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Life on earth is dependent on the environment. In the last fifty
years several concerns have arisen about human impact on the environment
and its continued ability to support us
All life on Earth, including our own, depends on the environment.
In global and cosmic terms we live in a narrow band of atmosphere
that surrounds the planet and survive on the product of an even
thinner skin on the surface of the globe. It is becoming increasingly
apparent that our activities are dependent on limited supplies of
air, water and resources, and that in using them we may be affecting
the environment of the planet itself. Several features of this relationship
between us and our environment are linked, including:
Population
Resources
- Are we running out?
- Can technology help?
- Food production
- Current food shortages
- Can we feed the world?
- Energy
- Current energy use
- What resources are available?
- Renewable energy
- Water
- Current world problems
- Trends in water use
- Managing resources in the future
Pollution
- Acid rain
- Depletion of the ozone layer
- Global Warming
Scarcity or Abundance? A Debate on the
Environment Norman Myers & Julian L Simon, W W Norton 1994
Worldwatch Instituute
http://www.worldwatch.org
World Energy Council
http://www.worldenergy.org/wec-geis/
International Food
Policy Research Institute
http://www.ifpri.org
Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change
http://www.ipcc.ch/
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"If present
growth trends in world population, industrialisation, pollution,
food production and
resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on
this planet will be reached sometime within the next 100 years.
The most probable result will be a sudden and uncontrollable
decline in both population and industrial capacity."
Limits to Growth
(1972) |
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"Pick
any measure of human welfare (for) any future year, and I'll
bet that that indicator shows improvement relative to the present."
Julian Simon (1994) |
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