Week 11 The Human Sphere PDF

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Week 11: The Human Sphere Primary problem is economic growth over population density Human Impact: Planetary system currently running at 140% of carrying capacity Gilding 2011. If everyone lived to standard of america and canada we’d need 4.5 Earths for current population. Resources need to be divided among more people as population rises I = P * A * T. Impact = people * affluence * technology. Affluence poses the greatest threat OECD. Stages in Human Population: Holoscenes stable conditions set the scene for agriculture. > specialisation of labour > social hierarchies > Trade groups > Antibiotics allowed from 1>2 billion

Population Growth: Rule of 70 - 70/rate of growth will calculate how many years before doubled. In 2011 reached 7 billion. Total fertility rate is the total number of kids per lifetime per woman. 1960 - human population growth reached its peak with 4.3 per woman. 2000 - dropped to 2.6 Future population Trends: ● ● ● ● ●

Older Bigger Grow at a slower rate Increasing in urban areas Migrations will continue.

UN predicts we will reach 9.7 billion by 2050 and 11.2 billion by 2100. Rural population will remain at 3 billion - 6 billion people.

Stabilizing Human Population: Demographic Transition: ● ● ●

Pre-industrial have high birth rates/death rates Industrialisation - death rates fall (food+medical production improve) and birth remains high Post-industrial - education/econ improves - birth rates fall and pop stabilizes.

Social economic progress holds key. The demographic bonus - birth rates fall = less dependents from old and young. Societies can spend money on economic activity instead of social care. Social Progress and Population: Poverty + lack of education cause high birth rates. High birth rates cause poverty/lack of opportunity. Living off the land is labour intensive - more children the more hands to help. However childbearing causes women to have a lack of income. Empowering these young women who lack knowledge/freedom to choose how many children to have. Educated young women can access the labour market. Social status extends beyond how many children they bare. Social security systems allow women to have less children. Social equity for women = less children. 200 million lack access to contraceptives (brown 2009). Education of child health, maternal health prevention of aids/HIV Policy: National/International Efforts Countries advising family planning - providing info, contraceptives, imposing taxes/ other rewards. Singapore - limits tax allowances for children,restrictions on maternity benefits, school admission preference to smaller families. Thailand - government sponsored family planning/free contraceptives China - one child - extra food rations, housing and hiring preferences (caused disproportional pop of old people and males). Economics: Over the last 50 years - population doubled, water consumption tripled, use of fossil fuels as quadrupled Foley 2010. 50% of species alive today predicted extinct by 2100. 90% of ocean large fish have disappeared.

Synthetic fertilizer found in all animals tissue whilst it also pulls all the o2 out the ocean. Drive of all this change is the economic growth model founded in world war 2. We release waste faster than earth can process and replenish. Consumes non renewables. I.R - steam power in steam engines could replace 500 horses. Division of labour increases productivity. World war had developed mechanisms to develop industry at haste. A new level of sufficiency emerged with automobiles in places never before, plastics, television. 1970’s oil shortage. Rachel Carson - Silent Spring had planted doubts about nonrenewables. In the 70's you had Herman Daly - steady state economy and E.F Small is beautiful. Some Drivers of the Growth Model: For 150 years fossil fuel drove econ expansion of 3% per year Heinberg. Petroleum based fuel petroleum fertilizer, machinery, transport. People live in cities and suburbs designed around roads. Acquisitiveness - had survival value driving search for more food but now we have moved beyond those means wanting too much material wealth. Carrying capacity is invisible to most people. Globalisation can be initially positive in wellbeing and econ. Health. But after allows for social inequity/environmental damage. 3 Orgs to Structure global economy: World Bank - provides loans for developing countries with the goal of reducing poverty. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) - monitors currency exchange rates, overseas loans, and restructures debt. WTO- eliminate barriers allowing free flow of trade/capital between countries. TNC’s do have membership in IMF promoting policies of trade, finance and intellectual property. GATT General agreement on tariffs and trade Neoclassical and Ecological Economics: 3 Types: ● ● ●

Environmental economics Ecological Economics Neoclassical economics

Classical - large scale view is macroeconomics looking at it as a whole. Microeconomics is looking at individual market economies. Markets choose Optimal Alternative. Env Economics is a subset of neoclassical economics ● Human welfare relies on ecosystem services such as purification of air ● Paul Elrich first used ecosystem services ● Assigns value to these services and impacts of pollution (incorporated into markets) Problems ● Anthropocentric ● Assumes humans always want more than less ● People behave rationally and do the best they can Ecological Economics: ● Herman Daly + E.F Schaumacher + Systems ecologist Robert Constanza ● Re-evaluates empty world economics (supply depot and waste depot) ● Full world economics - our 10 billion people have an affect on the ecosystem as it has an affect on us interconnected so depend on each other. ● Laws of thermodynamics to study ecology ● No endless growth ● Technological fixes aren’t endless ● Steady state economy believer Basic Concepts in Economics: Growth vs Development ● Growth quantitative increase in size/production ● Development qualitative - increase in value/ quality of goods/services S.D = increase in quality without quantity. Requires well being attached to humans and all of the biosphere. Capital: Supply of resources - wealth for production of more wealth Natural capital - eco.services and natural resources Neoclassical mentality - capital can be substituted for natural as long as the total amount remains unchanged. Scarcity of natural resources raises prices reducing demand encouraging technology to innovate. - weak sustainability (human-made cap can substitute natural resources). Ecological economy : ● Natural capital is the limiting factor ● Strong sustainability ● Intergenerational equity

Herman Daly Example - marine fisheries. If fish are in decline you cannot add more boats and more nets to restore the quantity of catches or obtain the original quantity of wealth (natural capital of fish). Alaska’s GDP arose from Exxon Valdez Oil spill. The most economically productive person is a cancer patient who writes their car on the way to see a divorce lawyer. GDP does not measure well being and distinguish between pollutive and regenerative activities. IESEW (Index of sustainable economic welfare) GPI (genuine process indicator) Flaws in the growth model: Growth occurs in affluent countries and only affects the richest in those countries. If people's income rose equally, no one’s relative income would rise (relative happiness remains constant). Happy Planet Index is a measure of Happiness and Gross domestic happiness Externalities are not valued - cost that is external to the entity creating the damage.

“we count consumption of natural capital...as if it were income rather than capital drawdown—a colossal accounting error” (Randers 2012, 75) For a timber company they calculate the number of board feet not the habitat value/flood control services. Yangtze river flooding 1994 left 15 million homeless and $26 billion loss. Subsidies keep market prices lower. Perverse subsidies harm the economy and the environment. The upshot of constant growth is physically impossible - we must reach a state of dynamic balance. Reconfiguring the growth model: ● Growth has become a paradigm ● Circular economy ● Decoupling is increasing in growth without environmental impact ● We require better eco-labelling schemes Pollution ought to be more costly than green alternatives through environmental tax and trading schemes.

Tax things we don’t want instead of want - labour > carbon emissions, pollution, resource depletion Failing States: ● ● ●

In the process of breaking down and disintegrating Starving people cannot make ecosystem preservation a priority when needing to stay alive Armed conflict = extreme destruction of habitat

Index of failed states: ● ●

Out of 120 - score of 120 is failed in every category Characteristics of a failed state

Social: Demographic pressure, human flight (professors/high up individuals), floods of refugees, entrenched patterns of group grievances. Economical: ● ●

Great societal disparity of wealth Steep economic decline.

Rwanda 800,000 murdered: “the

genocide may have been driven by hatred, but it was set into motion by hunger” (Steffen 2006, 20). Political: Illegitimate government, poor deteriorating public services, widespread human rights violation, elite security apparatus, warring faction and outside intervention.

Who’s Land: Affluent countries buy up huge blocks/leases of land known as land grabbing in poorer countries. Done very confidentially. Occurs typically in food exporting countries to create even cheaper food prices. Land is often confiscated or bought at price for stakeholders who have contract signed before their permission. Leads to greater inequality and food insecurity. Absantee owners deforest and accelerate destruction because they are not inhabiting the land = increase ghg’s brown. Good Governance:

Social, Economical, Ecological + last dimension - good governance Any complex feedback loop requires transparency to make assessments and upgrade. Tax restructuring, value/prices based on true natural assets. The Commons: Tragedy of the Commons - Garrett Hardin Each reaps a benefit from adding more livestock. Overgrazing affects all the herdsmen. It’s actually a tragedy of an unmanaged commons. Common Pool Resources - shared by everyone, difficult to exclude but resources used by one person can decrease benefits to other users. A commons is a cpr + community + set of protocols to manage resources Some systems - community-managed works best and in other areas government jurisdiction works best....