¶ … Economist on impacts of growth, "The Effects of Growth: The Long View" discusses, in brief, how economic development of human societies is actually beneficial to biodiversity, in spite of some negative aspects linked to it. It starts with a comparison of two nations -- South and North Korea -- and the way their economics and politics contribute to local biodiversity, that is, the region's forest cover. An identical comparison has been done of the Dominican Republic and Haiti; but this comparison has employed the nations' gross domestic products (GDPs) for proving impacts on biodiversity.
The next half of the article discusses how poverty poses the greatest challenge to biodiversity. It states that poverty has a greater adverse impact than human development on biodiversity. Furthermore, it remarks that poverty minus the presence of growth, together with an increasing population, proves disastrous to biodiversity. Meanwhile, even if growth accompanies poverty, the impact may be just as calamitous. However, once a society reaches a particular prosperity level, growth-related advantages to biodiversity begin outweighing its shortcomings (The Economist).
It has been argued in the article that people have overlooked economic development's advantages to biodiversity. Firstly, the report highlights the fact that, after some particular period of development and achievement of some approximate GDP level, forests will be better sustained than in nations where income or growth is less. Actions of developed countries have been described, which have been effective in cleaning up local marine habitats and waterways. Another point taken up for discussion is, intensive farming (or farming that utilizes fertilizers and pesticides but not much land), employed by developed countries, saves larger areas of land for the remaining species sharing the ecosystem,...
(Ward; Mohapatra; Mitchell, 2008) The Great Lakes also contain large amounts of 'polychlorinated dibenzo-furans - PCDFs' and 'polychlorinated dibenzo-dioxins -PCDDs' which are a result of the chlorine bleaching process of paper and pulp mills. In a nation wide study conducted for a period of 4 years on samples of fish and shellfish from various freshwater and marine water bodies in Canada, it was found that the fish from the Great
Because society is built upon the concept of money, the first and most important advantage of biodiversity is economic. Commercial, agricultural and pharmaceutical value can be derived from greater biodiversity. Indeed, increased biodiversity in rainforests is beneficial, because it derives a greater likelihood for the discovery of life-saving products. Critics might however argue that the likelihood of this is not very significant, and the process of "bioprospecting" for the purpose
Biodiversity The natural environment is the source of all our resources for life. Environmental processes provide a wealth of services to the living world -- providing us with air to breathe, water to drink and food to eat, as well as materials to use in our daily lives and natural beauty to enjoy. Complex ecosystems with a wide variety of plants and animals tend to be more stable. A highly diverse ecosystem
Communities that understand the toll population growth has on the environment are more likely to take action to protect the environment and conserve natural resources by monitoring population growth and encouraging restoration of the environment rather than encouraging larger families (Mulligan, 2006). Community actions are more likely to be tolerated than mandates that declare population growth must be limited by force (Mulligan, 2006). Evaluate Effects of Human Activities on Ecosystems
Environmental Economics Economics and Nature Conservation From early childhood, one is taught of the importance of the surrounding environment in all human activities. Forests for instance are crucial sources of fresh air and clean water, as well as raw commodities that support life. Nevertheless, mankind continues to trash the woodlands, and as such jeopardize the future of the next generations. In a context in which next to 5 million hectares of forests
A company working on such a goal might claim that the intent is to use less pesticides, but really they just want to decrease the cost of production. Another example of why a food organism might be modified is to make the final product more resilient to the means of distribution, such as what is seen with tomatoes being genetically modified to have more resilient skins, so they can be
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