GEOG 204 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Thomas Robert Malthus, Human Scale, Dynamic Equilibrium
4 Feb 2016
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Document Summary
Irony as china becomes increasingly successful in overcoming its own problems of population growth, poverty and hunger, it may create hunger in the rest of the world. Added to this is the problem of energy. As china & india continue to industrialize=more energy. May create shortages everywhere and the search for alternatives. More land producing fuel crops instead of food crops = Balance is achieved throughout interactions of biotic and abiotic components. Self regulating gaia hypothesis james lovelock (1988) Environment changes wide range of time scales. Long term changes (eg. tectonics ) can have very short term impacts (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions) Short term negative impact vs. long term positive impacts. Climate warms buy/use more air conditioning more energy use + co2 emissions climate warms (example of positive feedback) Represent points at which change may be induced. Crossing is a function of : frequency of use/impact ex: land, intensity of use/impact ex: tornados, cumulative impacts ex: avalanche.
