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Philosophy
2021
REFERENCES AND QUOTES
ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS – PRINCIPLES AND APPLICATIONSAbiotic resources (fossil fuels, minerals, water, land and solar energy) and difference to biotic resources. Biotic self-renewing. Abiotic are either nonrenewable or virtually indestructible. See on entropy affecting minerals 84 Difference between fossil fuels and mineral resources in recyclability 77 Mineral resources 83 Chemical and physical erosion. Georgescu-Roegen vs Ayres on entropy and minerals, 100 % recycling and possibility of steady-state and. Are we causing irreparable damage to Earths ability to sustain life and can we master the art of polymers that could possibly substitute minerals? Daly, probably could sustain a steady-state for a long time. 84 Waste from minerals. 85 Minerals and entropy, atoms being rubbed off. Minerals will never depleted because they will be of higher and higher entropy and become useless to humans. Steady state a pipe-dream because of entropic limit? In the long run atom by atom will erode but in the meantime we can come close to steady state. Waste is a bigger problem though. 86 Biotic resources complexity. Value vs ignorance and uncertainty. Biotic – sentient creatures. Biotic resources - complex in 2 ways. 93 Ecosystems, structure and functions. Structural elements act together to create something greater than the whole - ecosystem functions. E.g energy transfer, nutrient cycling, gas regulation, climate regulation, water cycle. Variability, ignorance and uncertainty important when analyzing ecosystem. We don’t understand how ecosystem function emerge from the complex interaction of ecosystem structure. Fotnot 2 Thresholds. See THINKING IN SYSTEMS – A PRIMER on boundaries 94 3 categories of biotic resources: renewable resources, ecosystem services and waste absorption capacity. 97 Uncertainty of renewable biotic resources. Carrying capacity. 98 Critical depensation (minimum viable population), carrying capacity and maximum sustainable yield. 99 Minimum viable population and maximum sustainable yield vs uncertainty. Maximum sustainable yield will vary dramatically. Great uncertainty regarding minimum viable population. 101 Population breaking down to harvest and ecological mechanism poorly understood. Same for fish as plants. Removal of ecosystem structure can greatly affect ecosystem function. 102 Ecosystem service = ecosystem function that has value to human Examples Cassowary bird box 6-3. Unaware of services provided, ozone for example. 107 Destroying biological stocks destroys funds. Forest to timber. Soil moisturizer. “The relationship between natural capital stock-flow and fund-service resources illustrates one of the most important concepts in ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS – PRINCIPLES AND APPLICATIONS: It is impossible to create something from nothing; all economic production requires a flow of natural resources generated by a stock of natural capital. This flow comes from structural components of ecosystems, and the biotic stock are also funds that produce ecosystem services. Therefore, an excessive rate of flow extracted from a stock affects not only the stock and its ability to provide a flow in the future, but also the fund to which the stock contributes and the services that fund provides. Even abiotic stocks (i.e, elements and fossil fuels) can only be extracted and consumed at some cost to the ecosystem. In other words, production requires inputs of ecosystem structure. Ecosystems structure generates ecosystem function, which in turn provides services. All economic production thus as an impact on ecosystem services, and because this impact is unavoidable, it is completely internal to the economic process” Problems of wastes – the other end of economic process’s impact on environment, dictated by laws of thermodynamics, things will not disappear and more disorder will be produced. Much of the waste can be assimilated but only absorbed at a fixed rate but created in any rate. Waste absorption capacity. Damaging ecosystem structure and function can damage the ability to absorb waste. 107 Humans depend on the ability of plants to capture solar energy in 2 ways: 1. Direct energy 2. Life-supporting functions generated by the ecosystems. Economic production require natural resources. Economic production generates waste. 109 From empty to full world. There are limits to growth – laws of thermodynamics! Economic theory developed in a empty world. 111 How close our we to a full world? can we adapt? Exponential growth, explanation. Box 7-1, Figure 7-1 112 Full world and minerals. Running out of minerals including topsoil. 116 Running out of water. “The dominant use of water (70%) is agriculture, so a water shortage will probably translate into hunger before thirst.” Depletion of aquifiers 117 “For virtually every renewable stock of significance, the rate of extraction is limited by resource scarcity, not by a lack of adequate infrastructure. It is a shortage of fish, not fishing boats, that has stagnated fish harvests over the last few years. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations estimates that 11 of the world’s 15 major fishing areas and 69% of the world’s major fish species are in decline and in need of urgent management. For instance, cod catches dropped by 69% from 1968 to 1992. West Atlantic bluefin tuna stocks dropped by more than 80% between 1970 and 1993.26 Similarly, it is a shortage of trees, not chainsaws, that limits wood production. As commercially valuable species are depleted, we turn to harvesting others that were formerly considered trash. As a result, for both fish and timber, the number of commercially valuable species has increased dramatically over recent decades.” 118 Destroying ecosystems and the services they provide. “For example, biodiversity appears to enhance ecosystem productivity and stability along with other ecosystem services, and continued loss of oceanic biodiversity may lead to the total collapse of marine fisheries by 2048.31 Virtually all other ecosystems confront similar threats through depletion of their component stocks.” Running out of waste absorption capacity. Negative effects of waste absorption. 119 Suffer in 2 ways by waste. Direct effects of waste on humans and indirectly through degradation of ecosystem services we depend on. 119, 120 Example of CO2120 Resource and sinks where sinks most pressing problem for human beings 122 To encouragement
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