CTCW-The Contemporary World

Environmental Crisis and Sustainable

Development

Name of Presenter here. Jimlour Condez, Surl Evan Domingo,Rino Sitjar, Johnllyod Castillon
CTCW-The Contemporary World

I. Introduction

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this lesson, you should be able to

 discuss the origins and manifestations of global environmental crises.

 relate everyday encounters with pollution, global warming. desertification, ozone depletion,
and many others with a larger picture of environmental degradation; and
 examine the policies and programs of governments around the world that address the
environmental crisis.

Name of Presenter here. Jimlour Condez, Surl Evan Domingo,Rino Sitjar, Johnllyod Castillon
CTCW-The Contemporary World

lI. LET’S DISCUSS

 If you live in Metropolitan Manila and travel to school (or to work) every day, the moment
you step out of your home, you are already exposed to the most serious problem
humanity faces today: the deteriorating state of the environment. As you walk out of the
gate, the fetid smell of uncollected garbage hits you and you go near the trash bin, curious
about what is causing the smell. You see rotting vegetables, a dead rat, and a bunch of
whatnot packed in plastic. These three "wastes" are already indicative of some
environmental problems-the vegetables ought to be added to a compost pile; the rat
either buried or burned (to also get rid of the lice that might jump into the hair of the
children playing nearby); and the plastics washed and recycled because, unlike the other
two wastes, it cannot decompose.

A.The World's Leading Environmental Problems

1. The depredation caused by industrial and transportation toxins and plastic in the ground; the
defiling of the sea. rivers, and water beds by oil spills and acid rain; the dumping of urban waste

2. Changes in global weather patterns (flash floods, extreme snowstorms, and the spread of
deserts) and the surge in ocean and land temperatures leading to a rise in sea levels (as the polar
ice caps melt because of the weather), plus the flooding of many lowland areas across the world

3. Overpopulation (see Lesson 9)

4. The exhaustion of the world's natural non-renewable resources from oil reserves to minerals to
potable water

5. A waste disposal catastrophe due to the excessive amount of waste (from plastic to food
packages to electronic waste) unloaded by communities in landfills as well as on the ocean; and
the dumping of nuclear waste

6. The destruction of million-year-old ecosystems and the loss of biodiversity (destruction of the
coral reefs and massive deforestation) that have led to the extinction of particular species and the
decline in the number of others

Name of Presenter here. Jimlour Condez, Surl Evan Domingo,Rino Sitjar, Johnllyod Castillon
CTCW-The Contemporary World

7. The reduction of oxygen and the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because of
deforestation, resulting in the rise in ocean acidity by as much as 150 percent in the last 250 years

8. The depletion of the ozone layer protecting the planet from the sun's deadly ultraviolet rays due
to chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the atmosphere

9. Deadly acid rain as a result of fossil fuel combustion, toxic chemicals from erupting volcanoes,
and the massive rotting vegetables filling up garbage dumps or left on the streets

10.Water pollution arising from industrial and community waste residues seeping into
underground water tables. rivers, and seas

11. Urban sprawls that continue to expand as a city turns into a megalopolis, destroying farmlands,
increasing traffic gridlock, and making smog cloud a permanent urban fixture (see Lesson 8)

12. Pandemics and other threats to public health arising from wastes mixing with drinking water,
polluted environment that become breeding grounds for mosquitoes and disease carrying rodents,
and pollution

13. A radical alteration of food systems because of genetic modifications in food production

 Many of these problems are caused by natural changes. Volcanic eruptions release toxins
in the atmosphere and lower the world's temperature. The US Geological Survey measured
the gas emissions from the active Kilauea volcano in Hawaii and concluded "that Kilauea
has been releasing more than twice the amount of noxious sulfur dioxide gas (SO) as the
single dirtiest power plant on the United States mainland." The 15 million tons of sulfur
dioxide that were released when Mount Pinatubo erupted on June 15, 2001 created a
"hazy layer of aerosol particles composed primarily of sulfuric acid droplets" that brought
down the average global temperature by 0.6 degrees Celsius for the next 15 months.18
Volcanologists at the University of Hawaii added that Pinatubo had released "15 to 20
megaton...of [sulfur dioxide] into the stratosphere...to offset the present global warming
trends and severely impact the ozone budget."

B.Man-made Pollution

Name of Presenter here. Jimlour Condez, Surl Evan Domingo,Rino Sitjar, Johnllyod Castillon
CTCW-The Contemporary World

Humans exacerbate other natural environmental problems. In Saudi Arabia, sandstorms combined
with combustion exhaust from traffic and industrial waste has lead the World Health Organization
(WHO) to declare Riyadh as one of the most polluted cities in the world.186 It is this "human
contribution" that has become an immediate cause of worry. Coal fumes coming out of industries
and settling down in surrounding areas contaminated 20 percent of China's soil, with the rice lands
in Hunan and Zhuzhou found to have heavy metals from the mines, threatening the food supply.

C. Catching Up

These massive environmental problems are difficult to resolve because governments believe that
for their countries to become fully developed, they must be industrialized, urbanized, and
inhabited by a robust middle class with access to the best of modern amenities. A developed
society, accordingly, must also have provisions for the poor-jobs in the industrial sector, public
transport system, and cheap food. Food depends on a country's free trade with other food
producers. It also relies on a "modernized" agricultural sector in which toxic technologies (such as
fertilizers or pesticides) and modified crops (e.g., high-yielding varieties of rice) ensure maximized
productivity.

D.Climate Change

Governments have their own environmental problems to deal with, but these states' ecological
concerns become worldwide due to global warming, which transcends national boundaries. Global
warming is the result of billion of tons of carbon dioxide (coming from coal-burning power plants
and transportation), various air pollutants, and other gases accumulating in the atmosphere. These
pollutants trap the sun's radiation causing the warming of the earth's surface. With the current
amount of carbon dioxide and other gases, this "greenhouse effect" has sped up the rise in the
world temperature. There is now a consensus that the global temperature has risen at a faster rate
in the last 50 years and it continues to go up despite efforts by climate change deniers that the
world had cooled off in and around 1998.

 The greenhouse effect is responsible for recurring heat waves and long droughts in certain
places, as well as for heavier rainfall and devastating hurricanes and typhoons in others.
Until recently, California had experienced its worst water shortage in 1,200 years due to
global warming.

 Since human-made climate change threatens the entire world, it is possibly the greatest
present risk to humankind.

E. Combating Global Warming

Name of Presenter here. Jimlour Condez, Surl Evan Domingo,Rino Sitjar, Johnllyod Castillon
CTCW-The Contemporary World

More countries are now recognizing the perils of global warming. In 1997, 192 countries signed the
Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gases, following the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit
where a Framework Convention for Climate Change was finalized.222 The protocol set targets but
left it to the individual countries to determine how best they would achieve these goals. While
some countries have made the necessary move to reduce their contribution to global warming, the
United States-the biggest polluter in the world--is not joining the effort. Developing countries lack
the funds to implement the protocol's guidelines as many of them need international aid to get
things moving. A 2010 World Bank report thus concluded that the protocol only had a slight impact
on reducing global emissions, in part because of the non-binding nature of the agreement.

III. References

https://www.scribd.com/presentation/476546064/Environmental-Crisis-and-Sustainable-
Development

Name of Presenter here. Jimlour Condez, Surl Evan Domingo,Rino Sitjar, Johnllyod Castillon