GEOG 170 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Yosemite National Park, Ralph Waldo Emerson, United States Forest Service
Document Summary
Sustainability: the study of human relationships to the natural world through time. Conquering nature: man and nature are separate, nature needs to be tamed. Idea that resources are unlimited, no concept of resource scarcity. Western society discounted native american"s use of landscape, they were considered primitive and the colonists didn"t understand why they were so conservative. Population growth = inevitable outstripping of natural resources. We must limit population growth (later marriage, voluntary abstinence) If we don"t, famine, war, and disease will keep the population in check instead. Control population or there will be undesirable consequences. Technological innovations and agricultural intensification in food production. The pressure of starvation will cause innovations to increase food production. Famines are happening in the less developed world: areas where population is growing most rapidly. Growing human impact on the planet: global warming, pollution, deforestation. Things are fine now, but growth cannot continue indefinitely into the future.
