GEOG 1070 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Ecological Footprint, Resource Consumption, Birth Rate

• School: University of Iowa
• Department: Geography (Geographical and Sustainability Sciences)
• Course: GEOG 1070
• Professor: Eric Tate

Document Summary

Geog 1070: contemporary environmental issues lecture 2. Current global ecological footprint per person: 2. 7 hectares. Impact = population x consumption per person x impact per unit of consumption. People can measure ecological footprints in the form of an ipat equation. P: how many people demand resources/emit wastes. Sustainability: the ability to meet current human needs without compromising the needs of the future generations. Malthusian theory: the point of crisis is at the intersection between population and resource consumption. His forecasting flaws: agricultural advancements, family planning. The max # of individuals an environment can support indefinitely, without environmental impact (k) Early humans: lived as nomads/hunter-gatherers, they had very low population growth, limited by food availability, disease, climate. Agricultural revolution (~10,000 bce: developed crop agricultural, created permanent settlements, technology, which lead to more food production and higher levels of k, limited to growth by disease and crop failures, increased environmental impacts.