ANT203Y1 Lecture Notes - Woolly Mammoth, Ecological Footprint, Homo Erectus
Document Summary
Lecture 23 human impact on the planet. Population pressure: high rate of increase, 95% population growth in developing world, but resources not distributed equally, populations increasing exponentially, faster rate of population growth in developing worlds. Able to grow and store food independently. Medical advances in last century have greatly reduced death rates. Aid in the health of people and babies. Vaccines for diseases that used to kill many in the past. Beaten by the us and united arab emirates: measure your ecological footprint. Global warming: burning of fossil fuels. Produces greenhouse gases, heats the planet: deforestation. Trees play an important role in the environment; reduce carbon dioxide: catastrophic climate change. Impact on biodiversity: past 250 million years: two major extinction events, are we currently in the midst of a 3rd, overhunting. Argued that wooly mammoths went extinct because of pleistocene humans hunting them: competition with non-native organisms, habitat reduction, extinction of species is part of the normal evolutionary process.