Global Change: The Sustainability Challenge - our planet, population, water, and the future.Monday, February 9, yENVIRON 111 1st EditionExam # 1 Study Guide Global Change: The Sustainability Challenge - our planet, population, water, and the future. - Habitable Planet I:•The age of Earth, elements in the solar system & the “big bang”‣ Universe is 14 billion years old ‣ Nearly as many planetary systems as there are stars in the universe (Lots of places that we could potentially survive)‣ Everything we are made up of is borrowed from the universe. Stars make the elements within our universe. (lots of matter mass stars, less matter makes planets)‣ Our planet is a “Goldilocks Planet” — Carbon based life has a very specific range of temperatures where it can survive. ‣ Our planet can support life because water needs to be in existence in the form of water for CO2 and H2O to react properly, and earth has this.➡ Understand phase diagrams‣ Also, our atmosphere makes life possible. Without it, our planet would be too cold because we would not retain the heat from the sun being reflected off of our planet. 1Monday, February 9, y‣ GREENHOUSE GAS EFFECT - NOT trapping the suns energy, but the molecules are capturing the suns energy reflected from the earth.‣ The moon is made of the same matter that created Earth‣ Jovian Planets vs. Terrestrial Planets (we could not live on jovian planets)- Habitable Planet II:•More about why Earth is perfect for sustaining life & how it was formed:‣Craters and their impact on our solar system‣There is great variation in the solar system & the universe is always changing‣The moon is the result of Earth being beaten and banged up by intergalactic space materials (asteroids, etc.) Collision is how our moon was created, it is like a piece of us.‣Even though lots of matter was lost when collisions were changing the composition of our planet, the moon continued to stay within our gravitational pull because its mass was so large that it could not leave the field. ‣Meteors and other space debris continued colliding into earth. The heavier molecules/ elements after the collisions immediately sank furtherinto the center of the earth and the densities of each element sorted out,and we were left with the current composition of Earth today with a core, a mantle and a crust. ‣Our atmosphere keeps our earth warm, and our magnetic field keeps us safe and protects us from harmful elements. 2Monday, February 9, y‣Understand how oceans were made (volcanoes—>water vapor—>over-saturation of atmosphere—> oceans) “all of our oceans came about because of a belching earth”- Van der Pluijim.‣Venus is the vapor planet, Earth is the liquid planet, Mars is the ice planet.‣The amount of CO2 in Earths atmosphere is perfect because too much would create "runaway greenhouse gas" and earth would be unlivable. ‣Rocks remove surplus CO2 from the atmosphere and help to make Earth livable. This is why we worry about the coral reefs because they are made up of limestone and they help take away the excess CO2 in the atmosphere. ‣Earth also has the perfect amount of oxygen‣"Goldilocks Planet" -- enough CO2, enough O2, enough H2O. ‣The fact that we are changing our planet is not out of the ordinary. Other life changes our planet, not just us. **(Stromatolites) **3Monday, February 9, y- Human Population I: •Important to know: ‣World Population (current)‣Growth curves (Linear vs. Exponential growth)‣Population Pyramids (1st lab) [be able to analyze pyramids representing rapid growth, slow growth, and stable populations]‣Greater number of younger, relative to older in the developing world.‣Demographic Trends (nations, urbanization, etc.)4Monday, February 9, y‣There is a current global trend towards increased urbanization — especially in less-developed countries. ‣Demographic transition‣Population and Human well-being•Look at Graphs from Echo360‣It is possible that human population in 2050 will approximate 9 billion people‣Understand that overall growth rate is a function of births, deaths, current population size, and time.5Monday, February 9, y‣***Understand compounding‣Over history, human population represents a J-shaped curve hardly affected by wars and epidemics. ‣Current growth rate of ~1.4% per year‣Remember the article about educating women!!!- Human Population II:•Population Pyramids:6Monday, February 9, y‣Population pyramids explain to us that in developed nations, the population will not change much, but for developing countries the population will shift and many changes will occur. ‣Keeps track of the number of people that are born, and those that are dying and patterns can be seen. these patterns can then help foretell future patterns.‣Increased health alters the death rate (makes it decrease) & doesnt rly affect the birth rate. With organized sanitation, the increased health of populations led to increased lifespan.7Monday, February 9, y‣Gapminder graph of life expectancy vs. income per person shows that the death rate dropped dramatically sometime around the 20th century. ‣Women became educated about their options and governments [need to] recognize (now) that women need the tools and the knowledge and should be allowed more of a role in the topic of fertility and sex. ‣Wealth, health, and war all affect populations. ‣Developed countries have lower fertility rates, and as a result grow more slowly than developing countries. New technology paired with policy changes is what helped to bring fertility rates down. ‣Urbanization: “mega cities”‣Final thoughts: Nations wealth and status of its population are closely related, population/consumption overshoot leads to degraded carrying capacity, and solutions to global environmental problems depend in large measure on twin issues of economic development and population limitation. - Food•Human food supply and food requirements‣How does the food supply keep up with world population?‣Rev. Thomas Malthus & his prediction that population growth would outrun food supply. ‣Except for parts of Africa, food production has exceeded population growth throughout the world‣Food demand changes with wealth…8Monday, February 9, y‣Hunger and Social Justice‣Possible ways to increase food production: expand cultivated areas (definite environmental issues), raise productivity of existing cropland (GMO, Green Rev. &