Лекция: The Roots of Environmental Degradation and Pollution

According to one simple model, the total environmental degradation and pollution or environ­mental impact of population in a given area depends on three factors: (1) the number of people; (2) the aver­age amount of resources each person uses; and (3) the environmental degradation and pollution resulting from each unit of resource used.

In general, overpopulation occurs when the peo­ple in a country,
a region, or the world are using non­renewable and renewable resources to such an extent that the resulting degradation or depletion of the resource base and pollution of the air, water, and soil are impairing their life-support systems.

The type known as people overpopulation exists where there are more people than the available sup­plies of food, water, and other vital resources can sup­port, or where the rate of population growth so exceeds the rate of economic growth that an increasing num­ber of people are too poor to grow or buy sufficient food, fuel, and other vital resources. In this type of overpopulation, population size and the resulting environmental degradation of potentially renewable soil, grasslands, forests, and fisheries tend to be the most important factors determining the total environ­mental impact. In the world's poorest LDCs, people overpopulation results in premature death for 12 mil­lion to 20 million human beings each year and bare subsistence for hundreds of millions more – a situa­tion that many fear will worsen unless population growth is brought under control and improved resource management is used to restore degraded renewable resource bases.

Affluent and technologically advanced countries such as the United States, the Russian Federation, and Japan are said by some to have a second type of overpopu­lation, known as consumption overpopulation. It is based on the fact that without adequate pollution and land use controls, a small number of people using resources at a high rate produces more pollution and environmental degradation than a much larger num­ber of people using resources at a much lower rate. With this type of overpopulation, high rates of resource use per person and the resulting high levels of pol­lution per person tend to be the most important fac­tors determining overall environmental impact.

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Pollution and envi­ronmental degradation are intensified not only by population size but also by population distribution. The most severe air and water pollution problems usually occur when large numbers of people are concentrated in urban areas. Conversely, spreading people out can have a devastating effect on potentially renewable soil, forest, grassland, and recreational resources. War also has a devastating environmental impact.

Some scientific and technological developments, such as the automobile and phosphate detergents, create new environmental problems or aggravate existing ones. Other scientific and technological develop­ments can help solve various environmental and resource problems. Substitutes have been developed for many scarce resources. Light bulbs, for example, have replaced whale oil in lamps, thus helping protect the world's rapidly diminishing population of whales from extinction. Unnecessary resource waste has been reduced. For example, more energy is recovered from a ton of coal than in the past, and processes to control and clean up many forms of pollution have been developed.

One major attempt to use technology wisely is the increased global emphasis on appropriate technology. Appropriate technology is usually small, simple, decentralized, and inexpensive to build and maintain, and it usually utilizes locally available materials and labor. Supporters of appropriate technology recognize that it is not a cure for all our environmental problems but believe that its increasing use is an encouraging trend that should be nurtured.

Economic, political, and ethical factors are also involved. We can manipulate the economic system to control pollution, environmental degradation, and resource waste by making such practices unprofitable (in free-market economies) or illegal (in centrally con­trolled).