Our Living Planet:

Environment, Science, Economy , Wellbeing

&

Sustainable Development.
dr. keshav mohan
 The Sustainability Compass

Global Systems
• N = Nature
Environment, resources,
ecosystems, climate

• E = Economy
Production, consumption,
jobs, investment, money

• S = Society
Government, culture, institutions,
social concerns

• W = Wellbeing
Individual health, families,
self-development, quality of life
The Sustainability Compass and the
SDGs
You can add the official SDG icons if you prefer
13. Climate 14. Oceans & 15. Ecosystems &
Change Seas Biodiversity

1. End Poverty 7. Energy for All

2. End Hunger 8. Inclusive Growth

& Jobs
3. Healthy Lives
9. Industry &
Innovation
4. Quality Education
12. Consumption &
6. Water and Sanitation Production

5. Gender Equality 11. Sustainable Cities

10. Reduce 16. Justice & 17. Global

Inequality Peace Partnership
TERMINOLOLOGIES:
Environment is everything around us, or as the famous physicist Albert Einstein put it, “The environment is
everything that isn’t me.” It includes the living and the nonliving things (air, water, and energy) with which we
interact in a complex web of relationships that connect us to one another and to the world we live in.
Ecology is the biological science that studies how organisms,
or living things, interact with one another and with their environment.
Species is a group of organisms that have a unique set of characteristics that distinguish them from all
other organisms and, for organisms that reproduce sexually, can mate and produce fertile offspring. For
example, all humans are members of a species that biologists have named Homo sapiens.
Ecosystem is a set of organisms within a defined area or volume that interact with one another and with
and their environment of nonliving matter and energy.
For example, a forest ecosystem consists of plants (especially trees), animals, and tiny microorganisms that
decompose organic materials and recycle their chemicals, all
interacting with one another and with solar energy and the chemicals in the ecosystem’s air, water, and soil.
Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature.
It will never fail you.
Frank Lloyd Wright
Ecosystem Services: Provisional, Regulating, Supporting, Aesthetic
 TIMELINE OF LIFE ON EARTH

If the length of this time line were 1 kilometer (0.6 miles), humanity’s time on earth
would occupy roughly the last 3 one-hundredths of a millimeter. That is less than
the diameter of a hair on your head—compared with 1 kilometer of time.
 Three principles of sustainability:
We derive these three interconnected principles of sustainability from learning
how nature has sustained a huge variety of life on the earth for at least 3.5 billion
years, despite drastic changes in environmental conditions
 7.70 billion people on 30/4/19

1950, the world's population was

about 2.5 billion people.
75 to 80 million people added to
the world's population each
year
In 2017, global GDP amounted to about 80.05 trillion U.S. dollars.
. As of today, the estimated life expectancy at birth is more than 70 years.
Or roughly 71 years whereas it was 40 in 1950. And in the high income
countries, around 80 years.
INFANT MORTALITY
2018 WORLD HUNGER AND POVERTY
FACTS AND STATISTICS
What's the lesson? Economic growth and material progress
leads to the first pillar of sustainable development: economic well
being, achievable, and being achieved in large parts of the planet.

Is there any Aftermath?. IMPACT ON EARTH SYSTEMS

Economic growth is an increase in a nation’s output of goods and services. It is
usually measured by the percentage of change in a country’s gross domestic
product (GDP), the annual market value of all goods and services produced by
all businesses, foreign and domestic, operating within a country. Changes in a
country’s economic growth per person are measured by per capita GDP, the GDP
divided by the total population at midyear.
more-developed
countries: 19%
of world’s
population, use
88% resources ,
produce 75% of
world’s pollution
and waste.
 PLANETARY BOUNDARIES: FROM HOLOCENE TO ANTHROPOCENE
For most of the past 10,000–12,000 years we have been living in an era called the Holocene—a period of
relatively stable climate and other environmental conditions following a long glacial period. This general
stability has allowed the human population to grow, develop agriculture, and take over a large and growing
share of the earth’s land and other resources. According to a number of scientists, since the industrial
revolution began around 1750, we have entered an era called the Anthropocene. Planetary boundaries for
nine major components of the earth’s life-support system. A team of scientists estimated that human activities
have exceeded the boundary limits for three systems (shown in red) and are close to the limits for five other
systems (shown in orange). There is not enough information to evaluate the other two systems (shown in
white).
The Living Planet Index (LPI) is an indicator of the state of global biodiversity and the health of
our planet. First published in 1998, for two decades it has tracked the population abundance of
thousands of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians around the world. It uses the trends
that emerge as a measure for changes in biodiversity. Living Planet Indices – whether the Global
Index or those for a specific realm or species group – show the average rate of change over time
across a set of species populations. These populations are taken from the Living Planet
Database, which now contains information on more than 22,000 populations of mammals, birds,
fish, reptiles and amphibians. The global LPI is based on just over 16,700 of these populations.
This is because some populations overlap in both space and time, so to avoid double-counting,
certain populations are not included when calculating a global trend.
 CONSEQUESCES
Disasters on the RISE
282 Natural disasters reported in 2018
276 ----------in 2017
325----------in 2016
380 --------in 2015
432 -------in 2005
0.14 death per 10,000 people in 2018
0.1 --------------2017
0.12 -----------------in 2016
0.31 ----------in 2015
107.77 billion USD in 2018
144.11 -------in 2017
147.78 ---in 2016
364.09 ----in 2011
 Amoeba: A Reminder
about the Roles
• Innovator formulates / discovers / champions new ideas
• Change Agents translate / promote the ideas to the
Transformers
• Transformers early adopters, approve of and spread the
ideas
• Mainstreamers adopt ideas when everybody else does
• Laggards late adopters (do not like change)
• Reactionary actively resist the change
• Iconoclast identifies problems, critiques business-as-usual
• Recluse preoccupied with other matters,
detached
• Curmudgeon cynical grouches, complainers ... “why
bother?”
FLOODING IN NEW ORLEONS
 FOREST FIRE

KERALA FLOOD 2018

 Nutrient cycling: C, N, P

Our lives and economies depend on energy from the sun, and on natural resources
and natural services (natural capital) provided by the earth.
Recycling nonrenewable metallic resources uses much less energy, water, and other
resources and produces much less pollution and environmental degradation
than exploiting virgin metallic resources. Reusing such resources requires even less
energy, water, and other resources and produces less pollution and environmental
degradation than recycling does.
Blue carbon is the carbon captured by the world's oceans and coastal ecosystems. The
carbon captured by living organisms in oceans is stored in the form of biomass and
sediments from mangroves, salt marshes, seagrasses and potentially algae
The environment is everything around us.
It includes the living and the nonliving things (air, water, and energy) with which
we interact in a complex web of relationships that connect us to one another
and to the world we live in. Despite our many scientific and technological
advances, we are utterly dependent on the earth for clean air and water, food,
shelter, energy, fertile soil, and all other components of the planet’s life-support
system.
Life on the earth been sustained for at least 3.8 billion years in the face of
catastrophic changes in environmental conditions? Such changes included
gigantic meteorites impacting the earth, ice ages lasting for hundreds of
millions of years, and long warming periods during which melting ice raised sea
levels by hundreds of feet.
Human species has been around for only about 200,000 years—less than the
blink of an eye, relative to the 3.8 billion years that life has existed on the
planet (see the Geologic and Biological Time Scale
GEOLOGIC AND BIOLOGICAL TIME SCALE
 WHAT IS AN ENVIRONMENTALLY
SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY?

Sustainability is the capacity of the earth’s natural systems

and human cultural systems to survive, flourish, and adapt to changing
environmental conditions into the very long-term future.
It Protect your capital and live on the income it provides. Deplete
or waste your capital and you will move from a sustainable to an
unsustainable lifestyle.
The global trust fund is the free natural resources and ecosystem
services that nature has provided for us, for future generations, and for
the earth’s other species.
Living sustainably means living on natural income, the renewable
resources such as plants, animals, soil, clean air, and clean water,
provided by the earth’s natural capital. By working to preserve and
replenish the earth’s natural capital, which supplies this income, we
can find the best ways to reduce our ecological footprints while
expanding our beneficial environmental impact
Sustainable Living:
Natural recovery can take hundreds to thousands of years, while
harmful human impacts are expanding exponentially within a time
period of 10 to 100 years. Thus, in learning to live more sustainably, time is
our most scarce resource.
Pieces of good news: research by social scientists suggests that it takes
only 5–10% of the population of a community, a country, or the world to
bring about major social and environmental change.
Anthropologist Margaret Mead summarized our potential for social change:
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can
change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Research leads us to believe that three major natural factors have played the key
roles in the long-term sustainability of life on this planet. The three scientific
principles of sustainability, or lessons
from nature are:
• Dependence on solar energy: The sun’s input of energy, called solar energy,
warms the planet and provides energy that plants use to produce nutrients, the
chemicals necessary for their own life processes and for those of most other
animals, including humans. The sun also powers indirect forms of solar energy
such as wind and flowing water, which we use
to produce electricity.
• Biodiversity: The variety of genes, organisms, species, and ecosystems in
which organisms exist and interact are referred to as biodiversity (short for
biological diversity). The interactions among species, especially the feeding
relationships, provide vital ecosystem services and keep any population from
growing too large. Biodiversity also provides countless ways for life to adapt to
changing environmental conditions, even catastrophic changes that wipe out large
numbers of species.
• Chemical cycling: The circulation of chemicals necessary for life from the
environment (mostly from soil and water) through organisms and back to the
environment is called chemical cycling, or nutrient cycling.
Natural capital is also supported
by energy from the sun—the
focus of another of the scientific
principles of sustainability
(Figure 1.2). Thus, our lives and
economies depend on energy
from the sun, and on natural
resources and ecosystem
services (natural capital)
provided by the earth

Chemical cycling helps to

turn wastes into
resources. An important
component of nutrient
cycling is topsoil—a vital
natural resource that
provides us and most
other land-dwelling
species with food.
Without nutrient cycling
in topsoil, life as we know
it could not exist on the
earth’s land.
Natural capital—the natural resources and ecosystem services that keep us
and other species alive and support human economies.
Natural resources are materials and energy in nature that are essential or
useful to humans. They are often classified as inexhaustible resources (such as
energy from the sun and wind), renewable resources (such as air, water,
topsoil, plants, and animals) or nonrenewable or depletable resources (such as
copper, oil, and coal).
Ecosystem services are processes provided by healthy ecosystems that
support life and human economies at no monetary cost to us. Examples include
purification of air and water, renewal of topsoil, nutrient cycling, pollination, and
pest control.
Natural Resources can be classified as inexhaustible, renewable, or
nonrenewable (exhaustible) (Figure 1.6). Solar energy is called an inexhaustible
resource because its continuous supply is expected to last for at least 6 billion
years until the sun dies. It also provides us with inexhaustible wind and
flowing water that we use to produce electricity. A renewable resource is
one that can be replenished by natural processes wit hin hours to centuries, as
long as we do not use it up faster than natural processes can renew it. Examples
include forests, grasslands, fishes, fertile topsoil, clean air, and freshwater. The
highest rate at which we can use a renewable resource indefinitely without
reducing its available supply is called its sustainable yield.

When people use

renewable resources, it
can result in natural
capital degradation
pollution and wastes.
The Tragedy of the Commons
Some renewable resources, known as open-access renewable resources, are
not owned by anyone and can be used by almost anyone. Examples are the
atmosphere, the open ocean and its fishes, and the earth’s life-support system.
Other examples of less open, but often shared resources, are grasslands,
forests, and streams. Many of these renewable resources have been
environmentally degraded. In 1968, biologist Garrett Hardin (1915–2003) called
such degradation the tragedy of the commons. Degradation of such shared or
open-access renewable resources occurs because each user reasons, “The
little bit that I use or pollute is not enough to matter, and anyway, it’s a
renewable resource.” When the number of users is small, this logic works.
Eventually, however, the cumulative effect of large numbers of people trying to
exploit a widely available or shared resource can degrade it and eventually
exhaust or ruin it. Then no one can benefit from it. That is the tragedy.
Our Ecological Footprints Are Growing
. The per capita ecological footprint is the average ecological footprint of an
individual in a given country or area. If the total ecological footprint for a city, a
country, or the world is larger than its biological capacity to replenish its
renewable resources and absorb the resulting wastes and pollution, it is said to
have an ecological deficit.
Environmentally Sustainable Societies Protect Natural Capital and Live
Off Its Income
According to most environmental scientists, our ultimate goal should be to
achieve an environmentally sustainable society—one that meets the
current and future basic resource needs of its people in a just and
equitable manner without compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their basic resource needs. This is in keeping with the future
generations principle of sustainability.
The lesson here is an old one: Protect your capital and live on the income it
provides. Deplete or waste your capital and you will move from a sustainable
to an unsustainable lifestyle.
SOLUTION ?
 Tips On Environmental Protection

Try to set up three classified garbage basket at home

Household waste can be divided into three

types:
1. Recycling: including waste paper, waste
plastics, waste glass, scrap metal, etc.
2. Not recycling: including dust, vegetable,
fruit peel, kernel and other kitchen tailings;
3. Injurant: including batteries,
fluorescent tubes, etc.
According to these three types, we can set
three trash baskets at home, and can classify
the garbage at the same time of producing
garbage
 Tips On Environmental Protection

Try to use less disposable tableware

When eating out, bring your own chopsticks and

spoons. Use less snack box, paper cups, paper
plates, etc., especially with less fast chopsticks.
Japan’s forest coverage rate is as high as 65%,but
all their disposable chopsticks depend on imports,
while the forest coverage in our country is less than
14%,we are the great power of exporting disposable
chopsticks.
 Tips On Environmental Protection

Try to buy rechargeable batteries

Common batteries are products of chemical effects. In other words,

the electric power is produced by corrosion of materials. When used
batteries are left in nature, these materials will spill out and flow into
soil or water, and then travel into food chain of people through crops.
The used batteries, when collected to 30 kilograms, can be retrieved
by local recycling center.
 Tips On Environmental Protection

Try to use non-phosphorus soap powder

The soap powder with phosphorus will precipitate algae

to spindle in the water, thus decreasing the oxygen levels
of the water, and accordingly killing the aquatic organisms
due to the oxygen deficiency. As a result, the water will
become smelly.

Try to walk via stairs rather than

elevators.
 Tips On Environmental Protection

Try to travel by buses or bikes

Try to travel via public transportation, such as buses,

subways and trolleys. It can not only save petrol, but also
reduce the air pollution caused by automobile exhaust and
alleviate the traffic congestion. Moreover, people who have
private cars can try to use lead-free petrol, because lead can
impair the health and mentality badly.
 Tips On Environmental Protection

Don’t leave the television standby for a long time

“Standby” is a state that the electrical equipment is closed by a

remote control, and the power is not totally cut off. According to
some statistics, each color TV will consume about 1.2 watt-
hours in the state of standby.
 Tips On Environmental Protection

Use less liquid detergent

Most detergents are chemical products and they will pollute

water. If the ointment is quite much when you are washing
cutleries, you can first pour out the residual oil and then clean
the dishes with hot noodle soup. In this way, the ointment will
not be drained into water channels in a large quantity. You
can use hot soda water to clean the kitchenwares.
 Tips On Environmental Protection

Try to use non-phosphorus soap powder

The soap powder with phosphorus will precipitate algae to

spindle in the water, thus decreasing the oxygen levels of
the water, and accordingly killing the aquatic organisms due
to the oxygen deficiency. As a result, the water will become
smelly.
 Tips On Environmental Protection

Put a Coca-Cola bottle in the toilet’s water tank

If the volume of water tank is quite large, you

can put a big Coca-Cola bottle full of water in the
tank. The volume of the bottle is 1.25 liter, and it
can save as much water as 1.25 liter by this small
action.
 Tips On Environmental Protection

Reuse water for different purposes

Try to use the recycled water. For instance,

the water which is first used to wash rice and
vegetables can be reused to water flowers.
Likewise, the water which has been used to
wash face and clothes can be collected to
sweep the floor and flush the toilet.
Try to take showers rather than bath in a tub
because showers can save more water and
are healthier, comparing to tubs.
 Tips On Environmental Protection

Turn off the tap

Turn off the tap when you rub with soap while
washing hands. Don’t turn the tap on and let
water flow all the time when washing bowls or
clothes. Turn a leaking tap off tightly.
LOOKING FORWARD