Class 1 - introduction (ES and planetary boundaries)

Question 1

Define ES

Answer 1

Ecological characteristics, functions and processes that directly or indirectly contribute to human well-being OR the relative contribution of natural capital to the production of human benefits

Question 2

How can ES’s be realised?

Answer 2

Natural capital must be combined with either manufactured, social, or cultural capital

Question 3

The 4 types of ES

Answer 3

Provisioning services, regulating services, cultural services, and supporting services

Question 4

What are provisioning services of ES

Answer 4

The ES that combined with built, human, and social capital produce food, timber, fiber, or other provisioning benefits

Question 5

What are regulating services of ES

Answer 5

Services that combined with built, human and cultural capital produce flood control, storm protection, water regulation, human disease regulation, water purification, air quality maintenance, pollination, pest control, climate control

Question 6

What are the cultural services of ES

Answer 6

Combines built, human and social capital to produce recreation, aestetic, scientific, cultural identity, sense of place, or other cultural benefits

Question 7

What are the supporting services of ES

Answer 7

Services that maintain basic ecosystem processes such as soil formation, primary productivity, biogeochemistry, and habitat provision

Question 8

Why are many ES public goods?

Answer 8

Non-excludable and non-rivalrous

Question 9

When does an ES exist?

Answer 9

Only if it contributes to human well-being, not in itself

Question 10

What does GDP have to do with ES?

Answer 10

GDP does not represents a limit to the valuation of ES, for example a study valued ES across 16 biomes to over GDP at the time

Question 11

What do businesses have to do with ES

Answer 11

They should concider thie costs to the ecosystem and try to minimise these

Question 12

What to sources do ecological conflicts arise from?

Answer 12

1. Scarcity and restriction in the amount of ES that can be provided, 2. The distribution of the costs and benefits of the provisioning of the ES

Question 13

How many planetary boundaries are transgressed?

Answer 13

6 out of 9

Question 14

What is the planetary boundary framework?

Answer 14

Framework characterising how different 9 areas are now than in the Holocene-like interglacial state where the global environment and life-support systems were stable over the past 10,000 years, stable and warm conditions

Question 15

What affects the earth system?

Answer 15

External forces (solar energy, asteroid strikes), internal forces (geosphere and biosphere), human activity

Question 16

How much did the global temperature change between 9000 years ago and the industrial revolution?

Answer 16

+- 0,5 degrees

Question 17

When are we fucked (temperature)

Answer 17

1-2 degree change, no more than 1.5 degrees leads to irreversible change

Question 18

What are the 2 core planetary boundaries?

Answer 18

Climate change and biospehere integrety

Question 19

What are the control variables for biosphere integrety?

Answer 19

Genetic diversity (maximum extinction tolerable) and planetary function (NPP net primary prodcution - energy available in the ecosystem)

Question 20

When was the PB biospehere integrety transgressed?

Answer 20

At the end of 1800s

Question 21

Name all the planetary boundaries and whether or not they are transgressed

Answer 21

Biosphere integrity (passed), climate change (passed), novel entities (passed), stratospheric ozone depletion (safe), atmospheric aerosol loading (safe), ocean acidification (barely safe), biochemical flows (passed), freshwater change (uncertain, passed), land system change (passed)

Question 22

Control variables for Climate change?

Answer 22

Atmospheric CO2 concentration and total anthropogenix relative radiative forcing at the top of the atmosphere

Question 23

Control variables for stratospheric ozone depletion?

Answer 23

Stratospheric O3 concentration

Question 24

What is stratospheric ozone depletion?

Answer 24

Special case of novel entities where gaseous halocarbon release and deplete the ozone layer

Question 25

Control variables for ocean acidification?

Answer 25

Carbonate ion concentration

Worsening trend even though safe

Question 26

Control variables for biochemical flows?

Answer 26

Phosphate flow from freshwater into ocean and industrial and intentional fixation on nitrogen

Question 27

Control variables for land system change?

Answer 27

Area of forested land as a percentage of original forest cover

Question 28

Important to note on land forest cover?

Answer 28

Deforestation has increased and global forest area continues to decrease + this PB is very important for the Paris agreement to be reached

Question 29

Control variables for freshwater change?

Answer 29

= Blue water: Human induced disturbance of blue water flow and Green water: Human induced disturbance of water available to plants

Question 30

When was the PB freshwater change transgressed?

Answer 30

In 1905 and 1929

Question 31

Control variables for atmospheric aerosol loading?

Answer 31

Difference in AOD (reduction in sunlight reaching earth’s surface caused by absorption and scattering the air column)

Question 32

Important aspects of the PB Atmospheric aerosol loading?

Answer 32

There has been a global doubling of dust depletion since 1750 + it affects monsoon systems and regional rainfall

Question 33

Control variables for novel entities?

Answer 33

Percentage of synthetic chemicals released into the environment without safety testing

Question 34

What are novel entities and what should the safety level be?

Answer 34

Truly new entities in Earth system like synthetic chemicals, radioactive materials, human modifications of evolution like genetically modified organisms +
Only truly safe at 0%

Question 35

What has happened to the level of the planetary boundaries that had transgressed when measured in 2015?

Answer 35

All have worsened

Question 36

Where are the tropics, tropics of cancer and tropics of capricorn?

Answer 36

Tropic of cancer: 23 degrees north, Tropic of Capricorn, 23 degrees south

Question 37

What determines the variation in rainfall and temperature?

Answer 37

Global unequal distrbution of energy from the sun due to the world spinning at an angle. When it rains in the tropics, the heat makes the air rise, cool, decend, then heat and take up moisture, making arid climates

Question 38

What are two factors that matter when we talk about nature?

Answer 38

Equity and access

Question 39

What are some values and benefits from access to nature in South Africa?

Answer 39

Peace, silence, contact with nature, open space, time alone, time with friends, health, mental health, clean air, shade, extraction of resources, business opportunities, passage through

Question 40

What are some of the costs and risks of access to nature in South Africa?

Answer 40

Crime, dangerous animals, dangerous materials, lack of maintainance, pollution, people feel like they are not involved in decision making

Question 41

How do the tropical ecosystems change as you move northa nd south?

Answer 41

Tropics - savanna - desert

Question 42

What happens to rain at the eqautor?

Answer 42

Instead of getting colder and warmer, the rains rise and fall

Question 43

What are the 3 levels of equity?

Answer 43

Procedural (participation, representation, recognition), contextual (preconditions, political and social structures), distributive (costs and benefits, based on need, merit or equality: Who gets what)