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Fertile Crescent
- -900-4500 BCE
- -middle east
- -cradle of civilization
- -where agriculture started
- -able to domesticate plants and animals
- -hunting and gathering is really hard: you had to find prey and carry your hunting tools, kill prey and drag it back home
- -babies also slowed people down
- -overused resources:ecosystem collapsed because people assumed resources will always be there
- -Today; Dark red region, once green
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U.A.E(Palm islands)
- -3 palm islands and the world
- -the worst idea because nothing about it is sustainable
- -concept:make artificial islands as a resort to attract tourists
- -2003
- -islands have limited resources
- -you have to bring resources in
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Palm Islands:Waste
- -did not make provisions for waste management
- -putting artificial stuff into the body of water changes the natural way water behaves
- -changes how the global water circulation moves
- -changes weather pattern
- -changes sea life
- -the islands are sinking now
- -huge consequences but no pay off situation
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Why did Great Britain take over the world?
- -80,823 sq miles
- -island(9th largest)
- -smaller than state of Oregon
- -lots of lumber:built ships to find more
- -lots of arable land
- -lots of water
- -used it's nearby countries to take over the world
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Why not Australia?
-huge land mass but has little arable land(dry desert)
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Why not Greenland?
-little arable land:ice
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Why not Honshu?
- -only ll% arable
- -volcanic mountains
- -no natural resources except for fish
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British coal fields
- -used to cover the entire island
- -after world war I, most coal exports stopped, needed it for themselves
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Why do you need coal?
-need it to make iron and steel
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Why was the UK able to industrialize faster?
- -had coal and could get it easier
- -by selling coal, it was able to acquire money which gave them more resources to industrialize
- -sailed around world to learn from societies
- -built their own infrastructure by expanding wealth and taking other country's resources
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Why did British take over Belize?
-because they had trees
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To become industrialized, a country must
- -have strong infrastructure
- -education
- -healthcare
- -resources
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Sustainable development
- -can only happen whenenvironment,social and economic are balanced
- -too much emphasis on one of those fields and the country falls apart
- -the U.S is unbalanced
- -developed countries consume too much and developing countries consume too little, they need to consume more to be able to develop
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Sustainable living
- -takes effort and changing the mindset of people
- -European countries focus on this because they started using resources earlier than other countries
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Sustainable living : Developed Nation example
- -Spain(Victoria-Gasteiz)
- -600 yrs old city
- -installation of solar panels and solar voltaics
- -water effficiency
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Sustainable living: Developing nation example
- -Columbia (Bogota)
- -created more buses
- -took over bus system
- -buses were run by natural gases
- -put in more bicycle lanes
- -closed down highways certain days
- -certain days only bicycles could be on the road
- -Good things happened: people became closer and decreased crime
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Basics of a sustainable system
- -the ecosystem provides energy and resources
- -receives waste
- -a system(or community) cannot expand indefinitely
- -limited by resource availability
- -limited by tolerance to accept waste(water, air, natural or manufactured)
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Imbalance causes collapse
- -Easter Island used to have a very strong society but used all of its resources
- -whole population disappeared
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Wealth is acquired at the
- -expense of the environment
- -it does not have to be true, but historically it has been true
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Belize (Since Independence from UK)
- -started regrowing trees
- -leader in Central America in sustainable development
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Linear flow of Today's Industrial system
- 1. Unlimited resources
- -limited resources
- -wastes
- -environmental degradation
- 2. Mineral extraction
- 3. Production
- -powered by ceap fossil fuels
- 4. Consumption
- -conflicts
- 5. Unlimited waste
- 6. Ecosystem damage
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Effects of unbalanced ecosystem
- 1. Local effects
- -you can see
- 2. Regional effects
- -you can see over time
- 3. Global effects
- -what happens in one part of the world ultimately affects the other part of the world
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Chemicals
- -30,000 chemicals on the market today
- -1/3 are produced in quantities of 1,000 tons/yr
- -since 1993 less than 10 chemicals have been thoroughly tested for their impact on both humans and the environment
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Where do all the chemicals go?
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Ecological footprint
- -all human activity has an ecological footprint
- -more obvious in developed countries
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Exponential Growth since 1950
- 1. Population
- 2. Carbon dioxide concentration
- 3. Species Extinction
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