CHAPTER 2 READING 2
• Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio.” In other words, that human growth would outpace the ability of natural resources to keep up.
• Julian Simon (1932–98), a professor of business administration at the University of Maryland, is often cited in relation the cornucopia theory—that there
are no physical limitations on economic growth or human population
• Neoliberalism is a view of the global economic system that holds to the overall tenets of no limits to growth and cornucopian theory.
• Consumerism is the belief that our economic systems should favor consumption and that the consumption should be for goods and services that are in
excess of basic material needs for survival.
• The tragedy of the commons describes a situation where different parties share a common good (such as open public land), and acting independently in
their own self-interest, they will ultimately overexploit and deplete or destroy the shared resource.
o The tragedy is that the individuals acting in a way that they believe is in their own best interest end up acting in a way that is detrimental to
their collective and individual long-term best interests.
• There are two main views of economics as pertains to sustainability: limits to growth and no limits to growth. Both views have merits in terms of
explaining the interaction of society and environment.
• The limits to growth concept argues that our current society is living beyond what Earth is capable of providing and that we must change to live within
the context of what Earth can provide.
• The no limits to growth concept argues that market signals and technological innovation can overcome limits to growth in natural systems.
• Tragedy of the commons occurs often in shared environmental resources, and understanding the system dynamics is essential to sustainability of shared
natural resources.
• Consumerism is a factor in driving economic growth in modern economies and, as a result, resource depletion.
• The earth has sustained a wide and abundant variety of life for millions and millions of years, with the origin of life on Earth estimated to have begun 3.5
billion years ago.
o Humans only arrived in the last 500,000 years, or 0.01 percent of the total history of life on the planet. The forms of life and the climate have
changed continuously and sometimes drastically over that time.
o The earth’s history is divided into three geological eras, but the most recent and the one that we currently live in is the Cenozoic, which
began 65.5 million years ago.
▪ The most significant features of the Cenozoic era are a long-term cooling of the earth, the rise and diversification of mammals,
and the evolution of humans. Previous eras featured a much warmer planet, a different atmospheric system, and a wide variety
of life.
• A significant feature of the climate over the last 2.6 million years has been “ice ages,” which are a continuous fluctuation between relatively cold (glacial)
and warm (interglacial) periods.
o Glaciations are periods of extremely cold climate where a greater portion of the earth is covered with ice and snow.
o Interglacials are intermittent warming periods between glaciations, which feature a melting and retreat of ice from large portions of Earth.
▪ This last interglacial period is known as the Holocene
• Milankovitch cycles – The glacial cycles are the result of a complex interaction of factors, including atmospheric composition variations in the earth’s
orbit, movement of tectonic plates, and changes in solar output. Of the different factors, periodic changes in the earth’s orbit, tilt, and precession are
believed to be a major driver for ice ages when they occur in a specific combination that reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the earth.
