How are natural resources best used? In what ways are they endangering human existence?

2. What is an ecological footprint? Why do more developed nations have larger eco- logical footprints?

3. What are the benefits and drawbacks to large-scale water diversion projects? 4. What are ecosystem services? 5. What is eco-labeling, and do you think it is an effective method of promoting sus-

tainability in both developed and developing regions?

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