Chapter 1. Chapter 24: Sustainability

1.1 Introduction

Welcome to the Interactive Study Guide for Chapter 24: Sustainability! This Study Guide will help you master your understanding of the chapter's Driving Questions, using interactive Infographics and activities, as well as targeted assessment questions. Click "Next" to get started, or select a Driving Question from the drop-down menu to the right.

DRIVING QUESTIONS

• What human impacts are considered when determining ecological footprint, and how does human population size influence our impact on Earth?
• What resources do humans rely on, and which of them are renewable?
• What is sustainable living?

1.2 Driving Question 1:

Why should you care?

Sustainability, green, and eco-friendly are all becoming familiar words, but what do they mean, and should you really care? It is easy to believe that the recent ‘’“greenwashing” trend is a clever piece of marketing geared to sell products, especially because the scientific evidence is typically misconstrued, poorly disseminated, and/or concealed from the general public. The ecological footprint is a measure of how much an individual or a country draws upon the earth’s natural resources. Ecological footprints are usually measured in global hectares, the biocapacity of one hectare of productive land.

Simply put, humans are consuming more of the earth’s resources than can be replaced for future generations. Many resources that we use now are nonrenewable. That means that generations of the near future, if not our generation, may face shortages of essentials like clean water and energy.

Moreover, there is a global inequality in distribution of resources around the planet, with wealthy countries like the United States, which make up a minority of the world’s population, using a majority of the world’s resources. Wealthy nations, from a sense of fairness and sustainable use, should try to reduce consumption and pollution and narrow the gap.

What should you know?

To fully answer this Driving Question, you should be able to:

1. Describe the actions that contribute to one’s ecological footprint.
2. Explain how waste absorption also contributes to an individual’s ecological footprint.
3. Describe how use of some resources contributes to the Earth’s biocapacity.
4. Determine the national ecological footprint of countries, using their population size and their ecological footprint per capita.
5. Describe the history and pattern of human population growth.
6. Describe the correlation between human population growth and the decline or extinction of species.

Infographic Focus

The infographics most pertinent to the Driving Question are 24.1 to 24.3, 24.5, and 24.6.

1.3 Driving Question 2:

Why should you care?

It should be easy to care about the fact that fossil fuels are nonrenewable because it affects your daily life in the form of high fuel prices. There are finite supplies of oil, natural gas, and coal, and we will eventually deplete them. As fossil fuels become scarcer, the more difficult and dangerous (both to people and the environment) they become to extract. Because of this, fossil fuels will become increasingly expensive.

Why should you care about renewable resources? That is a big question. Proponents of alternative energy sources and water conservation have tried for years to get people to be more concerned about renewable resources, but the world economy is based on nonrenewable resources. The increasing expense of using fossil fuels combined with concerns about ecological accidents, climate change, and national security are providing more incentives to develop renewable resources than ever before.

Although water is a renewable resource, we aren’t using it in a renewable fashion. We are drawing water from underground aquifers faster than they can refill; we are using treated water for all our needs, not just for cooking and drinking, and we are treating waste water and releasing it rather than recycling it.

Because we live on a planet that is mostly covered in water, it’s hard to imagine this resource becoming scarce, but only about 1% of the world’s water is fresh and unfrozen. Most of that is in underground aquifers, which are slow to refill, in some cases so slow as to be considered nonrenewable. It is very costly in terms of both money and energy to convert seawater for consumption. Irrigating arid land to grow crops can drain rivers and aquifers or lead to the accumulation of salts in the soil, leaving it infertile. As the standard of living rises in densely populated Asia, so does the demand for more polluting and resource-demanding foods, like meat and animal products in general. Animal agriculture uses several times more water than growing crops, so the demand for water is likely to outpace even the rise in population.

Water is not evenly distributed across the globe. Some parts of California, for example, use the Colorado River as a source of water. So much water is withdrawn from that river, actually, that its delta, where it empties into the sea of Cortez in Mexico, has dried up. So there are grounds for not only interstate disagreements but also international disagreements about how this water is used. The unequal distribution of water has the potential to become as politically charged as the unequal distribution of oil.

What should you know?

To fully answer this Driving Question, you should be able to:

1. Explain the uses for the three main types of fossil fuels.
2. Describe the environmental impact of fossil fuel use.
3. Explain why the main types of alternative energies are not being used more widely now.
4. Explain how water is a renewable resource.
5. Explain how some consumption of water is unsustainable.

Infographic Focus

The infographics most pertinent to the Driving Question are 24.4 and 24.7 to 24.10.

1.4 Driving Question 3:

Why should you care?

By now, you have seen a lot of evidence supporting the need for living more sustainably. It’s hard to imagine that one person in 7 billion can make a difference, but one person working to live more sustainably can easily translate into more. Do you care about living sustainably?

Most urban planning and development (how the building of new housing, utility supplies, factories, and businesses is regulated) is dictated by monetary and political interests. A few areas, such as the city of Portland, Oregon, have comprehensive plans to be greener, such as restrictions on new building projects that encourage development of abandoned lots instead of productive land. Cities like Greenburg, Kansas have taken catastrophic events and used them as an opportunity to build a greener, more sustainable town, and they should be looked to as models for building a town with the environment in mind.

What should you know?

To fully answer this Driving Question, you should be able to:

1. Describe the actions that people can take to reduce their ecological footprint and live more sustainably.
2. Explain the impact of ecologically sustainable actions.
3. Describe some of the sustainable features that could be incorporated into an ecologically friendly city.

Infographic Focus

The infographics most pertinent to the Driving Question are 24.6, 24.7, and 24.11.