EGS 1003: ???? (2011)Mary Lawhon (marylawhon@gmail.com)

This work by Mary Lawhon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

“The Way Forward - Out of the Chemical Crisis” “Indonesia's

Forests in Crisis”

“Cetaceans and the Oceans Crisis”

“Crisis in Japan's nuclear program demands end to reprocessing”

“UK commission findings - a wake up call to the crisis in our oceans”

China’s “energy shortage reaching crisis levels”

“If I remember right, there were three great environmental tragedies in the making in the late 20th century. The ozone hole, which was going to fry us all; the relentless advance of the deserts, which would bake us; and the population explosion, which would leave us fighting over fixed food supplies.   

Catastrophic news for environmental doomsayers. More people have adequate diets than ever before in human history…  Atmospheric scientists are now forecasting the ozone hole will close in the next 50 years. And the New Scientist reports that the Sahara is… retreating… And you still wonder why environmentalist warnings aren't taken seriously?”

(Denton, 2002)

It depends on who you ask!

• What/how it is measured?

• What is meant by “crisis”?

“Things are better – but not necessarily Good”

(Lomborg, 2001)

“The first round of environmental investments did not fail; they worked, which is a great reason to

have more.” (Easterbrook, 1995)

• Survival?

• Participation/Equity?

• Culture?

By Sean Wilson for SEI

By Sean Wilson for SEI

• Number of International Agreements?

• Area of Land which is Protected?

• Poverty/Inequality Levels?

• Amount of Food Produced? Hunger?

• Pollution? Which ones?

• Over what time scale?

“an environmentally sustainable future is within reach for the entire world provided that affluence and democracy replace poverty and tyranny as the dominant human

condition”(Hollander, 2003: 16)

“...people on the edge of starvation are understandably myopic about the benefits of long-term management”

(Hollander, 2003: 61)

Environmental Kuznet's Curve

0

5

10

15

20

25

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Income/GDP

Po

llu

tio

n

Affluenza, n. 1. The bloated, sluggish and unfulfilled feeling that results from efforts to keep up with the Joneses. 2. An epidemic of stress, overwork, waste and indebtedness caused by dogged pursuit of the American Dream. 3. An unsustainable addiction to economic growth. (PBS Undated)

“Approximates the amount of arable and agriculturally or ecologically productive land area it takes to sustain one human or group of humans, say in a family or city, based on their use of energy, food, water, building material and other consumables.” (Wikipedia.com 2006)

Paul Erlich, Population Bomb (1968: xi)

"The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_population.svg

“This is not an esoteric debate, but one of fundamental

importance that affects real world

policy and programmes”.

(Gray & Moseley, 2005, referring to pov-evt debate, but applicable to all discussions of causes?)

Easterbrook, G. 1995. A Moment on the Earth: The Coming Age of Environmental Optimism. New York: Penguin Books.

Erlich, P. 1968. The Population Bomb. New York: Ballantine Books.

Gray, L. and W. Moseley. 2005. A Geographical Perspective on Poverty-Environment Interactions. The Geographic Journal. 171.1:9-23.

Greenpeace. 2005. Online. Available at: http://www.greenpeace.org [Accessed 20 Jan 2006].

Hollander, J. 2003. The Real Environmental Crisis. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Lomborg, B. 2001. The Skeptical Environmentalist. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Overpopulation.com. Undated. Total Fertility Rates. Online. Available at: http://www.overpopulation.com/faq/basic_information/total_fertility_rate/[Accessed 20 Jan 2006].

PBS. Undated. Affluenza. Online. Available at: http://www.pbs.org/kcts/affluenza/. [Accessed 20 Jan 2006].

United States Government Printing Office.1997. World Energy Consumption. Online. Available at: http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps2973/www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo97/world.html. [Accessed 20 Jan 2006].

University of Deleware. 2006. Graduate College of Marine Studies: Dr. David a. Hutchins. Online. Available at:http://www.ocean.udel.edu/cms/dhutchins/ [Accessed 20 Jan 2006].

World Resources Institute. Undated a. Trends in Fertilizer Use, 1961-94. Online. Available at: http://powerpoints.wri.org/trends/sld037.htm. [Accessed 20 Jan 2006].

World Resources Institute. Undated b. Trends in Global Motor Vehicle Registration, 1945-95Online. Available at: http://powerpoints.wri.org/trends/sld026.htm. [Accessed 20 Jan 2006].

Wikipedia.com. 2006. Ecological Footprints. Online. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_footprint [Accessed 20 Jan 2006].