ٍEbrahim Asadi Golmei 6187408

 The Mayans
 Easter Island
 Mesopotamia
 Biosphere 2
1.3

 In 2000:
 Global population 6.1 billion, up from 2.5 billion in 1950
 95% of population growth in developing countries
 1.2 billion in severe poverty (<$1/day)
 More than 1 billion people overweight (in the US, 61% adults
overweight, 27% obese)
 1.1 billion without access to safe water
 3 million people died of AIDS (cumulative total now almost 22
million) and 58 million had HIV
 On average a person was infected with HIV every six seconds
 In Botswana, one in three adults was infected with HIV
1.5

United States:
 Fordham University ‘index of social health’ 44% lower in 1996
than in 1973, despite stock market highs
 Now the world’s largest penal colony (nearly five million men in
the US awaiting trial, in prison, on probation or on parole)
 There is no cost difference between incarceration and an Ivy
League education
Australia:
 In 1996, 2 million lived below the poverty line
 Top 20 percent of households had 44 percent of private income
while the bottom 20 percent had just 3 percent
 Now one of the most unequal of all developed countries (having
slipped from 7th to 15th on the UN Index of Human
Development)
(continued)
1.6

 12% of 9,900 bird species in the world threatened with extinction
 Over the last 200 years, 103 bird extinctions have been already
documented – rate more than 50 times “background” rates of
extinction
 27% of the world’s coral reefs were severely damaged by 2000,
compared to only 10% in 1992
 In the last 100 years, Earth has lost over half its wetlands – in South-
east Australia this figure is 89%
 Aquifers are being depleted worldwide, with water tables in many
parts falling by as much as a metre a year
1.7

 Atmospheric carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) is 30%
higher than pre-industrial times and highest in at least
420,000 years
 Strong scientific consensus that most warming observed
over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities
 10% decrease in snow cover since the 1960s
 Global average sea level has risen 10-20 cm
 IPCC projections - by the year 2100:
 globally averaged surface temperature will warm by
1.4 to 5.8ºC (relative to 1990)
 global mean sea level will rise by 9 to 88cm (relative to
1990)
(continued)
1.8

 In 2000, foreign debt of developing and former Eastern
bloc nations stood at US$2.57 trillion
($2,570,000,000,000) (1999 dollars)
 During the 1990’s the economic toll of natural disasters
topped US$608 billion, more than the previous four
decades combined
 Of the US$9 trillion spent every year in the United
States, US$2 trillion is wasted
1.9

Between 1996 and 2001:
 Additional 500,000 hectares of land became salt affected
(bringing total to at least 2.5 million hectares or 5% of our
cultivated land
 Further 5.7 million hectares identified as having a high potential
for developing dryland salinity
 Common cause of dryland salinity has been changes to water
tables from inappropriate land use
1.10

 Predicted that without significant action, within 20 years
Adelaide’s drinking water would fail World Health
Organisation standards in two days out of five
 Predicted if nothing is done, salinity will cost $1 billion a
year by 2100
 Many coastal areas have poor water quality from
sediment, resulting from soil erosion. 11.7 million
tonnes/sediment/year enter Great Barrier Reef alone. In
North Queensland, grazing lands product about 66% of
estimated annual sediment to rivers
(continued)
1.11

 Air quality generally improved or remained constant
 Threatening processes to biodiversity include salinisation, land
clearing, fragmentation of ecosystems, exotic organisms and
changing hydrological conditions
 Australia has 10% of world’s endangered species, second only to
the US
 Net loss in vegetative cover since 1996
 In 1999, 469,000 hectares of woody vegetation cleared nationally
(425,000 ha in Queensland)
 Many heritage buildings damaged through inappropriate
development
 Decline in Indigenous languages
(continued)
1.12

 Wealth is:
“something that that has real value in terms of meeting our
needs and fulfilling our wants: the natural productive
systems of the planet and physical things like factories,
homes, farms, stores, actual transportation and
communications facilities, as well as the people who work
to produce the goods and services that sustain us. Modern
money is only a number on a piece of paper or an
electronic trace in a computer, that by a social convention
gives its holder a claim on that real wealth. In our
confusion, we’ve concentrated on the money, to the
neglect of those things that actually sustain a good life.”
David Korten
1.13

 ‘Ecosystem services’ include:
 photosynthesis
 pollination
 nurseries for commercial fish species (in mangroves and coral
reefs in particular)
 regulation of climate
 soil production and protection
 storage and cycling of essential nutrients
 absorption, breakdown and dispersal of organic wastes and
pollutants
 control of crop and livestock pests through predation
 Services provided globally by the environment estimated at least
US$36 trillion annually. In Australia, services estimated at $1.3
billion annually
1.14

Measurement of the amount of raw materials consumed in the United States
(WW I – World War I, WW II – World War II)
Source: Matos and Wagner
1.15

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
committed citizens can change the world;
indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has”.
- Margaret Mead
1.16

 Atmosphere surrounding the earth a mixture of gases
 Greenhouse gases (eg water vapour, carbon dioxide and methane)
so called because they trap heat, leading to warming lower
atmosphere. This process occurs naturally and is essential to
sustaining life on earth
 Human activities in last 200 years (e.g. burning fossil fuels) have
increased concentration of greenhouse gases, resulting in
increased warming of the lower atmosphere - the enhanced
greenhouse effect
1.19

 Some gases, e.g. those used in air conditioning, have
strong global warming potential
 Other sources of emissions include agriculture (methane
from animals and rice paddies), and waste in landfills
(methane)
 Plants convert carbon dioxide to oxygen so land clearing
diminishes this potential
(continued)
1.20

Contributors to greenhouse gas
emissions in Australia, 2000
Stationary energy use
(49.3%)
Agriculture (18.4%)
Transport (14.3%)
Land use change and
forestry (7.1%)
Fugitive emissions
(5.9%)
Waste (3.1%)
Industrial processes
(1.9%)
(continued)
1.21

 Ozone layer is a concentration of ozone molecules in the
stratosphere (10-50km above earth’s surface)
 Stratospheric ozone shields earth from sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays,
reducing radiation
 Increased UV radiation causes skin cancer, cataracts, weakened
immune systems, reduce crop yield and impacts on marine
systems
 Ozone molecules are attacked by ozone-depleting substances,
such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
 In the stratosphere, chlorine or bromine atoms split apart from
ozone-depleting substances and destroy ozone molecules. One
chlorine atom can break apart more than 100,000 ozone
molecules
1.22

 In the 1980s, an ‘ozone hole’ was identified above the Antarctic
and concluded to be more than natural variations in concentrations
 International agreement such as Montreal Protocol have
committed nations to phase-out or reduce ozone-depleting
substances
 CFC production banned in developed countries since 1995 and
alternatives have been developed
(continued)
1.23

 Biodiversity is defined as the variety of life on earth, including plants,
animals and micro-organisms, along with the genetic material they
contain and the ecological systems in which they occur
 Biodiversity is being eroded globally through native vegetation
clearance, pollution of air, land and water, inappropriate land use,
disruption of natural ecological cycles, invasion of exotic weeds and
pests and depletion of forests, fisheries and other natural resources
1.24

 Australia is among the most biologically diverse nations in
the world - 290,000 species of Australian flora and 200,000
species of Australian fauna. Currently 1,478 species and 27
ecological communities currently listed at the national level
as either endangered or vulnerable
 We do not even know all species we are endangering or
their potential for humans
 We do not know what overall impact steady degradation of
ecosystems will have - the thin end of the wedge?
(continued)
1.25

 Threatens global ability to continue to produce food.
 By 1990, poor agricultural practices had contributed to degradation of 562
million hectares, (38% of the roughly 1.5 billion hectares in cropland
worldwide.
 Each year, an additional 5 – 6 million hectares of land estimated to be lost
to soil degradation
 Soil degradation includes:
 soil erosion by water and wind - depleting topsoil and causing water
and wind pollution
 physical degradation through mechanical tilling
 desertification - the degradation of land in arid, semi-arid, and dry
sub-humid areas, caused primarily by inappropriate land use and
climatic variations. salinisation and waterlogging of soil
 depletion of soil nutrients through application of fertilisers
 loss of beneficial soil organisms through over-application of
agricultural chemicals
1.26

 Major causes of soil degradation include overworking soil
mechanically, land clearing and deforestation, overgrazing,
irrigation, and over-application of agricultural chemicals
 Soil erosion is expected to severely reduce agricultural
production in regions including southeast Nigeria, Haiti and the
Himalayan foothills, and part of southern China, Southeast Asia
and Central America
 Over 250 million people are directly affected by desertification,
with one billion people in over one hundred countries at risk
 Salinity affecting enormous areas of land and water quality in
rivers. Saline areas can result from natural processes, however,
most newly salinised areas are the result of changes in land use
and hydrological cycles. Most salinity results from rising
groundwater. Types of salinity include dryland, irrigation, urban,
river and industrial
(continued)
1.27

Source: former NSW Department of Land and Water Conservation
1.28

 We are steadily using up available non-renewable resources. Non-
renewable resources = resources that are not replenished, or at
least not replenished within hundreds of thousands of years, e.g.
metals and fossil fuels
 We are harvesting many renewable resources at rates greater
than their rate of replenishment (e.g. many forests)
 Use of energy from fossil fuels, which are effectively non-
renewable, is of huge concern. Fossil fuels include petrol, diesel,
natural gas, LPG, black and brown coal, oil, kerosene and aviation
gasoline
 Energy use and environmental impacts are closely linked, as the
extraction, transport and use of fuels and the production of
electricity impact the environment on local, regional and global
levels, particularly the enhanced greenhouse effect and global
warming
 Global use of fossil fuel increased by over three and a half times
between 1950 and 20001.29

World fossil fuel consumption, 1950-2000World fossil fuel consumption, 1950-2000
Source: Worldwatch Institute (2001)Source: Worldwatch Institute (2001)
(continued)
1.30

 Australia, which compared to many countries has large reserves in
comparison to annual use, is nonetheless facing a decline in crude
oil production over the next decade, with estimates that self-
sufficiency for this product will decline from 85 percent in 2001 to
less than 40 percent in 2010
 In Australia, the ultimate constraint to use of non-renewable
energy resources may well be the environmental impacts of
extraction and consumption, rather than availability
 Potable water another critical resource being depleted, particularly
in Australia. Australia is the world’s driest inhabited continent, yet
in 1996/97 used 24,058 gigalitres (approx. 24 billion cubic metres)
annually – an increase of 65 percent since 1985. There was a 75
percent increase in the annual volume of water used for irrigation
between 1985 and 1996/97
(continued)
1.31

 About one-third of the world’s population lives in regions with
moderate to high water stress. If present consumption trends
continue, two thirds of people in the world will live in water-stressed
conditions by the year 2025
 Extraction of non-renewable resources has many environmental
impacts, but is also a social issue - current wasteful practices
reduce the opportunities for future generations to access these
resources to satisfy their own needs. Within current generations,
there is enormous inequity in how resources are distributed, leading
to increasing global tensions
(continued)
1.32

 Each year, every Australian contributes about one tonne of waste
to landfill
 Of the 21.2 million tonnes of waste disposed of at landfills in
1996/97, approx. 40% domestic waste, 23% commercial and
industrial waste, and 37% construction and demolition waste
 Waste is a problem not only because raw materials are not used
to their full potential, but also because of disposal challenges
1.33

 Traditional approaches to waste management rely on the
natural environment to absorb and assimilate unwanted by-
products. Environmental impacts associated with waste
disposal include land contamination, methane emissions,
leachate discharges, odour, flammability, toxicity, and
consumption of land resources
 Landfill has been the most common method of dealing with
solid waste in Australia. In large cities, and increasingly in
towns, existing landfills are filling up and it is difficult to find
new sites. Waste disposal costs have also risen substantially
in recent decades
 Hazardous waste creates additional problems, as it is difficult
and costly to safely treat, or store, such materials
(continued)
1.34

 Impacts of pollution to air, land and water include harm to human
health, degradation of natural ecosystems, and loss of productive
land resources
 In developed countries, pollution is now relatively well-regulated
with significant penalties and industry has significantly improved its
practices. However, we still have the burden of cleaning up many of
the problems that have been caused from the polluting practices of
many past industrial processes
1.35

 Some pollutants are extremely persistent, and do not
readily break down in the environment. As a consequence,
they can ‘bioaccumulate’
 Minamata in Japan suffered one of the worst cases of
industrial pollution in history
 Non-point source pollution, such as oil and litter in
stormwater, still an environmental problem in Australia
 In many developing countries, where env. legislation non-
existent or not enforced, industrial pollution remains a
serious problem
(continued)
1.36

“…development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
own needs”
- 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development
Report Our Common Future (The Brundtland Report)
1.38

“using, conserving and enhancing the community’s
resources so that ecological processes, on which
life depends, are maintained and the total quality of
life, now and in the future, can be increased”
National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development
(1992)
1.39

 “in scientific terms, it means a system state that can
endure indefinitely”
(AtKisson, 2001)
 “…has come to mean long-term survival and well-being
in general, both for human civilization and the rest of
nature”
(AtKisson, 2001)
1.40

Conceptual approach of sustainabilityConceptual approach of sustainability
Eco-Efficiency
& Environ.
Economics
Health & Environmental
Justice
Fair Trade & Working
Conditions
Corporate
Citizenship &
Responsibility
1.41

Alternative conceptual approachAlternative conceptual approach
Eco-Efficiency
& Environ.
Economics
Social Sustainability
Economics
1.42

Interrelationship between social, environmental and economic aspects.
Source: National Centre for Sustainability, Swinburne University of Technology
1.43

 growth = “the increase in human population, resource use,
and the emission of waste”
 development = “improvements in human technology and
advances in the human condition, including health,
education, intelligence, wisdom, freedom, and the capacity
to love”
(AtKisson, 1999)
1.44

“‘Sustainable development’ has become one of
the politically-correct theses of our era.
Everybody is in favour of it - and everybody
defines the term, on Humpty Dumpty’s principle,
to mean what they want it to mean”
- (Sir Martin Holdgate)
1.45

“Sustainable development – a term so misapplied
as to be nearly beyond rescue – is not
development-as-usual with a few green-looking
additions or nods to social equity; but that is what is
has often been reduced to in practice”
(AtKisson, 2001)
1.46

“…as a word…is dying because of misuse, and
dryness, and reduction to buzzword. It is dying
because it is attached to too many initiatives
that are failing to achieve their stated goals –
or even, in many cases, to make any
significant progress in that direction.”
(AtKisson, 2001)
1.47

“The triple bottom line focuses corporations not just on the
economic value they add, but also on the environmental
and social value they add – and destroy. At its narrowest,
the term ‘triple bottom line’ is used as a framework for
measuring and reporting corporate performance against
economic, social and environmental parameters.”
(Elkington, 1980)
1.49

 A means of quantifying the environmental impacts of various
lifestyles
 Summarises into a single value the level of sustainability of an
individual, organisation, region, State or country
 Allows for estimation of the area of land needed to support a
household, a school, a business or society as they currently
operate
 Provides a simple way of identifying whether or not lifestyles and
activities fit within the carrying capacity of the earth
 If everyone else in the world consumed resources and energy and
produced wastes the way Victorians currently do, we would need at
least three earths to support such behaviours
1.50

0
2
4
6
8
10
12
USA Australia UK Japan Brazil China Bangladesh
EcologicalFootprint(hectarespercapita)
Global
Average
(2.3)
Per Capita Ecological Footprint
for Selected Countries
Earth’s
Capacity
(1.9)
1.51

A German concept defined by the European Environment
Agency (1999) as:
 “The material input of a product (service) minus the weight
of the product itself. The material input is defined as the life
cycle wide total quantity (in kg) of natural material moved
(physically displaced) by humans in order to generate a
good.”
 A semiconductor chip generates over 100,000 times its
weight in waste during production
 A laptop computer generates close to 4,000 times its weight
in waste
1.52

“…an overall approach to business management to
reduce the use of energy, water and material resources
and to minimise waste and pollution. It involves a shift in
environmental protection from an ‘end-of-pipe’ approach
where pollution is managed after it is created, to a ‘front-
of-process’ approach where the creation of pollution is
avoided or minimised at the source…[it] involves changing
attitudes and rethinking products and processes.
However, cleaner production is not only about
manufacturing and production. It covers all processes,
products and services and their impacts, including
planning and design”
(former NSW Environment Protection Authority)
1.53

 Sometimes called life cycle analysis
 A tool that assesses a range of environmental impacts of a
product or material across its whole life cycle – that is from
the extraction of raw materials through to manufacturing,
transportation, use and eventual disposal
 Useful in making more informed decisions about appropriate
choices of products and materials
1.54

 States that the manufacturer of a particular product should
be responsible for that product during its use and at the time
of disposal
 The rationale is that this will encourage manufacturers to
design products that are less hazardous, easier to dismantle
and recycle, and so forth
 This concept has been most explored in Europe, where it
has been considered for example for adoption by white
goods and automobile manufacturers
1.55

 A means of rating a product or service in terms of its environmental
credentials according to agreed sets of guidelines and products.
Most eco-labelling schemes require the use of a third-party to verify
claims prior to certain labels being used
 The energy-rating scheme for white goods is a form of eco-labelling
 For more information see the Australian Environmental Labelling
Association, Inc. at http://www.aela.org.au/StandardsDirections.htm
1.56

 The term given to a claim that a product or service is
environmentally-friendly or otherwise superior to its
competitors, when in fact this is not the case
 Greenwash hurts organisations that are legitimately trying to
do the right thing, by making it harder for consumers to
differentiate, while potentially also increasing consumer
cynicism
 It is hoped that as eco-labelling of products and services is
increasingly adopted and refined, greenwash will be less of
a problem
1.57

 Coral reefs cover less than 0.2% of ocean area, but are
among Earth’s most complex and productive ecosystems
 In late 2000, 27% of the world’s coral reefs were severely
damaged. In 1992 this figure was only 10% which
demonstrates the speed with which the health of reefs is
deteriorating
 The greatest losses have occurred in the Indian Ocean, the
Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf, and in Southeast Asia
1.59

 In 1998, a survey of reefs in some 40 countries found that many
high-value species such as lobster, grouper and giant clams, were
missing from areas where they were once abundant
 Live reef fish exports in South-east Asia increased nearly 13-fold
between 1989 and 1995, then dropped 22 percent in 1996 – a
crash attributed to overfishing
(continued)
1.60

 Coral reefs offer a number of essential goods and services that
have been valued at some $375 billion per year. These goods and
services include:
 shelter to coastlines from storm damage, erosion and flooding
(estimated to globally provide such protection for half a billion
people)
 habitat for as many as a million species, including more than
a quarter of all known marine fish species
 important feeding and breeding grounds for commercial
fisheries, producing about a tenth of the global fish catch and
a quarter of the catch in the developing world
 significant tourism revenue, with the Carribean reefs alone
estimated to bring in some $140 billion annually
 potential medicines. Reef-derived molecules have been used
to develop medicines from antibiotics to HIV drugs
(continued)
1.61

 An estimated 11% of the world’s coral reefs have been lost, and a
further 60% are threatened, as a result of direct human pressures,
including:
 overfishing (for food and for aquariums)
 trawling, with a single pass removing up to a quarter of seabed life
 coral mining
 coastal development
 waste dumping
 vessel collision
 nutrients and sediments resulting from inland deforestation and
farming
 blasting of reefs, with up to 10 separate explosions to obtain 1 ton
of fish, shattering up to 20 square meters of reef per blast. This
practice has degraded an estimated 75% of Indonesia’s reefs
 cyanide injection. In the Philippines, more than a million kilograms
of cyanide have been injected into reefs since the 1960s a
procedure that stuns or kills many non-target species as well
(continued)
1.62

 The greatest threat to coral reefs today is from global
warming
 Coral are inhabited by microscopic plants that provide food
and colour. Warming by as little as one degree Celsius can
stress these plants, and if the stress endures, the coral will
expel the plants and turn white (coral bleaching), often
eventually dying
(continued)
1.63

 “Coral bleaching” events have increased in frequency and
intensity since the early 1980s. 1997-98 saw the worst
episode on record, affecting some 16% of the world’s
reefs, in at least 60 countries. Indian Ocean reefs alone
suffered damages estimated as high as $8.2 billion. In
some areas, 1,000-year old corals died and losses neared
90%, at depths nearing 40 meters
 It is estimated that about half of coral affected by bleaching
could rebound in the next 20-50 years, but only if ocean
temperatures remain steady and human pressures are low.
If global warming continues it is predicted that as many as
60% of all reefs could be lost by 2030
(continued)
1.64

ٍEbrahim Asadi Golmei 6187408

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