Sustainability

Human Impacts on the Environment

Lesson 1

Population Growth and Resource Consumption

Typically as human populations and per-capita consumption of natural resources increase, so do the
negative impacts on Earth unless the activities and technologies involved are engineered otherwise.

How big is a billion?
Putting it into perspective:

Can you think of anything that is about the same height as a
million sheets of paper? How about a billion sheets of
paper? A million sheets of copy paper would be about 130
meters high, or the height of a tall building over 40 stories. A
billion sheets of paper would be over 72 miles high, or nearly
as high as the boundary to outer space!

Human Population

http://www.census.gov/popclock/

The challenge faced by humans today is ...

... how to maintain a standard of living while controlling the

harmful effects of human activity on global ecosystems.

Exponential Growth: a growth pattern in which individuals in a population
reproduce at a constant rate, so that the larger a population gets, the faster it grows.

Exponential
Growth: When do
you think the graph
will reach 9 billion
people?

What technological
advances are
causing an
increase in human
population?

It took 123 years to
grow from 1 billion to 2
billion people. How long
did it take to get from 6
billion to 7 billion
people? What does this
mean about the rate of
population growth?

What would
happen if the
population
growth rate
reached zero?

What does it
mean to have a
negative number
for the growth
rate?

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What is Carrying Capacity?

The carrying capacity is the maximum sustainable
population that an environment can support.

We cannot know the carrying capacity of the Earth for
humans because it depends on standard of living.
Basically, the more resources we use per person, the fewer
people can be sustain

Population Growth

Humans and the Environment

What are the limiting factors to human

population growth?

● lack of resources (food, water)
● disease
● weather/natural disasters- drought, flood, etc...
● HUMAN ACTIVITIES altering Earth as we know it

What is an ecological footprint?

An ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth's
ecosystems.

People in less developed countries generally have a much smaller
ecological footprint than those in developed countries, like the US.

Use of Natural Resources Impacts Earth

● Reduces non-renewable resources such as fossil fuels
● Obtaining these resources damages the land
● Use of these resources creates waste
● Burning petroleum (a natural resource) releases

chemicals that can cause pollution.

Pollution: The contamination of Earth's land, water, or air.

resources that are not capable of replacing itself, in near future

Examples:

1. coal

2. gas

3. oil

​Non-Renewable Resources

resources which replaces itself naturally, in a short period

Examples:

1. water

2. solar (sun)

3. wind

Renewable resources

Conservation: the practice of using less of a resource so it
can last longer

Sustainable Use: Using resources in ways that maintain
them at a certain quality for a certain period of time.

Sustainable Development

Sustainable development is the process

of using natural resources without
depleting them.

Sustainable development provides for

human needs without causing
environmental harm.

Human activities affect the quality and

quantity of renewable resources such
as land, forests, fisheries, air and
fresh water.

​http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Puv0Pss33M

​https://youtu.be/zx04Kl8y4dE

Multiple Choice

Sustainability of the natural environment includes protecting natural resources like

• Water, trees, soil

• Water, sunlight, wind, math

• Buildings, waste, trees

Multiple Choice

Which of these problems could happen if we don't look after the resources we have?

• Loss of animal habitats

• increase in pollution

• climate change

• all of the above

Multiple Choice

Sustainability is making sure that the planet and its resources can continue to provide life.

• true

• false

Multiple Choice

What are examples of non-renewable resources?

• oil, gas, coal

• oil, gas, trees

• water, trees, air