ENVI1153 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Soil Fertility, Ecosystem Services, Consumerism
Week 10: Environmental Dimensions
Environmental Lens
- Biospheric consciousness
- Ecosystem services
- Encountering
Environmental concerns created the notion of sustainability
- Rising global environmental concerns in the 1970s and 1980s led to the creation of
the Brudtland Report of 1987
- Include exctintions of habitat losses (including wetlands), the spread of dessers and
loss of soil fertility, deforestation, growing waste streams and pollution of waterways
and marine environments
Encountering nature every day
- People living in cities can think that nature and ‘the environment’ are rather remote
- Wilderness protection achieved many good things in Australia and globally but it
contributed to a sense of separation between people and nature
- We encounter nature every single day in the weather, the food we eat, the water we
drink, the micro organisms that infiltrate and reside in our bodies
- ‘wild’ nature infiltrates our cities more than we think
ecological impacts are extensive
- population growth, growing consumerism and ‘planetary urbanisation’ all mean that
human impacts are now ubiquitous
- cities do not end at metropolitan ‘boundaries’ and we must all be concerned about
our environmental impacts
personal and social benefits of our encounters with nature
- the concept of ecosystem services has been introduced to remind us that we depend
on ecosystems for clean air, fresh water, fertile soils, plant and animal materials
- efforts are made all around the world to bring urban waterways backto a degree of
‘natural health’
connecting global and local
- natural systems are dynamic with constant flows of energy, water and various
eleemts and compounds
- ecological flows can start anywhere in the world, place yourself in the diagram of
carbon flows
ecosystem services
- depend on functioning ecosystems for clean air and potable water, medicines, and
for ensuring sustainable food production
- global climate change demonstrates what can go wrong when human impacts
destabilise planetary systems
- we also need nature for recreation, inspiration and to remind us that we are part of
the remarkable story of life on earth
- the focus on functioning ecosystems exposes flaws in more abstract concepts such
as ‘carbon credits’
Concept of biodiversity
- only since late 1980s refers to both genetic diversity and species diversity
- ecological diversity is used to refer to diversity of habitats globally
- functional diversity makes natural systems adaptable and resilient
- promotes human inclusions and responsibility
find more resources at oneclass.com
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Document Summary
Rising global environmental concerns in the 1970s and 1980s led to the creation of the brudtland report of 1987. Include exctintions of habitat losses (including wetlands), the spread of dessers and loss of soil fertility, deforestation, growing waste streams and pollution of waterways and marine environments. People living in cities can think that nature and the environment" are rather remote. Wilderness protection achieved many good things in australia and globally but it contributed to a sense of separation between people and nature. We encounter nature every single day in the weather, the food we eat, the water we drink, the micro organisms that infiltrate and reside in our bodies. We also need nature for recreation, inspiration and to remind us that we are part of the remarkable story of life on earth the focus on functioning ecosystems exposes flaws in more abstract concepts such as carbon credits".
