Written in collaboration with the IB, this engaging and lively core resource will enable your students

to fully understand the Earths natural systems in line with the syllabus. Packed with plenty of case studies, statistics and activities, it has been extensively reviewed to ensure it is fully in line with the IB /HDUQHU 3UROH Full coverage of the subject with extracts and examples to allow students to UHHFW FULWLFDOO\ as they gain knowledge Includes a wealth of illustrations, diagrams, maps and charts to KHOS H[SODLQ GLIFXOW FRQFHSWV Examination questions included for practice and reinforcement of concepts learned Case studies from around the globe to help students with international mindedness Provides material for the H[WHQGHG HVVD\ and TOK, to help ensure your teaching is fully in line with WKH /HDUQHU 3UROH :ULWWHQ E\ DQ ,% &RQVXOWDQW DQG ([DPLQHU, content is linked closely with real world issues that students can easily understand, to help make learning more relevant

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Resources natural capital

Key points
Resources (or natural capital) are goods or services that have some value to humans. We can exploit resources which then produce a yield (or natural income). The three types of resource are renewable, non-renewable and replenishable. The value of a resource can be different in different cultures, and can change over time as technology and economic development progress. Sustainability relies on living within only the natural income generated by natural capital and not using the capital. Sustainable development is development that meets current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs and without degrading the environment. The human carrying capacity can be increased by use of technology, reducing energy use or recycling. The ecological footprint of a population is the land area required to sustainably support it and can be calculated. Population growth and ecological footprint size are influenced by stage of development of a country and by its worldview.

The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German theologian

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Natural capital and natural income

In the past, economists spoke of capital as the products of manufacturing, human-made goods, and separated these from land and labour. But we now recognize that capital includes natural resources that have value to us, e.g. trees, soil, water, living organisms and ores bearing minerals, and also includes services that support life, e.g. flood and erosion protection provided by forests. So the term natural capital is now used to describe these goods or services that are not manufactured but have value to humans. We may be able to process these to add value to them, e.g. mine tin or uranium, turn trees into timber, but they are still natural capital. Natural capital may also be processes, e.g. photosynthesis that provides oxygen for life forms to respire, the water cycle or other processes that maintain healthy ecosystems. With this view, we can then count natural resources and processes as capital which can be improved or degraded and given a value we can begin to give values to ecosystems. We use the terms resource and natural capital interchangeably here. Just as capital yields income in terms of economics, natural capital yields natural income (yield or harvest or services) factories produce objects, cherry trees produce cherries, and the water cycle

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provides us with fresh water. The measure of the true wealth of a country must include its natural capital, e.g. how many mineral resources, forests, rivers, it has. In general MEDCs add value to natural income by manufacturing goods from it and LEDCs may have greater unprocessed natural capital. The World Bank now calculates the wealth of a country by including the rate of extraction of natural resources and the ecological damage caused by this, including carbon dioxide emissions. The depletion of natural resources at unsustainable levels, i.e. providing more natural income than is sustainable, and efforts to conserve these resources are often the source of conflict within and between political parties and countries.

Renewable, non-renewable and replenishable Natural capital can be classified into three groups: renewable, nonrenewable and replenishable.
Renewable resources are living resources that can replace or restock themselves they can grow. Timber, for example, can be harvested, and more trees can be planted to be harvested in the future, as long as the environment is managed in a sustainable fashion. Usually, renewable natural capital has solar radiation via photosynthesis as its primary source of energy. Solar radiation itself may also be viewed as a renewable resource as it is produced over such a long timescale. But renewable natural capital can run out if the standing stock (how much is there) is harvested unsustainably, i.e. more is taken than can be replaced by the natural growth rate. Then, it will eventually run out.

Fig. 9.1 A forest a renewable resource

Fig. 9.2 A coal stockpile a non-renewable resource

Non-renewable resources are resources that exist in finite amounts on Earth and are not renewed or replaced after they have been used or depleted (or only over a long timescale normally geological scales). Non-renewable resources include minerals and fossil fuels. As the resource is used, natural capital or stocks are depleted. New sources of stock or alternatives need to be found. Replenishable resources are arguably a middle ground between renewable and non-renewable resources. These resources are replaceable, however they tend to be replaced over a time period

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that does not allow them to be viewed as renewable. A good example is groundwater. Groundwater can be used as a resource and depleted as it is used. Normally depletion rates are magnitudes larger than recharge rates; therefore the natural capital is depleted in the same way as natural oil and gas are depleted (wells run dry). However the wells will recharge over time with new groundwater whereas natural gas or oil wells will not. Thus these reserves replenish. The difference between replenishable and renewable is in the rate of resource use against resource replacement. Soil is another example of replenishable natural capital. Depending on your source of drinking water, where you live and the annual rainfall, water may be considered a renewable resource (high rainfall regions where most rain is collected and used for drinking) or a replenishable resource (drier regions where underground aquifers refill slowly at rates longer than an average human lifetime).

Recyclable resources the fourth element Iron ore is a non-renewable resource. Once the ore has been mined and processed it cannot be replaced. However from iron ore we produce iron. Iron can be cast into numerous forms and represents a significant commodity within modern societies. About 90% of a car is made from iron or iron-derived products steel. However, steel and iron can also be recycled. Old or damaged cars can be broken down. Their parts can be used to replace parts in other cars or their parts can be remanufactured into new metal objects. Therefore iron ore is non-renewable but the iron extracted from the ore becomes a renewable resource. The same goes for aluminium.
Exploiting the poles The Arctic and Antarctic are perhaps the last wildernesses on Earth and are beautiful. Their ecosystems are fragile and contain much biodiversity found nowhere else. Any disturbance takes a long time to recover as growth is slow because temperature is limiting. On land, water is also limiting as it is frozen for much of the year and so unavailable to plants. The Arctic Until recently humans could not exploit the resources of the Arctic on a large scale as the seas are frozen for all but a few months of the year and conditions are harsh. But there are mineral riches locked under the Arctic Ocean and surrounding land masses, especially hydrocarbons. The worlds oil supply comes from many countries. To have a national source of oil is a desire for many countries which would then not be dependent on importing oil. Some 40% of oil comes from and is exported by OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries; 13 LEDCs whose economies rely on oil exports) and prices and supply are controlled. North America produces about 19%, with the remaining dispersed fairly evenly across a number of other countries. The price of a barrel of crude oil reached over US$100 in March 2008 while it hovered below $30 a barrel for much of the 1990s. With climate change causing the Arctic to warm up, there are more icefree days. High oil prices mean that reserves that were uneconomic

Sea of Japan

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Svalbard (Spitsbergen) Greenland Devon Sea Norwegian Island Sea Greenland Baffin Bay Hudson Bay

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Fig. 9.3 Map of the Arctic

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to extract are no longer so, and the Arctic could be the next goldmine or environmental disaster, depending on your environmental worldview. At 2008 prices, the estimated value of the Arctics minerals is US$1.5-2 trillion. There are crude oil reserves under Northwestern Siberia and Alberta, Canada. There is also oil right under the North Pole. Humans have the technology to extract this oil. Why would we not? Who owns the Arctic? There is no land at the North Pole, it is ice floating on water. Under international convention, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a state can claim a 200 nautical mile zone and beyond that up to 150 nautical miles of rights on the seabed. So the owning state may fish or exploit the minerals exclusively in this zone and other countries may not. This distance is not measured from the border or edge of a country but from the edge of the continental shelf, which may be some distance away from the border of the country under the sea. In August 2007, a Russian submarine expedition planted a Russian flag on the seabed at the North Pole, two miles under the Arctic ice cap. They claimed that the seabed under the pole, called the Lomonosov Ridge, is an extension of Russias continental shelf and thus Russian territory. Eight countriesCanada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United Stateshave Arctic Ocean coastlines, and Denmark has sent its own scientific expeditions to study the opposite end of the Lomonosov ridge to see if they can prove it is part of Greenland, which is a Danish territory. The Antarctic Antarctica is a continent of which 98% is covered in ice and snow. In Antarctica, no large mineral or oil reserves
0o 60oS Maud Rise ATLANTIC OCEAN o 45oW South Orkney 45 E Princess Ragnhild Islands Coast WEDDELL SEA INDIAN OCEAN Drake Ruser Larsen Ice Shelf Passage Queen Maud Land Caird Enderby Larsen Coast Land Mawson Ice Shelf Coast Antarctic Amery Filchner Peninsula Ronne Ice Shelf Ice Shelf Ice Pensacola Prydz Bay Ronne Entrance EAST Shelf Mountains West Ice WEST BELLINGSHAUSEN ANTARCTICA Shelf South Pole ANTARCTICA SEA o 90oE 90 W Pine Island Denman Glacier Glacier Tr an Scott Glacier M sA AMUNDSEN ou n Marie Byrd SEA Ross nt tar c a Land in tic ice shelf Getzice s Shelf Wilkesland Ruppert WESTERN Ross island Coast PACIFIC Clarie OCEAN PACIFIC OCEAN Victoria Land ROSS SEA Coast Cape Adelie Coast Adare o o 135 E 135 W Balleny Islands
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have been found. But humans exploit the continent through tourism, fishing, sealing and whaling. About 10 000 tourists visit Antarctica each year and this is rising. No one country owns Antarctica but seven had staked territorial claims. The Antarctic Treaty was signed in 1959 by 12 countries which agreed to keep all land south of latitude 60S free of nuclear tests and nuclear waste, for peaceful purposes, preserve the environment and not to dispute territory. It was perhaps the first step in recognition of international responsibility for the environment, and surprisingly as the original signatories included the US, UK and USSR who signed it in the middle of the Cold War. In 1991, the treaty was strengthened to include prevention of marine pollution, cleaning up of sites and no commercial mineral extraction. Sealing has annual limits and commercial whaling is now tightly regulated. Fishing is less of a success story with overfishing of species which is hard to regulate in the seas around Antarctica. There is so much ice on Antarctica, that it is approximately 61% of all fresh water on Earth. If all this melted, it would add 70 m in height to the worlds oceans. It appears that the ice is melting and some large ice sheets are calving or breaking up and slipping away from the land. Over three weeks in 2002, a huge ice shelf, over 3000 square km and 220 m deep, Larsen B, broke up and floated out to sea. But in other areas, the ice is getting thicker. Questions 1 Discuss the reasons for the absence of an Arctic Treaty. 2 Suggest who should own the oceans. 3 Identify who should regulate human exploitation of the oceans.

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Fig. 9.4 Map of the Antarctic

Shacklet Ice Shelon f

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Fig. 9.5 The breakup of the Larsen B ice shelf in 2002

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Sustainability
Sustainability means living within the means of nature, on the interest or sustainable natural income generated by natural capital. But sustainability is a word that means different things to different people. Economists have a different view from environmentalists about what sustainable means. The word sustainable is often used as an adjective in front of words such as resource, development and population. Any society that supports itself in part by depleting essential forms of natural capital is unsustainable. There is a finite amount of materials on Earth and we are using much of it unsustainably living on the capital as well as the interest. According to UN data showing how humanity has overshot its sustainable level of resource exploitation, in 1961 we used 49% of the Earths resources. By 2001, it was 121%. This demand is due to the level of overall consumption and per capita consumption and is more in some parts of the world than others. Overall, we are in ecological overshoot at the moment, living on natural capital. You may wonder why this continues if we all know it to be so. It is perhaps due to many factors including inertia, when changing what we do seems too difficult; the result of the tragedy of the commons. This is when many individuals who are acting in their own selfinterest to harvest a resource may destroy the long-term future of that resource so there is none for anyone. It may be obvious that this will happen, but each individual benefits from taking the resource in the short term so they continue to do so. For example, hunting an endangered species may result in its extinction but if your family are starving and it is the only source of food, you will probably hunt it. Some people think that the real worth of natural capital is about the same as the value of the gross world product (total global output) about US$65 trillion per year, yet we are only just beginning to give economic value to soil, water and clean air and to measure the cost of loss of biodiversity.

To think about
The Millennium Development Goals
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight goals to be achieved by 2015 that respond to the worlds main development challenges. The MDGs are drawn from the actions and targets contained in the Millennium Declaration that was adopted by 189 nations and signed by 147 heads of state and governments during the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000. Goal Goal Goal Goal Goal Goal Goal Goal 1: 2: 3: 4: 5: 6: 7: 8: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. Achieve universal primary education. Promote gender equality and empower women. Reduce child mortality. Improve maternal health. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. Ensure environmental sustainability. Develop a Global Partnership for Development.

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1 Are we on target to reach these goals? Research what actions have been taken since 2000. (Try searching the Internet for Millenium Development Goals BBC and you should find some BBC webpages with an update.) 2 Do you think these goals are attainable, or too ambitious?

Dynamic nature of a resource The importance of resources varies over time. A resource available today may not be a resource in the future. A resource available in the past may not be a resource today, or it may not have the resource value it previously had. Technocentrists believe that new discoveries will provide new solutions to old problems; for example, hydrogen fuel cells replacing hydrocarbon-based fuel, or harvesting algae as a food source. Arrowheads made from flint rocks are no longer in demand. Uranium is in demand as raw material for nuclear power by fission but may not be if we could harness the energy of nuclear fusion the hydrogen economy.
Resources can be valued in several ways: L Economic having marketable goods or services, e.g. timber and food. L Ecological providing life-support services, e.g. water storage and gas exchange by forests. L Scientific/technological useful for applications, e.g. genetic, medicinal. L Intrinsic having cultural, esthetic, spiritual or philosophical (e.g. moral) values. Whether a resource can be sustainably used is what we need to know. We may think that agriculture is sustainable as crops are eaten and then more are planted, but it is only sustainable if the soil fertility and structure are maintained and the environment is not degraded overall. If biodiversity is lost due to agriculture, is it sustainable? Slash and burn agriculture (shifting cultivation) or sporadic logging in virgin forest are all sustainable as long as the environment has time to recover. Are we currently giving it enough time to recover?

To do
1 Review the resources of a rainforest using the values list above. Identify goods and services provided by a rainforest for humans by making a table with two columns goods and services. 2 Make a list of resources that you are using (you can do this by first writing down what objects you are using and then thinking which resources are required to manufacture these objects). 3 Do all humans use the same types and amounts of resources? Explain, using examples. 4 If wood became so scarce that we could not use it for construction of houses any more, what could we use to replace wood? 5 We all use oil and oil products (fuel oil, diesel oil, chemicals, plastics). Sweden, however, does not have its own oil reserves. Would the carrying capacity of Sweden change, if it could not import oil, and what change might occur in energy production?

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To think about
Urbanization
The drift from the countryside to urban life started long ago and has continued (Table 9.1). According to the UN DESA (Department of Economic and Social Affairs), by 2010 the balance of urban to rural population worldwide will be 50:50 and China will be 50% urbanized. Some 4 billion of us will be city dwellers by 201520. Cities are not necessarily unsustainable. There are efficiencies in living in high density populations where transport costs are reduced for commuters and moving resources around, people tend to live in smaller spaces Year 1955 1985 2005 2015 (predicted) Urban Rural Urban Rural Urban Rural Urban Rural
Table 9.1

so they use less energy to heat or cool and services are nearby. But cities have to remove their waste and process it, they need a large land area to supply them with food, and they create pollution. Inevitably they encroach on or degrade natural habitats.

Questions
1 Do you live in a city? (If not, select a city near to your home.) What is its population and land area? 2 How much has it grown since 1955? 3 Where does the food sold in the city come from? 4 Where do the wastes (sewage, garbage) go to?

Million people 850 1906 1983 2860 3150 3314 3819 3400

% of total population 30 70 40 60 48 52 52 48

Cities larger than 5 million people 11 28 50 60

Population of Tokyo (million) 5 30 35.1 35.4

To think about
Putting a value on the environment
Consider the systems in this list: Your school or college Your home The Amazon rainforest Lake Superior Tundra in Siberia Great Barrier Reef Tokyo Your city Your local park or protected area The Sahara Desert San Francisco Antarctica Shanghai

Working in groups, put them in an order of increasing (1) environmental value and then (2) economic value. Write down the criteria that your group used. Compare your list with other groups and be ready to justify your decision. If you change your mind, reorder the items to your personal preference and amend your list of criteria. What are the difficulties in assessing the importance of different types of environment and what characteristics need to be taken into consideration when trying to do this? Do you think that environments can have their own intrinsic value?

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Valuing the environment

Since the early 1980s, UNEP (UN Environmental Programme) has been using a system of integrated environmental and economic accounting (or socioeconomic environmental assessment SEEA) to try to value the environment and track resource depletion. If countries would include the cost of degrading their natural resources within their GNP (gross national product), the real cost and health of the nation would be clearer to see. From the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 came Agenda 21 (see page 124). An undertaking was given that local councils would produce their own plan, a Local Agenda 21 involving consulting with the local community. What does your local Agenda 21 say?

To research Fairtrade
Fairtrade (www.fairtrade.net) is an NGO charity. 1 What is the vision of Fairtrade? 2 What do they do? 3 What is their logo? 4 Name three products that have the Fairtrade logo. 5 Evaluate the impact of Fairtrade on (a) the producer and (b) the consumer.

To think about
Globalization
Did you know?
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51 of the worlds top 100 economies are corporations. Transnational corporations control two-thirds of world trade, 80% of foreign investment and employ just 3% of the worlds labour force of 2.5 billion. In 2006 it was reported that the American public corporation Wal-mart may be bringing 38 000 people out of poverty per month in China.

Globalization is the concept that every society on Earth is connected and unified into a single functioning entity. The connections are mostly economic but also allow the easy exchange of services as well as goods, information and knowledge. Globalization has been facilitated by new technologies, air travel and the communication revolution. The World Trade Organization (WTO) controls the rules of this global trade. Everyone can access the global market if they are connected by email, the Internet or telephone. Ebay for example allows someone in Europe to purchase goods from an individual in the USA. Global trade is not new. The Ancient Greeks and Romans traded across their world. The Han dynasty in China traded across the Pacific Basin and India. European empires and the Islamic world traded via trade routes around the world. What is new is the speed and scale of the trade and the communication. Since the end of the Second World War, protectionism

of markets has decreased and free trade has increased. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were set up in 1944 and have influenced development and world finance, including third world debt, since then. Some think that globalization only leads to higher profits for the transnational corporations (TNCs) but there is evidence that poverty has decreased in countries with increased global contacts and economies such as China. Ecologically, international agreements on global issues such as climate change or ozone depletion have tended to be easier to conclude with increased globalization. There is a tendency for globalization to westernize some countries. Globalization is not internationalism. The latter recognizes and celebrates different cultures, languages, societies and traditions. It promotes the unit as the nation state. The former sees the world as a single unit or system, not necessarily recognizing these differences. Such globalization is both a positive and negative force. In one instance it can make us aware of the plight of others on the other side of the globe and in another instance make us aware of what one society has and we do not have. Many if not most products are now traded on a global scale. They are part of what is referred to as the global market and minerals mined in South Africa or Australia are traded and shipped globally. Discuss some advantages and disadvantages of globalization.

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Human carrying capacity and the ecological footprint

Human carrying capacity Carrying capacity is defined as the maximum number of load of individuals that an environment can sustainably carry or support.
By examining carefully the requirements or a given species and the resources available, it should be possible to estimate the carrying capacity of that environment for the species. This is problematic in the case of human populations for a number of reasons. 1 Humans use a far greater range of resources than any other animal. We also replace resources with others if they run out. We may burn coal instead of wood, use solar energy instead of oil, or eat mangoes instead of apples. 2 Depending on our lifestyles, culture and economic situation, our resource use varies from individual to individual, country to country. 3 Developments in technology lead to changes in the resources we use. 4 We import resources from outside our immediate environment. While importing resources in this way increases the carrying capacity for the local population, it has no influence on the global carrying capacity. It may even reduce carrying capacity by allowing cheaper imports of food and forcing farmers to reduce their costs to compete with imports and so reduce incentives for conservation of the local environment. If the environment becomes degraded, e.g. by soil erosion, the land may become less productive and so not produce food for as many people. All these variables make it practically impossible to make reliable estimates of carrying capacities for human populations. Ecocentric thinkers may try to reduce their use of non-renewable resources and minimize their use of renewable ones. Technocentric thinkers may argue that the human carrying capacity can be expanded continuously through technological innovation and development. We shall always grow enough food, have enough water. It is just a matter of being more efficient and inventive. Using the remaining oil twice as efficiently means it lasts twice as long as it would have otherwise. But, given the estimate of human population size in 2050 of 9 billion, efficiencies will have to increase dramatically. Conventional economists argue that trade and technology increase the carrying capacity. Ecological economists say that this is not so and that technological innovation can only increase the efficiency with which natural capital is used. Increased efficiency, at a particular economic level, may allow load on the ecosystem to increase but carrying capacity is fixed and once reached cannot be sustainably exceeded. The other difficulty with technology is that it may appear to increase productivity (e.g. energy-subsidized intensive agriculture giving higher yields) but this cannot be sustainable and long-term carrying capacity may be reduced (e.g. by soil erosion).
Reuse, recycling, remanufacturing and absolute reductions 192

Test yourself
Review your knowledge of carrying capacity.
1 Draw a sigmoid growth

curve for an animal population. 2 Label the phases of growth and indicate the carrying capacity.

Humans can reduce their environmental demands (and thereby increase human carrying capacity) by reuse, recycling, remanufacturing and absolute reductions in energy and material use.

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Reuse: the object is used more than once. Examples include reuse of soft drink bottles (after cleaning) and secondhand cars. Recycling: the objects material is used again to manufacture a new product. An example of this is the use of plastic bags to make plastic poles for gardens. A second example is the recycling of aluminium. Obtaining aluminium from aluminium ore requires vast amounts of energy. As melting used aluminium to make new objects only takes a fraction of this energy, much energy can be saved by recycling. Remanufacturing: the objects material is used to make a new object of the same type. An example is the manufacturing of new plastic (PET) bottles from used ones. Absolute reductions: absolute reduction means that we can simply use fewer resources, e.g. use less energy or less paper. Unfortunately the advantages of reductions in resource use, i.e. increased carrying capacity, are often eroded by population increase.
Limits to human carrying capacity

In 1798, when the human population was about 1 billion, Thomas Malthus, an economist, wrote, The power of the population is infinitely greater than the power of the Earth to produce subsistence for man. In 1976, when the population was 3.5 billion, environmentalist Paul Ehrlich warned of famines of unbelievable proportions and that feeding a population of 6 billion (exceeded in 1999) would be totally impossible in practice. So far these predictions of disaster have been wrong and human carrying capacity may continue to increase.

Ecological footprints As we have seen, humans can exceed their local carrying capacity by several means including trade to import resources. Thus human carrying capacity can also be viewed as the maximum load (rate of resource harvesting and waste generation) that can be sustained indefinitely without reducing productivity and functioning of ecosystems wherever those ecosystems are. So human carrying capacity depends not only on population size but also on the areas of land that support that population.
The ecological footprint of a population is an area of land (and water) that would be required to sustainably provide all of a particular populations resources and assimilate all its wastes (rather than the population that a given area can sustainably support). An ecological footprint is therefore the inverse of carrying capacity and provides a quantitative estimate of human carrying capacity. How does the cartoon in Fig. 9.6 show this? Two researchers in Canada, Rees and Wackernagel, first published a book on ecological footprints and their calculation in 1996. Since then, the concept has become widely accepted with many website calculators designed to help you measure your footprint.

<insert Figure 9.6>

Fig. 9.6 Our ecological footprint

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Personal ecological footprints

Figure 9.7 shows a fair Earthshare for one person. A fair Earthshare is the amount of land each person would get if all the ecologically productive land on Earth were divided evenly among the present world population.
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Fig. 9.7 An Earthshare

Do you think your Earthshare is larger? Check it by searching on the Internet for an ecological footprint calculator. www.earthday.net/ footprint/ is a good place to start. On average, a Canadians ecological footprint is 7.8 hectares or approximately the size of 15 football fields. Only the United States and Australia have larger footprints at 10.3 and 9.0 hectares respectively. To compare, the average person in India has a footprint of 0.8 hectares, China 1.6. In the United Kingdom it is 5.2, Germany 5.3 and Switzerland 5.1 hectares. In 2003, if we all shared equally, there would have been 1.8 hectares available per person or 1.3 if you do not include productive marine areas. Clearly, we are living beyond the Earths ability to provide for our consumption (see Fig. 9.8).

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Fig. 9.8 Some suggest that humans are using resources at a rate that is unsustainable and we would need to find two or more Earths to sustain us if we continue to use resources at the current rate

Footprints across the world, 2003

Total national footprints as a proportion of the global footprint are indicated by country size. National per capita footprints are inducted by colours:
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More than 5.4 global hectares per person

0.9-1.8 global hectares per person Less than 0.9 global hectares per person Insufficient data

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Fig. 9.9 World ecological footprint sizes from the Living Planet Report 2006

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The ecological footprint of a country depends on several factors: its population size and consumption per capita how many people and how much land each one uses. It includes the cropland and other land that is needed to grow food, grow biofuels, graze animals for meat, produce wood, dig up minerals and the area of land needed to absorb wastes, not just solid waste but waste water, sewage, carbon dioxide. Figure 9.9, taken from the WWF Living Planet Report 2006 attempts to show countries as either ecological debtors or creditors. The creditors have smaller footprints than their biocapacity (living capacity or natural resources) and the debtors have larger footprints, represented here by changing the sizes of the countries in proportion. Debtors could be harvesting resources unsustainably in their countries, importing goods or exporting wastes. There is no such thing as throwing away on the Earth. There is no away in a closed system.
Ecological Footprint FAQs adapted from http://www.buddycom.com/animal/ envirimg/footprint/index.html Q: Surely there are enough resources to sustain the human population, after all, we keep growing enough food for the increasing population? A: No. We would need four more planets like Earth to meet the worlds consumption habits if everyone consumed resources like the average Canadian. A growing number of people are subscribing to the concept that we are global citizens and each deserve a fair share of the Earths resources. By this we mean that each person deserves fair access to acquire material needs and have a high quality of life. Footprint analysts have estimated that our fair Earth share of resources amounts to two hectares per person or less. Q: What are the top four things we can do to reduce our footprints? A: Consider the environment during all daily activities. 1 Reduce water and energy consumption and install water- and energy-efficient devices at home and at work. 2 Use alternative modes of transportation (e.g. walking, cycling and public transportation). 3 Think about the food miles and energy subsidy of your food. 4 Practise the 3Rs. Reduce consumption by doing more with less. Eliminate unessential purchases and, when necessary, buy durable locally produced products with little or no packaging. Reuse items as much as possible and donate items no longer used to local charitable organizations. When a product is no longer useful in its current form, recycle it. Consider whether or not the material can be recycled in your local recycling programme when making purchasing decisions and remember that recycling alone is not enough. Buy products that are made with the materials that are collected in your recycling programme and close the loop by buying recycled. Q: What role will technological development play in reducing our footprints? A: Technology can help us reduce our footprints and become more sustainable. Many industries are adopting new practices and developing innovative technologies designed to reduce environmental impacts and increase resource efficiency. Examples include renewable energy (e.g. solar and wind power), energy-efficient electronics, and products that are manufactured to be less toxic and recyclable and/or contain recycled content. As consumers, we can support these initiatives by switching to these products and services. However, we cannot rely on technology alone. Even though products and services are becoming more efficient, our growing global population is consuming increasing quantities of these products and services. Therefore it is important that we as individuals reduce our consumption levels by using only what we really need.

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To do
Ecological footprints of MEDCs and LEDCs
Data for food consumption are often given in grain equivalents, so that a population with a meat-rich diet would tend to consume a higher grain equivalent than a population that feeds directly on grain. Look at the data in Table 9.2. 1 What does the high per capita grain production in North America suggest about the diet? 2 What does the local grain productivity suggest about the two farming methods in use? 3 Which population is more dependent on fossil fuels? Explain. 4 Why is there a difference in the net carbon dioxide fixation of the two regions? These, and other factors, will often explain the differences in the ecological footprints of populations in LEDCs and MEDCs. 5 Calculate the per capita ecological footprint (food land and carbon dioxide absorption land only) for each region, using the two respective formulae. Population from Per capita grain consumption kg yr1 Africa North America
Table 9.2

per capita food consumption (kg yr1) mean food production per hectare of local arable land (kg ha1 yr1) per capita CO2 emission (kg C yr1 net carbon fixation per hectare of local natural vegetation (kg C ha1 yr1) 6 State two differences you would expect between the ecological footprint of a city in an LEDC and that of a city in an MEDC. 7 It has been calculated that the ecological footprint of Singapore is 264 times greater than the area of Singapore. Explain what this means. 8 Assume that in a large city with a stable population, the proportion of the population that has a vegetarian diet increases. Explain how this change might affect the citys ecological footprint.

Local grain productivity kg ha1 yr1 6000 300

Per capita CO2 emissions Net CO2 xation by from fossil fuels kg C yr1 local vegetation kg C ha1 yr1 200 1500 6000 3000

300 600

To do
Use the information and examples in this chapter to write a summary of human carrying capacity under the title: Human ingenuity, reduction of energy and material consumption, technical innovation and population development policies all increase human carrying capacity. Consider the following points. Give two good examples of each. a Define human carrying capacity. List ways in which local human populations can exceed the natural carrying capacity of the area in which they live. b Define and give examples of reuse, recycling and re-manufacturing. How can these lead to an increase in human carrying capacity? c What is the relation between technological development, resource use, carrying capacity and population growth? What consequences of these can limit population growth? d How can national population policies decrease population size? What cultural changes can lead to decreased population growth?

L L L L

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L L L L

L Resources

natural capital

Test yourself
The diagrams in Fig. 9.10 represent the area inhabited by, and the ecological footprint of, two human populations, A and B. One population is from an MEDC and the other from an LEDC. The diagrams are drawn to the same scale.

= Area = Ecological footprint

Population A

Population B

Fig. 9.10

1 Which country is most likely to be an LEDC? 2 Explain your answer. 3 State four pieces of information that would be necessary to 4 5 6 7 8

calculate the ecological footprint for any human population. Explain two ways in which the latitude of a country might affect the size of an ecological footprint. Which of the populations, A or B, is exceeding the carrying capacity of its local area? Explain your answer. Suggest two ways in which food production of the two populations might differ. Explain how these differences in food production could influence the size of the ecological footprints of these two populations.

Key words
resource natural capital natural income renewable non-renewable replenishable sustainability sustainable development ecological footprint Earthshare technological development reuse recycling remanufacturing absolute reductions

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