Planet Earth: A Closed or Open Ecosystem?

1. Changes in ecosystems have a more direct and brutal influence on human well-being among poor populations mostly in developing countries than among wealthy populations.

It has become a matter of urgency to balance the issues of development and environment so that the current generation hands over the earth to their future generation without any further damage to the environment. The development process of any kind should always be sustainable.

Sustainable development is a recent concept that has become important for a wide range of people and industries. Sustainable Development involves maintaining the current rate of development leaving suitable resources behind for later generations to continue to develop.

Sustainable development includes both the issues of environment and society and tries to strike the balance between the human being and the environment. Sustainable development means the integration of social, economic and environmental factors into planning, implementation and decision-making so as to ensure that development serves present and future generations;

2. In one page discuss the earth as an open and closed system

The Oxford dictionary defines a system as an “interrelated interacting artifacts that can work as a coherent entity.” A system consists of three basic elements:

 a functioning set of components,

 a flow of energy which powers them, and

 a process for the internal regulation of their functioning called feedback

Ecosystem - is a system that models relationships and interactions between the various biotic and abiotic components making up a community or organisms and their surrounding physical environment.

An example of a system is a car with its many parts which functions as unit. Processes that ...

... middle of paper ...

...uropean Environmental Policy and The Strategy “Europe 2020” . Regional Science Enquiry Journal, 04, 151-158.

Nebel, B. J. & Wright, R.T. 2002. Environmental Science: Toward a Sustainable Future, New Jersey, Prentice – Hall, Inc

National Research Council of the National Academies (NRC). (2006) Toxicity Testing for Assessment of Environmental Agents. The National Academies Press. Washington, DC.

National Research Council of the National Academies (NRC). (2007) Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century: A Vision and A Strategy. The National Academies Press. Washington, DC.

Nahman, A., Wise, R. & De Lange, W. 2009. Environmental and resource economics in South Africa: Status Quo and Lessons for Developing Countries. South African Journal of Science, 105, 350 -355.

Pope et al, 1991 The Essential A – Z guide to the Environment, Great Britain, Hodder and Stroughton.