Earth Day 2007

Dr. Andrew Wallace PhD

Gaylord Nelson in 1970
United States Senator for Wisconsin
"The story goes that Earth Day was conceived by Senator Gaylord Nelson after a trip he took to Santa Barbara right after that horrific oil spill off our coast in 1969. He was so outraged by what he saw that he went back to Washington and passed a bill designating April 22 as a national day to celebrate the earth.“ Santa Barbara Community Environmental Council.

22 April 1970
20 million people
Now
500 million people
175 countries

To inspire awareness of and appreciation for the Earth's environment

The other Earth Day:
21 March
UN
" May there only be peaceful and cheerful Earth Days to come for our beautiful Spaceship Earth as it continues to spin and circle in frigid space with its warm and fragile cargo of animate life. “ United Nations Secretary-General U Thant, March 21, 1971

What’s the problem?
Why?
A sustainable society

Global Warming
Climate change
Peak Oil
Ecological foot print

How do we know?
Ice core records
Pollen
Insects
Glaciers

What will happen in the future?
Glacier retreats
Ice shelf melting
Sea level rising
More severe weather storms
Droughts

Why does it matter?
Plastics
Fuel
Transport
Pesticides
Food
Medication
Civilisation as we know it!

No know single replacement
Wind
Nuclear
Water
Solar
Bio fuels

How much land and water do we need to support ourselves?
How many people?
What sort of life style do we have?

Energy Consumption in kilograms of oil equivalent (kgoe) per person per year per country (2001 data).

CO2 per capita per country

Bolivia Deforestation

Why do we have the problems we have?
Why do we have global warming?
Why do we have a problem with the oil?
Why do we have a problem with our eco-footprint?

CO2 and other green houses gasses
Need for land
Need to keep our economy going

Government
People
Groups and organisations
Rules and regulations
International connections

All these things, groups, people, organisations all interact
We have no one centralised control mechanism
What we get comes as a by-product of the way things interact
That includes global warming, peak oil and our eco-foot print!

What characteristics would a sustainable society have?
Population?
Production?
Agriculture?

More and more people means more and more people to feed
More and more goods to produce
More and more roads to make

A sustainable society would need to maintain a constant population level
Balance its production demand
Reduce demand
Reuse
Recycle
Localise

Earth Day 2007

by Dr. Andrew Wallace PhD on Mar 20, 2008

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