Human Activities and the Environment

Jeffrey Sachs, the Harvard economist who transformed Bolivian and Polish economies from a statist to a market one, and advised many other countries in their move to market economy, now works at the Earth Institute at Columbia University to work on broader issues regarding the global community, including the environment, global poverty, and government policies in a global era. Chapters 3 and 4 of his Common Wealth focus on human activities and how they impact the environment. The connections include:

1. Human activities and diseases (AIDS, SARS, maliaria) due to population density (that facilitates spread of disease) and greater proximity between humans and animals (consumption, habitation).

2. Industrialization, chemical fertilizers and release of energy and nitrogen gases into the air.

3. Burning of fossil fuels leads to rise of carbon dioxide.

4. Countries such as China's demand for fuel and other products lead to further soil erosion in other parts of the world and the extinction of many fauna.

Consequences:

1. Greenhouse effect: caused by the release of carbon dioxide and other gases; temperature will continue to rise that will have a series of dire consequences on the global environment.

2. Water shortage: because of global warming, and the melting of mountaintop snow and icebergs in many places, water shortages in places where water resources primarily came from mountain snow or ice.

3. More extreme weather conditions.

Steps to reduce carbon emission:

1. More efficient use of energy: e.g. hybrid cars.

2. Carbon capture and sequestration.

3. Creating market incentives to choosing low-carbon technology.