The study of the Natural Environment

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The Study of the Natural

Environment
The route of rivers has been crucial in the development of cities and
human habitation. Similarly the rain forests are the lungs of our
planets. They have been reduced to almost half their size and are
constantly threatened by humans with large economic interests. How
does it make sense depleting the environment in the way we are
today? What will be the results of such actions for people today and
generations to come? Don't hold your breath, and plunge right into
understanding the interaction of living organisms and our environment.

1. Basic concepts.

 Ecology is the study of the interaction of living organisms and

the natural environment.
 The natural environment consists of the earth’s surface and
atmosphere, including various living organisms and the air, water,
soil, and other resources necessary to sustain life.

2. Any study of the natural environment must necessarily be global

in scope because the planet constitutes a single ecosystem, the
system composed of the interaction of all living organisms and their
natural environment.
3. The Historical Dimension.

 Complex technologies generally pose more serious threats to the

global environment.
 The world is now facing an environmental deficit, profound and
long-term harm to the environment caused by humanity's focus on
short-term material affluence. This concept implies three
important ideas:

 The state of the environment is a social issue.

 Environmental damage is often unintended.
 Much environmental harm is reversible.
4. Solid waste: The "disposable society."
5. Preserving clean water.

 Water supply is problematic in many parts of the world.

6. Clearing the air.

7. Acid rain refers to precipitation that is made acidic by air
pollution and destroys plant and animal life.
8. Rain Forests are regions of dense forestation, most of which
circle the globe close to the equator.

 Global warming is apparently occurring as a result of

the greenhouse effect, a rise in the earth’s average temperature
due to increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere resulting in part from the decline of the rainforests.
 The shrinking of the rainforests is also contributing to a decline in
the earth’s biodiversity.

9. Social-conflict analysis highlights issues of power and inequality

in environmental degradation.

 A small proportion of the population--the "power elite"--sets the

national and global agendas by controlling the world’s economy,
laws, and views of the national environment.
 A larger but still small share of the global population,
concentrated in the high-income countries, currently consumes
most of the earth’s energy.
 Environmental racism is the pattern by which environmental
hazards are greatest in proximity to poor people, particularly poor
minorities. In part, it is a deliberate strategy by factory owners and
powerful officials.
 Critical evaluation. This approach draws attention to the power
realities underlying environmental problems, but does not account
for the recent development of stronger laws protecting the natural
environmental or the dismal environmental record of the socialist
societies, or for the increasing contribution of the poor nations to
the global environmental crisis.
 Video Clip: What is Environmental Racism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7DUv7AGAco

Video Clip: The Extent of Environmental Racism

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MziMG4UM8JI

Toward a Sustainable Society and

World
1. We need to develop an ecologically sustainable culture, the
human use of the natural environment to meet the needs of the
present generation without threatening the prospects of future
generations.
2. This calls for three basic strategies:

 We must conserve finite resources.

 We must reduce waste.
 We must bring world population growth under control.

3. Development of an ecologically sustainable culture is made more

difficult by our failure to perceive several important connections:

 The present is tied to the future.

 Humans are linked to all other living species.
 Global cooperation is essential.

It is imperative to understand how the environment is

intertwined with peoples lives globally.