ENVIRONMENTAL

INTERRELATIONSHIPS

Krishna Mae M. Alapar

College of Agriculture, Resources and Environmental Sciences
Central Philippine University
Jaro, Iloilo City
 Environmental Science
Definition
• A branch of biology concerning on the
relationship of an organism to its
environment
• A multi- disciplinary science comprising of
various branches of study
• A science of physical phenomena in the
environment
 The Field of Environmental
Science
• By nature an interdisciplinary field
• Includes both applied and theoretical aspects of
human impact on the world.
• Since humans are generally organized into groups,
environmental science must deal with politics,
social organization, economics, ethics, and
philosophy.
• Thus, it is a mixture of traditional science, individual
and societal values, and political awareness.
 The Field of Environmental
Science
• Although environmental science as a field of
study is evolving, it is rooted in the early
history civilization .
• Many ancient cultures expressed a
reverence for the plants, animals, and
geographic features that provided them
with food, water and transportation.
 The Field of Environmental
Science
• The current interest in the state of the
environment began with scientists like
Rachel Carson and received emphasis from
the organization of the first Earth Day on
April 22, 1970.
• Subsequent Earth Days reaffirmed this
commitment.
 The Field of Environmental
Science
• As a result of this interest in the state of the
world and how people both affect it and are
affected by it, ES is now a standard course or
program at many colleges.
• It incorporates the scientific aspects of these
course with input from the social sciences,
such as economics, sociology, and political
science, creating a new interdisciplinary
field.
Decisions
 The Interrelated Nature of
Environmental Problems
• The word “environmental” means the
surrounding conditions that affect people
and other organisms during its lifetime.
• Environment - physical and biotic habitat
which surrounds us; that which we can see,
hear, touch, smell and taste.
 Scopes of Environment
• Atmosphere
• Hydrosphere
• Lithosphere
• Biosphere
 Scopes of Environment
• Atmosphere
– Protective blanket of gasses surrounding the earth
Importance:
– It sustains life on earth
– Saves it from hostile environment from outer space
– Absorbs harmful rays (cosmic rays and electromagnetic
radiations) from the outer space
– Transmit only ultraviolet, visible near infrared radiation
(300-2500 nm) and radio waves (.14 to 40nm) while
filtering out tissue damaging ultraviolet waves below
300 nm.
 Scopes of Environment
• Hydrosphere
– Comprises all types of water resources oceans,
seas, lakes, rivers, streams, reserviour, polar
icecaps, glaciers and ground water
• 97% of the earth’s water supply is in the oceans
• About 2% of the water resources locks in polar icecaps and
glaciers
• Only 1% of the available fresh water is used for human and
animal consumption- from lakes, rivers, streams and ground
water
 Scopes of Environment
• Lithosphere
– The outer mantle of the solid earth
– Consist of the minerals occurring in the earth’s
crust and the soil (e.g. organic matter, mineral,
air and water)
• Biosphere
– The realm of living organisms and their
interactions with environment- atmosphere,
lithosphere and hydrosphere
 Interaction of Systems
Air
Precipitation

Evapotranspiration

Surface-
Land water Ocean

Ground-
water

Water-air-land interactions
 Ecology Defined

Plants Physical Environment

Animals Biological Environment

relationship
 Ecology Defined
• Physical Environment
– Includes light and heat, moisture, wind,
oxygen, carbon dioxide, nutrients in the
soil, water, atmosphere
• Biological Environment
– Includes organisms of the same kind as
well as other plants and animals
 Ecology Defined
• Ecology
– was first introduced by German Biologist
Ernst Heinrich Haeckel in 1866
– Derived from the Greek words:
“oikos” – household
“logos” – study of
 Ecology defined
Modern Ecology
– Started with Charles Darwin
– In developing his theory of evolution,
he stressed the adaptation of
organisms to their environment
through natural selection
 Ecology Defined
⚫ Ernst Haeckel
⚫ First person to define ecology
⚫ His definition was:

By ecology we mean the body of knowledge concerning the

economy of nature – the investigation of the total relations
of the animal both to its inorganic and its organic
environment; including, above all, its friendly and inimical
relations with those animals and plants with which it comes
directly or indirectly into contact – in a word, ecology is the
study of all those complex interrelations referred to by
Darwin as the conditions of the struggle for existence.
 Ecology Defined
Other ecologists sometimes has had quite
different interpretations placed upon it:
• Charles Elton (1927)
– British ecologist
– Defined it as “scientific natural history”
which is concerned with the “sociology
and economics of animals”
 Ecology Defined
• Frederic Clements (1905)
– American plant ecologist
– Considered it to be the science of the community
• Victor Shelford (1937)
– American animal ecologist
– Regarded it as “that branch” of general physiology
which deals with organisms as a whole, with its general
life processes as distinguished from the more special
physiology of organs
 Ecology Defined
• A. Macfadden (1957)
– British ecologist
– Ecology concerns itself with the
interrelationships of living organisms, plant or
animal, and their environments
• Karl Friederichs (1958)
– German ecologist
– By contrast, he regarded ecology as the “science
of the environment”
 Ecology Defined
⚫ Eugene P. Odum (1959)
⚫ Contemporary American ecologist who has had the
most influence in defining the parameters of the
discipline, has defined it as “the study of the
structure if nature”

A list of plants and animals of a forest is only a first

step in ecology. Ecology is knowing who eats
whom, or what plants fail to grow in the forest
because they can’t stand the shade or because
when they do grow there, they get eaten.
 History of Ecology
• One important strand in the development of
ecology has been natural history; in fact, the
English ecologist Charles Elton gave “scientific
natural history” as his definition of ecology.
• 19th century was the golden age of “natural
history”
– Haeckel was strongly influenced by the greatest
naturalist of that time, Charles Darwin – shown
in his book The Origin of Species.
 History of Ecology
• Another person who clearly made the
transition to ecology was Stephen A. Forbes
of the Illinois Natural History Survey
– Revealed in the title of his papers such as
“On Some Interaction of Organisms’”,
“The Lake as a Microcosm” both
published in the 1880’s, show the
ecological inclination of his thinking.
 History of Ecology
• The period around World War II was a watershed, a major
transition, in ecology.
– Through the first 40 years of the century, most
ecologists had continued to concentrate on questions of
the distribution of organisms and communities.
– In retrospectm the “Bio-ecology “ by Clements and
Shelford (1939) was a culmination of this phase of the
Science’s development.
– Other ecological currents were running, but, because of
the war, they were not evident for several years.
 History of Ecology
• The 1960s and 1970s, when ecology came to
public consciousness, composed another
important transition period.
– Thoughtful persons began to realize that
many of the major problems of the world
– pollution, overpopulation, and the
misuse of resources – are at heart
ecological problems.
 History of Ecology
• If we were to pick one event as the
beginning of the environmental
movement, it would be the publication
of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, a well
documented and utterly convincing
description of the hazards of pesticide
use of 1962.
 History of Ecology
• Recently, the degenerating global situation –
acid rain, the greenhouse effect, the loss of
biotic diversity – has renewed the popular
environmental movement.
– Time magazine chose not a man of the
year in 1989, but a planet – Endangered
Earth.
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
• 1950
– Mesquite trees were intentionally
introduced in Sudan with unexpected
agricultural effects (biological invasion)
• 1952
– London experienced severe smog and air
pollution
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
• 1958
– Nuclear accident in Urals
Urals – river in the Southern Ural Mountain,
which crosses the territory of the Russian
Federation and Kazakhstan
• 1959
– Accidental poisoning and toxic chemical
events took place in Minamata, Japan due to
methyl mercury poisoning
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
Minamata – Japanese town, site of ecological
disaster where 43 people died after fish
poisoned with methyl mercury.
The poison had been released as effluent from
a local plastics factory, and became
concentrated on the flesh of sea organisms.
Many townspeople suffered long-term effects,
including paralysis, tremors, and brain
damage.
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
• 1960
– Accidental poisoning in Kyushu, Japan due to
PCB
• 1962
– “Silent Spring” was published that deals with
pollution, highlighting the effects of
pesticides and herbicides
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
– “Silent Spring” denounces the effects of
pesticides especially that of DDT

DDT – dichlo-diphenyl-trichloroethane
- (ClC6H5)2CHC(HCl2)
- insecticide discovered in 1939 by Swiss
Chemist Paul Muller
- useful in the control of insects that spread
malaria, but resistant strains developed
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
• 1969
– “Earthrise” photo
from Apollo 17
instilled perception
of earth as a fragile,
unified ecosystem
• 1970
– Oil crisis from
perceived oil
depletion
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
• 1972
– Acid rain case study in Sweden stimulated
international concern and action
– Acid rain – caused by the release into the
atmosphere by sulfur dioxide (SO2) and
oxides of nitrogen which dissolve in pure
rainwater making it acidic;
ph value is 5.6 or less
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
• 1974
– Ozone depletion has gained attention when
published in the New York Times
• 1976
– Dioxin leak in Seveso, Italy
– Dioxin - highly toxic chemical that occurs, for
example as impurity in the defoliant Agent
Orange, used in the Vietnam War, and combines
in the weedkiller, 2, 4, 5-T
• Associated with a disfiguring skin complaint, birth
defects, miscarriages, and cancer
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
• 1978
– Amoco Cadiz oil spill
– Amoco Cadiz 0 US-owned oil
tanker that ran aground off
the French coast, releasing
225,000 tonnes of crude oil
Impacts:
30,000 seabirds died
130 beaches were immersed in a
30 cm/12 in. lauer of oil
230,000 tonnes of crustaceans
and fish perished
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
• 1979
– Nuclear accident in Three
Mile Islands
– Three Mile Island – island in
Shenandoah River, near
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
USA
• 1980
– Tropical deforestation was
observed through satellite
images that vividly
demonstrated the extent if
biodiversity loss globally
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
• 1984
– Methyl isocyanate leakage in Bhopolo, Central
India
• Some 2,500 people died from an escape of
poisonous gas from a factory owned by US
company Union Carbide
• Another 300,000 suffer from long-term health
problems
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
• 1985
– CFC’s became an alarming issue when a large
stratospheric ozone “hole” was observed over
Antarctica.
– CFC – harmless properties made popular as
propellants in aerosol cans, as refrigerants in
refrigerators and aircons, as degreasing agent in
the manufacture of foam packaging
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
• 1986
– Chernobyl Nuclear Accident
– Chemical warehouse fire in Bassel, Switzerland
– Chernobyl – town in Northern Ukraine, 100 km north of Kiev
– On April 26, 1986, 2 huge explosions occurred at the plant,
destroying a central reactor and breaching its 1000 tonne roof
– In the immediate vicinity of Chernobyl, 31 people died and
135,000 were permanently evacuated
– It has been estimated that there will be an additional
20-40,000 deaths from cancer in the following 60 years;
600,000 are officially classified as at risk
Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
– The resulting clouds of radioactive isotopes
spread all over Europe, from Ireland to Greece
– A total of 9 tonnes of radioactive were released
into the atmosphere, 90 times the amount
produced by the Hiroshima A-bomb
– In April 1996, Group of Seven (G7) offered
Ukraine $3.1 billion in exchange for closing down
the plant
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
• 1989
– Exxon Valdez oil spill as the largest oil spill in South America
– Exxon Valdez – USA’s largest oil concern, founded in 1888 as
the Standard Oil Company, selling petrol under the brand
name ESSO from 1926 and under the EXXON in the US from
1972
– In 1994, US Federal Court ruling ordered Exxon to pay $5
billion in punitive damages to the Alaskan fishing industry and
local people affected by the 1981 spill
Impacts:
covering 12,400 sq. km. and killing at least 34,400 sea birds,
10,000 sea otters and up to 16 whales
Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
• 1990
– Atlantic cod fishery collapsed due to resource
depletion
• 1991
– Persian Gulf oil spill
– World’s largest oil spill as a direct result of
hostilities during the Gulf War
– Around 6-8 million barrels of oil were spilled,
polluting 675 km of the Saudi coastline
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
• 2006
– Guimaras oil spill
• Dubbed as the worst oil spill ever in the Philippines
• The oil tanker M/T Solar 1, carrying more than two
million liters of bunker fuel, sank on August 11, 2006
at the Guimaras Strait off the coast of the Guimaras
and Negros Occidental provinces, causing some
500,000 liters of oil to pour into the strait.
• Damaged Taklong Island National Marine Reserve, a
marine sanctuary for feeding and breeding ground
for fish and other species.
Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
• 2011
– Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster
• Series of equipment failures, reactor core melts, and
releases of radioactive materials at the plant,
following the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami
11 March 2011.
• This accident is the largest of the 2011 Japanese
nuclear accidents arising from the earthquake and
tsunami, and experts consider it to be the second
largest nuclear accident after the Chernobyl disaster,
but more complex as multiple reactors are involved.
 Emerging Environmental Issues:
A Global Perspective
• November 8, 2013
• Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan)

• Affected more than 3.4 million

families or over 16 million persons
• Death tolls reach more 6000 persons and 30,000 injured
• Damaged amounting to almost P90 billion
– Source: NDRRMC (2014)
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
• Loss of biodiversity and extinctions
– It has long been feared that human
activity is causing massive extinctions.
– Despite increased efforts at conservation,
it has not been enough and biodiversity
losses continue.
– The costs associated with deteriorating or
vanishing ecosystems will be high.
However, sustainable development and
consumption would help avert ecological
problems.
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
• Nature and Animal
Conservation
– Preserving species and
their habitats is important
for ecosystems to
self-sustain themselves.
– Yet, the pressures to
destroy habitat for
logging, illegal hunting,
and other challenges are
making conservation a
struggle.
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
• Climate Change affecting
Biodiversity
– Rapid global warming can
affect an ecosystems
chances to adapt naturally.
– The Arctic is very sensitive
to climate change and
already seeing lots of
changes. Ocean biodiversity
is already being affected as
are other parts of the
ecosystem.
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
• Coral Reefs
– One type of ecosystem that perhaps
is neglected more than any other is
perhaps also the richest in
biodiversity—the coral reefs.
– Useful to the environment and to
people in a number of ways.
However, all around the world, much
of the world’s marine biodiversity
face threats from human and
activities as well as natural. It is
feared that very soon, many reefs
could die off.
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
• Global Warming and Population
– It seems there has been a recent interest in associating
climate change/global warming with “over population”
and that countries such as China and India have to do
more to help contain global warming.
– Yet rich countries have a lot to do themselves. There
were agreed reasons why developing countries were
exempt from initial greenhouse gas emission targets: it
was the emissions from rich countries that accumulated
in the atmosphere for so long to trigger climate change.
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
• COP15 – Copenhagen Climate Conference
– An overview of the Climate Change Conference (also
known as COP 15), held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in the
middle of December, 2009.
– There was a lot of hope and optimism before this
conference that a meaningful climate negotiation could
be agreed to, as climate change concerns are increasing
rapidly.
– Instead, a mixture of posturing from nations such as
China and the US, and the inability for nations to agree
on numerous issues led to a meeting failure.
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
• COP16 – Cancun Climate Conference
– An overview of the Climate Change Conference
(also known as COP 16), held in Cancún, Mexico
in the December 2010.
– This conference came a year after the
Copenhagen conference which promised so
much but offered so little. It also came in the
wake of WikiLeaks’ revelations of how the US in
particular tried to cajole various countries to
support an accord that served US interests
rather than the world’s.
 Emerging Environmental Issues: A
Global Perspective
• COP16 – Cancun Climate Conference
– What resulted was an agreement that seems
much watered down, even an almost reversal,
from original aims and spirit of climate change
mitigation. In effect, the main polluters (the
industrialized nations) who should have borne
the brunt of any emission reduction targets,
have managed to reduce their commitments
while increasing those of the developing
countries.
 Understanding Environmental
Sustainability
• The first worldwide meeting of heads of
state directed to concern for the
environment took place at the Earth
Summer, formally knows as the United
Nations Conference on Environment and
Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in
1992.
 Understanding Environmental
Sustainability
• Most countries have also signed agreements
on sustainable development and
biodiversity.
• The policies on sustainable development at
the UNCED were identified as Agenda 21.
 Understanding Environmental
Sustainability
• Agenda 21
– Comprehensive plan of action to be taken
globally, nationally, and locally by organizations
of the UN system, national governments, and
major groups in every area in which humans
impact the environment.
 Understanding Environmental
Sustainability
“Sustainable development is development
that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs.”
- From the 1987 U.N. report “Our Common Future” by the
World Commission on Environment and Development
chaired by Norwegian PM Gro Harlem Brundtland)
 Understanding Environmental
Sustainability
• The concept is to change from its
destructive, exploitative philosophy to one
that fosters long-term protection of the
environment and its inhabitants.
 Understanding Environmental
Sustainability
Past Practices With Sustainable Development

Efficiency Efficiency
Productivity Productivity
Profitability Profitability
Similar Economic Criteria Similar Economic Criteria

Health and Environmental Impacts

Resource and Recovery
Conservation
Waste Management
Social Impacts (Public
Inconvenience, Unemployment,
etc.)
Ultimately global sustainable development will require a stabilized world population
living in a secure social and physical environment.
 Characteristics that Define
Sustainability
• Conservation • Recycling
• Renewability • Restoration
• Substitution • Population
• Interdependence Stabilization
• Adaptability • Institutional
Commitment