Revision: Economic Growth and Environmental Dangers

This BBC news video looks at investment in a new generation of coal-fired power stations equipped for carbon capture and storage. Up to four such plants, fitted with cutting edge green technology, could be operational by 2020. A useful video when teaching cost benefit analysis and different approaches to meeting environmental targets. The revision note below considers links between economic growth and the environment impact.

Many of the world’s most valuable finite resources are being extracted at such a rapid rate that it questions the long-term sustainability of growth. Renewable resources are also being depleted because of over-consumption. Examples include the destruction of rain forests, the over-exploitation of fish stocks and loss of natural habitat created through the construction of new roads, hotels, retail malls and industrial estates. Some of the main environmental threats include:

The depletion of the global resource base and the impact of global warming. There are plenty of examples around of the “tragedy of the commons”, the permanent loss of what should be renewable resources from over-extraction of some of our environmental resources.

A huge expansion of waste and pollution arising from both production and consumption

Over-population (particularly in urban areas) putting increased pressure on scarce land and other resources. More than half of the world’s population will live in cities in 2008, most of them in developing countries according to the the United Nations Population Fund.

Species extinction leading to a loss of bio-diversity - Scientists predict that at least a third and as much as two-thirds of the world’s species could be on their way to extinction by the end of this century, mostly because people are destroying tropical forests and other habitats, over-fishing the oceans and changing the global climate.