Environmental Change

Question 1

agro-industrialisation, anthropocene and mechanisation

Answer 1

agro-industrialisation: the globalisation and industrialisation of farming on a large scale

Agro-industrialisation has increased food production but:

• major consumer of energy
• contributor to greenhouse gas emissions
• excessive water usage
• air and water pollution
• land and soil degradation (e.g. erosion)
• loss of biodiversity
• eutrophication
• spread of disease
• Cleaning up the chemical pollution and repairing habitats costs billions of dollars
• Food distribution now accounts for between 30% - 40% of all road freight. This system has become very dependent on crude oil, which means it is vulnerable, inefficient and unsustainable. The distance of food transported doubled. In order to be transported long distances food must be heavily processed, packaged, or chemically preserved.
• Farming has become increasingly intensive, large scale and globalised in the drive for cheaper food. Advances in technology and communication have combined with falls in the cost of transportation to transform the way in which food is sourced.
• The concentration of power in retailing and food processing has affect those farming on smaller scale.

Antropocene: the extent of human activities that have had a significant global impact on the natural environment.

Menchanisation: mass production, standardisation of products, efficient supply chain, large scale distribution, deforestation.

Question 2

pros and cons of monoculture

Answer 2

+ makes farming much more efficient, keeping down costs. Machines and procedures can be used totally systematically on a large scale.

• reduced biodiversity of the natural land and thereby eliminates the habitat of many other plants and animals. Also, this makes it vulnerable to product crisis and diseases.

Question 3

case study: water problems and global farming

Answer 3

Kenya

Lake Naivasha is filled with disease (blighted), due to pesticides, excessive use of water farms and deforestation

TNCs have flower and vegetable companies for export, use disproportionate amounts of water from the lake and rivers, leaving little for local small farmers

these TCNs are exporting the virtual water in plants from one of the driest countriest into one of the wettest

TNCs also take over land from nomadic pastoralists

Question 4

pros and cons of increasing food miles

Answer 4

pros

• increased food variety
• availability all year around
• increased market fot farmers
• reduced need for heating greenhouses in cold and irrigation in arid climates
• increased cultural diversity
• decreased food prices through economies of scale

cons

• loss of local fruit varieties
• increased pollution
• possible homogensisation
• possible animal cruelty

Question 5

impacts of mining

Answer 5

• environmental degradation
• Habitat destruction (especially when opencast or strip mining is used)
• Disposal of waste rock and “tailings” may destroy vast expanses of ecosystem (especially polluting /wasteful is copper mining)
• Smelting (extracting through melting) causes widespread deforestation
• Polluting air, soil and water from extraction, transport and processing (metal pollution, acid mine drainage, eutrophication, deoxygenation, mercury dust contaminates open freshwater). This pollution often ends up in the human food chain.
• Derelict land: excavations and heaps

Question 6

impacts of air transportation

Answer 6

Airline emissions are especially damaging because the nitrogen oxides from jet-engine exhausts, which creates ozone, a greenhouse gas. Also, the contrails (clouds) can intensify the greenhouse effect. This effect is enhanced because they are emitted directly into the upper atmosphere.

Banning night flights would significantly reduce the impact on the climate because the warming effect of aircrafts is much greater during the dark because of the contrails.

Question 7

Polluting industries and relocation to LEDCs

Answer 7

Developed countries have more robust green laws, greater social supervision and more effective governments; pollution emissions are higher in developing countries because there the environmental regulations and enforcement are weaker. Rich nations and organisations export their waste and pollution to such places since the 1960s. This is cheaper, avoiding local uneconomical waste processing, while is earns the organisation money for selling the waste.

When profits are to be made, there will always be someone willing to risk others’ health by importing trash and many more who will endear their won to sort it — it’s simple economics.

Example: China. Meanwhile, government oversight is weak and punishment is mainly in the forms of fines that go directly to government rather than to the victims of pollution. As a result, companies and individuals involved can keep on polluting

Question 8

Transboundary Pollution: acid rain/deposition (dry vs. deposition)

Answer 8

Rainfall is natural acid because it absorbs carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but acid rain has a pH less than 5.65, often times as a low as 3.

Acid rain occurs because of air pollution from burning fossil fuels due to sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. Coal, oil and gas are major producers, particularly cars.

The impacts are the greatest in areas with high levels of precipitation and those with base-poor (acidic) rocks which cannot neutralise the deposited acidity.

• Dry deposition: close to the source of emissions
• Wet deposition: acids are dissolved in precipitation and (typically) far from the source

Impacts

• buildings are weathered
• metals, especially iron and aluminium, are mobilised by acidic water, and flushed into streams
• aluminium damages fish gills
• forest growth is severely affected
• soil acidity increases
• lakes become acidic and aquatic life suffers
• some potential links with diseases

Reducing Impacts

• reduce amount of fossil fuel combustion
• use less sulphur-rich fossil fuel
• using alternative energy sources that do not produce nitrate or sulphate gases (e.g. hydropower or nuclear power)
• removing the pollutants before they reach the atmosphere
• in short-term: add powered limestone to lakes to increase their pH values

Question 9

case study: transboundary pollution

Answer 9

BP oil spill

or

Fukushima nuclear meltdown

Question 10

increasing environmental awareness

Answer 10

Civil societies (negotiating public concerns) include:

• local groups fronted by individuals
• international groups (WWF)
• public servants such as politicians and scientists (e.g. Al Gore)

In most cases there is a conflict between the need for economic development and the need for environmental conservation or management.

WWF

Founded originally on the basis to protect endangered species, the 5 million supporters now include all aspects of nature conservation, such as climate change, ecosystems, biodiversity, agriculture, toxins, macro-economic policies, trade and investment. WWF works with governments, NGOs, local people and businesses.