ES101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Chernobyl Disaster, Mughal Empire, Water Scarcity
Week 1, Lecture 2: Toward a Sustainable Future
● What are the basic elements in the origin of contemporary environmental problems?
● What is meant by sustainability?
● Key terms
Anasazi
● Pueblo society of US southwest active from 1400-700BP
● Lived in the cliffside
● Settlements abandoned during droughts → couldn’t grow crops
Classic Mayan Cities
● Highly sophisticated society thrived 1700-1100BP
● Cities collapsed during period of climatic change, deforestation (used wood for fuel and
construction), conflict
Fatehpur Sikri
● Capital of Mughal empire 1571-1585 in present day India
● Abandoned due to water scarcity, regional conflict
Easter Island
● Deforestation, soil erosion, overfishing
Chernobyl (Ukraine)
● 1986 nuclear accident (radioactivity)
Contemporary Human Stressors on Enviro:
● Human population growth
● Excessive consumption of resources
● Excessive production of wastes
○ Similar to easter island
● Alteration of global scale biophysical processes (altering composition of atmosphere,
acidifying oceans)
● Introduction of alien chemicals and organisms into the environment
(chlorofluorocarbons, elements that don’t come together naturally, eat away at ozone,
UV rays on earth's surface… organisms moved continents)
○ Additional, new stressors
● Global warming
Italics = textbook
Key terms for a systems approach:
● Environment: surroundings or conditions in which a person animal or plant lives or
operates, everything that affects a living organism
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Week 1, lecture 2: toward a sustainable future. Pueblo society of us southwest active from 1400-700bp. Settlements abandoned during droughts couldn"t grow crops. Cities collapsed during period of climatic change, deforestation (used wood for fuel and construction), conflict. Capital of mughal empire 1571-1585 in present day india. Abandoned due to water scarcity, regional conflict. Alteration of global scale biophysical processes (altering composition of atmosphere, acidifying oceans) Introduction of alien chemicals and organisms into the environment (chlorofluorocarbons, elements that don"t come together naturally, eat away at ozone, Uv rays on earth"s surface organisms moved continents) Environment: surroundings or conditions in which a person animal or plant lives or operates, everything that affects a living organism. Environmentalism: social movement with aims of improving/protecting aspects of the enviro. Ecosystem: distinctive biotic community and the abiotic systems with which it interacts (eg. tundra, desert, temperate rainforest, coral reef, tundra), the biotic community reproduces and perpetuates itself.
