lesson-11-environmental-crisis-and-sustainable-development.pptx

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Lesson 11 Environmental Crisis and Sustainable
Development
Bsba mm (University of Mindanao)
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Lesson 10: Global Migration
Course Outcome
1. To know the different environmental issues that the world is facing today.
2.Tounderstand the importance of sustainable development in terms of environment and
development.
3. To create a sustainable development programs in each community.
METALANGUAGE
METALANGUAGE MEANING / DEFINITION
1 Environment Environment is a physical space where both living and
non-living things are connected to one another.
2 Environmental Problems These are circumstances of degrading if not killing the
environment. Also related to harmful effects of human
activities.
3 Sustainable Development It is a kind of development which meets the need of
the present without compromising the future and the
environment at the same time.
4 Man-Made Pollutions These are byproducts of human action such as waste
disposal, transportation and energy generation.
5 Kyoto Protocol It is an agreement signed by 192 countries to reduce
the use of greenhouse gasses.
6 Paris Accord It was an agreement signed in 2015 by 195 countries to
response to the threat of the climate change.
7 Extractive Economies It is a resource base economy where it is dependent on
harvesting and extracting natural resources.
8 Terminal Economist It is an effect of long extractive economies, after the
exhaustion of resources the economy reaches it
terminal point.
9 Global Warming It is the result of billions of tons of carbon dioxide
,various air pollutants, and other gases accumulating in
the atmosphere.
10 Greenhouse Effect It is responsible for recurring heat waves and along
droughts in certain places, as well as for heavier rainfall
and devastating hurricanes and typhoons in others.
11 Climate Change It is describe as a change in the average condition of
temperature in a region for a long period of time.
12 Global Emissions This is the total combustion of different
states/countries around the world.
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Essential Knowledge
If you live in Metropolitan manila and travel to school (or to work) every day, the moment you step
out of your home, you are already exposed to the most serious problem humanity faces today: the
deteriorating state of the environment. As you walk out of the gate, the fetid smell of uncollected garbage
hits you and you go near the trash bin, curious about what is causing the smell. You see rotting
vegetables, a dead rat, and a bunch of whatnot packed in plastic. The three “wastes” are already
indicative of some environmental problems – the vegetable ought to be added to a compost pile; the rat
either buried or burned (to also get rid of lice that might jump into the hair of the children playing
nearby); and the plastics washed and recycled because, unlike the other two wastes, it cannot
decompose.
You hop on the first bus and as it approaches Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA), the traffic
where, as the joke goes, the turtle can outpace even the fastest of motor vehicles. You look out of the
window and see the smoke coming out of diesel vehicles, and as you lift your head up to the sky, you see
nothing but smog, courtesy of the cars and buses, as well as the coal plant and several industrial sits
located alongside the Pasig River. You notice the oil spots on the river, not to mention the tons of
effluents (human and non-human wastes) floating alongside each other. In the city enormous amount of
waste, and a declining quality of life.
It is at this point that you recognize the ecological crisis happening around you, and how the
deterioration of the environment has destabilized populations and species, raising the specter of
extinction for some and a lesser quality of life for the survivors and their offspring.
The World’s Leading Environmental Problems
The Conserve Energy Future website lists the following environmental challenges that the world
faces today.
1. The depredation caused by industrial and transportation toxins and plastic in the ground; the
defiling of the sea, rivers, and water beds by oil spills and acid rain; the dumping of urban
waste
2. Changes in global weather patterns (flash flood, extreme snowstorms, and the spread of
deserts) and the surge in ocean and land temperatures leading to a rise in sea levels (as the
polar ice caps melt because of the weather), plus the flooding of many lowland areas across
the world
3. Overpopulation (see Lesson 9)
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4. The exhaustion of the world’s natural non-renewable resources from oil reserves to minerals to
potable water
5. A waste disposal catastrophe due to the excessive amount unloaded be communities in
landfills as well as on the ocean; and the dumping of nuclear waste
6. The destruction of million-year-old ecosystems and the loss of biodiversity (destruction of the
coral reefs and massive deforestation) that have led to the extinction of particular species and
the decline in the number of others
7. The reduction of oxygen and the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because of
deforestation, resulting in the rise in ocean acidity by as much as 150 percent in the last 250
years
8. The depletion of the ozone layer protecting the planet from the sun’s deadly ultraviolet rays due
to chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the atmosphere
9. Deadly acid rain as a result of fossil fuel combustion, toxic chemicals from erupting volcanoes,
and the massive rotting vegetables filling up garbage dumps or left on the streets
10. Water pollution arising from industrial and community waste residues seeping into
underground water tables, rivers, and seas
11. Urban sprawls that continue to expand as a city turns into a megalopolis, destroying farmlands,
increasing traffic gridlock, and making smog cloud a permanent urban fixture (see Lesson 8)
12. Pandemics and other threats to public health arising from wastes mixing with drinking water,
polluted environments that become breeding grounds for mosquitoes and disease-carrying
rodents, and pollution
13. A radical alteration of food systems because of genetic modifications in food production
Many of these problems are caused by natural changes. Volcanic eruptions release toxins in the
atmosphere and lower the world’s temperature. The US Geological Survey measured the gas emissions
from the active Kilauea volcano in Hawaii and concluded “that Kilauea has been releasing more than twice
the amount of noxious sulfur dioxide gas (SO2) as the single dirtiest power plant on the United States
mainland.”
The 15 million tons of sulfur dioxide that were release when Mount Pinatubo erupted on June 15,
2001 created a “hazy layer of aerosol particles composed primarily of sulfuric acid droplets” that brought
down the average global temperature by 0.6 degrees Celsius for the next 15 months. Volcanologists at
the University of Hawaii added that
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Pinatubo had release “15 to 20 megatons…of [sulfur dioxide] into the stratosphere…to offset the
present global warming trends and severely impact the ozone budget.”
Man-mad Pollution
Humans exacerbate other natural environmental problems. In Saudi Arabia, sandstorms combined
with combustion exhaust from traffic and industrial waste has lead the World Health Organization (WHO)
to declare Riyadh as one of the most polluted cities in the world. It is this “human contribution” that has
become an immediate cause of worry. Coal fumes coming out of industries and settling down in
surrounding areas contaminated 20 percent of China’s soil, with the rice lands in Hunan and Zhuzhou
found to have heavy metals from the mines, threatening the food supply.
Greenpeace India reported that in 2015, air pollution in the country was at its worst, aggravated by
the Indian government’s inadequate monitoring system (there are only 17 national air quality networks
covering 89 cities across the continent). Furthermore, 94 percent of Nigeria’s population is exposed to air
pollution that the WHO warned as reaching dangerous levels, while Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, is
the 7th
most polluted city in the world. The emission of aerosols and other gases from car exhaust,
burning of wood or garbage, indoor-cooking, and diesel-fueled electric generators, and petrochemical
plants are projected to quadruple by 2030.
Waste coming out of coal, copper, and gold mines flowing out into the rivers and oceans is
destroying sea life or permeating the bodies of those which survived with poison (mercury on tuna,
prominently). The biggest copper mine in Malanjkhand in India discharges high levels of toxic heavy
metals into water streams, while in China, the “tailings” from the operations of the Shanxi Maanqiao
Ecological Mining Ltd., producing 12,000 tons of gold per year, “have caused pollution and safety
problems.” Conditions in china havebecome very critical as the “toxic by-products of production
processes…are being produced much more rapidly than the Earth can absorb.”
Meanwhile, for over a century, coal mines in West Virginia have pumped “chemical-laden
wastewater directly into the ground, where it can leech in the water table and turn what had been
drinkable…water into a poisonous cocktail of chemical.” The system “goes back generations and could
soon render much of the state’s water undrinkable.”
Pollution in West Africa has affected “the atmospheric circulation system that controls everything
from wind and temperature to rainfall across huge swathes of the region.” The Asian monsoon, in turn,
had become the transport of polluted air into the stratosphere, and scientists are now linking Pacific
storms to the spread of Pollution in Asia. Aerosol is tagged the culprit in changing rainfall patterns in Asia
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and the Atlantic Ocean. These climate disruptions have similarly caused drought all over Asia and Africa
and accelerated the pace of desertification in certain areas. Twenty years ago, there were over 50,000
rivers in China. In 2013, as a result of climate change, uncontrolled urban growth, and rapidly
industrialization, 28,000 of these rivers had disappeared.
People’s health has been severely compromised. An archived article in the journal Scientific
American blamed the pollution for “contributing to more than half a million premature deaths each year
at the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars.” The International Agency for Research on Cancer blamed air
pollution for 223,000 lung cancer deaths in 2010. In Indonesia and Malaysia, the link between forest fires
and mortality had been well-established. The aforementioned coal mining in West Virginia (mentioed
above) has also made people sick, some with “rare cancers, little kids with kidney stones [and] premature
deaths,” and children born with congenital disabilities and adults having shorter life expectancy.
It has been the poor who are most severely affected by these environmental problems. Their low
income and poverty already put them at a disadvantage by not having the resources to afford good health
care, to live in unpolluted areas, to eat healthy food, etc. In the United States, a Yale University research
team studying areas with high levels of pollution observed that the “greater the concentration of
Hispanics, Asians, African-Americans, or poor residents in an area, the more likely that dangerous
compounds such as vanadium, nitrates, and zinc are in the mix of fine particles they breathe.”
In India, studies on adults health revealed that 46% in Delhi and 56% of in Calcutta have “impaired
lung function” due to air pollution. In China, the toxicity of the soil has raised concerns over food security
and the health of the most vulnerable, especially the peasant communities and those living in factory
cities. In 2006, 160 acres of la in Xinma, China was badly poisoned by cadmium. Two people died and 150
were known to be poisoned; the entire village was abandoned. Hong Kong faces the same problem.
In Metropolitan Manila, 37 percent (4 million people) of the population live in slum communities,
areas where “[t]he effects of urban environmental problems and threats of climate change are also most
pronounced…due to their hazardous location, poor air pollution and solid waste management, weak
disaster risk management, and limiting coping strategies of households.” Marife Ballesteros concludes
that this unhealthy environment “deepens poverty, increases the vulnerability of both the poor and non-
poor living in slums, and excludes the slum poor from growth.
One of the major ironies of urban pollution is that the necessities that the poor has access to are
also the sources of the problem. The main workhorse of the public transport system is the bus. However,
because it runs mainly on diesel fuel, it is now considered “one of the largest contributors to
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environmental pollution problems worldwide.” This problem is expected to worsen as the middle classes
and the elites buy more cars and as the road systems are improved to give people more chance to travel.
The other mode of transportation that the poor can afford is the motorbike (also called the two-
and three-wheeled vehicles). According to the Centre for Science and Environment in Delhi, India, “two-
wheelers form a staggering 75%-805 of the traffic in most Asian cities.” Motorbikes burn oil and gasoline
and “emit more smoke, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and particulate matter than the gas-only four-
stroke engines found in newer motorcycles.”
Finally, adding to this predicament is the proliferation of diesel-run cars. These vehicles usually
command a lower price because of their durability and low operating cost, and hence affordable to the
middle class. However, they also release four times the toxic pollution as the buses.
“Catching Up”
These massive environmental problems are difficult to resolve because governments believe that
for their countries to become fully developed, they must be industrialized, urbanized, and inhabited by a
robust middle class with access to the best of modern
amenities. A developed society, accordingly, must also have provision for the poor-jobs in the industrial
sector, public transport system, and cheap food. Food depends on a country’s free trade with other food
producers. It also relies on a “modernized” agricultural sector in which toxic technologies (such as
fertilizers or pesticides) and modified crops (e.g., high-yielding varieties of rice) ensure maximized
productivity.
The model of this ideal modern society is the United States, which, until the 1970s, was a global
economic power, with a middle class that was the envy of the world. The United States, however, did not
reach this high point without serious environmental consequences. To this very day, it is “the worst
polluter in the history of the world,” responsible for 27 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions.
Sixty percent of the carbon emission comes from cars and other vehicles plying American highways and
roads, the rest from smoke and soot from coal factories, forest fires, as well as methane released by farms
and breakdown of organic matter, paint, aerosol, and dust.
These ecological consequences, however, are far from the mind of countries like China, India, and
Indonesia, which are now in the midst of a frenzied effort to achieve and sustain economic growth to
catch up with the West. In the “desire to develop and improve the standard of living of their citizens,
these countries will opt for the goals of economic growth and cheap energy,” which, in turn, would
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“encourage energy over-consumption, waste, and inefficiency and also fuel environmental pollution.”
With their industrial sector still having a small share of the national wealth, these countries will be using
first their natural resources like coal, oil, forest and agricultural products, and minerals to generate a
national kitty that could be invested in industrialization.
These “extractive” economies, however, are “terminal” economist. Their resources, which will be
eventually depleted, are also sources of pollution. In Nigeria, Niger Delta oil companies have “caused
substantial land, water, and air pollution.” Nigeria is caught in a bind. If it wants “ to maintain its current
economic growth path and sustain its drive for poverty reduction, [the very polluting] oil exploration and
production will continue to be a dominant economic activity.” If the United States lets its environment
suffer to achieve modernity and improve the lives of its people, developing countries see no reason,
therefore, why they could not sacrifice the environment in the name of progress.
This issue begs the question: How is environmental sustainability ensured while simultaneously
addressing the development needs of poor countries?
Climate Change
Governments have their own environmental problems to deal with, but these states’ ecological
concerns become worldwide due to global warming, which transcends national boundaries. Global
warming is the result of billion of tons of carbon dioxide (coming from coal-burning power plants and
transportation), various air pollutants, and other gases accumulating in the atmosphere. These pollutants
trap the sun’s radiation causing the warming of the earth’s surface. With the current amount of carbon
dioxide and other gases, this “greenhouse effect” has sped up the rise in the world temperature. There is
now a consensus that the global temperature has risen at a faster rate in the last 50 years and it continues
to go up despite efforts by climate change deniers that the world had cooled off in and around 1998.
The greenhouse effect is responsible for recurring heat waves and along droughts in certain places,
as well as for heavier rainfall and devastating hurricanes and typhoons in others. Until recently, California
had experienced its worst water shortage in 1,200 years due to global warming. This change recently
when storms brought rain in the drought-stricken areas. The result, however, is that the state is having
some of its worst flashflood in the 21st
century. In India and Southeast Asia, global warming altered the
summer monsoon patterns, leading to intermittent flooding that seriously affected food production and
consumption as well as infrastructure networks. Category 4 or 5 typhoons, like the Super
Typhoon Haiyan that hi the central Philippines in 2013, had “doubled and even tripled in some
areas of the (Southeast Asian) basin. Scientists claim that there will be more [of such] typhoons in the
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coming years.” In the eastern United States, the number of storms had also gone up, with Hurricane
Katrina (2005) and Hurricane Sandy (2012) being the worst.
Glaciers are melting every year since 2002, with Antarctica losing 134 billion metric of ice. There is
coastal flooding not only in the United States eastern seaboard but also in the Gulf of Mexico. Coral reefs
in the Australian Great Barrier Reef are dying, and the production capacities of farms and fisheries have
been affected. Flooding has allowed more breeding grounds for disease carriers like the Aedes aegypti
mosquito and the cholera bacteria.
Since human-made climate change threatens the entire world, it is possibly the greatest present
risk to humankind.
Combating Global Warming
More countries are now recognizing the perils of global warming. In 1997, 192 countries signed
the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gases, following the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit where a
Framework Convention for Climate Change was finalized. The protocol set targets but left it to be the
individual countries to determine how best they would achieve these goals. While some countries have
made the necessary move to reduce their contribution to global warming, the United States–the biggest
polluter in the world–is not joining the effort. Developing countries lack the funds to implement the
protocol’s guidelines as many of them need international aid to get things moving. A 2010 World Bank
report thus concluded that the protocol only had a slight impact on reducing global emissions, in part
because of the non-binding nature of the agreement.
The follow-up treaty to the Kyoto Protocol is the Paris Accord, negotiated by 195 countries in
December of 2015. It seeks to limit the increase in the global average temperature based on targeted
goals as recommended by scientists. Unlike the Kyoto Protocol which has predetermined CO2 emission
limits per country, the Paris Accord provides more leeway for countries to decide on their national targets.
It largely passed as international legislation because it emphasizes consensus-building, but it is not clear
whether this agreement will have any more success that the Kyoto Protocol.
Social movements, however, have had better success working together, with some pressure on
their governments to regulate global warming. In South Africa, communities engage in environmental
activism to pressure industries to reduce emissions and to lobby parliament for the passage of pro-
environment laws. Across the Atlantic, in El Salvador, local officials and grassroots organizations from
1,000 communities push for crop diversification, a reduction of industrial sugar cane production, the
protection of endangered sea species from the devastating effects of commercial fishing, the preservation
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of lowlands being eroded by deforestation up in rivers and inconsistent release of water from a nearby
dam.
Universities also partner with governments in producing attainable programs of controlling
pollution. The University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute sent teams to India to work with government
offices, businesses, and communities in coming up with viable ground-level projects that “strike a balance
between urgently needed economic growth and improved air quality.”
When these local alliances between the state, schools, and communities are replicated at the
national level, the success becomes doubly significant. In Japan, population pressure forced the
government to work with civil society groups, academia, and political parties to get the parliament to pass
“a blizzard of laws–14 passes at once–in what became known as the Pollution Diet of 1970. These
regulations did not eliminate environmental problems, but today, Japan has some of the least polluted
cities in the world.
The imperative now is for everyone to set up these kinds of coalitions on a global scale. For at this
point, when governments still hesitate in fully committing themselves to fight pollution and when
international organizations still lack the power to enforce anti-pollution policies, social coalitions that
bring in village associations, academics, the media, local and national governments, and even
international aid agencies together may be the only way to reverse this worsening situation.
Conclusion
Perhaps no issue forces people to think about their role as citizens of the world than
environmental degradation. Every person, regardless of his/her race, nation, or creed, belongs to the
same world. When one looks at an image of the earth, he/she will realize that, he/she belongs to one
world–a world that is increasingly vulnerable. In the fight against climate change, one cannot afford to
simply care about his/her own backyard. The CO2 emitted in one country may have severe effects on the
climate of another. There is no choice but no find global solutions to this global problem.
Self Help
1. YouTube: * Global environmental problems:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_T1sxIIvbM
*2050 - A Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z24Dd1Tcz1Y
2. Article: *KYOTO PROTOCOL TO THE UNITED NATIONS FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE
http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.pdf
*PARIS AGREEMENT
http://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_agreement.pdf
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3. Film: Before the Flood (2016)
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