Within nature things grow in size only to a certain point, look at the growth of a hamster, the weight of a hamster doubles each week from its birth until it reaches puberty. If this progress of growth continued after it matured, until it was 1 year old in age, we would be faced with a nine billion tonne hamster. Nature and its ecological systems grow and develop to a certain extent, yet economists and politicians believe the economy can have limitless growth. This is a fantasy. It is impossible to have limitless growth on a finite planet. Mankind’s obsession with a booming economy has overshadowed the concerns for sustainability within nature and is causing both environmental destruction and societal damage, as we push aside both the needs of underdeveloped countries and the needs of the environment. The capitalisation, in the western world in particular, causes degradation of nature and the natural resources from our surroundings, many of this destruction occurs in developing countries and the extensive growth of the Western’s economy is ultimately leading to the exhaustion of nature’s resources. By understanding how we measure a countries wealth we can ultimately see what impacts this has and overall see what we depend on, our economy or environment and resources. Possible solutions may arise and impossible means of how to continue.
A worldwide common measure of wealth, GDP, gross domestic product is a number which causes great concern amongst politicians and economists. A measure of only monetary transactions produces an impression that wealthy countries with strong capital, and a greater output than input of products are the countries on top. Not those which harvest the natural resources to create these products, or those th...
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6. Shiva, Vandana., (2013), “How economic growth has become anti-life”, The Guardian.com, 1 November, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/01/how-economic-growth-has-become-anti-life
7. TEEB – The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Local and Regional Policy Makers., (2010), “The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity”, Teeb Web, http://www.teebweb.org/wp-content/uploads/Study%20and%20Reports/Reports/Local%20and%20Regional%20Policy%20Makers/D2%20Report/TEEB_Local_Policy-Makers_Report.pdf
8. The New Economics Foundation (NEF)., (2014) “The Impossible Hamster”, NEF, 24 January, http://www.impossiblehamster.org/
9. Vivero Pol, Jose Luis., (2013) “Why Food Should be a Commons not a Commodity”, Our World Brought to you by United Nations University, 16 October, http://ourworld.unu.edu/en/why-food-should-be-a-commons-not-a-commodity
Roberts believes that “food is a solution, a cause for joy and positive energy” (Roberts, page 18). Most of the time, it is more costly to waste the food than to use the food as a tool, which can bring new opportunities. As the example he provides in the book, Will Allen, a gardener from the US, uses spent grain as an opportunity to make compost for sale and to heat his own greenhouses using the heat generated from the composting process (Roberts, page 21). This way, he has also helped find an effective way to dispose of used food rather than treating it as trash which is actually not cheap to manage. Hence, Roberts concludes that there are so many hidden resources in the world, which can be used to work with food to create opportunities and to benefit the society, economy and environment while saving money (Roberts, page
Here one of the continuous arguments is that Earth’s support do not only consist the number of people in the earth, but also the features of economics, environment and culture. Cohen takes into perspective also the economic growth and takes critical position considering its inconsistency. He describes that global economic system does not take into notion depletion of unowned stocks, their environmental and social costs and ignorance of human need. Growth of population also has many environmental impacts. He argues that human activity is closely linked to environmental problems, and when population growth is fast, the environmental problems get worse. He brings up the issue of trade-offs, for example trade-offs among burying municipal wastes. In his opinion, environmental vulnerability increases as humans move into cities and consume more. Third negative feature of population growth according to Cohen is cultural implosion. Due to migration and technology the rural and urban regions have shrunk the world, bringing cultures into contact and into conflict. He thinks that this cultural cohesion has raised problems on employment, cultural conflicts, gender inequality and distressing income gaps. Cohen says that these problems put aside also issues concerning the negative effects of population growth to environment. It is interesting to read about the important factor of regulating population. He says that it is hard to find solutions to this, and also highlights that the time is short for correcting our
Gupta, A. "Stuffed & Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System." War Resisters League. N.p., Dec. 2009. Web. 04 Dec. 2013.
The ecosystems around the world are vital aspects of our everyday lives. Without the many resources and materials we harvest or use, life as we know it would be drastically different. In modern society, money is prioritized over essential benefits from nature. Due to this unfortunate truth, the stability of the environment has decreased on a global scale. Several of these issues include pollution, destruction of habitats, and causing species to go extinct due to events such as overfishing. Another human-caused problem is deforestation, particularly in the Amazon Rainforest.
...hrow off the balance of the ecosystem. Different marine biodiversity requires different types of ways to conserve them, some need government and some do not. Depending on the different types of technology of public goods supplied, there are different ways to and different methods to preserve the marine biodiversity. We have looked at the different types of externalities that are associated with impure public goods (in this case marine biodiversity). We also looked at the three types of technology of public good supplies and see why it affects marine biodiversity. Lastly, we have discussed the incentives to conserve marine biodiversity, both private solutions and public solutions. To put it briefly, “wildlife exploitation and conservation involves various costs and benefits, which should all be taken into account to achieve an optimal outcome.” (Bulte, 1)
There are many problems confronting our global food system. One of them is that the food is not distributed fairly or evenly in the world. According “The Last Bite Is The World’s Food System Collapsing?” by Bee Wilson, “we are producing more food—more grain, more meat, more fruits and vegetables—than ever before, more cheaply than ever before” (Wilson, 2008). Here we are, producing more and more affordable food. However, the World Bank recently announced that thirty-three countries are still famine and hungers as the food price are climbing. Wilson stated, “despite the current food crisis, last year’s worldwide grain harvest was colossal, five per cent above the previous year’s” (Wilson, 2008). This statement support that the food is not distributed evenly. The food production actually increased but people are still in hunger and malnutrition. If the food were evenly distributed, this famine problem would’ve been not a problem. Wilson added, “the food economy has created a system in w...
Boucher, Douglas M. The Paradox of Plenty: Hunger in a Bountiful World. Oakland, California: Food First Books, 1999.
The human population growth rate is an alarming issue that brings with it irreversible consequences, that will likely effect the way of life for future generations to come. With the serious incline in population statistics comes catastrophic processes such as global warming and deforestation that have major ‘knock on’ ramifications. It’s issues such as these that need to be considered when we think about the growth of the human population, and we must take into account why these issues are occurring. We must also explore the options available to us that may assist in limiting the problems, or eliminating them all together, to provide a better place, not only for us in existence now, but also those who will walk this earth in the future decades and centuries to come.
Tietenberg, Thomas. Environmental and Natural Resource Economics. Addison Wesley: New York, 2003. pp. 561. ISBN 0-201-77027-X, pp. 7-11.
Economic growth and social development are complementary and they have a close but complex relationship. With the economic growth, it is clear that there are many environmental concerns in today’s society. Air, water, and land pollution have worsened; the environment of wild animals and plants has been seriously damaged; many species are threatened with extinction, deforestation and over-exploitation of mineral resources.
I have chosen the topic of food waste and the impact on the environment. I will discuss the ridiculous amount of food that is wasted each year and the staggering amount of waste that could be avoided just by planning ahead, and purchasing from farmer’s markets and avoiding the main stream supermarkets who set such high standards on the aesthetic of produce that tonnes are wasted for no reason other then shape.
Ranganathan, J. et al. (2008). Ecosystem Services a Guide for Decision Makers. World Resources Institute.
The ability to create an action plan that would provide enough “sustainability food for the future” gives off a very powerful message that we must change the way we perceive the world around us. To start viewing the earth as an “island” the natural resources the earth provides are slowly deteriorating right before our eyes. Population growth has exceeded the earth's capacity to sustain the growing demand for food. There have been warnings that seemed like “whispers” but now the earth, our island is speaking “loudly” and now is showing the damage our carelessness has caused. The Political of Sustainable Consumption and Production (PSC) has become more involved in the growing issues surrounding food consumption and production “because of its impact on the environment, individual and public health, social cohesion, and the economy (Reisch L., 2014).
Though several people see large rapidly growing populations in developing regions as the primary culprit in environmental decline, we need to focus on the costly environmental outcomes of overconsumption among the gradually increasing populations of the developed nations. These differing emphases naturally point to fundamentally different solutions: slow population increase in less-developed nations or change destructive consumption and production patterns in the more-developed nations. This debate, however, assumes a one-step answer to the complex problems created by population pressures on the environment. Both population size and consumption ...
Sustainability Revolution: Earth, the planet we call home, is a complex system made of interdependent parts and pieces of life that are constantly changing. Earth’s planetary system has maintained a balance of dynamic equilibrium—it has been sustainable— since its beginnings about 4.5 billion years ago. This balance, however, has been progressively disrupted by us—humans— especially during the last few decades. Mother Nature has provided us with natural resources and the habitat for all species to sustain life on our planet. Since the industrial revolution, we have maintained a belief that these resources are infinite, and that economic growth and our attempts to improve our standards of living can continue forever. All forms of human economic