Human Environment II

Professor Baylis
Week 10, Monday
A few reminders…

Wednesday, Dec 5th - Quiz 4

Friday, Dec 7th - review session in lecture
Thursday, Dec 14th - Final Exam. Cumulative. In person. 40 questions over 2 hours.
Open book and open note.

Office Hrs:
Thursday, Dec 6th - Baylis office hrs 12:30-1:30 pm (none on Friday this week)
Monday, Dec 11th - Baylis extra office hours 1-2 pm
Global vs Local Scale
i) Problems at All Scales

Barriers to mitigating environmental impacts at different scales:

Global:
•Hard to get all countries to agree to impose costs to reduce a global
threat
•Enforcement is often non-existent
National: Bureaucracy, competing interests
Local: property rights, requires “grass roots” efforts
Individual: some actions are not available inability to see indirect effects
ii) Responses to Environmental Problems at All Scales

Global scale: Paris Agreement (past: Kyoto, Montreal)

National Scale: Endangered Species Act
Local Scale: Zoning laws, Land trusts
Individual Scale: “conscious consumerism”

image credit: nasa.gov

B. Models to Measure Human-Environment Relations

How do we measure the benefits that

nature provides and/or human impacts on
the environment?

Some models for measuring humans

impact on the environment:
•Carrying capacity
•Environmental resource accounting
•Life cycle analysis
i) Carrying Capacity
ii) Environmental Resource Accounting
Question: how to attach material value to the services the environment
provides to humans?
•Traditional economic accounting: value directly derived from products
produced and sold; forest value is essentially $0 until it is cut and sold as
lumber, generating pure profit (motivates clear cut for max profit)
•Environmental resource accounting: value is based on existing
environmental resources, considers economic trade-offs of management,
usually in order to maximize profits; value of forest considered for present
and potential production (motivates mores sustainable management to
maximize profit)
•Ecosystem services: values the direct and indirect contributions of
ecosystems (not just the raw material of a resource) to human well-being;
value of a forest is not just in present and future lumber, but also air and
water quality, recreation space, etc.
Putting value on “ecosystem services”
U Maryland study:
•Ecosystems services:
$33 trillion/yr
•Global GDP: $18
trillion/yr
Population (P): the demographic effect, whereby environmental impact
increases as population increases (also related to growth & distribution)
Affluence: Per
Capita World
Energy Use:
Affluence (A):
correlation between
wealth and
resource-use mean
that as the affluence
of the population
increases, so too
does their
environmental
impact.
Technology
More technology may mean
more total impact
or…

Technology may mitigate

environmental damage:
Part 3
The Urban Environment
Urban v. Rural Consumption
A. Urban Human-Environment Interactions

• Impacts of Nature on Cities

• Environmental degradation affects urbanizing places
• Global climate change effects on cities:
• Rise in sea level, more severe storms, climate-induced human migration, loss of water supply,
health impacts
B. Urban Land Use and Environment

• Urban structure:
• Zoning
• Mix or separation of land uses (commercial, residential, etc.)
• Related to urban sprawl
• Sprawl:
• Air pollution, energy consumption, wasteful land uses, loss of habitat and species diversity
Characteristics of Sprawl

• Push for growth at the boundary of the metropolitan area (“exurbs”)

• Segregated land uses (residential separate from commercial, e.g.)
• Emphasis on automobile for transportation
• Residential and employment densities that are lower than in inner suburbs or the city
center
• Homogeneous populations in terms of race, ethnicity, class, or housing status
• Disjointed local governments policies to address these problems
i) Urban Sprawl – Dubai
i) Urban Sprawl – Las Vegas

1972 1997 2018

2018
ii) Brownfields

• Abandoned sites from former industrial uses, often

perceived of as polluted or contaminated
• Public perception of disamenities
• Why redevelop brownfields?
• Economic improvement of urban core, reuse abandoned
properties, centralize industry, ”greenfields”
• Why not rehabilitate brownfields?
• Negative public perception, building out instead of infill
Pittsburgh

1930s and
today
Ellwood Beach
C. Heat and Cities

• Urban heat island- City that has much warmer temperatures than nearby rural areas.
Heat and Cities
Heat and Cities

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/09/climate/city-heat-islands.html
Heat and Cities

• “Cooler” neighborhoods in Baltimore: • “Hotter” neighborhoods in

• -Parks, yards, trees Baltimore:
• -Lower density housing • -Fewer parks, yards, trees
• -More affluent • -Higher density housing (i.e.
apartments; row houses)
• -Whiter
• -Less affluent
• -Majority African American

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/09/climate/city-heat-islands.html
Part 4
Environmental Hazards and the Environmental
Movement
Environmental Hazards and the Environmental
Movement
• Hazard: The probability of occurrence of a potentially harmful event
• “An environmental hazard is any condition, process, or state adversely affecting the
environment. Environmental hazards manifest as physical or chemical pollution in air,
water, and soils. Environmental hazards can cause widespread harm to humans and
the physical environment.”
• -Beaubier & Nussbaum, 2008

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9780470061596.risk0274
A. Events –
i) Cuyahoga River Fire (1969)
• Industrial waste regularly dumped into Cuyahoga River in Cleveland
• Perceived as an essential consequence of progress and production
• River caught fire several times
A. Events –
ii) Santa Barbara Oil Spill (1969)
• Oil spill from offshore drilling operation by Union Oil
• Little knowledge of how to control spread of oil
• Over 3 million gallons (6,000-14,000 tons) spilled, affected coastline from Goleta to
Ventura
• Other, later, larger spills:
• Exxon Valdez (1989): 37,000-104,000 tons
• Deepwater Horizon (2010): 492,000-627,000 tons
B. The Environmental Movement

• Increased recognition of air and water pollution, links to human health

• First Earth Day celebrated in 1970
• Inspired creation of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and passage of Clean
Water and Clean Air Acts
 C. Environmental Justice

• Environmental justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all

people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the
development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws,
regulations, and policies.
• This goal will be achieved when everyone enjoys:
• The same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards, and
• Equal access to the decision-making process to have a healthy environment in which to
live, learn, and work.

https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice#:~:text=Environmental%20justice%20is%20the%20fair,laws%2C%20regulations%2C%20and%20policies.
 Pollution has been decreasing in the US (e.g. PM2.5)

https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.aaz9353
But disparities in
pollution persist

i.e. the worst

places haven’t
been getting better
faster
Most locations have not changed
in rank. Green areas have gotten
cleaner (relative to the average),
while brown areas have gotten
relatively more polluted
 This pattern persists over
many pollutants

https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/full/10.1289/EHP8584
D. Recent Trends

• “Green cities”:
• Be green: Green belts, green roofs, etc.
• Energy efficient buildings
• Innovative urban planning
• Marketing cities as having desirable environmental aspects
Recent Trends

• “Innovative Urban Planning”

• Zoning, Land Use, Built Environment
• Preventing urban sprawl
• Promote density and mixed activities within the urban area:
• Up-zoning (building upwards)
• Mixed-use zoning:
• Residential
• Retail
• Public transportation
Recent Trends

• Sustainable development: sustainability that is compatible with economic growth

Recent Trends

Resilience – adaptation to climate change (not prevention)

Recent Trends

Vulnerability: Weaknesses in some aspects of the urban environment that make people
especially susceptible to harm
• Social vulnerability index- Measure of a community’s level of risk or resilience to
specific types of climate change effects
Part 5
E-waste study: What happens to that old
smartphone?
1. E-Waste Case Study

E-waste: anything that has an

electrical cord or runs on batteries

Examples:
•Computers and tablets
•Televisions
•Printers
•Mobile Phones
1. E-Waste Case Study

How to dispose of e-waste?

•Should not be put directly in trash or recycling containers – hazardous
materials
•Laws against illegal disposal since 2006
•Disposal protocol varies by geographic location
What does E-waste contain?

Lead (in glass monitors): impaired cognitive function

Cadmium (in batteries, light-sensitive resistors): kidney damage
Beryllium (filler in thermal interface materials): lung disease
Brominated flame retardants (in most plastics): impaired nervous system,
thyroid, liver
 https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallm
ccarthy/2019/02/27/the-worlds-wors
t-electronic-waste-offenders-infograp
hic/#3054edc12097

Source: https://globalewaste.org/map/
E-waste disposal
Can e-waste be exported?
The EU:
• Discarded goods can be exported from
more to less developed countries if
they can be reused or refurbished.
• E-waste is being illegally exported
under this pretense (mainly to Asia and
Africa)
The US:
• No law forbidding exporting e-waste to
developing countries
• (No federal law mandating recycling of
e-waste)
 E-Waste Disposal

http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_A_New_Circular_Vision_for_Electronics.pdf
U.S. E-Waste Disposal
 Renovación, México DF

• “At one unlicensed workshop after another,

adults and teenagers disassemble printers,
monitors, and PCs. Battered flatbed trucks
lumber in with more trashed electronics.
Plumes of acrid smoke rise into the dirty sky
from little fire pits in vacant lots, where through
the night people burn the insulation off cords
and cables to get at the copper.”

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-ewaste-mexico/
Renovación, México DF

• local citizens disassemble e-waste

• e-waste scrap is sold (parts or melted down)
• ”e-waste entrepreneurs”; Brokers who buy from those
extracting scrap and sell to formal companies or to other
brokers who then sell to other buyers.

• “In Renovación… there’s been a spike in emphysema,

bronchitis, and pulmonary fibrosis since e-waste
processing began ramping up. At least 25 children have
come into his office with the types of pain and learning
disabilities that can be symptoms of lead poisoning.
Two-thirds of them were children of e-waste workers.”

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-ewaste-mexico/
What can be done about e-waste?

Encourage or mandate formal

recycling; build the cost into the sale
price
“Circular vision”
•Design products for durability
•Introduce recycled materials into
products
•Repair, second life, durability
(extend life of product)
•Formally collect products at the
“end of life”
•Advanced recycling and
recapture
What can be done about e-waste?