Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta human. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta human. Mostrar todas las entradas

sábado, 15 de enero de 2011

Main Pollutants

The next table presents some of the main pollutants presented in air, water, or soil. Some of them naturally occur, while other are released by industrial and other human actives.

Click in the image to open it in another page with a bigger size.

 

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Air pollution in the area of Monterrey, Mexico, is mainly due to Particulate Matter (PM). The specifications of this pollutant are presented in the previous table, but the next diagram presents the percentage of PM’s emission from Human Activity.

 

 

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Wait for new entries about pollution and check out the previous posts of this month:

References

http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/epd/bcairquality/101/common-pollutants.html

http://www.tropical-rainforest-animals.com/Air-Pollutants-Summary.html

http://www.springerlink.com/content/978-3-540-70775-2/#section=229365&page=3&locus=12

http://www.grinningplanet.com/2005/09-06/water-pollution-causes-article.htm

http://ezinearticles.com/?Main-Causes-of-Water-Pollution&id=527329

http://www.excelwater.com/eng/b2c/about_3.php

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hl-vs/iyh-vsv/environ/lead-plomb-eng.php

http://www.epa.gov/glo/health.html

http://biology.about.com/od/molecularbiology/a/carbon_monoxide.htm

miércoles, 13 de octubre de 2010

Food Production and Distribution

 We have already begun talking about the food supply and its unequal distribution. Now let’s discuss the issues arose by this problem and how do they are handled.


Stuff and terms that you might want to know Winking smile
Food security. This expression means that every person in a given area has a daily access to enough nutritious food to have an active and healthy life.
Food insecurity. The opposite of the first one. There are not enough food supply or simply people have not the needed resources to access them.



*This two guys are directly related to the poverty and most be treated by the government in order to secure the insecure and maintain the security.


Undernutrition. The food consumed doesn’t provides enough energy.
Malnutrition. Food has enough energy but lacks certain essential vitamins, minerals or proteins.
Overnutrition. The food consumed exceeds energy use and causes excess of body fats. Yeah… Not big deal in the LEDC’s but we need to take it into account.

Some of the essential components needed to avoid malnutrition are:

Lack of Iron: “Derives into a case of anemia (lack of iron). Increases fatigue, risk of infection and mortal danger at childbirth”. It is necessary for the hemoglobin which captures oxygen and derives it around the body.

Lack of Vitamin A.More likely to get sick or die of common infectious diseases (flu, diarrhea, measles). Blindness” - retina, thus eye-sight dependents on it Vitamins are nutrients, but a catalyzer to the absorption of nutrients.

Lack of Iodine. Affect the processes of the metabolism. It causes stunted growth, metal

Famine. A famine is a situation of severe shortage of food supply in an area accompanied by mass starvation, many deaths, economic chaos, and social disruption. It is typically generated by a catastrophic event.

*It is important to analyze famines’ impact over societies and the environment. Obviously there is a great disruption over the social structure of the community. Food becomes the main asset and its acquisition the final goal. The power if for whom has the control over the limited food supply.

The environment is harmed by the reaction of the population against the famine. People start to slaughter their livestock and grains and, instead of rationalized it, they finished up the remaining food supply.


Now that we know what’s the roll with this terms we can analyze the situation and present the actual management of the issues.

ACTUAL SCENARIO
We have already discuss the possible causes of this unequal food distribution in a previous blog entry. Let’s extended this explanation.

Our food supply is generated in both terrestrial and aquatic systems.

From the terrestrial systems we get grains and other crops, and livestock. Most of the world population’s diet is based upon wheat, rice and corn. As the income of certain sectors of the population increases, more meat and livestock's derivate products, such as milk and cheese, are consumed.

Aquatic systems generate food supply based on fish and shellfish.

It depends on the resources of each community or country which is its main source of food. But these three are the BIG THREE of food supply.

Now, the roll must go back a little bit. By talkin’ about the terrestrial systems of food production, we must take into account the different agricultural techniques that are being used…

Imbalanced Food Supply

As we have studied, human population differs a lot from all of the other organisms’ population. This is basically established because the economic model that build up our society determines the distribution of the resources. We are governed by the world’s currency and the capitalism. This, combined with the environmental conditions that make up a biome, are mostly the reason of the gap that has been established between countries in different economical levels. This gap is presented also in the FOOD SUPPLY.
It is important to establish that in fact, there IS enough food in the world BUT there is gross imbalance in its distribution. The imbalanced repartition of food supply leaves part of the people of different countries, or even inside the same country, in precarious conditions.

FOOD FACTS
  • World food production is concentrated in the northern hemisphere temperate zones.
  • There are approximately 3 chickens for every person.
  • 90% of land is not adequate for crops.
  • LEDC’s have 80%of the population but eat only 56% of the world’s meat.
In the LEDC’s where a greatest part of the population has no an appropriate access to the food supply, we can find cases of undernutrition and malnutrition
Undernourished those that do not obtain enough energy from the food they eat
Malnourished those whose food has enough energy but lacks certain essential vitamins, minerals or proteins.

Stick to the roll in order to find more about food supply. Techniques, needed measures and new concepts will be reviewed in the next posts…

lunes, 27 de septiembre de 2010

Measures of Population Changes

Population change around time by the action of factors such as birth and death rate and migration.

The basic rate for measuring the fluctuations in population are the following:

Crude Birth Rate (CBR)

The number of births per 1000 individuals in a population per year.

Number of births x 1000
population size

Crude Death Rate (CDR)

The number of deaths per 1000 individuals in a population per year.

Number of deaths x 1000

population size


Natural Increase Rate

NIR = (CBR - CDR) / 10

Doesn’t consider immigration and emigration.


Doubling time

The time in years it takes a population to double its size.

Doubling time = 70 / NIR


Total Fertility Rate (TFR)

It is the average number of children that each woman has over her life time. It shows the potential of population change.

    • A TFR > 2.0 results in a population increase
    • A TFR < 2.0 results in a population decrease
    • A TFR = 2.0 results in a stable population

In developing countries, the fertility rate is usually higher than in MEDC’s


Humans impact on the environment is not just given out by its growth, but also by resource use and pollution. It’s impact is affecter by:

  • It’s affected by the amount of wealth
  • Resource desire
  • Resource need

Individuals in a population, specially in a human population, interact with the environment in different ways. We cannot generalize for all the organisms within a population.

Wait for a detailed list of identification of resource use and waste profiles in a further post.

viernes, 24 de septiembre de 2010

Human Populations Around The World

As we have talked before, the resources of Earth are unequally shared between the organisms of human population. Of course all of these is influenced by the three spheres (social, economical and environmental)

Human Development Index

Adopted by the UN Development Programme as a measure of the well-being of a country.

Combines measurements of:

  • Education
  • Life expectance
  • Standards of living
  • Income
  • GDP per capita (Gross Domestic Product)

Countries might also classified based on their industrial development and GDP

MEDCs (used by modern geographers to specifically describe the status of the countries referred to: more economically developed)

  • industrialized nations
  • rich population small poverty
  • high level of resource use per capita
  • relatively low population growth rates

LEDCs  (less economically developed)

  • less industrialized 
  • natural capital unprocessed
  • lower GDP and poverty rates
  • Large population sector with low standard of living
  • High population growth rates

jueves, 23 de septiembre de 2010

Human Population Dynamics

A very interesting topic. How much does the human population can reach? Which is our carrying capacity?

Different opinions were shared in class. Some said that we had already past our carrying capacity for more than 4 billion organisms. Others said that we are reaching it already. The odd thing was that non of us though we have too much time before we reached our carrying capacity (K)

We have to take into account that in contrast to the other species, we have created a very complex economic system that maintains our society in order and measures the “power” of each entity. This directly affect the dynamics of the our population by stating the repartition of resources and define relationship between entities.

In order to establish an equal share of resources for each organism the population would have to decrease. This is because , even if the global economic system changes its standards, there isn’t enough resources to maintain the actual 6 billion human population.

A simulation of the human population dynamics can be found in this webpage www.breathingearth.net It’s pretty interesting.

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lunes, 13 de septiembre de 2010

Defining Sustainability

In simple words: sustainability is to endure. To exist for a long period of time. If you ask me, sustainability is “the responsible manage of resources that work towards using them while maintaining an equilibrium.”

Introduced in an actual context.
Sustainability is a term that has gained importance in the social world’s context because the arise of concern about the actual Eath’s natural capacity to sustain human life as it is know. That’s why the concept, in means of development, has been defined as: “sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

As a social issue, sustainability enters in means of maintaining the resources for future generation. We must understand that for the world natural equilibrium to be maintained, we need to start taking greater conscience about damage we are making to the environment and how we are wearing down its sustainability. That’s why society and specific institutions are working to create policies for the regulation of the human activities that act against sustainability.

In an economic context. The concept of sustainable yield enters into the picture. It is the increase of natural capital. The natural income that can be exploited each year without getting rid of it. MSY (maximum sustainable yield) is based on this last idea.

It’s equal to
-(The total biomass or energy at a time) T1 – (total biomass of energy at a time) T
-Annual growth and recruitment – annual death and emigration.

A few points to achieving a sustainable way of living:
  • To control the exploitation of natural resources.
  • To look for alternative practices that help prevent a loss of equilibrium.
  • Understand the entire human society structure and the economic system as part of the global environmental system
Sustainability is involved in three different spheres. Each one of the spheres functions as an individual particle, but at the same time are affected by the others.