Chapter Summary

CHAPTER 17 The Environment

The ecosystem refers to a set of living things and their environment: The emphasis is on the interdependence of all things--people, land, animals, vegetation, atmosphere, and social processes. To maintain reasonable balance, we must confront the ecological consequences of everyday decisions that may pollute and/or deplete the environment.

We may divide our environmental problems into two types: environmental pollution and environmental depletion. Pollution is the harmful alteration of our environment by our own actions and refers to degradation of air, land (pesticides, herbicides), water (including eutrophication), aesthetic environment (eye pollution) and sound environment (sound pollution). Depletion refers to dwindling natural resources, including supplies of energy, and increasing demands on these resources.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has established standards for six "criteria" air pollutants: sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, ozone, lead, and nitrogen dioxide. In general, enforcement of air pollution standards has been reducing the amount of pollutants, but this is not to say that the problem has been resolved. The greenhouse effect continues to be a controversial issue. Some advances have been made in water pollution control. Water and air pollution are related.

We are consuming natural resources at an astounding pace; the problem of depletion, however, is international. The United States uses more energy than other countries. The demand in the United States for various kinds of energy has grown more rapidly than the population.

Environmental problems confront us with inherent contradictions among some of our values. Environmental pollution is a threat to our physical and mental well-being. Pollutants of all kinds are hazardous not only to humans, but to plant life as well. Pesticides and herbicides are also a problem.

A whole chain of consequences can follow from human action on the environment, posing a threat to the ecological balance. The possibility exists that we may somehow intrude into the major processes of the ecosystem and cause irreversible damage that could threaten life and processes like photosynthesis.

It is difficult to place a price tag on our ecological problems, but the dollar costs do not reflect our losses.

The contradictions between the demand for energy, the desire for a clean environment, the desire for reasonably low prices for energy, and the value on political independence are manifested on the international level in the form of a threat to world peace.

The problems of ecology are closely linked to population growth: as population increases, our ecological problems also increase. Further, some problems are caused by ignorance and accidents and persistently evade solution. For example, population increases can lead to (a) diminishing returns, which means lower payoffs for investments of money and energy, and (b) the "threshold effect," which refers to a point of environmental death caused by population/pollution excess. Americans consume a disproportionate share of the world's resources, contribute a disproportionate share of the world's pollution, and therefore intensify environmental problems. Additional contributing features involve the industrial economy, the politics of ecology, and such social psychological factors as exploitative attitudes, our value of individualism, and our emphasis on materialism, even overconsumption.

At the outset, we need to acknowledge that environmental problems pose numerous dilemmas. A number of courses of action have been suggested, including programs of environmental pollution and depletion control, population control, public education, and voluntary energy conservation (for example, car pooling). There is a critical need for political action, including sanctions for polluters, tax incentives for research, and role models for private industry. The industrial sector must be encouraged to search for alternative clean sources of power, such as solar energy.