-milr14.7295.fm.crx.i-xx 8/26/04 1:57 pm page ii · 6 chapter 1 environmental problems, their...

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C A S E S T U D Y

Living in an Exponential Age

Two ancient kings enjoyed playing chess, with the win-ner claiming a prize from the loser. After one match, thewinner asked the loser to pay him by placing one grainof wheat on the first square of the chessboard, two onthe second, four on the third, and so on, with the num-ber doubling on each square until all 64 were filled.

The losing king, thinking he was getting off easy,agreed with delight. It was the biggest mistake he evermade. He bankrupted his kingdom because the num-ber of grains of wheat he had promised was probablymore than all the wheat that has ever been harvested!

This fictional story illustrates the concept ofexponential growth, in which a quantity increases at aconstant rate per unit of time such as 2% a year. Expo-nential growth is deceptive. It starts off slowly, butafter only a few doublings, it grows to enormousnumbers because each doubling is more than the totalof all earlier growth.

Here is another example. Fold a piece of paper inhalf to double its thickness. If you could continuedoubling the thickness of the paper 42 times, the stackwould reach from the earth to the moon, 386,400 kilo-meters (240,000 miles) away. If you could double it50 times, the folded paper would almost reach thesun, 149 million kilometers (93 million miles) away!

Between 1950 and 2004, the world’s populationincreased exponentially from 2.5 billion to 6.4 billionand may increase to somewherebetween 8 billion and 12 billionpeople by the end of this century(Figure 1-1).

Global economic output—someof it environmentally beneficial andsome of it environmentally harm-ful—is a rough measure of the hu-

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2000 2100Time

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Black Death—the Plague

B.C.

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Agricultural revolution Industrialrevolution

?

?

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Figure 1-1 The J-shaped curve of pastexponential world population growth, withprojections to 2100. Notice that exponen-tial growth starts off slowly, but as timepasses the curve becomes increasinglysteep. The current world population of6.4 billion people is projected to reach8–12 billion people sometime this century.(This figure is not to scale.) (Data fromWorld Bank and United Nations; photocourtesy of NASA)

Environmental Problems, TheirCauses, and Sustainability1

man use of the earth’s resources. It has increased sev-enfold since 1950 and is projected to continue increas-ing exponentially at a rapid rate.

Despite a 22-fold increase in economic growthsince 1900, almost one of every two people in the world tryto survive on an income of less than $3 (U.S.) per day.

Such poverty affects environmental quality be-cause to survive many of the poor must deplete anddegrade local forests, grasslands, soil, and wildlife.

Biologists estimate that human activities are caus-ing premature extinction of the earth’s species at anexponential rate of 0.1% to 1% a year—an irreversibleloss of the earth’s great variety of life forms, or bio-diversity. In various parts of the world, forests, grass-lands, wetlands, and coral reefs continue to disappearor become degraded as the human ecological footprintcontinues to spread exponentially across the globe.

There is growing concern that exponential growthin human activities such as burning fossil fuels andclearing forests will change the earth’s climate duringthis century. This could ruin some areas for farming,shift water supplies, alter and reduce biodiversity, anddisrupt economies in various parts of the world.

Exponential growth plays a key role in fiveimportant and interconnected environmental issues:population growth, resource use and waste, poverty, loss ofbiological diversity, and global climate change. Great news.We have solutions to these problems that we couldimplement within a few decades, as you will learn inthis book.

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6 CHAPTER 1 Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and Sustainability

Alone in space, alone in its life-supporting systems, poweredby inconceivable energies, mediating them to us through themost delicate adjustments, wayward, unlikely, unpredictable,but nourishing, enlivening, and enriching in the largestdegree—is this not a precious home for all of us? Is it notworth our love?

BARBARA WARD AND RENÉ DUBOS

This chapter presents an overview of environmentalproblems, their causes, controversy over their serious-ness, and ways we can live more sustainably. It dis-cusses these questions:

■ What keeps us alive? What is an environmentallysustainable society?

■ How fast is the human population increasing?What are economic growth, economic develop-ment, and globalization?

■ What are the earth’s main types of resources? Howcan they be depleted or degraded?

■ What are the principal types of pollution? Whatcan we do about pollution?

■ What are the basic causes of today’s environmentalproblems? How are these causes connected?

■ Is our current course sustainable? What is environ-mentally sustainable development?

1-1 LIVING MORE SUSTAINABLY

What Is the Difference between Environment,Ecology, and Environmental Science? DefiningSome Basic Terms

Environmental science is a study of how the earthworks, how we interact with the earth, and how todeal with environmental problems.

Environment is everything that affects a living organ-ism (any unique form of life). Ecology is a biologicalscience that studies the relationships between livingorganisms and their environment.

This textbook is an introduction to environmentalscience, an interdisciplinary study that uses informa-tion from the physical sciences and social sciencesto learn how the earth works, how we interact with theearth, and how to deal with environmental problems.Environmental science involves integrating ideas fromthe natural world (biosphere) and our cultural world(culturesphere).

Environmentalism is a social movement dedi-cated to protecting the earth’s life support systems forus and other species. Members of the environmentalcommunity include ecologists, environmental scientists,conservation biologists, conservationists, preservationists,restorationists, and environmentalists.

What Keeps Us Alive? The Sun and the Earth’sNatural Capital

All life and economies depend on energy from the sun (solar capital) and the earth’s resources andecological services (natural capital).

Our existence, lifestyles, and economies depend com-pletely on the sun and the earth, a blue and whiteisland in the black void of space (Figure 1-1). To econo-mists, capital is wealth used to sustain a business andto generate more wealth. For example, suppose you in-vest $100,000 of capital and get a 10% return on yourmoney. In a year you get $10,000 in income from inter-est and increase your wealth to $110,000.

By analogy, we can think of energy from the sun assolar capital. Solar energy includes direct sunlightand indirect forms of renewable solar energy such aswind power, hydropower (energy from flowing water),and biomass (direct solar energy converted to chemicalenergy and stored in biological sources of energy suchas wood).

Similarly, we can think of the planet’s air, water,soil, wildlife, forest, rangeland, fishery, mineral, andenergy resources and the processes of natural purifica-tion, recycling, and pest control as natural resourcesor natural capital (Figure 1-2). See the Guest Essay byPaul Hawken on the website for this chapter.

Natural capital consists of resources (orange in Fig-ure 1-2) and ecological services (green in Figure 1-2) thatsupport and sustain the earth’s life and economies.This priceless natural capital that nature provides atno cost to us plus the natural biological income it sup-plies can sustain the planet and our economies indefi-nitely as long as we do not deplete them. Examples ofbiological income are renewable supplies of wood, fish,grassland for grazing, and underground water fordrinking and irrigation.

What Is an Environmentally SustainableSociety? One That Preserves Natural Capitaland Lives Off Its Income

An environmentally sustainable society meets the basic resource needs of its people indefinitelywithout degrading or depleting the natural capitalthat supplies these resources.

An environmentally sustainable society meets thecurrent needs of its people for food, clean water, cleanair, shelter, and other basic resources without com-promising the ability of future generations to meettheir needs. Living sustainably means living off naturalincome replenished by soils, plants, air, and waterand not depleting or degrading the earth’s naturalcapital that supplies this biological income.

Imagine you win $1 million in a lottery. Invest thiscapital at 10% interest per year, and you will have a

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7http://biology.brookscole.com/miller14

Air

Water

Soil Minerals

Energy

RESOURCES

PopulationControl

NutrientRecycling

ClimateControl

PollutionControl

WasteTreatment

BiodiversityPest &

DiseaseControl

SERVICES

NATURAL CAPITALSO

LAR ENERGY

Figure 1-2 The earth’s natural capital.Energy from the sun (solar capital) and the earth’s natural capital provideresources (orange) and ecological ser-vices (green) that support and sustainthe earth’s life and economies. Wedgesfrom this diagram will be used near thetitles of various chapters to indicate thecomponents of natural capital that arethe primary focus of such chapters.This diagram also appears on the backcover of this book.

sustainable annual income of $100,000 without deplet-ing your capital. If you spend $200,000 a year, your$1 million will be gone early in the 7th year and even ifyou spend only $110,000 a year, you will be bankruptearly in the 18th year.

The lesson here is an old one: Protect your capitaland live off the income it provides. Deplete, waste, orsquander your capital, and you move from a sustain-able to an unsustainable lifestyle.

The same lesson applies to the earth’s natural cap-ital. According to many environmentalists and leadingscientists, we are living unsustainably by wasting, de-pleting, and degrading the earth’s natural capital at anaccelerating rate.

Some people disagree. They contend that environ-mentalists have exaggerated the seriousness of popula-tion, resource, and environmental problems. They alsobelieve we can overcome these problems by human in-genuity, economic growth, and technological advances.

1-2 POPULATION GROWTH,ECONOMIC GROWTH, ECONOMICDEVELOPMENT, AND GLOBALIZATION

How Rapidly Is the Human PopulationGrowing? Pretty Fast

The rate at which the world’s population is growinghas slowed but is still growing pretty rapidly.

Currently the world’s population is growing exponen-tially at a rate of about 1.25% a year. This does not seem

like a very fast rate. But it addedabout 80 million people (6.4 bil-lion � 0.0125 � 80 million) to theworld’s population in 2004, an

average increase of 219,000 people a day, or 9,100 anhour. At this rate it takes only about 3 days to add the651,000 Americans killed in battle in all U.S. wars andonly 1.6 years to add the 129 million people killed inall wars fought in the past 200 years!

How much is 80 million? Suppose you spend1 second saying hello to each of the 80 million new peo-ple added this year for 24 hours a day—no sleeping,eating or anything else allowed. How long would thishandshaking marathon take? Answer: 2.5 years. Bythen there would be about 192 million more people toshake hands with. Exponential growth is astonishing!

What Is the Difference between EconomicGrowth and Economic Development? MoreStuff and Better Living Standards

Economic growth provides people with more goods and services and economic development uses economic growth to improve living standards.

Economic growth is an increase in the capacity of acountry to provide people with goods and services. Ac-complishing this increase requires population growth(more producers and consumers), more productionand consumption per person, or both.

Economic growth is usually measured by the per-centage change in a country’s gross domestic product(GDP): the annual market value of all goods and ser-vices produced by all firms and organizations, foreignand domestic, operating within a country. Changes ina country’s standard of living is measured by percapita GDP: the GDP divided by the total populationat midyear.

Economic development is the improvement of liv-ing standards by economic growth. The United Nations

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(UN) classifies the world’s countries as economicallydeveloped or developing based primarily on their de-gree of industrialization and their per capita GDP.

The developed countries (with 1.2 billion people)include the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia,New Zealand, and the countries of Europe. Most arehighly industrialized and have high average per capitaGDP. All other nations (with 5.2 billion people) areclassified as developing countries, most of them inAfrica, Asia, and Latin America. Some are middle-income, moderately developed countries and others arelow-income countries.

Figure 1-3 compares some key characteristics of de-veloped and developing countries. About 97% of theprojected increase in the world’s population is expectedto take place in developing countries (Figure 1-4).

Figure 1-5 summarizes some of the benefits (goodnews) and harm (bad news) caused mostly by economicdevelopment. It shows effects of the wide and increas-ing gap between the world’s haves and have-nots.

What Is Globalization? Being Connected

We live in a world that is increasingly interconnectedthrough economic, cultural, and environmentalinterdependence.

You have probably heard about globalization: theprocess of social, economic, and environmental global


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Figure 1-4 Past and projected population size for developedcountries, developing countries, and the world, 1950–2100.Developing countries are expected to account for 97% of the2.5 billion people projected to be added to the world’s popula-tion between 2004 and 2050. (Data from United Nations)

Tr a d e - O f f s

Economic Development

Good News Bad News

Life expectancy 11 years less in developing countries than in developed countries

Infant mortality rate in developing countries over 8 times higher than in developed countries

Harmful environmental effects of agriculture may limit future food production

Air and water pollution levels in most developing countries too high

Half of world's people trying to live on less than $3 (U.S.) per day

Global life expectancy doubled since 1950

Infant mortality cut in half since 1955

Food production ahead of population growth since 1978

Air and water pollution down in most developed countries since 1970

Number of people living in poverty dropped 6% since 1990

Figure 1-5 Trade-offs: good and bad news about economicdevelopment. Pick the single pieces of good news and badnews that you believe are the most important. (Data from UnitedNations and World Health Organization)

Figure 1-3 Comparison of developed and developing countries.(Data from United Nations and the World Bank)

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decades) through natural processes. But this worksonly as long as the resource is not used up faster thanit is replaced. Examples of renewable resources areforests, grasslands, wild animals, fresh water, fresh air,and fertile soil.

Renewable resources can be depleted or degraded.The highest rate at which a renewable resource can beused indefinitely without reducing its available supplyis called its sustainable yield.

When we exceed a renewable resource’s naturalreplacement rate, the available supply begins to shrink,a process known as environmental degradation. Ex-amples include urbanization of productive land, exces-sive topsoil erosion, pollution, deforestation (tempo-rary or permanent removal of large expanses of forestfor agriculture or other uses), groundwater depletion,overgrazing of grasslands by livestock, and reductionin the earth’s forms of wildlife (biodiversity) by elimi-nation of habitats and species.

Case Study: The Tragedy of the Commons—Degrading Free Renewable Resources

Renewable resources that are freely available to every-one can be degraded.

Plants andanimals

Freshair

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Fertilesoil

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(biodiversity)

(clay, sand,phosphates)

(iron,copper,aluminum)

(oil,naturalgas,coal)

Figure 1-6 Natural capital: major types of material resources. Thisscheme is not fixed; renewable resources can become nonrenewableif used for a prolonged period at a faster rate than natural processesrenew them.

changes that lead to an increasingly interconnectedworld. It involves increasing exchanges of people,products, services, capital, and ideas across interna-tional borders.

Factors accelerating globalization include infor-mation and communication technologies, human mo-bility, and international trade and investment. Moderncommunication via cell phones and the Internet alsoallows powerless people throughout the world toshare ideas and to band together to bring about changefrom the bottom up.

This decentralized network, where everyone hasaccess to everyone else, represents a democratization oflearning and communication that is unprecedented inhuman history. A sustainable community or countryrecognizes that it is part of a larger global economicand ecological system and that it cannot be sustainableunless these larger systems are also sustainable.

1-3 RESOURCES

What Is a Resource? Things We Need or Want

We obtain resources from the environment to meetour needs and wants.

From a human standpoint, a resource is anything ob-tained from the environment to meet our needs andwants. Examples include food, water, shelter, manu-factured goods, transportation, communication, andrecreation. On our short human time scale, we classifythe material resources we get from the environmentas perpetual, renewable, or nonrenewable, as shown inFigure 1-6.

Some resources, such as solar energy, fresh air,wind, fresh surface water, fertile soil, and wild edibleplants, are directly available for use. Other resources,such as petroleum (oil), iron, groundwater (waterfound underground), and modern crops, are not di-rectly available. They become useful to us only withsome effort and technological ingenuity. For example,petroleum was a mysterious fluid until we learnedhow to find and extract it and refine it into gasoline,heating oil, and other products that we could sell at af-fordable prices.

What Are Perpetual and RenewableResources? Resources That Can Last

Resources renewed by natural processes are sus-tainable if we do not use them faster than they arereplenished.

Solar energy is called a perpetual resource because ona human time scale it is renewed continuously. It is ex-pected to last at least 6 billion years as the sun com-pletes its life cycle as a star.

On a human time scale, a renewable resource canbe replenished fairly rapidly (from hours to several

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One cause of environmental degradation of renewableresources is the overuse of common-property or free-access resources. No individual owns these resources,and they are available to users at little or no charge.

Examples include clean air, the open ocean and itsfish, migratory birds, wildlife species, publicly ownedlands (such as national forests and national parks),gases of the lower atmosphere, and space.

In 1968, biologist Garrett Hardin (1915–2003) calledthe degradation of renewable free-access resources thetragedy of the commons. It happens because each userreasons, “If I do not use this resource, someone else will.The little bit I use or pollute is not enough to matter, andsuch resources are renewable.”

With only a few users, this logic works. But the cu-mulative effect of many people trying to exploit a free-access resource eventually exhausts or ruins it. Thenno one can benefit from it, and that is the tragedy.

One solution is to use free-access resources atrates well below their estimated sustainable yields byreducing population, regulating access to the re-sources, or both. Some communities have establishedrules and traditions to regulate and share their accessto common-property resources such as ocean fish-eries, grazing lands, and forests. Governments havealso enacted laws and international treaties to regulateaccess to commonly owned resources such as forests,national parks, rangelands, and fisheries in coastalwaters.

Another solution is to convert free-access resourcesto private ownership. The reasoning is that if youown something, you are more likely to protect yourinvestment.


This sounds good, but private ownership is not al-ways the answer. One problem is private owners donot always protect natural resources they own whenthis conflicts with protecting their financial capital orincreasing their profits. For example, some private for-est owners can make more money by clear-cutting thetimber, selling the degraded land, and investing theirprofits in other timberlands or businesses.

A second problem is that this approach is notpractical for global common resources—such as the at-mosphere, the open ocean, most wildlife species, andmigratory birds—that cannot be divided up and con-verted to private property.

What Is Our Ecological Footprint? Our Grow-ing Environmental Impact

Supplying each person with renewable resources andabsorbing the wastes from such resource use creates alarge ecological footprint or environmental impact.

The per capita ecological footprint is the amount ofbiologically productive land and water needed to sup-ply each person or population with the renewable re-sources they use and to absorb or dispose of the wastesfrom such resource use. It measures the average envi-ronmental impact of individuals in different countriesand areas. In other words, it is a measure of how muchof the earth’s natural capital and biological incomeeach of us uses.

Bad news. Humanity’s ecological footprint per per-son exceeds the earth’s biological capacity to replenishrenewable resources and absorb waste by about 15%(Figure 1-7, right). If these estimates are correct, it will

Country Per Capita Ecological Footprint (Hectares per person)

United States

The Netherlands

India

9.6

3.8

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Country Total Ecological Footprint (Hectares)

United States

The Netherlands

India

3 billion hectares

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880 million hectares

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Earth's Ecological Capacity

Humanity's Ecological Footprint

Figure 1-7 Natural capital use and degradation: total and per capita ecological footprints of the UnitedStates, the Netherlands, and India (left). The ecological footprint is a measure of the biologically productiveareas of the earth required to produce the renewable resources required per person and absorb or break down the wastes produced by such resource use. Currently, humanity’s average ecological footprint per per-son is 15% higher than the earth’s biological capacity per person (right). (Data from William Rees and MathisWackernagel, Redefining Progress, 2004)

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take the resources of 1.15 planet earths to indefinitely sup-port our current use of renewable resources!

The ecological footprint of each person in devel-oped countries is large compared to that in developingcountries (Figure 1-7, left). The per capita ecologicalfootprint of the United States is nearly double the coun-try’s biological capacity per person—explaining whythe country spreads its ecological footprint by import-ing large quantities of renewable resources from othercountries. You can estimate your ecological footprintby going to the website www.redefiningprogress.org/.Also, see the Guest Essay by Michael Cain on the web-site for this chapter.

This eventually unsustainable situation is ex-pected to get worse as affluence increases in both de-veloped and developing countries. According toWilliam Rees and Mathis Wachernagel, developers ofthe ecological footprint concept, it would take the landarea of about four more planet earths for the rest of theworld to reach U.S. levels of consumption with exist-ing technology. Clearly, such consumption patternscannot be sustained.

A new country with a large and growing ecologicalfootprint is emerging. China has the world’s largestpopulation and hopes to increase its total and per capitaeconomic growth, which will increase the ecologicalfootprints of its people. See the Guest Essay on thistopic by Norman Myers on the website for this chapter.

What Are Nonrenewable Resources? Resources We Can Deplete

Nonrenewable resources can be economicallydepleted to the point where it costs too much to obtain what is left.

Nonrenewable resources exist in a fixed quantity orstock in the earth’s crust. On a time scale of millions tobillions of years, geological processes can renew suchresources. But on the much shorter human time scaleof hundreds to thousands of years, these resources canbe depleted much faster than they are formed.

These exhaustible resources include energy re-sources (such as coal, oil, and natural gas that cannot berecycled), metallic mineral resources (such as iron, copper,and aluminum that can be recycled), and nonmetallicmineral resources (such as salt, clay, sand, and phos-phates that usually are difficult or too costly to recycle).

Figure 1-8 shows the production and depletioncycle of a nonrenewable energy or mineral resource.We never completely exhaust such a resource, but it be-comes economically depleted when the costs of extractingand using what is left exceed its economic value. Atthat point, we have six choices: try to find more, recycleor reuse existing supplies (except for nonrenewable en-ergy resources, which cannot be recycled or reused),waste less, use less, try to develop a substitute, or waitmillions of years for more to be produced.

Some nonrenewable mineral resources, such ascopper and aluminum, can be recycled or reused to ex-tend supplies. Recycling involves collecting wastematerials, processing them into new materials, andselling these new products. For example, discardedaluminum cans can be crushed and melted to makenew aluminum cans or other aluminum items thatconsumers can buy. Recycling means nothing if we donot close the loop by buying products that are madefrom or contain recycled materials. Reuse is using a re-source again in the same form. For example, glass bot-tles can be collected, washed, and refilled many times.

Recycling nonrenewable metallic resources takesmuch less energy, water, and other resources and pro-duces much less pollution and environmental degra-dation than exploiting virgin metallic resources.Reusing such resources takes even less energy andother resources and produces less pollution and envi-ronmental degradation than recycling.

1-4 POLLUTION

Where Do Pollutants Come From, and WhatAre Their Harmful Effects? Threats to Healthand Survival

Pollutants are chemicals found at high enough levelsin the environment to cause harm to people or otherorganisms.

Pollution is the presence of substances at high enoughlevels in air, water, soil, or food to threaten the health,survival, or activities of humans or other organisms.Pollutants can enter the environment naturally (for ex-ample, from volcanic eruptions) or through human oranthropogenic activities (for example, from burningcoal). Most pollution from human activities occurs inor near urban and industrial areas, where pollutionsources such as cars and factories are concentrated.Industrialized agriculture is also a major source of

Area under curveequals the totalamount of the

resourceEconomic depletion

(80% used up)

Res

ourc

e pr

oduc

tion

Time

Figure 1-8 Full production and exhaustion cycle of a nonrenew-able resource such as copper, iron, oil, or coal. Usually, a non-renewable resource is considered economically depleted when80% of its total supply has been extracted and used. Normally,it costs too much to extract and process the remaining 20%.

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pollution. Most pollutants are unintended by productsof useful activities such as burning coal to generateelectricity, driving cars, and growing crops.

Some pollutants contaminate the areas where theyare produced and some are carried by wind or flowingwater to other areas. Pollution does not respect theneat territorial political lines we draw on maps.

The pollutants we produce come from two typesof sources. Point sources of pollutants are single, iden-tifiable sources. Examples are the smokestack of a coal-burning power plant, the drainpipe of a factory, andthe exhaust pipe of an automobile. Nonpoint sourcesof pollutants are dispersed and often difficult to iden-tify. Examples are pesticides sprayed into the air orblown by the wind into the atmosphere and runoff offertilizers and pesticides from farmlands, golf courses,and suburban lawns and gardens into streams andlakes. It is much easier and cheaper to identify andcontrol pollution from point sources than from widelydispersed nonpoint sources.

Pollutants can have three types of unwanted ef-fects. First, they can disrupt or degrade life-supportsystems for humans and other species. Second, they candamage wildlife, human health, and property. Third,they can be nuisances such as noise and unpleasantsmells, tastes, and sights.

Solutions: What Can We Do about Pollution?Prevention Pays

We can try to clean up pollutants in the environment or prevent them from entering the environment.

We use two basic approaches to deal with pollution.One is pollution prevention, or input pollution con-trol, which reduces or eliminatesthe production of pollutants. Theother is pollution cleanup, oroutput pollution control, whichinvolves cleaning up or dilutingpollutants after they have beenproduced.

Environmentalists have iden-tified three problems with relyingprimarily on pollution cleanup.First, it is only a temporary ban-dage as long as population andconsumption levels grow withoutcorresponding improvements inpollution control technology. Forexample, adding catalytic con-verters to car exhaust systems hasreduced some forms of air pollu-tion. But increases in the numberof cars and in the distance eachtravels have reduced the effec-tiveness of this approach.

Second, cleanup often removes a pollutant fromone part of the environment only to cause pollution inanother. For example, we can collect garbage, but thegarbage is then burned (perhaps causing air pollutionand leaving toxic ash that must be put somewhere),dumped into streams, lakes, and oceans (perhaps caus-ing water pollution), or buried (perhaps causing soiland groundwater pollution).

Third, once pollutants have entered and becomedispersed into the environment at harmful levels, itusually costs too much to reduce them to acceptablelevels.

Both pollution prevention (front-of-the-pipe) andpollution cleanup (end-of-the-pipe) solutions areneeded. But environmentalists and some economistsurge us to put more emphasis on prevention because itworks better and is cheaper than cleanup. As BenjaminFranklin observed long ago, “An ounce of preventionis worth a pound of cure.”

1-5 ENVIRONMENTAL AND RESOURCE PROBLEMS: CAUSES AND CONNECTIONS

What Are Key Environmental Problems and Their Basic Causes? The Big Five

The major causes of environmental problemsare population growth, wasteful resource use,poverty, poor environmental accounting,and ecological ignorance.

We face a number of interconnected environmentaland resource problems, as listed in Figure 1-9. The firststep in dealing with these problems is to identify their

Biodiversity Depletion

• Habitat destruction• Habitat degradation• Extinction

Waste Production

• Solid waste• Hazardous waste

Air Pollution

• Global climate change• Stratospheric ozone depletion• Urban air pollution• Acid deposition• Outdoor pollutants• Indoor pollutants• Noise

Water Pollution

• Sediment• Nutrient overload• Toxic chemicals• Infectious agents• Oxygen depletion• Pesticides• Oil spills• Excess heat

Food Supply Problems• Overgrazing• Farmland loss and degradation• Wetlands loss and degradation• Overfishing• Coastal pollution• Soil erosion• Soil salinization• Soil waterlogging• Water shortages• Groundwater depletion• Loss of biodiversity• Poor nutrition

MajorEnvironmental

Problems

Figure 1-9 Natural capitaldegradation: major environ-mental and resource problems.


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underlying causes, listed in Figure 1-10 and sometimesknown as the big five.

Four of these causes are rapid population growth(p. 7), poverty (discussed below), and excessive andwasteful use of resources (discussed on p. 14) A fourthis failure to include the harmful environmental costsof items in their market prices, discussed in Chapter26. This in turn is a policy and political failure to ad-dress this issue. The fifth, inadequate understandingof how the earth works, is discussed throughout thisbook.

What Is the Relationship between Poverty andEnvironmental Problems? Being Poor Is Badfor People and the Earth

Poverty is a major threat to human health and theenvironment.

Many of the world’s poor do not have access to the ba-sic necessities for a healthy, productive, and decentlife, as listed in Figure 1-11. Their daily lives are fo-cused on getting enough food, water, and fuel (forcooking and heat) to survive. Desperate for land togrow enough food, many of the world’s poor peopledeplete and degrade forests, soil, grasslands, andwildlife for short-term survival. They do not have theluxury of worrying about long-term environmentalquality or sustainability.

Another problem for the poor is living in areas withhigh levels of air and water pollution and with a greatrisk of natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes,hurricanes, and volcanic eruptions. And they usuallymust take jobs—if they can find them—with unhealthyand unsafe working conditions at very low pay.

Poverty also affects population growth. Poor peo-ple often have many children as a form of economic se-curity. Their children help them grow food, gather fuel(mostly wood and dung), haul drinking water, tendlivestock, work, and beg in the streets. The childrenalso help their parents survive in their old age before

they die, typically in their 50s in the poorest countries.The poor do not have retirement plans, social security,or government-sponsored health plans.

Many of the world’s desperately poor die prema-turely from four preventable health problems. One ismalnutrition from a lack of protein and other nutrientsneeded for good health (Figure 1-12). The second is in-creased susceptibility to normally nonfatal infectiousdiseases, such as diarrhea and measles, because of theirweakened condition from malnutrition. A third factoris lack of access to clean drinking water. A fourth factoris severe respiratory disease and premature death from

Causes of Environmental Problems

• Rapid population growth

• Unsustainable resource use

• Poverty

• Not including the environmental costs of economic goods and services in their market prices

• Trying to manage and simplify nature with too little knowledge about how it works

Figure 1-10 Environmentalists have identified five basiccauses of the environmental problems we face.

Figure 1-12 One in every three children under age 5, such as this Brazilian child, suffers from malnutrition. According tothe World Health Organization, each day at least 13,700 chil-dren under age 5 die prematurely from malnutrition and infec-tious diseases from drinking contaminated water and othercauses.

2.4 billion (38%)

2 billion (32%)

1.6 billion (25%)

1.1 billion (17%)

Lack ofaccess to

Number of people(% of world's population)

Adequatesanitation

Electricity

Clean drinkingwater

Adequatehealth care

Enough foodfor good health

Enough fuel forheating and

cooking

1.1 billion (17%)

1.1 billion (17%)

Figure 1-11 Natural capital degradation: some harmful ef-fects of poverty. Which two of these effects do you believe is themost harmful? (Data from United Nations, World Bank, andWorld Health Organization)

John

Bry

son/

Phot

o Re

sear

cher

s, In

c.

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inhaling indoor air pollutants produced by burningwood or coal for heat and cooking in open fires or inpoorly vented stoves. According to the World HealthOrganization, these four factors cause premature deathfor at least 7 million of the poor a year.

This premature death of about 19,200 human beingsper day is equivalent to 48 fully loaded 400-passenger jumbojet planes crashing every day with no survivors! Two-thirds of those dying are children under age 5.

What Is the Relationship between ResourceConsumption and Environmental Problems?Affluenza

Many consumers in developed countries have becomeaddicted to buying more and more stuff in theirsearch for fulfillment and happiness.

Affluenza (“af-loo-EN-zuh”) is a term used to de-scribe the unsustainable addiction to overconsump-tion and materialism exhibited in the lifestyles ofaffluent consumers in the United States and other de-veloped countries. It is based on the assumption thatbuying more and more things can, should, and doesbuy happiness.

Most people infected with this contagious shop-till-you-drop virus have some telltale symptoms. Theyfeel overworked, have high levels of debt and bank-ruptcy, suffer from increasing stress and anxiety, havedeclining health, and feel unfulfilled in their quest toaccumulate more and more stuff. As humorist WillRogers said, “Too many people spend money theyhaven’t earned to buy things they don’t want, to im-press people they don’t like.” For some, shopping un-til you drop means shopping until you go bankrupt.Between 1998 and 2001, more Americans declaredbankruptcy than graduated from college.

Globalization and global advertising are nowspreading the virus throughout much of the world. Af-fluenza has an enormous environmental impact. Ittakes about 27 tractor-trailer loads of resources peryear to support one American. This amounts to 7.9 bil-lion truckloads of resources a year to support the U.S.population. Stretched end-to-end, these trucks wouldmore than reach the sun!

What can we do about affluenza? The first step foraddicts is to admit they have a problem. Then they be-gin steps to kick their addiction by going on a stuff diet.For example, before buying anything a person with theaffluenza addiction should ask: Do I really need this ormerely want it? Can I buy it secondhand (reuse)? Can Iborrow it from a friend or relative? Another with-drawal strategy: Do not hang out with other addicts.Shopaholics should avoid malls as much as they can.

After a lifetime of studying the growth and declineof the world’s human civilizations, historian ArnoldToynbee summarized the true measure of a civiliza-tion’s growth in what he called the law of progressive sim-

plification: “True growth occurs as civilizations transferan increasing proportion of energy and attention fromthe material side of life to the nonmaterial side andthereby develop their culture, capacity for compassion,sense of community, and strength of democracy.”

How Can Affluence Help Increase Environ-mental Quality? Another Side of the Story

Affluent countries have more money for improvingenvironmental quality.

Some analysts point out that affluence need not lead toenvironmental degradation. Instead, it can lead peopleto become more concerned about environmental qual-ity, and it provides money for developing technologiesto reduce pollution, environmental degradation, andresource waste. This explains why most of the impor-tant environmental progress made since 1970 hastaken place in developed countries.

In the United States, the air is cleaner, drinkingwater is purer, most rivers and lakes are cleaner, andthe food supply is more abundant and safer than in1970. Also, the country’s total forested area is largerthan it was in 1900 and most energy and material re-sources are used more efficiently. Similar advanceshave been made in most other affluent countries. Af-fluence financed these improvements in environmen-tal quality.

How Are Environmental Problems and TheirCauses Connected? Exploring Connections

Environmental quality is affected by interactionsbetween population size, resource consumption, andtechnology.

Once we have identified environmental problems andtheir root causes, the next step is to understand howthey are connected to one another. The three-factormodel in Figure 1-13 is a starting point.

According to this simple model, the environmen-tal impact (I) of a population on a given area dependson three factors: the number of people (P), the aver-age resource use per person (affluence, A), and thebeneficial and harmful environmental effects of thetechnologies (T) used to provide and consume eachunit of resource and to control or prevent the result-ing pollution and environmental degradation.

In developing countries, population size and theresulting degradation of renewable resources as thepoor struggle to stay alive tend to be the key factors intotal environmental impact (Figure 1-13, top). In suchcountries per capita resource use is low.

In developed countries, high rates of per capita re-source use and the resulting high levels of pollutionand environmental degradation per person usually arethe key factors determining overall environmental im-pact (Figure 1-13, bottom) and a country’s ecological

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Earth's Life-Support System

Air(atmosphere)

Water(hydrosphere)

Soil and rocks(lithosphere)

Life(biosphere)

Human Culturesphere

Population Technology

Economics Politics

vironmentally harmful and some are environmentallybeneficial.

The three-factor model in Figure 1-13 can help usunderstand how key environmental problems andsome of their causes are connected. It can also guide usin seeking solutions. However, these problems involvea number of poorly understood interactions betweenmany more factors than those in this simplified model,as outlined in Figure 1-14. Look at the interactionsshown in this figure.

footprint per person (Figure 1-7). For example, the av-erage U.S. citizen consumes about 35 times as much asthe average citizen of India and 100 times as much asthe average person in the world’s poorest countries.Thus poor parents in a developing country would need 70 to200 children to have the same lifetime resource consumptionas 2 children in a typical U.S. family.

Some forms of technology, such as polluting facto-ries and motor vehicles and energy-wasting devices,increase environmental impact by raising the T factorin the equation. But other technologies, suchas pollution control and prevention,solar cells, and energy-saving de-vices, lower environmental im-pact by decreasing the T fac-tor. In other words, someforms of technology are en-

Developing Countries

Population (P) Consumptionper person

(affluence, A)

Technological impact per unit of consumption (T)

Environmentalimpact of population (I)

Developed Countries

x x

x x

=

x x

=

=

Figure 1-13 Connections: simplified model of how three factors—number of people, affluence, and technol-ogy—affect the environmental impact of the population in developing countries (top) and developed countries(bottom).

Figure 1-14 Connections: majorcomponents and interactions withinand between the earth’s life-supportsystem and the human socioculturalsystem (culturesphere). The goal ofenvironmental science is to learn asmuch as possible about these complexinteractions.


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How Should We Live? A Clash ofEnvironmental Worldviews

The way we view the seriousness of environmentalproblems and how to solve them depends on ourenvironmental worldview.

The differing views about how serious our environ-mental problems are and what we should do aboutthem arise mostly out of differing environmentalworldviews. Your environmental worldview is howyou think the world works, what you think your rolein the world should be, and what you believe is rightand wrong environmental behavior (environmentalethics).

People who have widely differing environmentalworldviews can take the same data, be logically consis-tent, and arrive at quite different conclusions becausethey start with different assumptions and values.

Some people in today’s industrial consumer soci-eties have a planetary management worldview. Hereare the basic environmental beliefs of this worldview:

■ As the planet’s most important species, we are incharge of nature.■ We will not run out of resources because of ourability to develop and find new ones.■ The potential for global economic growth is essen-tially unlimited.■ Our success depends on how well we manage theearth’s life-support systems, mostly for our ownbenefit.

A second environmental worldview, known as thestewardship worldview, consists of the following ma-jor beliefs:

■ We are the planet’s most important species but wehave an ethical responsibility to care for the rest ofnature.■ We will probably not run out of resources but theyshould not be wasted.■ We should encourage environmentally beneficialforms of economic growth and discourage environ-mentally harmful forms of economic growth.■ Our success depends on how well we can managethe earth’s life-support systems for our benefit and forthe rest of nature.

Another environmental worldview, known as theenvironmental wisdom worldview, is based on thefollowing major beliefs, which are the opposite of thosemaking up the planetary management worldview:

■ Nature exists for all species, not just for us and weare not in charge of the earth.■ The earth’s resources are limited, should not bewasted, and are not all for us.


1-6 IS OUR PRESENT COURSESUSTAINABLE?

Are Things Getting Better or Worse? The Answer Is Both

There is good and bad environmental news.

Experts disagree about how serious our environmen-tal problems are and what we should do about them.Some analysts believe human ingenuity, technologicaladvances, and economic growth and development willallow us to clean up pollution to acceptable levels, findsubstitutes for resources that become scarce, and keepexpanding the earth’s ability to support more humans,as we have done in the past. They accuse many scien-tists and environmentalists of exaggerating the seri-ousness of the problems we face and failing to appreci-ate the progress we have made in improving quality oflife and protecting the environment.

Environmentalists and many leading scientists dis-agree with this view. They cite evidence that we aredegrading and disrupting many of the world’s life-support systems for us and other species at an accelerat-ing rate. They are greatly encouraged by the progresswe have made in increasing average life expectancy, re-ducing infant mortality, increasing food supplies, andreducing many forms of pollution—especially in devel-oped countries. But they point out that we need to usethe earth in a way that is more sustainable for presentand future human generations and other species thatsupport us and other forms of life.

The most useful answer to the question of whetherthings are getting better or worse is both. Some thingsare getting better, some worse.

Our challenge is not to get trapped into confusionand inaction by listening primarily to either of twogroups of people. One group consists of technologicaloptimists. They tend to overstate the situation by tellingus to be happy and not worry, because technologicalinnovations and conventional economic growth anddevelopment will lead to a wonderworld for everyone.Leave the driving to us because we know best.

The second group consists of environmental pes-simists who overstate the problems to the point whereour environmental situation seems hopeless. Accord-ing to the noted conservationist Aldo Leopold, “I haveno hope for a conservation based on fear.”

*To cast your vote, go to the website for the book listed aboveand then go to the appropriate chapter (in this case Chapter 1). Inmost cases you will be able to compare how you voted with oth-ers using this book throughout the United States and the world.

HOW WOULD YOU VOTE? * Is the society you live in on anunsustainable path? Cast your vote online at http://biology.brookscole.com/miller14.

x

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■ We should encourage earth-sustaining forms of eco-nomic growth and discourage earth-degrading forms.■ Our success depends on learning how the earthsustains itself and integrating such lessons from na-ture (environmental wisdom) into the ways we thinkand act.

What Are the Greatest EnvironmentalProblems We Face Now and in the Future? The Big Picture

Poverty and malnutrition, smoking, infectiousdiseases, water shortages, biodiversity loss, andclimate changes are the most serious environmentalproblems we face.

Figure 1-15 ranks major environmental problems on atime scale in terms of the estimated number of peopleprematurely killed annually today and over the nexthundred years.

From this diagram you can see that we should fo-cus our money, minds, and hearts on reducing the en-vironmental risks from poverty, malnutrition, unsafedrinking water, smoking, air pollution, infectious diseases(AIDS, TB, malaria, and hepatitis B), water shortages, cli-mate changes, and loss and degradation of biodiversity. Thepoor in developing countries bear the brunt of most ofthese serious problems.

2080

Malaria and Hepatitis B

TB

Smoking

Smoking

AIDS Watershortages

AIDS and Air pollution

Biodiversity loss

Ann

ual n

umbe

r of

pre

mat

ure

deat

hs (

mill

ions

)

2000Year

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060 2070 2090 2100

Poverty, malnutrition,water-borne disease

Climate changes


What Is Environmentally SustainableEconomic Development? RewardingEnvironmentally Beneficial Activities

Environmentally sustainable economic devel-opment rewards environmentally beneficial and sustainable activities and discourages environ-mentally harmful and unsustainableactivities.

During this century, many analysts call for us to putmuch greater emphasis on environmentally sustain-able economic development. Figure 1-16 (p. 18) listssome of the shifts involved in implementing such an en-vironmental, or sustainability, revolution during this cen-tury based on this concept. Study this figure carefully.

This type of development uses economic rewards(government subsidies and tax breaks) to encourage en-vironmentally beneficial and more sustainable formsof economic growth and economic penalties (govern-ment taxes and regulations) to discourage environmen-tally harmful and unsustainable forms of economicgrowth.

Throughout this book I try to giveyou a balanced view of good and badenvironmental news. Try not to be over-whelmed or immobilized by the bad en-vironmental news, because there is alsosome great environmental news. We havemade immense progress in improving thehuman condition and dealing with manyenvironmental problems. We are learninga great deal about how nature works andsustains itself. And we have numerousscientific, technological, and economicsolutions available to deal with the envi-ronmental problems we face.

The challenge is to make creative useof our economic and political systems toimplement such solutions. One key is torecognize that most economic and politi-cal change comes about as a result of in-dividual actions and individuals actingtogether to bring about change by grass-roots action from the bottom up. Goodnews. Social scientists suggest it takes onlyabout 5–10% of the population of a coun-try or of the world to bring about majorsocial change. Anthropologist MargaretMead summarized our potential forchange: “Never doubt that a small group

Figure 1-15 Priorities: ranking of major environmental risks in terms of the estimatednumber of people prematurely killed annually now (yellow) and over the next hundredyears (red). Some scientists consider biodiversity loss and climate change the twomost serious ecological risks to humans and other species. Estimates of deaths frombiodiversity loss and climate change 50 or more years into the future are difficult tomake and could be higher or lower than those shown here. (Data from UN Food andAgriculture Organization, World Health Organization, United Nations EnvironmentProgram, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Bank)

HOW WOULD YOU VOTE? What do you think is our mostserious environmental problem? Cast your vote online athttp://biology.brookscole.com/miller14.

x

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of thoughtful, committed citizens can change theworld. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

We live in exciting times during what might becalled a hinge of cultural history. Indeed, if I had to pick atime to live, it would be the next 50 years as we face thechallenge of developing more environmentally sus-tainable societies.

What’s the use of a house if you don’t have a decent planet toput it on?

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

CRITICAL THINKING

1. Do you favor instituting policies designed to reducepopulation growth and stabilize (a) the size of theworld’s population as soon as possible and (b) the sizeof the U.S. population (or the population of the countrywhere you live) as soon as possible? Explain. If youagree that population stabilization is desirable, whatthree major policies would you implement to accom-plish this goal?

2. List (a) three forms of economic growth you believeare environmentally unsustainable and (b) three formsyou believe are environmentally sustainable.

3. Give three examples of how you cause environmentaldegradation as a result of the tragedy of the commons.


4. When you read that about 19,200 human beings dieprematurely each day (13 per minute) from preventablemalnutrition and infectious disease, do you (a) doubtwhether it is true, (b) not want to think about it, (c) feelhopeless, (d) feel sad, (e) feel guilty, or (f) want to dosomething about this problem?

5. How do you feel when you read that (1) the averageAmerican consumes about 35 times more resources thanthe average Indian citizen, (2) human activities lead tothe premature extinction of at least 10 species per day,and (3) human activities are projected to make the earth’sclimate warmer: (a) skeptical about their accuracy, (b) in-different, (c) sad, (d) helpless, (e) guilty, (f) concerned, or(g) outraged? Which of these feelings help perpetuatesuch problems, and which can help alleviate them?

6. See if you are infected by the affluenza bug by indicat-ing whether you agree or disagree with the followingstatements.

a. I am willing to work at a job I despise so I can buylots of stuff.

b. When I am feeling down, I like to go shopping tomake myself feel better.

c. I would rather be shopping right now.d. I owe more than $1,000 on my credit cards.e. I usually make only the minimum payment on my

monthly credit card bills.f. I am running out of room to store my stuff.

If you agree with three of these statements, you are in-fected with affluenza. If you agree with more than three,you have a serious case of affluenza. Compare your an-swers with those of your classmates and discuss the ef-fects of the results on the environment and your feelingsof happiness.

7. Explain why you agree or disagree with each of thefollowing statements: (a) humans are superior to otherforms of life, (b) humans are in charge of the earth, (c) alleconomic growth is good, (d) the value of other speciesdepends only on whether they are useful to us, (e) be-cause all species eventually become extinct we shouldnot worry about whether our activities cause the prema-ture extinction of a species, (f) all species have an inher-ent right to exist, (g) nature has an almost unlimitedstorehouse of resources for human use, (h) technologycan solve our environmental problems, (i) I do not be-lieve I have any obligation to future generations, and(j) I do not believe I have any obligation to other species.

8. What are the basic beliefs of your environmentalworldview? Are the beliefs of your environmentalworldview consistent with your answers to question 7?Are your environmental actions consistent with your en-vironmental worldview?

PROJECTS

1. What are the major resource and environmental prob-lems where you live? Which of these problems affect youdirectly? Have these problems gotten better or worseduring the last 10 years?

Pollution prevention (cleaner production)

Waste prevention and reduction

Protecting where species live (habitat protection)

Environmental restoration

Less wasteful (more efficient) resource use

Population stabilization by decreasing birth rates

Protecting natural capital and living off the biological interest it provides

Pollution cleanup

Waste disposal (bury or burn)

Protecting species

Environmental degradation

Increased resource use

Population growth

Depleting and degrading natural capital

SustainabilityEmphasis

Current Emphasis

Figure 1-16 Solutions: some shifts involved in the environ-mental or sustainability revolution.

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2. Write two-page scenarios describing what your lifeand that of any children you may have might be like50 years from now if (a) we continue on our present path;(b) we shift to more sustainable societies throughoutmost of the world.

3. Make a list of the resources you truly need. Then makeanother list of the resources you use each day only be-cause you want them. Finally, make a third list of re-sources you want and hope to use in the future. Compareyour lists with those compiled by other members of yourclass, and relate the overall result to the tragedy of thecommons (p. 9).

4. Use the library or the Internet to find out bibliographicinformation about Barbara Ward, René Dubos, and HenryDavid Thoreau, whose quotes appear at the beginning andend of this chapter.

5. Make a concept map of this chapter’s major ideas usingthe section heads, subheads, and key terms (in boldface

type). Look on the website for this book for informationabout making concept maps.

LEARNING ONLINE

The website for this book contains study aids and manyideas for further reading and research. They include achapter summary, review questions for the entire chapter,flash cards for key terms and concepts, a multiple-choicepractice quiz, interesting Internet sites, references, anda guide for accessing thousands of InfoTrac® CollegeEdition articles. Log on to

http://biology.brookscole.com/miller14

Then click on the Chapter-by-Chapter area, choose Chap-ter 1, and select a learning resource.

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