Economics: Class 11 (Part 1) — Chapter 7: Environment and Sustainable Development

Environment is defined as the total planetary inheritance and the totality of all resources. It includes all the biotic and abiotic factors that influence each other.

1. Supplies Resources: Provides both renewable resources (e.g., trees, fish) and non-renewable resources (e.g., fossil fuels).
2. Assimilates Waste: Absorbs the by-products of production and consumption.
3. Sustains Life: Provides genetic and biological diversity essential for life.
4. Provides Aesthetic Services: Offers scenic beauty and recreational value.

The environment performs its functions smoothly as long as the demands made on it are within its carrying capacity. This requires two conditions to be met:

When these conditions are violated, the environment fails to sustain life, leading to an environmental crisis. This has resulted in a reversal of the supply-demand relationship for environmental resources, turning free goods like clean water and air into economic goods with high opportunity costs.

Global warming is the gradual increase in the average temperature of the Earth's lower atmosphere due to the accumulation of greenhouse gases.

• Causes: Burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, methane release from animal waste, and industrial emissions.
• Consequences: Melting of polar ice caps, rising sea levels, coastal flooding, disruption of drinking water supplies, and increased frequency of tropical storms.
• International Action: The Kyoto Protocol (1997) and subsequent UN climate agreements aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Ozone depletion refers to the destruction of ozone in the stratosphere, which shields the Earth from harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation.

• Causes: High levels of chlorine and bromine compounds, primarily chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) used in refrigeration, air conditioning, and aerosol propellants.
• Consequences: Increased skin cancer in humans, lower phytoplankton production affecting marine life, and damage to terrestrial plants.
• International Action: The Montreal Protocol banned the use of CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances.

• Natural Assets: Fertile Indo-Gangetic plains, black soil of the Deccan Plateau (ideal for cotton), rich forest cover, and major mineral deposits (including 8% of the world's iron-ore reserves).
• Key Environmental Issues:
  • Land degradation and soil erosion (eroding at 5.3 billion tonnes annually).
  • Biodiversity loss.
  • Air pollution, particularly vehicular emissions in urban centers.
  • Management of fresh water and solid waste.

• Chipko and Appiko Movements: Grassroots forest conservation movements where local communities hugged trees to prevent commercial felling. Appiko began in Salkani forest, Karnataka, in 1983.
• Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB): Established in 1974 to investigate, collect, and disseminate information on water, air, and land pollution, and to set emission standards.

The Brundtland Commission (formally the World Commission on Environment and Development) defined it as:

"Development that meets the need of the present generation without compromising the ability of the future generation to meet their own needs."

• Key Concepts:
  • Needs: Particularly the basic needs of the world's poor, which must receive overriding priority.
  • Limitations: Imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs.

To achieve sustainable development, leading environmental economist Herman Daly suggested the following rules:

1. Limit the human population to a level within the carrying capacity of the environment.
2. Ensure technological progress is input-efficient rather than input-consuming.
3. Extract renewable resources on a sustainable basis (extraction rate must not exceed regeneration rate).
4. For non-renewable resources, the rate of depletion should not exceed the rate of creation of renewable substitutes.
5. Correct inefficiencies arising from pollution.

• Non-conventional Sources: Shifting from thermal and hydro power to wind power and solar energy (using photovoltaic cells) to reduce carbon emissions and ecological disruption.
• LPG and Gobar Gas in Rural Areas: Replacing wood and dung cakes with subsidized Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and local bio-gas (gobar gas) plants to reduce indoor air pollution and prevent deforestation.
• CNG in Urban Areas: The mandatory transition to Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) for public transport (e.g., in Delhi) has significantly lowered urban air pollution.
• Mini-hydel Plants: Utilizing perennial mountain streams to run small turbines, generating localized power without large-scale transmission losses or ecological damage.

• Traditional Practices: Reviving environment-friendly systems of healthcare (Ayurveda, Unani, Tibetan, and folk medicine) and agriculture that rely on natural, non-chemical processes.
• Biocomposting: Reverting from chemical fertilizers to organic compost, utilizing earthworms to accelerate decomposition, which restores soil health and reduces chemical runoff into water bodies.
• Biopest Control: Replacing chemical pesticides with plant-based alternatives (such as neem-based pesticides) and encouraging natural predators (birds, snakes, lizards) to manage agricultural pests.