Spring-2013- Env-107 - Lecture note-1

Prof. Dr. Md. Anisur Rahman Khan (ARK)

We inhabit two worlds. One is the natural world of plants, animals, soils, air, and water that
preceded us by billions of years and of which we are a part. The other is the world of social
institutions and artifacts that we create for ourselves using science, technology, and political
organization. Both worlds are essential to our lives, but integrating them successfully causes
enduring tensions.
Science: The word science is simply an anglicize version of the Latin scientia, which means
knowledge. Science, derived from "knowing" in Latin, is a process for producing knowledge. It
depends on making precise observations of natural phenomena and on formulating reasonable
theories to make sense out of those observations.
Environment is everything that affects a living organism (any unique form of life). Environment
(from the French envirormer: to encircle or surround) can be defined as (1) the circumstances
and conditions that surround an organism or a group of organisms or (2) the social and cultural
conditions that affect an individual or a community. Since humans inhabit the natural world as
well as the "built" or technological, social, and cultural world, all constitute important parts of
our environment.
Environmental science is the systematic study of our environment and our place in it.
Environmental science is highly interdisciplinary. It integrates information from biology,
chemistry, geography, agriculture, and many other fields. To apply this information to improve
the ways we treat our world, environmental scientists also incorporate knowledge of social
organization, politics, and the humanities.
Environmental science is an interdisciplinary science that uses concepts and information from
natural sciences such as ecology, biology, chemistry, and geology and social sciences such as
economics, politics, and ethics to help us understand (1) how the earth works, (2) how we are
affecting the earth's life-support systems (environment), and (3) how to deal with the
environmental problems we face. Many different groups of people are concerned about
environmental issue.
What is the Science in the Environmental Science Many sciences are important to
environmental science. These include biology (especially ecology, that part of biology that deals
with the relationships among living things and their environment), geology, hydrology, climatology, meteorology, oceanography, and soil science.
What is the different about Environmental Science from other Sciences?
It involves many sciences. It includes sciences, but also involves related non-scientific fields
that have to do with how we value the environment, from environmental philosophy to environmental economics. It deals with many topics that have great emotional effects on people,
and therefore are subject to political debate and to strong feelings that often ignore scientific
information.

What Is Ecology? Ecology (from the Greek words oikos, "house" or "place to live," and logos,
"study of") is the study of how organisms interact with one another and with their nonliving
environment. In effect, it is a study of connections in nature.
Environmental scientists, who use information from the physical sciences and social sciences to
(1) understand how the earth works, (2) learn how humans interact with the earth, and (3)
develop solutions to environmental problems.
Environmentalists, who (1) are concerned about the impact of people on environmental quality
and (2) believe some human actions are degrading parts of the earth's life-support systems for
humans and many other forms of life. Environmentalists are a broad group of people from
different economic groups (rich, middle-class, poor) and with different political persuasions
(ranging from conservative to liberal).
Sustainable: The involvement and use of natural products and energy in a way that does not harm
the environment.
Sustainability: A search for ecological stability and human progress that can last over the long term.
Sustainability must be achieved, but we are unclear at present how to achieve it, in part because
the word is used to mean different things. Definition of Sustainability varies depending on the
purposes like social, economic or environmental sustainability. In short, ability of a system to
sustain longer, instead of getting simply some early profits.
Sustainable Development: "Our Common Future" by the World Commission on
Environment and Development (also called the "Brundtland Report"), defines sustainable
development as "which meets the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Sustainability has two scientific definitions: sustainable resource harvest, such as a sustainable
supply of timber, meaning that the same quantity of that resource can be harvested each year
(or other harvest interval) for an unlimited or specified length of time without decreasing
the ability of that resource to continue to produce the same harvest level. We also refer to a
sustainable ecosystem, meaning an ecosystem that is still able to maintain its essential functions
and properties even though we are harvesting one of its resources.
Other kinds of sustainability pertain to human societies. A sustainable economy is an economy
that maintains its level of activity over time in spite of its uses of environmental resources. So.
Sustainable development typically means that a society can continue to develop its
economy and social institutions and also maintain its environment for an indefinite time.
Carrying capacity is a concept related to sustainability. It is usually defined as the maximum
number of individuals of a species that can be sustained by an environment without decreasing
the capacity of the environment to sustain that same amount in the future. Carrying capacity
refers to the number of individuals who can be supported in a given area within natural resource
limits, and without degrading the natural social, cultural and economic environment for present
and future generations. The carrying capacity for any given area is not fixed. It can be altered by

improved technology, but mostly it is changed for the worse by pressures which accompany a
population increase. As the environment is degraded, carrying capacity actually shrinks, leaving
the environment no longer able to support even the number of people who could formerly have
lived in the area on a sustainable basis. No population can live beyond the environment's carrying
capacity for very long. When we ask "What is the maximum number of people that the Earth
can sustain?" we are asking about the Earth's carrying capacity and we are also asking
about sustainability
A BRIEF HISTORY OF CONSERVATION AND ENVIRONMENTALISM
Although some early societies had negative impacts on their surroundings, others lived in
relative harmony with nature. In modern times, however, growing human populations and the
power of our technology have heightened concern about what we are doing to our environment.
Historic Roots of Nature Protection
Recognizing human misuse of nature is not unique to modern times. P1ato complained in the
fourth century B.C. that Greece once was blessed with fertile soil and clothed with abundant
forests of fine trees. After the trees were cut to build houses and ships, however, heavy rains
washed the soil into the sea, leaving only a rocky "skeleton of a body wasted by disease."
Springs and rivers dried up, while farming became all but impossible. Many classical authors
regarded earth as a living being, vulnerable to aging, illness, and even mortality.
Some of the earliest scientific studies of environmental damage were carried out in the
eighteenth century by French or British colonial administrators, many of whom were trained
scientists and who considered responsible environmental stewardship as an aesthetic and moral
priority, as well as an economic necessity. These early conservationists observed and understood
the connections between deforestation, soil erosion, and local climate change. The pioneering
British plant physiologist Stephen Hales, for instance, suggested that conserving green plants
preserves rainfall. His ideas were put into practice in 1764 on the Caribbean island of Tobago,
where about 20 percent of the land was marked as "reserved in wood for rains."
Pierre Poivre, an early French governor of Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean, was
appalled at the environmental and social devastation caused by destruction of wildlife and the
felling of ebony forests on the island by early European settlers. In 1769 Poivre ordered that onequarter of the island be preserved in forests, particularly on steep mountain slopes and along
waterways. Mauritius remains a model for balancing nature and human needs. Its forest reserves
shelter a larger percentage of its original flora and fauna than most other humanoccupied islands.
Many historians consider the publication of Man and Nature in 1864 by geographer George
Perkins Marsh as the wellspring of environmental protection in North America. Marsh, who
also was a lawyer, politician, and diplomat, traveled widely around the Mediterranean as part of
his diplomatic duties in Turkey and Italy. He read widely in the classics (including Plato) and
personally observed the damage caused by excessive grazing by goats and sheep and by the
deforestation of steep hillsides.
Among those influenced by Marsh's warnings were U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and his
chief conservation adviser, Gifford Pinchot. In 1905 Roosevelt, who was the leader of the

populist, progressive movement, moved forest management out of the corruption-filled Interior
Department into the Department of Agriculture. Pinchot, who was the first American-born
professional forester, became the first chief of the new Forest Service. He put resource
management on an honest, rational, and scientific basis for the first time in American history.
Together with naturalists and activists such as John Muir, William Brewster, and George Bird
Grinnell, Roosevelt and Pinchot established the framework of the national forest, park, and
wildlife refuge system. They passed game protection laws and tried to stop some of the most
flagrant abuses of the public domain. In 1908 Pinchot organized and chaired the White House
Conference on Natural Resources, perhaps the most prestigious and influential environmental
meeting ever held in the United States. Pinchot also was governor of Pennsylvania and founding
head of the Tennessee Valley Authority, which provided inexpensive power to the southeastern
United States.
The basis of Roosevelt's and Pinchot's policies was pragmatic utilitarian conservation. They
argued that the forests should be saved "not because they are beautiful or because they shelter
wild creatures of the wilderness, but only to provide homes and jobs for people." Resources
should be used "for the greatest good, for the greatest number, for the longest time s' "There has
been a fundamental misconception," Pinchot wrote, "that conservation means nothing but
husbanding of resources for future generations. Nothing could be further from the truth. The first
principle of conservation is development and use of the natural resources now existing on this
continent for the benefit of the people who live here now. There may be just as much waste in
neglecting the development and use of certain natural resources as there is in their destruction."
This pragmatic approach still can be seen in the multiple-use policies of the U.S. Forest Service.
John Muir, amateur geologist, popular author, and first president of the Sierra Club, strenuously
opposed Pinchot's utilitarian policies. Muir argued that nature deserves to exist for its own sake,
regardless of its usefulness to us. Aesthetic and spiritual values formed the core of his philosophy
of nature protection. This outlook has been called biocentric preservation because it emphasizes
the fundamental right of other organisms to exist and to pursue their own interests. Muir wrote:
"The world, we are told, was made for man. A presumption that is totally unsupported by the
facts.... Nature's object in making animals and plants might possibly be first of all the happiness
of each one of them.... Why ought man to value himself as more than an infinitely small unit of
the one great unit of creation`?"
Muir, who was an early explorer and interpreter of California's Sierra Nevada range, fought long
and hard for establishment of Yosemite and Kings Canyon National Parks. The National Park
Service, established in 1916, was first headed by Muir's disciple, Stephen Mather, and has
always been oriented toward preservation of nature in its purest state.
Modern Environmentalism
The undesirable effects of pollution probably have been, recognized as long as people have been
building smoky fires. In 1273 King Edward I of England threatened to hang anyone burning
coal in London because of the acrid smoke it produced. 1661 the English diarist John Evelyn
complained about the noxious air pollution caused by coal fires and factories and suggested that
sweet smelling trees be planted to purify city air. Increasingly dangerous smog attacks in Britain
led, in 1880, to formation of a national Fog and Smoke Committee to combat this problem.
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The tremendous expansion of chemical industries during and after World War II added a new set
of concerns to the environmental agenda. Rachel Carson wrote a book entitled Silent Spring
about the effects of pesticides on birds. Silent Spring, written by Rachel Carson and published
in 1962, awakened the public to the threats of pollution and toxic chemicals to humans as well as
other species. The movement she engendered might be called modern environmentalism because
its concerns extended to include both natural resources and environmental pollution. Among
some other pioneers of this movement were activist David Brower and scientist Barry
Commoner. Brower, as executive director of the Sierra Club. Friends of the Earth, and Earth
Island Institute, introduced many of the techniques of environmental lobbying and activism,
including litigation, intervention in regulatory hearings, book and calendar publishing, and use of
mass media for publicity campaigns.
Under the leadership of a number of other brilliant and dedicated activists and scientists, the
environmental agenda was expanded in the 1960s and 1970s to most of the issues addressed in
this textbook, such as human population growth, atomic weapons testing and atomic power,
fossil fuel extraction and use, recycling, air and water pollution, and wilderness protection.
Environmentalism has become well established in the public agenda since the first national
Earth Day in 1970. A majority of Americans now consider themselves environmentalists,
although there is considerable variation in what that term means.
Global Concerns
Increased opportunities to travel and expanded international communications now enable us to
know about daily events in places unknown to our parents or grandparents. We have become, as
Marshal McLuhan famously announced in the 1960s, a global village. As in a village, we are
all interconnected in various ways. Events that occur on the other side of the globe have
profound and immediate effects on our lives.
Photographs of the earth from space provide a powerful icon for the fourth wave of ecological
concern, which might be called global environmentalism. Such photos remind us how small,
fragile, beautiful, and rare our home planet is. We all share an environment at this global scale.
As Ambassador Adlai Stevenson noted, in his 1965 farewell address to the United Nations
(quoted at the beginning of this chapter), we now need to worry about the life-support systems of
the planet as a whole.
Among the leaders of the worldwide movement combining environmental protection with social
justice have been British economist Barbara Ward, French/American scientist Rene Dubois,
Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, and Canadian diplomat Maurice Strong.
All have been central in major international environmental conventions, such as the 1972 UN
Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm or the 1992 UN Earth Summit in Rio
de Janeiro. Once again, new issues have become part of the agenda as our field of vision
widens. We have begun to appreciate the links between poverty, injustice, oppression, and
exploitation of humans and our environment. Most of the global leaders gathered together to
discuss on global sustainability in the Historical Rio Earth Summit (1992) (Rio di Janeiro,

Brazil). Outcome of the meeting is Agenda 21 (http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents

/agenda21/). Agenda 21 gives a direction for future sustainability of the world.
Four major components of sustainable Development described in Agenda21 . These are:
The Social and Economic Dimensions
Conservation and Management of Resources for Development
Strengthening the Role of Major Groups
Means of Implementations
Why is this study important?
We depend on our environment. People can live only in an environment with certain kinds of
characteristics and within certain ranges of availability of resources.
We enjoy our environment. To keep it enjoyable, we must understand it from a scientific view
point. Our environment improves the quality of our lives. A healthy environment can help us
live longer and more fulfilling lives.
Shrimp, Mangroves, and Pickup Trucks: Local and Global Connections Reveal Major
Environmental Concerns
Maitri Visctak owns a small plot of land along the coast of southern Thailand and wanted to
improve life for his family, and he succeeded. A growing demand for shrimp as a luxury food
and overfishing of wild shrimp had fueled growth of the world market for farmed shrimp from
a $1.5 billion industry 30 years ago to an S8 billion business today. In the early 1990s, Mr.
Visetak began farming shrimp in two small ponds. Within two years, he had accumulated
enough capital to purchase two pickup trucks-in Thailand a clear indica tion of financial
Success. By then, though, his ponds were contaminated with shrimp waste, antibiotics, fertil izers, and pesticides. Shrimp could no longer live in the ponds. And there was an even more
widespread effect: Pollutants escaping from the ponds threatened survival of the area's
mangrove trees. Like thousands of other shrimp farmers in Southeast Asia, India, Africa, and
Latin America, Mr. Visetak considered abandoning these ponds and moving on to others.
Maitri Visetak is trying to feed his family in the best way he knows how, but along with
thousands of other shrimp farmers in the World, he is unwittingly contributing to destruction of
coastal mangroves, one of the world's valuable ecosystems. Half of the world's man grove
forests have been destroyed and with them a major source of food for local human populations
and breeding grounds for much of the tropical world's sea life. The United Nations
Environment Program has estimated that one-fourth of the destruction of mangroves can be
traced to shrimp farming. Environmentalists have become alarmed, and in many areas local
people have staged protests against shrimp farming. With the world's population expected to
increase from 6.2 billion to 9 billion by the middle of the twenty-first century, concern over
the world's mangrove forests is growing.
Maitri Visetak's story illustrates the major themes of environmental science.
The major themes of environmental science are:
First, people and nature are intimately connected, and changes in one lead to changes in
the other.

Second, human population increase is a major contributor to environmental problems.

Third, industrial development and urbanization have serious environmental
consequences.
Fourth, unsustainable use of resources must be replaced with sustainable practices.
Fifth, local changes can have global effects.
Sixth, environmental issues involve values and attitudes as well as scientific
understanding.

Maitri Visetak's story also illustrates important questions that we all must face. Which
individual actions contribute to environmental degradation? What actions can people, both
as individuals and as groups, take to limit environmental damage?
Solving environmental problems requires values and knowledge.
Deciding what to do about an environmental problem involves both values and science. Placing a
value on various aspects of the environment requires knowledge and understanding of the science
but also depends on our judgments concerning the uses and aesthetics of the environment and on
our moral commitments to other living things and to future generations.
Ecological knowledge provides options for environmental action, choices are determined in part
by our values; science tells us what we can do, while our values help us determine what we
should do.
Environmental values can be based on:
Utilitarian justification: It provides individuals with economic benefit or is directly necessary to
their survival. The utilitarian justification sees some aspects of the environment as valuable
because it benefits individuals economically or is directly necessary to human survival. E.g.
mangrove swamps provide shrimp.
Ecological justification: The ecological justification is that an ecosystem is necessary for the
survival of some species of interest to us, or that the system itself provides some benefit. (e.g.
mangrove swamps provide habitat for marine fish.) It is based on some factors that is essential to
larger life support functions, even though it may not benefit an individual directly.
Aesthetic arguments: Deals with the values of the beauty of nature. Aesthetic justification has to
do with appreciation of the beauty of nature. (e.g. many people find wilderness scenery beautiful
and would rather live in a world with wilderness than without it).
and
Moral justification: Conduct considered as good for the environment. It has led to the
development of another discipline-environmental ethics. Moral justification has to do with the
belief that various aspects of the environment have a right to exist and that is our moral obligation
to allow them to continue or help them to persist.
Examples of Environmental Injustice are:
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Relocation of tanneries from developed countries to Bangladesh in 1960s and 1970s

Textile dying and finishing
Disposal of hazardous waste in poor countries by rich countries
Relocation of power hungry and polluting industries from developed countries to under-developed
countries
A Global Perspective
The recognition that, worldwide, civilization can change the environment at a global level is
relatively recent. Scientists now believe that emissions of modern chemicals are changing the
ozone layer high in the atmosphere. Scientists also believe that burning fossil fuels increases
the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which may change Earth's climate.
These atmospheric changes suggest that the actions of many groups of people at many locations
affect the environment of the entire world.
The Gaia Hypothesis
Awareness of the global interactions between life and the environment has led to the development
of the Gaia hypothesis, originated by British chemist James Lovelock and American biologist
Lynn Margulis. The Gaia hypothesis is an ecological hypothesis that proposes that living and
nonliving parts of the earth are a complex interacting system that can be thought of as a single
organism. The Gaia hypothesis-named for Gaia, the Greek goddess Mother Earth-has
become a hotly debated subject. This hypothesis postulates that all living things have a
regulatory effect on the Earth's environment that promotes life overall.
In the early 1970s, James Lovelock theorized that Earth behaves like a superorganism, and
this concept developed into what is now known as the Gaia hypothesis.
The hypothesis states that life manipulates the environment for the maintenance of life. For
example, some scientists believe that algae floating near the surface of the ocean influence
rainfall at sea and the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere, thereby significantly
affecting the global climate.
According to James Lovelock, (Gaia hypothesis) Earth is superorganism and compared the
cycling of nutrients from soils and rocks in streams and rivers to the circulation of blood in
an animal. In this metaphor, the rivers are the arteries and veins, the forests are the lungs,
and the oceans are the heart of Earth.
The Gaia hypothesis is really a series of hypotheses:
The first is that life, since its inception, has greatly affected the planetary environment. Few
scientists would disagree.
The second hypothesis asserts that life has altered Earth's environment in ways that have
allowed life to persist. Certainly, there is some evidence that life has had such an effect on
Earth's climate.
A popularized extension of the Gaia hypothesis is that life deliberately (consciously) controls
the global environment. Few scientists accept this idea.
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THE EARTH'S LIFE-SUPPORT SYSTEMS

What Are the Major Parts of the Earth's Life Support Systems?
We can think of the earth as being made up of several spherical layers .
The atmosphere is a thin envelope or membrane of air around the planet. Its inner layer, the
troposphere, extends only about 17 kilometers (11 miles) above sea level but contains most of
the planet's air, mostly nitrogen (78%) and oxygen (21%).
The next layer, stretching 17-48 kilometers (11-30 miles) above the earth's surface, is the
stratosphere. Its lower portion contains enough ozone (03) to filter out most of the sun's harmful
ultraviolet radiation, thus allowing life to exist on land and in the surface layers of bodies of
water.
The hydrosphere consists of the earth's (1) liquid water (both surface and underground), (2) ice
(polar ice, icebergs, and ice in frozen soil layers, or permafrost), and (3) water vapor in the
atmosphere. The lithosphere is the earth's crust and upper mantle; the crust contains
nonrenewable fossil fuels and minerals we use as well as renewable soil chemicals (nutrients)
needed for plant life.
The biosphere is the portion of the earth in which living (biotic) organisms exist and interact
with one another and with their nonliving (abiotic) environment. The biosphere includes most of
the hydrosphere and parts of the lower atmosphere and upper lithosphere. It reaches from the
deepest ocean floor, 20 kilometers (12 miles) below sea level, to the tops of the highest
mountains. If the earth were an apple, the biosphere would be no thicker than the apple's skin.
The goal of ecology is to understand the interactions in this thin, life-supporting global skin or
membrane of air, water, soil, and organisms.
What Sustains Life on Earth?
Life on the earth depends on three interconnected factor
The one-way flow of high-quality energy from the sun,
The cycling of matter (the atoms, ions, or molecules needed for survival by living
organisms) through parts of the biosphere. The earth is closed to significant inputs of
matter from space. Thus essentially all the nutrients used by organisms are already
present on earth and must be recycled again and again for life to continue.
Gravity, which (1) allows the planet to hold on to its atmosphere and (2) causes the
downward movement of chemicals in the matter cycles.

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RESOURCES
From a human standpoint, a resource is anything obtained from the environment to meet human
needs and wants. Examples include food, water, shelter, manufactured goods, transportation,
communication, and recreation.
Some resources, such as solar energy, fresh air, wind, fresh surface water, fertile soil, and wild
edible plants, are directly available for use. Other resources, such as petroleum (oil), iron,
groundwater (water found underground), and modem crops, are not directly available. They
become useful to us only with some effort and technological ingenuity. For example, petroleum
was a mysterious fluid until we learned how to find, extract, and convert (refine) it into gasoline,
heating oil, and other products that we could sell at affordable prices.
On our short human time scale, we classify the material resources we get from the environment
as (1) renewable, or (2) nonrenewable .
On a human time scale, a renewable resource can be replenished fairly rapidly (hours to several
decades) through natural processes as long as it is not used up faster than it is replaced. Examples
are (1) forests, (2) grasslands, (3) wild animals, (4) fresh water, (5) fresh air, and (6) fertile soil.
Solar energy is called a perpetual resource because on a human time scale it is renewed
continuously. It is expected to last at least 6 billion years as the sun completes its life cycle
However, renewable resources can be depleted or degraded. The highest rate at which a
renewable resource can be used indefinitely without reducing its available supply is called its
sustainable yield.
If we exceed a resource's natural replacement rate, the available supply begins to shrink, a
process known as environmental degradation. Examples of such degradation include (1)
urbanization of productive land, (2) waterlogging and salt buildup in soil, (3) excessive topsoil
erosion, (4) deforestation, (5) groundwater depletion, (6) overgrazing of grasslands by livestock,
(7) reduction in the earth's forms of wildlife (biodiversity) by elimination of habitats and species,
and (8) pollution.
Resources that exist in a fixed quantity or stock in the earth's crust are called nonrenewable
resources. On a time scale of millions to billions of years, geological processes can renew such
resources. However, on the much shorter human time scale of hundreds to thousands of years,
these resources can be depleted much faster than they are formed.
Renewable (direct solar energy, winds, tides, flowing water) and Non-renewable resources
(fossil fuels, metallic minerals-iron, copper and non-metallic minerals-clay, sand). They are also
known as material resource.
These exhaustible resources include (1) energy resources (such as coal, oil, and natural gas,
which cannot be recycled), (2) metallic mineral resources (such as iron, copper, and aluminum,
which can be recycled), and (3) nonmetallic mineral resources (such as salt, clay, sand, and
phosphates, which usually are difficult or too costly to recycle.

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An ecological resource is anything required by an organism for normal maintenance, growth,

and reproduction.Examples: habitat, food, water, and shelter.
An economic resource is anything obtained from the environment to meet human needs and
wants.Examples: food, water, shelter, manufactured goods, transportation, communication, and
recreation.
A natural resource is any form of matter or energy that is obtained from the physical
environment to meet human needs.
POLLUTION
Any addition to air, water, soil, or food that threatens the health, survival, or activities of humans
or other living organisms is called pollution. An undesirable change in the physical, chemical or
biological characteristics of the air, water, soil or food that threatens the health, survival, or
activities of humans or other living organisms is called pollution.
Pollutants can enter the environment
(1) naturally (for example, from volcanic eruptions) or
(2) through human (anthropogenic) activities (for example, from burning coal).
Most pollution from human activities occurs in or near urban and industrial areas, where
pollutants are concentrated. Industrialized agriculture also is a major source of pollution. Some
pollutants contaminate the areas where they are produced; others are carried by wind or flowing
water to other areas.
Pollution Source:
1. Naturally (from volcanic eruptions),
2. human activities (from burning coal),
3. Industrialized agriculture
There are two types of pollutant sources:
Point sources, where pollutants come from single, identifiable sources. Examples are the
(1) smokestack of a coal-burning power plant, (2) drainpipe of a factory, or (3) exhaust
pipe of an automobile.
Nonpoint sources, where pollutants come from dispersed (and often difficult to identify)
sources. Examples are (1) runoff of fertilizers and pesticides (from farmlands, golf
courses, and suburban lawns and gardens) into streams and lakes and (2) pesticides
sprayed into the air or blown by the wind into the atmosphere.
The other types of pollutants are:

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Degradable pollutants: can be decomposed, removed, or consumed and thus reduced to

acceptable level by natural physical, chemical, and biological processes.
Nondegradable pollutants: cannot be broken down by natural processes. E.g., the toxic
elements lead and mercury.
Complex chemical pollutants broken down (metabolized) into simpler chemicals by living
organisms (usually by specialized bacteria) are called biodegradable pollutants. Example:
human sewage in river is biodegradable fairly quickly by bacteria if the sewage is not added
faster than it can be broken down.
There are two classes of degradable pollutants:
Slowly degradable or persistent pollutants: takes decades or longer to degrade. E.g.,
insecticide DDT and most plastics.
Rapidly degradable or non-persistent pollutants: human sewage and animal and crop
wastes (decomposed by microbes).
Factors determining the severity of the pollutants:
1. Chemical nature of the pollutants
2. Concentration of the pollutants e.g. ppm, ppb and or ppt.
3. Pollutants persistence.
ppm: number of parts of pollutants found in 1 million parts of a mixture of gas/liquid or solid.
ppb: number of parts of pollutants found in 1 billion parts of a mixture of gas/liquid or solid.
ppt: number of parts of pollutants found in 1 trillion parts of a mixture of gas/liquid or solid.
Nonthreshold and threshold pollutants:
Nonthreshold: harmful to a particular organism in any concentration. Examples: mercury, lead
etc. Threshold: harmful only above given conc.Examples: DDT and arsenic.
Acute and chronic effects of the pollutants:
Occurs shortly after the exposure.
Takes place over a long period of time. (continued at low conc. exposure)
Free-Access Resources and the Tragedy of the Commons
One cause of environmental degradation is the overuse of common-property or free-access
resources. Such resources are owned by no one (or jointly by everyone in a country or area) but
are available to all users at little or no charge. Examples include (1) clean air, (2) the open ocean
and its fish, (3) migratory birds, (4) wildlife species, (5) publicly owned lands (such as national
forests, national parks, and wildlife refuges), (6) gases of the lower atmosphere, and (7) space.
In 1968, biologist Garrett Hardin called the degradation of renewable free-access resources the
tragedy of the commons. It happens because each user reasons, "If I do not use this resource,
someone else will. The little bit I use or pollute is not enough to matter, and such re sources are
renewable."
What Types of Harm Do Pollutants Cause?

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Unwanted effects of pollutants include the following:

Disruption of life-support systems for humans and other species
Damage to wildlife, human health, and property
Nuisances such as noise and unpleasant smells,tastes, and sights
Solutions: What Can We Do About Pollution?
We use two basic approaches to deal with pollution: (1) prevent it from reaching the
environment or (2) clean it up if it does.
Pollution prevention or input pollution control reduces or eliminates the production of pollutants. We can prevent (or at least reduce) pollution by following the five Rs of resource use:
refuse (do not use), replace (find a less harmful sustitute), reduce (use less), reuse, and recycle.
Pollution cleanup or output pollution control involves cleaning up pollutants after they have
been produced to acceptable levels

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