ENVI1153 Lecture Notes - Adaptive Capacity, Risk Aversion, Buzzword
Sustainable Futures Notes
Week 4: Climate Change and Global Poverty
The Big Three Global Challenge:
- Climate change impacts
- Global poverty
- Fossil fuel dependency
-
CLIMATE CHANGE
Unprecedented typhoon Haiyan hits Philippines and Vietnam in 2013
Last three years the hottest on record globally
Rivers forming in greenland ice
Fissures opening in Antarctic ice shelves
There is some good news:
- Coal are evaporation, polluting power plants are closing around the world
- Rapid improvements in battery storage for solar energy
- China and Germany are leading the way in making the shift to renewable energy
Have known about human induced climate change for a long time
- French scientist jean baptiste fourier predicted the greenhouse effect in 1824
- US climate scientist James Hansen takes his concerns to US congress in 1988, called
for limiting temperature increase to 2 degrees
No simple ‘solutions’
Science has given remarkable knowledge and global understanding to help and know
It cannot be only a matter of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, have to change beliefs and
practices.
Need a new formula:
Mitigation + adaption + global cultural and political change = transformation
Global cultural change is even more colplect
We have unprecedented power of real time global communication
Paris agreement was major breakthrough
Effective repsonses include:
High speed rail
Indigenous land management
Onshorer wind turbines
Plant rich diet
Educating girls and family planning
GLOBAL POVERTY
From MDG 2000 to SDS in 2015
- Poverty and hunger was separated
- From eradicate extreme poverty to no poverty
Improvement
Number of people living below poverty line has dropped from 1.85 billion in 1990 to 767
million in 2013. MDG achieved in 2010
Have been some improvements in countries on the gini indek (gap income distribution)
A global index 2017 indicated there was 27% drop in the number of people living with
chronic hunger between 2000 and 2017.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
No improvement
China accounts for the number who have risen above the poverty line
New major famine in sub Saharan Africa, globally one in 9 people experience chronic hunger
GINI index show very little impacts
Income is a very inadequate measure of poverty
New source of income may have bad environmental and social outcomes
Need to consider access to clean water and adequate food, healthcare and education
Increasing need to think about security from violence and persecution
Entrenched poverty in the developed world
Housing affordability and inadequate public housing is creating a crisis
Income inequality for 40 member countries
Entrenched poverty in developed world as much on a global scale
Poverty as a wicked problem
An enduring problem which needs enduring attention
Can be entrenched and intergenerational yet people move in and out of poverty with
changing life circumstances
Stakeholding Engagements
Gambling metaphor that entered business management literature in 1990s.
Concept now has a very wide usage and ‘stake’ refers to potential positive or negative
outcomes of projects.
Week 5: Energy and Society
Energy and progress
One fifth of energy used for food. 80% is transport, processing, packaging, marketing and
food preparation and storage.
All human societies are problem solving systems that meet the challenge these they face by
implementing increasingly complex solutions. But all complexity costs energy the
institutions and patterned interactions that comprise a human society and dependent on
energy. Not only is energy flow required to maintain a socio-political system but the amount
of energy must be sufficient for the complexity of that system
Peak oil and the growth of oil dependency
Marion King Hubert predicted oil would reach a peak and then start declining. Oil is
declining and there is a rate that it is yet to be found.
The end of peak oil
Once was $38 a barrel and now $65 a barrel. Costs will rise on the ability to have and
continue to life with oil. To extract a barrel of oil from a surface mine the industry must cut
down the forest and move two tons of peat and dirt.
Environment and social costs of oil dependency
Australia
Refineries are decreasing. By 2030 there will be no refineries which means that we will have
less than 20 days of fuel. Hibernia to reinforced to withstand impact of icebergs but it
doesn’t match with the collapse of Greenland ice sheets.
The wicked problems of oil dependency, climate change and poverty
Pathways out of oil dependency
- Localised urgan agriculture
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Unprecedented typhoon haiyan hits philippines and vietnam in 2013. Last three years the hottest on record globally. Coal are evaporation, polluting power plants are closing around the world. Rapid improvements in battery storage for solar energy. China and germany are leading the way in making the shift to renewable energy. Have known about human induced climate change for a long time. French scientist jean baptiste fourier predicted the greenhouse effect in 1824. Us climate scientist james hansen takes his concerns to us congress in 1988, called for limiting temperature increase to 2 degrees. Science has given remarkable knowledge and global understanding to help and know. It cannot be only a matter of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, have to change beliefs and practices. Mitigation + adaption + global cultural and political change = transformation. We have unprecedented power of real time global communication.
