Humans and the Environment, 1900 to Present Flashcards
~Population growth
● Due to principally to improvements in medicine an dpublic-health programming
● Has exploded in this period
● Population is estimated to be 7 billion today
~Resource extraction and consumption
● Reliance on erngy-dependent technology has led to unprecedented and continually mounting levels of it
~Pollution and species extinction
● Threaten the well-being of the environment as never before
~Earth-shaping capacity
● Consequences such as widespread flooding, deforestion, desertification and climate change int he form of global warming
~Vaccination campaigns
● Both in developed countries and internationally as part of relief efforst
● Have in many cases reduced or even eliminated diseases
● polio and smallpox
● Fomerly incurable venereal diseases, such as syphilis, have been developed as well
~New epidemic diseases
● Global spread made easier by better and faster transportation
● Some of them lasting only briefly, others proving to be of greater duration
~Spnish flue
● Influenza outbreak of 1918
● Infected 500 million people between early 1918 and 1920 and killed from 40 milliong to 100 million
● Origins are unknown
● Global movement of solldiers and supply shipments during the final months of WWI helped to spread Spnaish flue to all quarters of the globe
~Influenza
● Repeatedly threaten to reach pandemic status, such as the H1N1 virsu that caused great panic in 2009
~Ebola vius
● Since its identification in the mid-1970s in the Africa, it causes severe internal bleeding and kills a high percentage of its victems
● Threatened several times to erupt as a major disease beyond Africa’s borders
~HIV/AIDS
● Originating in Africa and identified in 1981
● Killed more than 30 million people worldwide
● Spread via blood or sexual transmission
● Became a global phenomenon and remained highly fatal until the developmen tof effective treatmeents in the late 1990s and early 2000s
● chornic disease for those with access to treatment but deadly to those without
● Rates of infection are high in AFrica
~Diabetes and heart disease and obesity
● Diets high in sugar and processed foods (common in North America) have caused a rapid increase int he diseases
~Alzheimer’s disease
● Medical advances in developed societies and the resulting extensionf o average lifespans into the eighties, rather than the sixteis or seventies have palced larger numebr so fpeople ar risk of this and other ailments asociated with old age
~National parks and national park services
● The first in the world being Yellowstone in 1872
● Modern conservation efforts date back to the creation of them
~John Muir
● Activism by figures such as the Scottish-American naturalist
● Co-funder of hte Sierra Club
~Theodore Roosevelt
● Avid outdoorsman
● Conservation of environemnet
~Environmental/green movement
● Arose as it became more evident hat pollution, species extinction and uncontrolled industrialization posed an undenicable threat to the earth’s ecological well-being
~International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
● Founded in 1948
● Began maintaining a red list of endangered speciesa nd continues to monitor hte issue today
● Many green groups and organizations took shap in the 1960s and 1970s, both in North America and Western Europe
~Silent Spring
● By Rachel Carson in 1962
● Warned of the dangers connected wiht usingt he insecticide DDT
~Earth Day
● First celebration also popularized hte environemtnal movement
● Now an annual event on April 22
~Non-governmental organzations (NGOs)
● Working on behalf of the environemtn
● Include the World Wildlife Fune (1961) and Greenpeace founded in 1969-1972
● Green Belt movement
~Greenpeace
● Found out of efforts to protect atomic testing in Alaska in 1969-1972
● Most famous econactivist group in the world
● One of the most interventionists, with its policy of direct action to impede industrial, hunting, and fishing efforts of which it disapproves
~Green Belt Movement
● Kenya’s movement established in 1977 by Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize
● Eco-feminism, it trained alrge numebrs of women to fight dforestation by planting trees and engaging in eco-tourism
~Green parties
● In certain countries, especially Western Europe, green parties play an important role in electoral politics
● Contemporary environemntal efforts are largely focused on the problem of climate change
~Green Revolution
● A massive campaign from the 1940s through the 1970s to improve agricultural production, especially in the developing worldy
● Clering more land, relying on new sceintific techniques, and using new fertilizers and insecticies
● Most consider it to have begun with iprovements in corn production in Mexico during the 1940s and then spread throughout Latin America and places like India, China and the Middle East where famine had previously threatened populations on a regular basis