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Natural Environment
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Laura Michelle Ziegler, Miguel Morín Santos,
Vanesa Canaves, Irene Beltrán Morales, Noah Matteo Juris
Introduction
We're in a planetary emergency situation. The political and economic system based on maximum production, the excessive consumption of "developed" societies, the unlimited exploitation of resources and profit as the only criterion for good economic progress is unsustainable.
A limited planet cannot indefinitely supply the resources that this exploitation would require. This is why the idea has been imposed that we have to go to a real development, which allows the improvement of the living conditions of all humanity, but compatible with a rational exploitation of the planet, which takes care of the environment, puts an end to the unjust distribution of wealth, with extreme poverty. It is called sustainable development.
Until the second half of the 20th century, our planet seemed immense, practically without limits, and the effects of human activities were evident only in certain areas. However, in recent decades many problems (increase in the greenhouse effect, destruction of the ozone layer, acid rain, global warming, depletion of resources, population explosion, unsustainable imbalances, destructive conflicts, loss of biological and cultural diversity) have acquired a global character that has turned "the situation of the world" into a direct object of concern.
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Natural environment and human development
Natural environment and the human development.
A limited growth in a limited world.
For a long time, humanity has considered the environment only as a source of resources that have provided us with well-being and have achieved a spectacular improvement in the standard of living of some countries. The consequences of the waste of resources and the alteration of natural cycles that many human activities entail, are causing serious impacts on the environment that have shown that current development models are unsustainable and need to be reviewed. At the same time, many of the actions taken by humanity aggravate the risks that many natural phenomena can pose to life and human activities.
To better understand the relations between humanity and nature, it is necessary to know and understand the concept of natural resource, being aware that there is something that we are part of, something that affects our activities (environmental impacts) and that, in turn, affects us (consequences of impacts, environmental risks, ...).
Types of impacts
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- Local. They are specific and affect a very defined area of the territory: air pollution in large cities, discharge of polluted water that affects only a specific area of the course of a river, construction of a road in a natural reserve.
- Regional. They extend over large regions and can affect several countries: severe pollution of the waters of a river, black tides, acid rain, and so on.
- Global. They extend over large geographical areas or can affect the entire Planet, making them priority issues in international environmental policy debates. .
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Risks and environmental impacts
CLASSIFICATION
- Natural Risks: Are those that derive from natural processes. Thus natural phenomena such as wind, rain, sun, etc. are indispensable resources, however, from some limits become risks (hurricanes, floods, skin cancer, ...).
- Anthropic Hazards: Caused by human activity. These risks have a lower impact than natural ones, but can last for many years and constitute a threat to human health and ecosystems due to the presence of toxic substances, flammable or explosive substances and carcinogenic substances.
- Mixed Risks: These are natural risks caused or enhanced by anthropogenic action. For this reason they are also called induced natural risks. Obvious examples are the risk of soil erosion, favored by deforestation and agricultural tillage, or the risk of subsidence promoted by underground mining or drought, since it can be intensified by desertification caused by human activity.
MEASURES TO TAKE
- Predictive measures: They aim to indicate in advance, where, when and with what intensity a certain event is going to occur in order to reduce the harmful effects as much as possible.
- Preventive measures: are aimed at reducing or avoiding the damage caused by the different risks. At the same time it can be of two types:
Structural or non structural.
- Corrective measures: These are measures aimed at mitigating the damage caused. They can be structural (lava containment dikes, etc.) or functional (action on the population on the part.
- Changes in land use: agriculture, livestock, industry, deforestation, urbanization, infrastructure construction.
- Pollution: emission of substances into the atmosphere, dumping into water, waste into the soil, noise, thermal changes, radiation.
- Changes in biodiversity (variety of living beings): introduction of foreign species (typical of other places), trade in protected species, abusive hunting and fishing.
- Over exploitation: overgrazing (number of livestock heads greater than the territory's capacity to generate pasture), massive extraction of natural resources (such as wood, fossil fuels and minerals), abusive hunting and fishing.
- Abandonment of human activities: by migrating to the city, peasants abandon their lands which, due to lack of care, deteriorate due to erosion. A territory is also altered when the exploitation of a mine is abandoned without carrying out a subsequent rehabilitation process.
CAUSES
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Environmental problems
Disappearance of water sources (hydration sources).
The high temperatures have caused the drought of rivers, lakes, lagoons and other sources of water that for centuries were indispensable for the survival and development of entire peoples. Many of those that remain are polluted, as are the oceans and coasts.
Pollution
Neither the earth, nor the air, nor other resources have the same quality as a few years ago. Greenhouse gases have degraded these resources and forced many people to abandon agriculture and food production activities naturally.
Deforestation
Every year thousands of miles of forest disappear in the world. It is estimated that since 1990, more than half of what we now see has been destroyed. In addition, trees die at an accelerated rate due to air pollution, drought of water sources and sudden temperature changes.
Over exploitation of natural resources
Natural resources will soon be insufficient for the survival of the people who inhabit the Earth. Over exploitation of resources, irresponsible consumption and the increase in the world population, which has tripled in the last 60 years and continues to grow at an accelerated rate, are the main causes of this depletion.
Use of chemical fertilizers and artificial cultivation methods
Droughts, hurricanes and other environmental phenomena prevent the production and cultivation of food under normal conditions. In order to modify these effects and multiply production, natural production methods have been replaced by artificial production methods in which the use of chemical substances predominates.
Resources with risk of being depleted.
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Types of resources
- Non-renewable resources: They exist in a limited quantity on Earth and can become depleted, as they are regenerated by nature on a geological timescale. They are mineral resources, including fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas).
- Renewable: They are not exhausted no matter how much they are used. They are of this type: solar energy, wind, tides, waves, etc...
- Potentially renewable: Can be regenerated by nature on human time scales if used in an appropriate manner and at an appropriate rate. Much of the resources we use are of this type: fresh water, forests, animal and plant species, soil, air, etc.
-Fossil fuels are the resources produced by the remains of biomass, through biological processes of decomposition and fossilization.
-Mining. There are also other types of industries that depend on the use of other materials that are extracted through mining, such as gold or diamond mines.
-Water resources. In other words, available freshwater is shrinking rapidly due to over-consumption in developed countries, disproportionate population growth and intensive agricultural and livestock techniques.
- Fishing resources. They are also in danger of becoming depleted due to over exploitation of fishing grounds, the use of aggressive fishing techniques, polluting discharges and the decrease in the amount of freshwater reaching the sea.
- Forest resources. Forest resources (forests) also disappear little by little, as a consequence of fires, the need for new pastures and cultivated land and, mainly, because wood is still used as fuel by a large part of humanity.
- Biodiversity. Biodiversity, i.e. the number of different ecosystems on the planet, together with the number of different species that populate each ecosystem, and the genetic diversity within each species, is an invaluable natural resource that is declining in a worrying way.
Consequences we will face around 2025
- Some exhaustible natural resources such as oil have an expiry date. This could cause the prices of this resource to increase fivefold in the next few years if alternative energies do not emerge.
- The progressive depletion of natural resources, such as coal, leads to the search for alternative minerals, the need to invest more in research and rising prices.
- Of course, the uncontrolled use of certain fuels such as gasoline is causing serious effects on the ozone layer and contributing decisively to the pollution of the planet.
- The depletion of natural resources is detrimental to biodiversity, but favors soil infertility.
Solutions
- Promote the use of renewable energy sources
- Promote organic agriculture and livestock farming
- Regulate fishing techniques and protect species during breeding periods (biological stoppages), as well as encourage aquaculture (technique of directing and encouraging the reproduction of fish, molluscs and algae in fresh or salt water).
- Develop environmental education campaigns.
- Protect certain ecosystems through declarations of natural parks and biosphere reserves.
- The adoption of certain consumption habits, which allow us to use fewer resources (fuel, water, electricity) and to do so more efficiently in our daily lives.
CLIMATIC
CHANGE
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Evident facts I
Increase in global temperature.
Warm oceans and seas.
Evident facts II
Glacier retreat.
Shrinking ice sheets.
Evident facts III
Decreased snow cover.
Sea level rise.
Evident facts IV
Declive in Arctic Sea Elevation.
Extreme events.
Evident facts V
Ocean acidification.
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Conventional energy
Conventional energy is electrical energy generated from non-renewable sources, that is, energy that cannot be infinitely produced or extracted from nature. In addition, conventional energies can be marketed as sources of electrical energy supply to supply large global power demands.
Characteristics
- Conventional energy is produced by converting non-renewable resources into electrical energy through the implementation of thermal, chemical or combined cycle mechanisms.
- The resources used in conventional power generation have a limited presence in nature. This leads to increasingly high levels of exploitation worldwide.
- Due to the previous point, these are often expensive resources, since conventional energy sources are increasingly restricted and are quoted high on the market.
- Mostly, conventional energy sources are usually highly polluting, as the conversion process involves the emission of gases that directly affect the purity of the environment.
- This has an impact on the increase in global warming, due to the effect on the ozone layer and the increase in the greenhouse effect.
PROS
CONS
-Extraction is usually relatively straightforward, as is the storage and transport of these materials.
-Due to the massification of these methods, the associated costs (extraction, infrastructure, transport) are considerably lower compared to the cost structure of alternative energies.
-It is used extensively throughout the world, which has consolidated it as a common and validated process of electricity generation worldwide.
- The sources of extraction are becoming more and more limited. They should be taken as measures for when the scarcity of these inputs is accentuated.
- They often produce emissions of polluting gases during the combustion process, such as methane and carbon dioxide.
- In the case of nuclear power plants, this type of process can produce high-impact radioactive waste if the process is not properly controlled.
Alternative energy
Non-conventional energy is electrical energy generated from renewable and/or rare sources; that is, sources that are difficult to capture in nature for transformation into electrical energy. Highlights include wind energy (wind), solar panels (sun), tidal energy (sea waves), geothermal energy (soil), biogas and biomass energy.
PROS
CONS
-These clean energies are of considerable benefit to environmental conservation, since non-conventional energies are free of pollutants.
- Since they come from renewable sources, their continuity is guaranteed over time. This limits fossil fuel wars worldwide.
- They promote research and development of new technologies for the sake of efficiency in generation processes.
- They develop the economy of the area in which they are implemented. This emerging industry promotes new sources of employment and drives the self-sufficiency of geographic sectors away from large urban centers.
- In the case of wind turbines or solar panels, these can induce visual and/or sonic pollution by damaging natural landscapes.
- They require a substantial initial investment, due to the implementation of innovative infrastructures and state-of-the-art technologies.
- Their performance is considerably lower than conventional energies.
- The cost of production, storage and transport is higher compared to conventional energies.
- Many unconventional energy sources are subject to climate change. Continuity of supply may be affected by the occurrence of natural phenomena or other unpredictable contingencies.
The FUEL CELL - The energy source of the future
Fuel cells are like batteries, but they do not run out or need to be recharged again, and in addition to electricity they produce heat and water while being supplied with the fuel they use. The reagents are stored outside the cell, so the cell will produce work whenever there is a flow of reagents.
They are electrochemical reactors where chemical energy is transformed into electricity without any combustion process. The absence of a combustion reaction avoids the pollution typical of traditional power generation systems. Another advantage is that fuel cells as well as batteries are modular in nature, allowing a wide range of powers.
Alternatives in presence of the problematic
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The basic principles advocated by this model to achieve sustainable development are:
1. Principle of sustainable harvesting: the rate of consumption of a potentially renewable resource must be equal to or lower than its rate of renewal.
2. Principle of sustainable emptying. The consumption of non-renewable resources must be equal to or less than the rate of creation of renewable resources that can replace them when they are exhausted.
3. Principle of sustainable emission. The rate of emission of pollutants must be lower than the capacity of assimilation or natural recycling of the same by the environment.
4. Principle of sustainable selection of technologies. Favor the use of new cleaner and more efficient technologies. In addition, the necessary changes must be promoted to allow the substitution of non-renewable resources by other renewable ones.
5. Principle of zero irreversibility. The objective is to reduce to zero the environmental impacts that may cause irreversible damage to the environment. For example, once a species is extinct, it has been lost forever.
6. Principle of equitable development. In addition to guaranteeing the development of future generations, or the principle of inter-generational solidarity, it is a question of promoting inter-generational solidarity, that is to say, we must achieve a better quality of life for all the inhabitants of the planet: access to health, education, etc. (eradicating poverty and social inequality).
Path to sustainability
The issue of the environment has been a key issue for humanity for decades, which translates into interest for political figures and countries that have begun to move towards taking measures to reduce the negative impact of industries on nature.
With this in mind, several treaties, summits and agreements have been made between countries in favor of sustainable development, preserving fauna and flora, as well as for the well-being and health of people.
World Charter for Nature
This document was approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 28 October 1982 and represents the global strategy for the conservation of natural resources and the preservation of the environment.
It is composed of 24 articles that talk about the importance of respecting ecosystems, species and their environments, emphasizing the conservation of terrestrial, marine and atmospheric resources that are being affected by war or pollution.
One of the main objectives of the World Charter for Nature is the creation of long-term plans to help boost economic development, control population growth and improve the quality of life, in order to ensure the conservation of natural resources for future generations.
Kyoto Protocol
This Protocol is part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and represents an international agreement that aims to reduce the emissions of six greenhouse gases that are causing global warming such as carbon dioxide, methane gas and hexafluoride, among others.
This agreement was set in 1997 and its goal was that by 2012 95% of the emission of these gases should be reduced. However, it was only put into practice in 2005, which is why countries are still working to find solutions to help combat pollution.
The Rio de Janeiro Summit
The Rio de Janeiro Summit (3-14 June 1992) was attended by 172 countries (108 heads of state) and 2,400 representatives. It declared a set of principles defining the civil rights and obligations of States to achieve the progress and well-being of humanity and the conservation and implementation of sustainable development in all types of forests.
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
This agreement was adopted in New York in 1992 with the objective of recognizing the importance of the effects of climate change caused by the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which affect the earth's surface and harm natural ecosystems and human beings.
In 1997, governments committed to work hand in hand with the Kyoto Protocol, a program designed to reduce the emission of these gases, decontaminate the planet's air, stabilize ecosystems and allow them to adapt naturally to climate change.
Good practices of a sustainable development in the Canary Islands
In all international fora and agreements there has been an urgent need to strengthen sustainable development policies based on the extension of concrete and sustainable good environmental practices. Sustainability and nature conservation policies can make little progress without a real and practical commitment from citizens and the main economic agents involved in the production of goods and services. This implies establishing a new culture of environmental responsibility in the production and consumption processes that affect us.
When entering the Canary Islands government's website in the SIMAC (Canary Islands Environmental Information System) we can find a series of junctures, in total 4, which belong to the years 2008, 2009, 2012, 2014.
Purposes of the 2008 juncture
-Responsible and sustainable production of goods and services
-Organic agricultural and livestock production
-Implementation of environmental management systems
-Responsible consumption
-Environmental or eco-efficiency labels
-Good practices in Biosphere Reserves
In subsequent junctures, the progress of these proposals will be reported as time goes by.
2009 Juncture
ECOLOGICAL AGRICULTURE - Although the organic agricultural area is a minority in relation to the total agricultural area, there has been a significant increase.
ECOLOGICAL BREEDING - Organic livestock still has very little presence in the archipelago, especially concentrated on islands such as La Palma and El Hierro.
ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS - The number of companies and public institutions that have implemented an environmental quality system in their production system has increased.
2012 Juncture
AGRICULTURE AND ECOLOGICAL FARMING - The year 2010 saw a reduction in the organic agricultural area, which came to account for 2.5% of the total cultivated area of the archipelago. Organic livestock increased in 2009, especially sheep, goats and poultry.
ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS - The number of companies and public institutions that have implemented an environmental quality system in their production system has increased.
2014 Juncture
ECOLOGICAL AGRICULTURE - In the Canary Islands there has been a continuous growth in the number of farmers registered in the CRAE, as well as in the area cultivated by them. There are currently 883 operators and 6,270 ha for organic farming.
ECOLOGICAL FARMING - Gradual increase in the number of organic livestock over the period 2009-2013.
ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS - The number of companies and public institutions that have implemented an environmental quality system in their production system is 161.
Projects to promote a sustainable development
It is a global challenge that involves the application of a new energy model. It is one of the main initiatives in which we participate to contribute to sustainable development and the fight against climate change.
Renewable energies are obtained from inexhaustible natural resources, such as wind (wind), light and heat from the sun (solar) or from the interior of the Earth (geothermal), or waves from the sea (wave). In the case of El Hierro, wind and hydraulic energy are used in combination. To capture this energy on this island of volcanic origin was built the hydro wind Gorona del Viento, inaugurated in 2014.
El Hierro 100% renewable
Energy Sustainability Projects of the Mancomunidad del Sureste de Gran Canaria
During 2007 and 2008, the projects "Renewable Energies" and "Water and Energy Saving" were executed within the framework of the Community Initiative LEADER + of the European Union, being promoted and co-financed by the Asociación Insular de Desarrollo Rural de Gran Canaria (AIDER). Through them, one of the specific objectives of the STRATEGIC PLAN FOR INTEGRAL SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOUTH EASTERN COUNTRY OF GRAN CANARIA was achieved, completing the work of previous years:
Contributions from César Manrique
Contributions from César Manrique The César Manrique Foundation (F.C.M) is a private cultural institution on the island of Lanzarote (Canary Islands) whose objective is the conservation and dissemination of the work of the Canarian artist César Manrique, founder of the Foundation, whose main areas of action are the protection of the natural environment, the promotion of plastic arts and cultural reflection.
It aims to develop activities that favour respect for the natural environment and territorial planning. It regularly organises forums for reflection and debate. Since 1994, the spaces.
El autor y su obra and Miradas divergentes have been continuously developed. The Environment has been consolidated during 1997 as a key area of the Foundation. Among the activities that have already been consolidated, the forum for reflection Frontiers and Directions of Progress stands out. A space for proposals and debate in which the speakers, from multidisciplinary approaches, approach new models and conceptions of progress.