Free Essay: Tools Used to Assess Sustainable Development

One of the main tools used to assess sustainable development is a risk assessment tool. The tool is mainly used for characterizing the adverse ecological and human health effects of exposure (Reidsma et al., 2011). Primarily, the risk assessment for human health includes mostly hazard identification, exposures assessment, risk characterization, and dose-response assessment. Risk assessment is essential elements as they help in establishing the environmental regulations, permitting industrial facilities, and cleanup levels.

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Malthusian View of Population Growth in Relationship to The Environment

Thomas Malthus was an enlightened thinker and political economist, and he observed the growing population with great concern. He believed that population mainly increases faster than the supply of the foods that is available for the need of the ever-growing population. This means with time (Uddin, 2016). The community will grow and exceed agricultural production and therefore, it will crash because of food shortages (Uddin, 2016). This results in a strain on the environment. Thus, population and environment are intertwined and they should maintain a favorable balance.

Climate Changes and its Causes

Climate change is described as the long-term change in the patters of whether in a particular region of time. Human activities are the leading causes of climate change (Lloyd & Oreskes, 2018). This includes activities such as farming livestock, cutting down rainforests and burning fossil fuels. Such activities add enormous amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, therefore, increasing the greenhouse effect and global warming. The greenhouse gasses are methane, nitrous oxide, fluorinated gases, and carbon dioxide.

One Energy Source and Describe Its Contribution to Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons, which include natural gas, fuel oil, and coal. They are made from the remains of dead animals and plants. Burning fossil fuel is the most significant human activity that contributes to greenhouse gas emissions (Lloyd & Oreskes, 2018). The exercise releases carbon dioxide which is responsible for increased temperature, therefore, leading global warming.

Long Answer

Difference Between Population Growth, Urbanization, and Globalization

Population growth is the increase in population over a period of time. For instance, the population of the United States grows by 0.7% per year (Wu et al., 2017). Population, the increase is mainly attributed to better health, high life expectancy, improved living standards, and adequate food. These factors make the population growth over time, and the environment is not strained. On the other hand, urbanization is the increase in the number of people living in urban areas. This is mainly the physical growth of urban areas due to people moving from rural areas to urban areas looking for better lives. Globalization on the other hand, how countries and people of different nations integrate and interact. This is mainly done through treaties and people moving to other nation for work or education.

Population growth, urbanization, and globalization have caused severe environmental concerns across the globe (Wu et al., 2017). This has created a strain on the naturals resources as a result of the social and economic changes. Some of the social changes include the move of people from rural to urban areas and the industrialization of the urban areas causing pollution (Wu et al., 2017). Moreover, these aspects are causing environmental degradation, which is terrible for human development mainly in developing countries that are becoming highly urbanized and are going global.

Urbanization, What Are the Environmental Issues Inherent in It

Urbanization is mainly the increase in the number of people living in urban areas. Primarily, it is the physical growth of the population or urban areas, and it can be either vertical or horizontal. For instance, the United Nations has projected that nearly half of the world's population would be living in urban areas by the end of 2008 (Wu et al., 2017). This has come to pass, and by 2050, it has been projected that 85.9% and 64.1% of the developed and developing nation would be urbanized respectively (Wu et al., 2017). Moreover, urbanization us not only a modern phenomenon but also as historical and rapid transformation of the human social roots at the global scale by which the rural culture us being replaced by the urban culture.

Some of the environmental issues that are associated with urbanization include greater poverty as the government is not in a position to provide services to all citizens. Congestion of people in urban areas results in the high use of fossil fuel leading to air pollution and, in the long run affecting human health (Wu et al., 2017). Similarly, crowding of people in urban areas results in a high number of automobiles as people need to move from one place to the next. This results in high carbon dioxide emission as the only source of energy for automobiles is fossil fuels. Urbanization creates large volumes o uncollected waste. Similarly, urban areas run at the risk of flash flooding and animal population in urban areas are inhabited by loss of habitats and food sources.

Relationship(S) Between Humans and Biodiversity

There is a strong relationship between humans and biodiversity. Biodiversity varies from the effects of abiotic and biotic factors. In today's world, the most dangerous factor affecting biodiversity are instigated by human activities (Levi et al., 2016). Primarily to improve and preserve biodiversity, people should support and adopt sustainable living habits. For instance, the cutting of forests across the world has resulted in reduced forest cover. Most animals live in forest and it is estimated that biodiversity loses close to 10 species each year due to deforestation (Levi et al., 2016). This is alarming as biodiversity and human need each to live and the relationship is symbiotic. Primarily, the use of renewable energy will a long way in protecting biodiversity as it reduced pollution. Animals and other microorganisms are affected by population, therefore, limiting their ability to balancing biodiversity.

The Difference Between Environmentalism, Environmental Justice and Sustainability, As Movements

Environmentalism is the philosophy, social movement, and ideology regarding the concerns in protecting the environment. Other aspects of environmentalism involve the improvement of the health of the environment, mainly issues to do with the impact of human activities (Temper, Demaria, Scheidel, Del Bene, & Martinez-Alier, 2018). On the other hand, environmental justice is described as the fair involvement, meaningful, and treatment of people regardless of their income, origin, race, ore color taking into consideration the implementation, development, and enforcement of environmental law, policies, and regulations (Temper et al., 2018). The principle of ecological justice begun as a result of wealthy and big companies setting up companies and disposing of the waste on locations near low-income people or communities. This policy has set fair distribution if the environmental burdens regardless of background and income. On the other hand, sustainability is described as the responsible interaction with the environment in order to avoid degradation and deletion of the natural resources allowing for the long-term improvement of the environmental quality (Temper et al., 2018).

References

Levi, T., Massey, A. L., Holt, R. D., Keesing, F., Ostfeld, R. S., & Peres, C. A. (2016). Does biodiversity protect humans against infectious disease? Comment. Ecology, 97(2), 536-542.

Lloyd, E. A., & Oreskes, N. (2018). Climate change attribution: When is it appropriate to accept new methods? Earth's Future, 6(3), 311-325.

Reidsma, P., Konig, H., Feng, S., Bezlepkina, I., Nesheim, I., Bonin, M., ... & Brouwer, F. (2011). Methods and tools for integrated assessment of land use policies on sustainable development in developing countries. Land Use Policy, 28(3), 604-617.

Temper, L., Demaria, F., Scheidel, A., Del Bene, D., & Martinez-Alier, J. (2018). The Global Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas): ecological distribution conflicts as forces for sustainability. Sustainability Science, 13(3), 573-584.

Uddin, G. A. (2016). Population changes and implications for economic growth and the environment in Australia (Doctoral dissertation, University of Southern Queensland).

Wu, T., Perrings, C., Kinzig, A., Collins, J. P., Minteer, B. A., & Daszak, P. (2017). Economic growth, urbanization, globalization, and the risks of emerging infectious diseases in China: a review. Ambio, 46(1), 18-29.