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ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT ASSIGNMENT – 1 1) Relevance of Environmental Management course in Management curriculum. Environmental management course is very much required in the B-school curriculum. Environmental management can be so important because our environment gives a part of what we are whether our culture are dirty people or clean, it is also nice to live in a nice, clean place which is not polluted. It is also important to get people live in that place if a certain city, country is polluted no one will think of living there and visitors will have a negative point of view on that place.
Environmental management is not, as the phrase could suggest the management of the environment as such, but rather the management of interaction by the modern human societies with, and impact upon the environment. The three main issues that affect managers are those involving politics (networking), programs (projects) and resources (money, facilities, etc. ). The need for environmental management can be viewed from a variety of perspectives. A more common philosophy and impetus behind environmental management is the concept of carrying capacity.
Simply put, carrying capacity refers to the maximum number of organisms a particular resource can sustain. Environmental management is therefore not the conservation of the environment solely for the environment’s sake, but rather the conservation of the environment for humankind’s sake. Environmental management involves the management of all components of the bio-physical environment, both living (biotic) and non-living (abiotic). This is due to the interconnected and network of relationships amongst all living species and their habitats.
The environment also involves the relationships of the human environment, such as the social, cultural and economic environment with the bio-physical environment. As with all management functions, effective management tools, standards and systems are required. An ‘environmental management standard or system or protocol attempts to reduce environmental impact as measured by some objective criteria. The ISO 14001 standard is the most widely used standard for environmental risk management and is closely aligned to the European Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS).
As a common auditing standard, the ISO 19011 standard explains how to combine this with quality management. The environmental damage already inflicted due to alarming on-going population explosion, rapid movement towards urbanization and industrialization, increasing needs of energy and fast scientific and technological advancement cannot be reversed unless there is collective thinking, will and effort. These call for public awareness and participation for bringing about an attitudinal change and finally restricting further damage to the environment.
Effective implementation of environmental management and conservation programmes depends on education, awareness raising and training in the relevant areas. Without an understanding of how to conserve natural resources and the compelling need to do so, few people would be motivated to participate actively in programmes on environmental conservation, Environment education and awareness thus assume critical importance. (2) Why do managers need to study Environmental Management?
During the past five to ten years, increased public and government attention has been drawn to the harmful effects on the environment of business and industry. Consequently, legislation and encouragement in the form of incentives have acted to pressurize industry to review its practices and processes in connection with their effects on the environment. As a result, environmental technology as a specialist area of knowledge and skill has emerged. National capacities, particularly in scientific education and training, need to be strengthened.
This will enable governments, employers and workers to attain their environmental and development objectives by facilitating the transfer and assimilation of new environmentally sound, socially acceptable and appropriate technology and know-how. With this development there is an increasing need for specialists in this field, for technologists in other areas to be able to put into practice environmental applications, for assessors of the environmental impacts of specific technological developments and for general managers with a knowledge and understanding of environmental management.
Thus, there is now an increasing need for environmental education and training in clean production to be applied to a vast array of industrial processes and applications. Managers need to learn environmental management in order to be aware of the hazards that are created by the various industries. Managers need to be aware of their surroundings so that they can make environment friendly products in order to sustain in the market. It is very essential for managers to know about our environmental conditions especially now when the world is at a danger of global warming.
Managers can collectively help our earth get over the harmful effects or prolong the harmful effects thus making our lives considerably safer. 3) Why Copenhagen submits acquired so much importance? The 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, commonly known as the Copenhagen Summit, was held at the Bella Center in Copenhagen, Denmark, between 7 December and 18 December. The conference was preceded by the Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions scientific conference, which took place in March 2009 and was also held at the Bella Center.
The negotiations began to take a new format when in May 2009 UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon attended the World Business Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen, organized by the Copenhagen Climate Council (COC), where he requested that COC councilors attend New York’s Climate Week at the Summit on Climate Change on 22 September and engage with heads of government on the topic of the climate problem. The Copenhagen Accord was drafted by the US, China, India, Brazil and South Africa on December 18, and judged a “meaningful agreement” by the United States government.
It was “recognized”, but not “agreed upon”, in a debate of all the participating countries the next day, and it was not passed unanimously. The document recognized that climate change is one of the greatest challenges of the present and that actions should be taken to keep any temperature increases to below 2°C. The document is not legally binding and does not contain any legally binding commitments for reducing CO2 emissions. Leaders of industrialized countries, including Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, were pleased with this agreement but many leaders of other countries and non-governmental organizations were opposed to it.
During the conference some countries stated what actions they were proposing to take if a binding agreement was achieved. In the end, no such agreement was reached and the actions will instead be debated in 2010. Listing by country or political union. Sections in alphabetic order, table according to higher objectives. Australia To cut carbon emissions by 25% below 2000 levels by 2020 if the world agrees to an ambitious global deal to stabilize levels of CO2 to 450 ppm or lower. Canada To cut carbon emissions by 20% below 2006 levels by 2020.
This is equivalent to 3% below 1990 levels by 2020. China To cut CO2 emissions intensity by 40–45% below 2005 levels by 2020. European Union To cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30% below 1990 levels by 2020 if an international agreement is reached committing other developed countries and the more advanced developing nations to comparable emission reduction. India To cut carbon emissions intensity by 20–25% below 2005 levels by 2020. Japan To cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25% below 1990 levels by 2020. New Zealand
To reduce emissions between 10% to 20% below 1990 levels by 2020 if a global agreement is secured that limits carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-e) to 450 ppm and temperature increases to 2°C, effective rules on forestry, and New Zealand having access to international carbon markets. Norway To reduce carbon emissions by 30% below 1990 levels by 2020. On December 18 after a day of frantic negotiations between heads of state, it was announced that a “meaningful agreement” had been reached between the United States, China, India, South Africa, and Brazil.
It was reported that it was not yet clear whether the motion was unanimous, or what its legal implications are. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the US-backed climate deal as an “essential beginning”. It was unclear whether all 192 countries in attendance would also adopt the deal. The Copenhagen Accord recognizes the scientific case for keeping temperature rises below 2°C, but does not contain commitments for reduced emissions that would be necessary to achieve that aim.
One part of the agreement pledges US$ 30 billion to the developing world over the next three years, rising to US$ 100 billion per year by 2020, to help poor countries adapt to climate change. Earlier proposals that would have aimed to limit temperature rises to 1. 5°C and cut CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050 were dropped. An agreement was also reached that would set up a deal to reduce deforestation in return for cash from developed countries. The agreement made was non-binding but U. S. President Obama said that countries could show the world their achievements.
He said that if they had waited for a binding agreement, no progress would have been made. Analysis and aftermath Despite widely held expectations that the Copenhagen summit would produce a legally binding treaty, the conference was plagued by negotiating deadlock and the “Copenhagen Accord” is not legally enforceable. BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin attributed the failure of the summit to live up to expectations to a number of factors including the recent global recession and conservative domestic pressure in the US and China.
In the week following the end of the Copenhagen summit, carbon prices in the EU dropped to a six month low. However, some commentators consider that “the future of the UN’s role in international climate deals is now in doubt. What will be the impact if a deal is not made? • Believability: The Sustainability movement will have lost credibility. Maybe even beyond repair. • Encouraging the Skeptics: Climate Change skeptics and denouncers will feel encouraged and get an even larger audience despite the damning facts and science about Climate Change. An Uncertain Future: We are in deep trouble because we have lost the biggest and best chance to change our ways of limiting our carbon emissions. Just imagine how long and how much work it took to get everyone to the COP15 and this close to agreeing a common goal. The future will be very uncertain going forwards. This is OUR opportunity to change the way we take care of our planet and make smart climate decisions for a change. Will we choose to evolve in order to make smarter decisions for the future of our children or are we going to be the old selfish short term sighted humans that we currently are?
We have a decision to make and the time is now. And in my view this is not only about Climate Change but Sustainability as a whole. (4) Difference between weather and climate. The difference between weather and climate is a measure of time. Weather is what conditions of the atmosphere are over a short period of time, and climate is how the atmosphere “behaves” over relatively long periods of time. Weather is the day-to-day state of the atmosphere, and its short-term (minutes to weeks) variation. Popularly, weather is thought of as the combination of temperature, humidity, recipitation, cloudiness, visibility, and wind. We talk about the weather in terms of “What will it be like today? “, “How hot is it right now? “, and “When will that storm hit our section of the country? ” Climate is defined as statistical weather information that describes the variation of weather at a given place for a specified interval. In popular usage, it represents the synthesis of weather; more formally it is the weather of a locality averaged over some period (usually 30 years) plus statistics of weather extremes.
We talk about climate change in terms of years, decades or even centuries. Scientists study climate to look for trends or cycles of variability (such as the changes in wind patterns, ocean surface temperatures and precipitation over the equatorial Pacific that result in El Nino and La Nina), and also to place cycles or other phenomena into the bigger picture of possible longer term or more permanent climate changes. (5) Meaning of orography , topography Orography is the study of the formation and relief of mountains, and can more broadly include hills, and any part of a region’s elevated terrain.
Orography falls within the broader discipline of geomorphology. Orography has a major impact on global climate, for instance the orography of East Africa substantially determines the strength of the Indian monsoon. In geo-scientific models, such as general circulation model, orography defines the lower boundary of the model over land. When a river’s tributaries or settlements by the river are listed in ‘orographic sequence’, they are in order from the highest (nearest the source of the river) to the lowest or mainstem (nearest the mouth).
This method of listing tributaries is similar to the Strahler Stream Order where the headwater tributaries are listed as category = 1 Topography is the study of Earth’s surface shape and features or those of planets, moons, and asteroids. It is also the description of such surface shapes and features (especially their depiction in maps). The topography of an area can also mean the surface shape and features themselves. In a broader sense, topography is concerned with local detail in general, including not only relief but also vegetative and human-made features, and even local history and culture.
This meaning is less common in America, where topographic maps with elevation contours have made “topography” synonymous with relief. The older sense of topography as the study of place still has currency in Europe. For the purposes of this article, topography specifically involves the recording of relief or terrain, the three-dimensional quality of the surface, and the identification of specific landforms. This is also known as geomorphometry. In modern usage, this involves generation of elevation data in electronic form.
It is often considered to include the graphic representation of the landform on a map by a variety of techniques, including contour lines, Hypsometric tints, and relief shading. (6) What is meant by eco system and ecology? The term ecosystems refer to the combined chemical and biological components of an environment. An ecosystem is generally an area within the natural environment in which physical (abiotic) factors of the environment, such as rocks and soil, function together along with interdependent (biotic) organisms, such as plants and animals, within the same habitat.
Ecosystems can be permanent or temporary. Ecosystems usually form a number of food webs. Ecology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the interactions between organisms and their environment. Ecology is also the study of ecosystems. Ecosystems describe the web or network of relations among organisms at different scales of organization. Since ecology refers to any form of biodiversity, ecologists can conduct research on the smallest bacteria to the global flux of atmospheric gases that are regulated by photosynthesis and respiration as organisms breath in and out of the biosphere.
Ecology is a recent discipline that emerged from the natural sciences in the late 19th century. Ecology is not synonymous with environment, environmentalism, or environmental science. (7) What is meant by Latitude, Longitude and mention the latitudinal / longitudinal boundary of India. Latitude values indicate the angular distance between the Equator and points north or south of it on the surface of the Earth A line connecting all the points with the same latitude value is called a line of latitude.
This term is usually used to refer to the lines that represent values in whole degrees. All lines of latitude are parallel to the Equator, and they are sometimes also referred to as parallels. Parallels are equally spaced. There are 90 degrees of latitude going north from the Equator, and the North Pole is at 90 degrees N. There are 90 degrees to the south of the Equator, and the South Pole is at 90 degrees S. When the directional designators are omitted, northern latitudes are given positive values and southern latitudes are given negative values.
Lines of longitude, called meridians, run perpendicular to lines of latitude, and all pass through both poles. Each longitude line is part of a great circle. There is no obvious 0-degree point for longitude, as there is for latitude. By international agreement, the meridian line through Greenwich, England, is currently given the value of 0 degrees of longitude; this meridian is referred to as the Prime Meridian. Longitude values are indicate the angular distance between the Prime Meridian and points east or west of it on the surface of the Earth. The Earth is divided equally into 360 degrees of longitude.
There are 180 degrees of longitude to the east of the Prime Meridian; when the directional designator is omitted these longitudes are given positive values. There are also 180 degrees of longitude to the west of the Prime Meridian; when the directional designator is omitted these longitudes are given negative values. The 180-degree longitude line is opposite the Prime Meridian on the globe, and is the same going either east or west India lies to the north of the equator between 8°4′ and 37°6′ north latitude and 68°7′ and 97°25′ east longitude (8) What is meant by sustainable development?
Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for future generations The term was used by the Brundtland Commission which coined what has become the most often-quoted definition of sustainable development as development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own need Sustainable development ties together concern for the carrying capacity of natural systems with the social challenges facing humanity.
The field of sustainable development can be conceptually broken into three constituent parts: environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and sociopolitical sustainability (9) What are the non-renewable and renewable energy resources ? A renewable resource is something that is being continually replaced faster than we use it up. • Solar energy is considered a renewable source of energy • Wind Power • Water Power (Hydro-electricity from dammed rivers, tidal streams and ocean waves) • Thermal Power from the earth (Geothermal: Using the earth’s heat to generate electricity) • Thermal Power from the ocean Biomass, the burning of plant material, is a renewable resource. Even though the burning puts carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, it also prevents a much greater amount of methane being released by the decomposing vegetation, so it is rated as positive. A non-renewable resource is something that is not being replaced as we consume it. • Oil is a good example of a non-renewable resource. It is used to make gasoline and other fuels, as well as plastics, such as grocery bags. We are using billions of gallons of oil every year, but it takes millions of years to be replace.
We are using up oil much much faster than it is being produced. Once we use up oil from the earth, it’s gone. We can’t wait millions of years for some more. • Coal is non-renewable. • Peat is non-renewable. • Uranium is non-renewable. • Trees are often considered a renewable resource, but that is only true in certain circumstances. If a forest is well managed, than the trees can grow back faster than we cut them down. However, in many parts of the world (including in the US), forests are being cut much much faster than they regrow, and this is therefore not considered renewable. 10) Greenhouse gases and its importance in Global warming • Greenhouse gases are gases in an atmosphere that absorb and emit radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. The main greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. Greenhouse gases greatly affect the temperature of the Earth; without them, Earth’s surface would be on average about 33 °C (59 °F) colder than at present.
In addition to the main greenhouse gases listed above, other greenhouse gases include sulphur hexafluoride, hydro fluorocarbons and per fluorocarbons. Some greenhouse gases are not often listed. For example, nitrogen trifluoride has a high global warming potential (GWP) but is only present in very small quantities. • Its importance in Global warming is that while many greenhouse gases occur naturally and are needed to create the greenhouse effect that keeps the Earth warm enough to support life, human use of fossil fuels is the main source of excess greenhouse gases.
By driving cars, using electricity from coal-fired power plants, or heating our homes with oil or natural gas, we release carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. Deforestation is another significant source of greenhouse gases, because fewer trees means less carbon dioxide conversion to oxygen. • During the 150 years of the industrial age, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by 31 percent. Over the same period, the level of atmospheric methane has risen by 151 percent, mostly from agricultural activities such as raising cattle and growing rice also. As the concentration of greenhouse gases grows, more heat is trapped in the atmosphere and less escapes back into space. This increase in trapped heat changes the climate and alters weather patterns, which may hasten species extinction, influence the length of seasons, cause coastal flooding, and lead to more frequent and severe storms. Thus due to all these consequences global warming occurs. (11) Glacial melting and its relevance to climate change • A glacier can be described as a huge block of ice that has formed from falling snow. Glaciers contain almost all of the fresh water present on earth.
Since 1850, glaciers around the world have been slowly melting, affecting the viability of fresh water in a variety of ways, so the phenomenon of melting glaciers is not a new one. Every glacier melts, the level of melting depending on the surrounding temperature. In most places containing glaciers across the globe, snow falls during the cold seasons and will get compressed into ice with further snowing. When the temperature does get a bit warmer the upper fresh layers of snow partly formed ice begin melting and flowing down into streams and rivers. Many places on earth depend on this melted fresh water for survival.
The melted snow provides fresh and pure drinking water, water for agriculture, and in many nations this flow of water is converted into electricity without polluting the atmosphere. • However, since 1980 a significant global warming has led to a dramatic increase in the speed of glacial retreat. Many glaciers have completely vanished, and the existence of a great number of the remaining glaciers in the world is severely threatened. The disappearance of glaciers in the Andes of South America and the Himalayas in Asia will eventually have disastrous effects on the water supplies.
An acceleration in the rate of retreat since 1995 may foreshadow a rise in sea level, which could have a potentially dramatic effect on coastal regions worldwide. The loss of glaciers not only directly causes landslides, flash floods and glacial lake overflow, but also increases annual variation in water flows in rivers. Glacier runoff declines in the summer as glaciers decrease in size, this decline is already observable in several regions. Glaciers retain water on mountains in high precipitation years, since the snow cover accumulating on glaciers protects the ice from melting.
In warmer and drier years, glaciers offset the lower precipitation amounts with a higher melt water input. • Global melting relevance to climate change is that glaciers and ice sheets are archives of climate-change data. Each winter, new snow falls on the surface of the glacier. Whatever snow does not melt during the following summer will be buried by more snow the next winter. This “old snow” is called firn. The frozen water molecules and air trapped in the firn record the chemistry and temperature of the water vapor from which the snow formed and the atmosphere from which it fell.
As each year’s firn layer is buried, that climate record is buried as well. The firn layers move down from the surface and are compressed as new layers pile on top. Eventually, the firn becomes dense, glacier ice. Most of the air has been squeezed out of the ice, but a few bubbles remain. When glaciologists drill down through the ice, they are drilling backward in time; consequently, ice cores drilled from glaciers and ice sheets reveal both regional and global climate trends. The ice core reveals that global atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), methane (CH 4 ), and dust content rise and fall as global temperature and ice volume change. When the climate is warm, atmospheric CO 2 and CH 4 concentrations are large, and when climate is cool, those gases are less abundant. Atmospheric dust concentration changes in an opposite sense, indicating that warm, interglacial atmospheres are relatively moist, whereas in glacial times, the global atmosphere is relatively dry. These records also show that the present-day CO 2 level is larger than it was in the past warm times between glaciations.
A tropical glacier are melting fast as climate warms, and as that happens, their contribution to water resources decreases, their contribution to global sea level increases, and a valuable climate archive is lost. • 13. Vertical density profile of atmosphere and its impact on various processes • The vertical distribution of air density in the atmosphere follows from the distribution of the pressure and temperature. Indeed since pressure varies so strongly in the vertical, whereas temperature variations are quite modest on the absolute scale, the vertical profiles of air density and pressure must be very similar.
In fact the density profile shows a nearly exponential decay of density with increasing height which is never very far from 16 km throughout the troposphere. (12) Vertical Thermal Structure of the Atmosphere and its relevance to atmospherical processes The atmosphere has a vertical thermal structure as well as a vertical pressure structure. A. The atmosphere has been divided into layers according to the behavior of temperatures in their relationship to altitude. [pic] B. The lowest layer is the troposphere, the layer in which we live and in which our weather is experienced.
In fact, “troposphere” means the realm of mixing, because air is vigorously mixed and stirred here by storms, convection, and wind systems. 1. It extends up roughly 10 km 2. It is characterized by an inverse relationship between air temperatures and altitude: Temperatures drop as you climb up in the troposphere. 3. The tropopause is the top of the troposphere: The troposphere stops here. 4. At the tropopause, temperatures stop dropping with gains in altitude. C. The stratosphere is the next major division. 1. It extends from the tropopause up to about 50 km. 2.
It is characterized by a direct relationship between temperatures and altitude. a. The top of the stratosphere is called the stratopause, another isothermal belt. b. By the time you get to the stratopause, temperatures have warmed up to freezing or close to it c. This warming with altitude has to do with the presence of the ozone layer in the stratosphere. D. The mesosphere is the layer above the stratopause. 1. It extends up from the stratopause to about 80 km. 2. It is characterized by resumption of an inverse relationship between temperature and altitude:
Temperatures drop as you climb. 3. That low temperature is attained at the mesopause, which tops the mesosphere. E. The thermosphere is the last thermally defined layer of the atmosphere. 1. It is characterized by a direct relationship between temperature and altitude. 2. The thermosphere can be further subdivided: a. The lower thermosphere is called the ionosphere. i. The ionosphere extends from roughly 80 km (50 mi. ) to somewhere around 300 to 600 km out (~185 – 375 mi. ). ii. It is the first line of defense for Earth against extremely short wave radiation.
These particles are ionized atoms, that is, atoms with missing electrons, including isolated protons and alpha-particles (two protons with two neutrons and no electrons). iii. These rays and really high energy, fast-moving particles smash into the few molecules of the ionosphere with such force that they strip them of electrons, turning them into ions, or electrically-imbalanced atoms, too. iv. The ions, with their electrical imbalances, are drawn by the earth’s magnetic field and align themselves with that field’s lines of force. b.
The exosphere is the second, outer layer of the thermosphere i. The exosphere lies beyond about 500-1,000 km ii. It is characterized by increasing hydrogen and helium content. (14) Water holding capacity of air and its relation to atmospheric temperature The water-holding capacity of air is determined by temperature. As seen in the diagram, the capacity increases dramatically with increasing temperature. [pic] The water holding capacity increases by about 8% per degree Celsius increase in temperature. The moisture holding capacity of air varies with temperature.
If there is no change in the total moisture content during a 24 hour period, relative humidity will increase at night. The highest readings occur about sunrise which explains damp lawns and fogged car windows. Relative humidity decreases as the day heats up because warm air has a greater capacity to contain moisture than cold air. The ability of the air to hold moisture is dependent upon the temperature. As the temperature of the air increases, its moisture holding capacity also rises; more moisture must be added to reach saturation at a higher temperature. Moisture in the air is typically expressed in terms of relative humidity.
This is simply a ratio of the actual moisture in the air to the total amount of moisture the air can hold at a given temperature. Warmer air has greater moisture holding capacity than cooler air. (15) Role of inversion in the stagnation of pollution in a locality When air movement ceases, stagnation can occur, with a resultant build up of atmospheric pollutants in localized regions. Although the temperature of air relatively near the earth’s surface normally decreases with increasing altitude, certain atmospheric conditions can result in the opposite condition- increasing temperature with increasing altitude.
Such conditions are characterized by high atmospheric stability and are known as temperature inversions. Because they limit the vertical circulation of air, temperature inversions result in air stagnation and the trapping of air pollutants in localized areas. Inversions can occur in several ways. In a sense, the whole atmosphere is inverted by the warm stratosphere, which floats atop the troposphere with relatively little mixing. An inversion can form from the collision of a warm air mass (warm front) with a cold air mass (or cold front).
The warm air mass overrides the cold air mass in the frontal area, producing the inversion. Radiation inversions are likely to form in still air at night when the earth is no longer receiving solar radiations. The air closest to the earth cools faster than the air higher in the atmosphere, which remains warm, thus less dense. Furthermore, cooler surface air tends to flow into the valleys at night, where it is overlain by warmer, less dense air. Subsidence Inversions, often accompanied by radiation inversions, can become very widespread.
These inversions can form in the vicinity of a surface high pressure area when high-level air subsides to take the place of surface air blowing out of the high pressure zone. The subsiding air is warmed as it compresses and can remain as a warm layer several hundred meters above ground level. A marine inversion is produced during the summer months when cool air laden with moisture from the ocean blows onshore and under warm, dry inland air. Hence, inversions contribute significantly to the effects of air pollution because they prevent the mixing of air pollutants, thus keeping the pollutants in one area.
This not only prevents the pollutants from escaping, but also acts like a container in which additional pollutants accumulate. Furthermore, in the case of secondary pollutants formed by atmospheric chemical processes, such as photochemical smog, the pollutants may be kept together such that they react with each other and with sunlight to produce even more noxious products. 16. How economic growth becomes environmental concern ? Economies are driven by energy, and energy extraction and use are currently having disastrous effects upon the environment.
Without agreements that limit the use of fossil fuels or control their emissions, the environmental degradation that has defined the twentieth century will continue into the twenty-first. If we limit fossil fuels without a transition to cleaner energy sources, the global economy will will not have enough power to keep growth curves positive. While President Obama stated, “Our generation’s response to this challenge will be judged by history, for if we fail to meet it, boldly, swiftly, and together, we risk consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe”.
Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for future generations. Environmental sustainability is the process of making sure current processes of interaction with the environment are pursued with the idea of keeping the environment as pristine as naturally possible based on ideal-seeking behavior. Consumption of renewable resources |State of environment |Sustainability | |More than nature’s ability to replenish |Environmental degradation |Not sustainable | |Equal to nature’s ability to replenish |Environmental equilibrium |Steady state economy | |Less than nature’s ability to replenish |Environmental renewal |Environmentally sustainable |
An “unsustainable situation” occurs when natural capital (the sum total of nature’s resources) is used up faster than it can be replenished. Sustainability requires that human activity only uses nature’s resources at a rate at which they can be replenished naturally. Inherently the concept of sustainable development is intertwined with the concept of carrying capacity. Theoretically, the long-term result of environmental degradation is the inability to sustain human life. Such degradation on a global scale could imply extinction for humanity. 17.
Why we say that mushrooming of high-raised buildings and influx of automobile boom in our roads are adding the global warming impact to our region. .Global warming is real. It is not the result of a natural climatic adjustment. It is a quantifiable set of environmental results that are in addition to any normal changes in climate. That is why the effects of global warming have catastrophic potential. The primary cause of global warming is Carbon Dioxide emissions. CO2 is being pumped into our atmosphere at an insane pace; 8 billion tons of CO2 entered the air last year.
Of course some of this is due to natural activity such as volcanic eruptions and people breathing. But the Earth is equipped to easily absorb those into the normal regenerative process. No, the beginning of global warming was caused by fossil fuels being burned and emitting plenty of CO2. 12% of all CO2 released into the atmosphere is related to buildings. This figure varies from one source to the next. Some place the percentage of emissions from buildings as high as 33%. What most of these figures do not address is the actual cause of the CO2 emissions.
In newly constructed buildings, production of materials used in building and energy used during construction are sited as the cause of carbon dioxide emissions. In existing buildings the CO2 created by the energy upkeep of the building is the root of the emissions quotient. The general comparison is that buildings consume energy in the way that cars burn fuel. But the pollutants created in providing power for heating, air-conditioning, lights and other usage in buildings has already been factored.
Honestly this double billing accounting is more the product of auto manufacturers looking to point the blame for global warming away from gas guzzling cars. The United States. Though Americans make up just 4 percent of the world’s population produce 25 percent of the carbon dioxide pollution from fossil-fuel burning — by far the largest share of any country. In fact, the United States emits more carbon dioxide than China, India and Japan, combined. 18. What is the role of forest in the rainfall activity in a region?
Forests covering Mediterranean surface play a vital role in the regulation of water cycle and they provide quality water to the society. However, forests are great consumers of water as well, even though some of the water returns to the atmosphere. It is therefore necessary to understand the relationship between both of these natural resources in order to optimize the water management through an appropriate forest management, ensuring their sustainability Rainfall is generally believed to be a result of monsoonal effects.
International evidence and simulation models suggest two conditions under which forests generate rainfall. First, montane forests in very high altitudes (2000 m+) can harvest clouds. Second, deforestation of vast tracts of land, i. e. , more than 250,000 km2 could reduce the probability of rainfall from water cycling. An investigation of the influence of forests on rainfall in depleted forest areas in Thailand was carried out by Tangtham and Sutthipibul (1988). They compared the changes in average regional rainfall with changes in forest cover in the northeast between 1951 and 1984.
The periods indicate that rainfall has tended to decrease significantly as forest areas decrease, while the number of rainy days significantly increased. Rainfall is also affected when forest-clearing fires create air pollution and release tiny particles, known as aerosols, into the atmosphere. While aerosols can both heat and cool the air, depending on their size, shape, and color, high concentrations of biomass-burning aerosols directly impact local climate by increasing cloud formation but decreasing rainfall.