GEOG 4400: Resource Use

1. GEOG 4400: Resource Use Lecture 4 Resource History

2. Temporal Scales Since the dawn of life on Earth, more and more ‘neutral stuff’ has become an environmental resource, and more and more human influence has been exerted on the environment (p. 51)

4. Cost-benefit analysis

5. Limits to growth • Cornucopians • Julian Simon • Neo-Malthusians • Paul Ehrlich • ???

6. Temporal Cycles of Resource Use • Kondratieff Cycles

7. Resource Scarcity

8. Responses • Go without • Environmental deterioration • Frontier expansion • Migration • Annexation • New technologies

9. Classification of Resource Scarcity • Absolute vs. Relative • Absolute scarcity: when insufficient physical quantities of the resoure are available to meet the demand for it • Relative scarcity: when the physical quanitites of the resource are sufficient to meet demand, but problems arise over quality of supplies

10. Malthusian vs. Ricardian • Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) • Fixed amount of land with environmental limts • Costs of production may remain constant up to the time when the resource is fully used • David Ricardo (1772-1823) • Focused on quality of resources • Population growth means pressure on poorer resources • Determined by prices

11. Types of resource scarcity • Physical scarcity • Resource base • Can fluctuate • Depends on technology • Actual • Potential • Possible (speculative) • Economic scarcity • Supply and demand • Lag time • Farm prices vs. need for food, water, and fuelwood • Geopolitical scarcity • OPEC • Other measures • Ecological scarcity • Environmental scarcity

12. Spatial dimensions of resources

13. Ubiquities vs. Uniquities • Optimal location for resource extraction • Places where the resource is most concentrated • Places close to labor, transportation, and markets • Highly productive optimal or core area surrounded by a marginal zone of less productive land (Fig 3.1) • Resource rarities represent the strongly localized occurrence of ‘optimal’ conditions (p. 48) • Common resources tend to be those that are cheaper and can be provided in all locations

14. Location and resources • Less optimal resources become resources in particular locations • mountain farming • Geopolitical considerations • independent resource desires promote use of less optimal • Development of one resource may expose and promote others • road building to mining areas develops farming

15. Mobility • Mobile resources • Air, water, fish, birds, migratory animals • Difficult to apply private ownership • More likely to apply ‘common property’ ownership • Mobile human exploiters • Nomads • Transhumance • Privatization or enclosure can have serious effects • Modern mobility: climbers, tourists

16. Temporal scales • Since the dawn of life on Earth • More and more ‘neutral stuff’ has become an environmental resource, and more and more human influence has been exterted on the environment (p. 51)

18. Early Humans • human development and expansion; • Homonids

19. Human adaptations • hunting techniques; gathering strategies; • nomad; migration; • early tools; • importance of fire;

20. Hunter/gatherer lifestyle • methods of population limitation; • infanticide. • impacts of hunter-gatherers on the environment;

21. Agriculture and Domestication • Domestication • Plants • Animals (traits of animals) • Domestication centers • slow transition to agricultural societies; • Cultural diffusion • plant domestications; • emmer, eikorn, teosinte, millet, rice, soy; • animal domestication; • traits of animals for domestication; • swidden (slash and burn) agriculture; • Mesoamerican delay; • environmental change due to agriculture; • tradeoffs between pros and cons of agricultural societies; • comparison of development areas • (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus, China, Mesoamerica).

22. Early Civilizations • Impacts on the environment • deforestation • desertification • soil erosion • salinization • waterlogging • irrigation • Transhumance • Threat of food supply collapse • Decline of early agricultural empires • Mesopotamia • Salinization of soils forced shift away from wheat to barley • Waterlogging of soils • Extensive irrigation canals choked with sediments due to upstream deforestation • Food supply decline favored invading enemies • Cultural center shifted upstream to Babylon • Indus • Deforestation as wood was used for brick homes • China/Japan • Soil erosion due to loess soils, deforestation • Massive flooding • Mediterranean • Greece • overgrazing • ban on steep slope agriculture • terracing • planted olive trees • Rome • heavy siltation of rivers and ports due to deforestation • food supply reduced by soil erosion and fertility decline • Spain • Italy • Maya • Egypt

23. Feast and Famine

24. Biotic potential vs. environmental resistance • population growth rates • exponential growth; • reproductive fitness; • carrying capacity • reproductive strategies

25. Environmental controls • malnourishment • disease • animal disease • blight • war • civil unrest • weather/climate changes • soil infertility • volcanoes • maladministration • corruption • oppression • poverty

26. Food supply • Agricultural innovations • wet rice • crop rotation • heavy plow • machinery • fodder crops • legumes • fertilizers • selective breeding • new sources of food

27. Major famines & their causes • Famine of 1315 • Black Plague

28. Population controls • Ratchet effect • Utterly dismal theorem

29. European Expansion

30. Growth of the Mercantile System • Trade • Mediterranean • Silk Road • Caravans across Africa • Ottoman Empire blocked trade with Middle East • Production • Control of means and production • Buy and sell labor • Process of ceaseless accumulation of capital • Mercantilism

31. What They Were After • Metals • Sugar • Fur • Slave Trade

32. How did Europe expand? • New farming techniques

33. Reasons • How did Europe gain an advantage? • What technologies developed to aid European civilization? • What did Europeans bring to other places? • What did Europe gain from their growth?

34. Impacts

35. Ecological Collapse

36. Ecological Imperialism • biodiversity

37. Extinction • causes of extinction • characteristics of animals that make them susceptible • habitat loss

38. Overexploitation • overhunting

39. Exotic species

40. The Industrial Revolution • Energy sources • Methods • Impacts

41. The Modern World • Post-industrial • Transition from primary and secondary economic sectors (farming, ranching, fishing, logging, and manufacturing) to tertiary and quaternary (retail and administration, services) • Accumulation of capital now drives resource use more than environmental concerns • Globalization and Free Trade Agreements • The globe is getting smaller and smaller; more businesses are interconnected • Difficult for local populations to maintain cultural unity and preserve their heritage • Difficult to protect local resources from international business interests

42. Environmental issues • Loss of biodiversity • Resource use • Ozone depletion • Global warming • Pollution

43. Modern environmentalism • Legal solutions based on established impacts • Money raised for lobbying and scientific reports

44. Many professionals in the fields of environmental science

45. Five major transitions: • Each phase represents increased population, more energy expenditure, and access of more remote resources

46. 1. Organized hunting • new tools and weapons; cooperation and superior organization

47. 2. Sedentary lifestyles • territorial definition; long-term encampments

48. 3. Agricultural revolution (fig 3.2) • domestication of plant and animal species • food storage • socialization & religious development • class structures • government organization • greater territoriality

49. 4. Urban revolution • manufacturing • mercantile economy

50. 5. Industrial revolution • Characteristics • population growth • mechanization • use of fossil fuels (energy slaves) • environmental pollution • second agricultural revolution • specialization • commodification • separation of production and consumption units • common property becomes private property • new technology, especially transportation and machinery • capitalism