Global Resource Consumption Flashcards
China’s growing middle class
- China’s middle class was small in 2002. It grew by was still less than 10% of the population in 2007 and by 2013 had expanded to 1/5 of China’s population.
- China’s middle class is largely urban and located in the East
- This is mainly due to shared income growth.
Although China having a growing middle class is beneficial to the country’s overall wealth (as emerging Middle classes can work as engines for economic growth), it can also create problems. The middle class is still partly vulnerable because employment, education and consumer behavior do not always align with perceptions of a middle class that drives domestic consumption and growth
Changing diets in Brazil
●Brazils population used to mostly depend on fishing and domestically grown food (i.e. seafood, acai - a species of palm tree cultivated for its fruit, and veg being staples of a typical diet.
●Recently, there has been a shift in diets as large multinational food companies search to expand their markets for packaged foods.
●People in Brazil have begun to eat more processed foods (e.g. Soft drinks, salty and sweet snacks). Sales of these products have more than doubled in the last 10 years.
●They are sold cheaply and are easily accessible.
●Each year, there are over 1 million new cases of obesity, fuelled by unhealthy diets adopted as a result of aggressive marketing.
●People who fish or cultivate crops for a living have experienced changes to their lifestyle.
●Some believe that multinational corporations will lead traditional diets to be abandoned and for there to be a “destruction of diversity”
Solar Energy In Australia (domestic use)
●Constant rise in electricity demand and prices has led Australia to resort to solar energy to meet the energy and hot water requirements in the average domestic household.
●Approximately 58 million pentajoules of solar radiation is falling on Australia, which is 10,000 times their average energy consumption. Because the sun is available throughout the year it is an ideal location for solar power to be generated.
●Over 60,000 solar water heating systems were installed between 2018 and 2019.
●Alternative systems were developed which used photovoltaic solar cells in combination with an electric or thermally driven heat pump to provide thermal energy needed for domestic hot water and space heating.
●The scheme showed that the amount of energy taken from the electricity grid for domestic hot water and space heating could be reduced by over 70% with a payback period of less than 14 years compared to using fuel and electricity from the grid as a heating source.
Nexus security in Canada
●The annual mean temperature in parts of Canada has increased by 1.5 degrees Celsius since 1900. Further increases will increase the length of the thermal growing season and opportunities for agriculture in some regions. A 25-30% increase in potato and wheat yields is estimated at some high latitudes.
●Warmer waters may lead to a change in the composition and abundance of fish species in different sea areas. In some areas, the commercial value may be reduced, while in others it may increase.
●Higher rates of ice melting due to climate change may present opportunities for hydroelectric power.
●Demand for electricity may decrease due to warmer temperatures. This could lead to a net result of greater energy security.
●Melting sea ice may present opportunities for oil and gas extraction in Canadian Arctic Waters
●Not to suffer from water scarcity: due to their small population and vast land area, any locally occurring shortages can be tackled using transfer schemes from other parts of the country.
Nexus Insecurity in India
●Due to rising temperatures, agricultural productivity could fall by 35-40%. Concern regarding the Punjab region in the northeast which produces large amounts of the country’s wheat and rice but has suffered frequent droughts in recent years.
●Food insecurity will manifest in India’s least developed poor regions and may exacerbate conflicts between different social groups.
●Growth of population and middle class will increase resource pressure.
●Urbanization reduces availablilitu of agricultural land.
●Intense rainfall causing soil erosion will affect crop growth.
●400 million ppl don’t have electricity. India had increased construction of hydropower projects in the Indus Basin’s rivers although these waters are allocated to Pakistan by the Indus Waters Treaty, and so tensions may arise if water flows are reduced.
●250 million ppl lack access to clean water.
●Total demand for water is expected to exceed all current sources of supply and the country is set to become water scarce by 2025.
●Situation will worsen if ice stores in the western Himalayas become permanently reduced due to climate change.
E-waste in Agbogbloshie
●Located in Acccra, Ghana. Good destination for e waste due to cheap labour
●Has become one of the world’s largest destinations for used electric goods. An informal sector of e waste recycling had emerged which provides job opportunities for migrants and ethnic minority groups that are unable to find jobs.
●Workers use primitive methods to recover valuable metals from electronic waste. They salvage copper, aluminum, and other metals from electronic equipment like computers and televisions, either illegally dumped or legally exported as second hand equipment.
●Negative impacts on health due to exposure to toxic waste. Increased levels of cadmium and lead in blood.
●Poor and unsanitary working conditions.
●Burning of metals releases pollutants. Harmful chemicals washed into soil by rainwater, can affect wildlife.
●Governmental regulation and control is limited.
●NGOs are befinning to fund and implement pilot projects aiming to increase formal e-waste recycling, e.g. Pure Earth.
Recycling In China
●China imports waste partly because of its large manufacturing industry. Countries like the US and UK ship waste elsewhere because they do not have the capacity or manufacturing ability to reprocessed their own materials.
●In 2016, China processed 7.3 million tonnes of plastic waste. The Shanghai Factory recycled up to 5,000 tonnes of polystyrene a year.
●Polystyrene is compacted and broken into pellets to be turned into new products.
●Scrap plastic is melted down and remoulded.
●China no longer wanted to have to deal with the world’s waste so in 2017, authorities in Beijing put into place a ban on the import of solid waste, in the hopes of restoring China’s environment and making it less polluted. However it did cause the cost of recycled products to go up.
Circular Economy at Tescos
●Tesco is the UKs largest supermarket with almost 28% of market share and 7000 stores in total.
●In 2018, Tesco began to change their approach to plastic packaging to produce less waste. In mid 2019, they introduced a 4R strategy: remove, reduce, reuse, recycle.
●They began to rethink packaging, product and business models to eliminate unnecessary plastic while maintaining user experiences. They eliminated the use of secondary lids on cream pots and multi-pack films. In Jan 2020, Tesco removed plastic films from all UK stores.
●Relatively successful scheme. Scales across Tescos retail network led to over 100 million pieces of plastic to be removed from its stores. Tesco eliminated 1 billion pieces by the end of 2021.
