An Architect's Guide to Designing for Sustainability A Joint - CAA

287 Pages·2006·1.82 MB·English

An Architect’s Guide to Designing for Sustainability

A Joint Commonwealth Foundation/Commonwealth
Association of Architects Developmental
Study

Prepared by:
CSIR
Built Environment Unit
Pretoria
South Africa
November 2006
Table of Contents

1 Introduction
2 Critical global issues
2.1 Global warming
2.2 Water
2.3 Poverty
3 Environment protection and human development
4 Architecture, architects and ecological design
5 Global agreements on sustainable development
6 Corporate governance
7 Commonwealth response to sustainable development
8 Commonwealth Association of Architects (CAA) response
9 Sustainable development definition
10 Sustainable development terminology
11 Sustainable development indicators
12 Development impacts
12.1 Economics
12.1.1 Small, medium and micro enterprise development
12.1.2 Life cycle assessment
12.2 Consumption and production patterns
12.2.1 Material consumption
12.2.2 Energy
12.2.3 Waste generation
12.2.4 Transportation
12.2.5 Efficiency of use
12.3 Cultural heritage
12.4 Health
12.4.1 Indoor environment
12.5 Security
12.6 Atmosphere
12.6.1 Climate change
12.6.2 Ozone
12.6.3 Air quality
12.7 Biodiversity
12.7.1 Fresh water and ground water
12.8 Land
12.8.1 Trees
12.8.2 Soft landscaping
12.8.3 Hard landscaping
12.8.4 Brownfield development
12.8.5 Greenfield development
12.8.6 Pollution
12.8.7 Stormwater
13 Conclusion
14 Introduction
14.1 History and Background
14.2 Need
14.3 Purpose Statement
14.4 Scope
14.5 Definition of Terms
15 Methods and Materials
15.1 How raw data was obtained
15.2 How raw data was interpreted
16 Economic Capital
16.1 Theme: Economic prosperity
16.1.1 Sub-theme: Small, medium and micro enterprises
16.1.2 Sub-theme: Ongoing costs
16.2 Theme: Consumption and production patterns
16.2.1 Sub-theme: Material consumption: Intensity of use
16.2.2 Sub-theme: Material consumption: Life cycle
16.2.3 Sub-theme: Material consumption: Deconstruction
16.2.4 Sub-theme: Material Consumption: Environmental impact
16.2.5 Sub-theme: Material consumption: Toxicity rating
16.2.6 Sub-theme: Material consumption: Volatile organic compounds
16.2.7 Sub-theme: Material consumption: Reuse
16.2.8 Sub-theme: Material consumption: Loss through improper storage
16.2.9 Sub-theme: Material consumption: Maintenance
16.2.10 Sub-theme: Energy use: Non-renewable
16.2.11 Sub-theme: Energy use: Renewable
16.2.12 Sub-theme: Energy use: Consumption
16.2.13 Sub-theme: Energy use: Embodied energy
16.2.14 Sub-theme: Waste generation: Materials
16.2.15 Sub-theme: Waste generation: Solid waste
16.2.16 Sub-theme: Waste generation: Industrial waste
16.2.17 Sub-theme: Waste generation: Medical waste
16.2.18 Sub-theme: Waste generation: Hazardous waste
16.2.19 Sub-theme: Waste generation: Recycled
16.2.20 Sub-theme: Transportation: Distance materials travel
16.2.21 Sub-theme: Transport: Distance labour travels
16.2.22 Sub-theme: Transportation: Distance (km) users travel
16.2.23 Sub-theme: Transportation: Transport type
16.2.24 Sub-theme: Efficiency of facility use
16.2.25 Sub-theme: Efficiency of use: Occupancy rate
16.2.26 Sub-theme: Efficiency of use: Downtime
16.2.27 Sub-theme: Efficiency of use: Ease of construction
17 Social Capital
17.1 Theme: Cultural heritage
17.1.1 Sub-Theme: Resources: Conservation
17.1.2 Sub-theme: Local traditions: Traditions
17.2 Theme: Community
17.2.1 Sub-theme: Empowerment: Community participation
17.3 Theme: Education
17.3.1 Sub-theme: Adult: Human resource development
17.3.2 Sub-theme: Adult: Technology transfer
17.3.3 Sub-theme: Adult: Basic education
17.4 Theme: Equity
17.4.1 Sub-theme: Poverty: Unemployed
17.4.2 Sub-theme: Poverty: New jobs
17.4.3 Sub-theme: Poverty: Local labour
17.4.4 Sub-theme: Gender: Women
17.4.5 Sub-theme: Gender: Amenities
17.4.6 Sub-theme: Employment practices: Previously disadvantaged
17.4.7 Sub-theme: Employment practices: Occupational health and safety (OHS)
17.4.8 Sub-theme: Employment practices: Labour rights
17.4.9 Sub-theme: Employment practices: Amenities
17.5 Theme: Health
17.5.1 Sub-theme: Preventative: HIV/AIDS
17.5.2 Sub-theme: Preventative health care
17.5.3 Sub-theme: Indoor environment: Noise abatement
17.5.4 Sub-theme: Indoor environment: Lighting
17.5.5 Sub-theme: Indoor environment: External views
17.5.6 Sub-theme: Indoor environment: Air quality
17.5.7 Sub-theme: Indoor environment: waste removal through working areas
17.5.8 Sub-theme: Indoor environment: Inclusiveness
17.5.9 Sub-theme: Indoor environment: User control
17.5.10 Sub-theme: Indoor environment: Smoke-free areas
17.5.11 Sub-theme: Sanitation: Standard
17.5.12 Sub-theme: Sanitation: On site treatment
17.5.13 Sub-theme: Drinking water: Access
17.5.14 Sub-theme: Drinking water: Reliability of service
17.5.15 Sub-theme: Crime: Community programmes
17.5.16 Sub-theme: Security: Crime reduction
17.5.17 Sub-theme: Security: Precautions
17.5.18 Sub-theme: Security: Local disaster management
18 Environmental Capital
18.1 Theme: Atmosphere
18.1.1 Sub-theme: Climate change: Reduction of GHG
18.1.2 Sub-theme: Climate change: Vulnerability
18.1.3 Sub-theme: Ozone depletion: Substances
18.1.4 Sub-theme: Air quality
18.1.5 Sub-theme: Air quality: Pollutant concentrations
18.2 Theme: Biodiversity
18.2.1 Sub-theme: Ecosystem: Conservation
18.2.2 Sub-theme: Species: Enhancing selected species
18.2.3 Sub-theme: Species: Indigenous species
18.2.4 Sub-theme: Species: Connectivity
18.3 Theme: Freshwater and ground water
18.3.1 Sub-theme: Water quantity: Use
18.3.2 Sub-theme: Water quantity: Rainwater harvesting
18.3.3 Sub-theme: Water quantity: Recycled
18.3.4 Sub-theme: Water quantity: Leakage
18.3.5 Sub-theme: Water quality: Watersheds
18.3.6 Sub-theme: Water quality: Aquifers
18.4 Theme: Land
18.4.1 Sub-theme: Soil
18.4.2 Sub-theme: Trees: Retained
18.5 Sub-theme: Trees: Added
18.5.1 Sub-theme: Soft landscaping: Carbon dioxide absorption
18.5.2 Sub-theme: Soft landscaping: Radiant energy
18.5.3 Sub-theme: Soft landscaping: Maintenance
18.5.4 Sub-theme: Hard landscaping: Heat absorption
18.5.5 Sub-theme: Hard landscaping: Light reflection
18.5.6 Sub-theme: Brownfield: Rehabilitated
18.5.7 Sub-theme: Brownfield: Density
18.5.8 Sub-theme: Greenfield: Retention
18.5.9 Sub-theme: Greenfield: Footprint
18.5.10 Sub-theme: Greenfield: Ecological value
18.5.11 Sub-theme: Pollution: Chemical leeching
18.5.12 Sub-theme: Pollution: Light Spillage
18.5.13 Sub-theme: Stormwater: Erosion
19 References
Part One: Sustaining Humanity

1 Introduction

Earth is just the most perfect place in which to live: its continents and islands, oceans, lakes
and rivers support an amazing abundance and variety of life. Our planet provides the ideal
incubator and shelter for this to happen.

Water, as a regulator of temperature and transporter of nutrients, is essential to life. Water is
available on Earth as solid ice, liquid and vapour forms. The global interchange of glacier-
ocean-atmosphere systems maintains a comfortable environment to support life forms from
polar bears to tropical parrots. Earth is just close enough to its shepherding star, the sun, to
receive warmth and light but not to burn up living organisms.

The evolution of Earth, from a clump of stellar debris to a spinning dynamo and the gradual
build-up of a protective atmosphere, is unique in our solar system. There is, as far as we
know, no other planet like it. Only two of the known planetary satellites, Jupiter’s Europa and
Saturn’s Titan, offer anything likely to sustain life as we know it.

The seasons happen because the planet’s axis is not perpendicular to the plane of its orbit,
but tilted at an angle of 23,5 degrees. The North Pole, tilted toward the sun, is at its maximum
during the northern summer. The rays of the sun strike the Tropic of Cancer at 23,5 degrees
directly north, warming the northern hemisphere more than the southern hemisphere. During
the northern winter, these positions are reversed. The South Pole is tilted towards the sun
and the sun’s rays are concentrated over the Tropic of Capricorn at 23,5 degrees south and
spread more thinly over the northern hemisphere. In spring and autumn the equator points
towards the sun.

Magnetism built into the core of the Earth wraps the planet in a vast curved envelope of
magnetic force. This protective cocoon, the magnetosphere, wards off the lethal stream of
ionised or electrically charged particles blown off the sun. As the Earth and its magnetic fields
plough through the solar wind, a shockwave builds up just like a supersonic jet. The charged
particles are slowed down and diverted around the magnetosphere. On the other side of the
Earth, the dark side, a teardrop-shaped tail up to 500 earth diameters long is formed.

Yet, our spheroid planet, which Carl Sagan refers to as our ”pale-blue dot”, although
significantly large in human dimensions with a diameter of nearly 12,960 km, significantly old
(4,5 billion years and the literal birth of time and space being set as 15 billion years ago), and
surrounded by an immense emptiness of space, supports life-forms in a surprisingly thin
segment of its structure commencing from just under 5km below the surface and extending to
8,100m above. Beyond these confines human life needs artificial support whilst birds and
insects die far below these limits. For all the immensity of space – the Milky Way is a huge,
whirling pinwheel made of 100 billion or more stars with tens of billions of other galaxies
beyond its edges – it is to all intents and purposes lifeless beyond this 13km incubating layer
of Earth. “Viewed from deep space, our entire habitat of land, oceans and clouds is revealed
as a thin, delicate glaze – its beauty and vulnerability contrasting with the stark and sterile
moonscape on which the astronauts left their footprints.”1

It is from this womb-like layer that the 6 billion people and millions of other living species
inhabiting Earth draw the resources needed to sustain life, and into which they discharge their
waste. Over time, this process of consumption and discharge has accelerated as our human
population has multiplied. Whilst early peoples lived in a state of balance between the
demand and supply of Earth’s resources, the modern world has reached the point where
current demand exceeds supply. Whereas early peoples lived off the interest of the Earth,

1 Sir Martin Rees: Our Final Century, Heinemann, 1 May 2003
modern man is consuming the capital. Worse still, the waste generated by this consumption is
polluting the depleting remaining capital, further reducing the effective balance.

Despite the stunning time spans of the evolutionary past now being part of our common
knowledge, many folk still consider humanity as the final culmination of the creative process.
Cosmologists, on the other hand, understand this current time as only a small blip in an even
vaster time span that still lies ahead. Given the development period of modern man relative to
the age of the cosmos, human maturation and the development of intelligence and complexity
may yet be in its infancy. If this is so, who can begin to grasp what marvellous biodiversity is
still to come?

Tragically, though, through stupidity or ill intent or both, the human choices and actions of this
century could determine the continual future of life, for make no mistake, the Earth will
survive, but humanity may not be an integral part of it. The next few generations could put at
risk life’s potential and bar its human future.

Many leaders around the world and in many spheres of occupation have realised that the rate
of consumption of Earth’s finite resources and the concomitant waste generation could
continue indefinitely: It has taken just a sliver of the Earth’s history – the last one-millionth
part, a few thousand years – to alter the patterns of vegetation far faster than ever before.
The start of agriculture had much to do with this change, but the pace of change accelerated
as human settlements formed and populations increased. Within 50 years – little more than
one-hundredth-of-a-millionth of the Earth’s age – the amount of carbon dioxide, which until
now had been dropping, began to rise ominously fast. As with any change, it generates its
own changes: anthropogenic development has resulted in the Earth becoming an emitter of
radio waves from all the televisions, cell phones and radar transmissions.

It is projected that the sun will collapse on itself like some giant soufflé in 5-6 million years’
time, but long before then, in 1 billion years’ time, its energy output will increase by at least 10
percent, turning Earth into a hothouse2. The comfort that these time frames would normally
provide us with are not to be experienced any longer, for who would have predicted this
unprecedented environmental spasm (human population increased from 1950 to 2000 faster
than over the 4 million years since it emerged as a distinct species) so soon in the Earth’s
history? As Sir Martin Rees puts it: “But will this eternity be filled with ever more complex and
subtle forms of life, or be as empty as the Earth’s first sterile seas? The choice may depend
on us, this century.”3 It is this realisation that has given birth to the concept of sustainable
development.

The United Nations has held a number of summits and conferences on the subject, the first
United Nations Conference on Human Settlements being held in Vancouver, Canada in 1972.
In 1992 the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro gave rise to the Habitat Agenda and Agenda 21,
formulated as the road map for sustainable development. The Second United Nations
Conference followed this focus on sustainable development on Human Settlements (Habitat
II) held in Istanbul, Turkey from 3 to 14 June 1996, and later that year the Habitat Conference
held at the United Nations in New York. The 2002 Earth Summit held in Johannesburg, South
Africa was a Rio +10 celebration and offered an opportunity for re-appraisal of progress post-
Rio. The Resolution of this Summit is attached as an annexure.

These conferences have seen a swing from a “green-centred” agenda to a “people-centred”
agenda and the acceptance that environmental protection must go hand-in-hand with human
development. This approach crystallised the notion of economic, social and environmental
sustainability, or the triple bottom line reporting approach. Current thinking is beginning to
place the emphasis on social sustainability or well-being with economic prosperity and
environmental stewardship as sub-sets. It is precisely for this reason that architects should
engage themselves in the process through the design process, for they are co-responsible for
realising social well-being in the built environment.

2 Michael D. Lemonick: Time Magazine, June 25, 2001
3 Sir Martin Rees: Our Final Century, Heinemann, 1st May 2003
2
Architects play an indispensable role in the production of the built environment: they are
required to provide imaginative thinking, be at the cutting edge of technology, exercise
strategic managerial skills, and be skilled craftsmen in order to conceptualise and manage the
delivery of the physical infrastructure that is fundamental to the development of the
communities they serve. Architects are acknowledged for their potential to add real value
through the devising of physical solutions in response to the brief, maximizing the potential of
the site, and overcoming planning and other constraints.

Architects exercise a significant influence on the lives of citizens, including current users,
those who pass by their buildings, and those users yet to be born. They therefore must
ensure that they deliver physical infrastructure that is responsive to society’s needs. A role
that architects have played since time immemorial is that of trusted advisor to their clients
when undertaking the procurement and delivery of public facilities and infrastructure.

The growing global realisation that good corporate governance goes beyond the financial and
regulatory aspects to include an integrated approach is and will continue to place a new
responsibility on the architect as trusted advisor. Clients increasingly expect that those who
design the physical structures that they develop and occupy will contribute to their well being
without depleting the resources of their world. This expectation is placing new demands on
architects to familiarize themselves with the issues of sustainable development and to ensure
that they are competent at designing infrastructure in a sustainable manner.

Assessing the opportunities and constraints that the environment places on development,
instead of reducing the impact of the development on the environment, is but one of the
paradigm shifts required. Improving economic viability over the full life cycle of the structure
and delivering social improvement are further areas in which architects must develop their
skills and knowledge.

The demand for quality by end-users has highlighted the need to improve the performance of
both the client and the design professionals to ensure value for money, fitness for purpose
and quality. There is a need to develop a culture of performance measurement so that the
efficacy of innovations can be evaluated and continuous improvements promoted in cost,
time, defects, durability, adaptability, maintenance, reuse and environmental performance.
Sustainability-led design requires a more sophisticated understanding of the natural and built
environment than is required by conventional development. It behoves architects to expand
their awareness of the broader environmental impacts of their buildings.

This initiative of the Commonwealth Association of Architects is aimed at ensuring that
architects within the Commonwealth are able to make their contribution to ensuring the
sustainability of their developments. In this regard it takes cognisance of the newly accepted
and widely used instrument for integrating economic, social and environmental issues into the
formulation of plans and programmes, namely, Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA).
Unlike the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) approach that focuses on the effect of the
development on the environment, SEA assesses the effect of the environment on the
development. This approach, in considering the opportunities and constraints that the broader
environment places on the development, acknowledges context (e.g. the political, institutional,
social and biophysical environment), integrates current legislative procedures into the
formulation of plans, and is sustainability-led.

2 Critical global issues

Despite the overall severity of resource depletion and pollution, a number of critical economic,
social and environmental issues that have the potential to create global conflict do exist.
These have been identified as global warming, water availability and poverty.
2.1 Global warming

3
The extreme weather experienced during 2003 prompted the normally staid World
Meteorological Organisation (WMO) to link the record extremes, from Switzerland’s hottest-
ever June to a record month for tornadoes in the United States, to climate change. The
Geneva-based body, to which the weather services of 185 countries contribute, took the view
that events in Europe, America and Asia in 2003 were so remarkable that they had to be
brought to the attention of the world immediately. The extreme weather it documents, such as
record high and low temperatures, record rainfall and record storms in different parts of the
world, is consistent with predictions of global warming4.

Evidence produced from various samples taken from the Earth confirms that this planet Earth
is in a constant state of flux: historically it has ranged from periods of extreme heat to equally
extreme cold. These cycles have had disastrous consequences on many varied life forms:
some became extinct, whilst others mutated into new life forms and survived.

Global warming is thus a natural part of the Earth’s cycle. However, this is not the concern:
the concern is that human activity, particularly the emission of carbon dioxide (CO²), is
accelerating the rate of global warming.

The sun’s energy, having travelled more than 150,000 kilometres to get to Earth, hits the
upper atmosphere at about the intensity of three 100 watt bulbs per square metre. One-third
is reflected back into space and two-thirds warms the planet and drives its weather engine.
This warming takes place through a shield that constricts the loss of heat from the Earth’s
surface and increases the average global temperature by 33 deg C. Without this, the Earth
would be frozen and life on the planet would cease. Gases that produce the so-called
“greenhouse effect”, most notably CO², are increasing in the atmosphere and thereby
deflecting more long-wave infra-red solar radiation back to Earth, hence the warming.

One of the samples used to support the CO² theory comes from 160,000-year-old ice cores
taken from the polar cap. These cores indicate that concentrations of CO² are higher than at
any other time since that period. It is known that the emission rate has increased since then.

It has been acknowledged that the emission of greenhouse gases is linked to the ongoing
climate changes that threaten the survival of many plants and animals as well as the well-
being of people around the world. The impact of climate change is likely to be severe: a host
of negative impacts are likely to arise in the northern climates. Some of these impacts are
already being experienced, and include:

(cid:153) More heat waves with an increase in heart-related illnesses and deaths;
(cid:153) More severe and frequent flooding of cities and towns along major rivers;
(cid:153) More extensive and prolonged droughts in some areas;
(cid:153) Deterioration of favourite coastal and low-lying areas as sea levels rise, dunes erode,
and the areas become more vulnerable to coastal storms; and
(cid:153) People who have relied on fishing, farming and tourism for their livelihoods will see
these livelihoods destroyed.

While it is also true that the world’s climatic changes work in cycles, the rate of change
currently being manifested is without precedent in the history of this planet. Human activity is
altering the planet on an unprecedented scale: more and more people are using more
resources with more intensity and leaving a bigger “footprint” on the Earth than ever before.

People in the richest countries are using far more of the world’s natural resources than people
in developing countries. A child born today in the United States, France or Japan will add
more to consumption and pollution over his or her lifetime than 30 to 50 children born in
developing countries.

Carbon dioxide (CO²) is the primary greenhouse gas entering the atmosphere from human
activities. Ongoing efforts regarding international co-operation to limit and reduce the
production of CO² culminated in the signing of the Kyoto Protocol by 38 industrialised nations

4 WMO: July 2003
4
on 10 November 2001. In terms of this agreement, emissions of six greenhouse gases have
to be cut on average by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels during the five-year period 2008 to
2012.

The chief culprits responsible for the release of CO² are fossil fuel burning – oil, coal, and
natural gas alone account for about 75 percent of the increase in CO² – cement manufacture
and deforestation – the cutting and burning of forests that trap carbon accounts for about
another 20 percent. In the light of this, most of the curative attention has been paid to
developing alternative production technologies that are not reliant on fossil fuel burning for the
production of energy, as this is the primary consumer of fossil fuel. Similarly, motor
manufacturers are developing cleaner-burning engines whilst exploring alternative fuels for
the vehicles of tomorrow.

CO² remains in the atmosphere for about 100 years: the longer we pollute, the longer it will
take for remedial action to be effective.

With regard to the global warming debate, much attention has been focussed on the role of
transport and industry in their contribution to global warming. However, little if any attention
has been paid to the construction industry as a source of CO² emissions. Evidence suggests
however that buildings – under construction and in use – play an equal contributory role in
global warming.
2.2 Water

Water scarcity is without doubt one of the greatest threats to the human species and has all
the potential to destabilise world peace. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, writing for the Habitat
Debate5, comments that in his view “there will be international disputes concerning water”.
Many rivers are drying up before they reach the sea, potentially depriving those countries and
users downstream.

Falling water tables are also a new phenomenon. Up until the development of steam and
electric motors, deep groundwater could not be exploited. Now, however, deep drilling and
powerful pumps are able to probe many kilometres down into the earth for aquifers.
Unfortunately, once dry, they remain dry, as seasonal rain does not penetrate deeply enough
to replenish them. Water tables have been falling in many countries, most notably in China,
India and the United States, which together produce nearly half the world’s grain.

Already many countries have pumped much of their underground aquifers dry. Egypt has
withdrawn 96 percent of its total water resources, with 82 percent of that having gone to
agriculture6. Algeria has progressed so far with this strategy that it now has to explore
desalination for future capacity.
2.3 Poverty

At first glance one could wonder what poverty alleviation has to do with architects and
architecture. Yet the ability of the poor to escape from their economic jail is impeded by a
number of factors, including lack of infrastructure and access to productive land. Often
conditions of poverty are aggravated by natural disasters arising from the poor living
conditions and locations of urban settlements.

Poverty alleviation has been identified as one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG)
precisely because poverty has the ability to destabilise the world economy and lead to global
unrest. Food is fast becoming a national security issue as food production slows down and
world population increases. Both China and Russia are becoming importers of grain, pushing
grain prices up. If China depletes its grain reserves and turns to the world grain market to

5 Boutros Boutros-Ghali: Habitat Debate, UN-Habitat April 2003 Vol. 9 No. 1
6 The World Bank: The Little Green Data Book, Washington 2003
5
cover its shortfall, it could destabilise world grain markets. Most of the expected 3 billion
people to be added to the world’s population by 2050 will be born in countries already facing
water and food shortages, so that childbearing decisions may have a greater effect on food
security than crop planting decisions.

With 6,1 billion people relying on the resources of the same small planet, we are coming to
realise that we are drawing from a finite account. The amount of crops, animals and other bio
matter we extract from the earth each year exceeds what the planet can replace by an
estimated 20 percent, meaning that it takes 14,4 months to replenish what we use in 12 –
deficit spending of the worst kind.

Up to a third of the world is in danger of starving: two billion people lack reliable access to
safe, nutritious food, and 800 million of them – including 300 million children – are chronically
malnourished. For the many millions of city-dwellers living on less than $1 a day and
spending 70 percent of that on food, an increase in grain prices will be life threatening. Not
surprising then that the U.S. National Intelligence Council launched the most detailed
assessment of China’s food prospect in 1995.

Climate change becomes the wild card in any future food supply assessment and therefore
steps to alleviate the continued build-up of global warming gasses gains a new urgency.

3 Environment protection and human development

A team of scientists led by Mathis Wacker, an analyst at Redefining Progress, concluded in
2002 that the combined demand of humans first surpassed the Earth’s regenerative capacity
around 1980. Their study, published by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, estimated
that human demand exceeded capacity by 20 percent in 1999. Essentially we are meeting
demand by consuming the earth’s natural assets.

Environmental threats abound everywhere, the most recent and potentially greatest being the
HIV pandemic. For the first time demographers announced that life expectancy has been
dramatically reversed for a large segment of humanity – the 700 million people living in sub-
Saharan Africa. The anticipated reduction in life expectancy is from 62 to 47 years. Already it
is believed that 52 million people are infected with HIV/Aids worldwide.

Other threats include climate change, eroding soils and expanding deserts, which are
threatening the livelihood and food supply of hundreds of millions of the world’s people.
Environmental damage thus far includes the death of the Aral Sea, the burning of the
Indonesian rainforests, the collapse of the Canadian cod fishery, the melting of the glaciers
that supply Andean cities with water, the dust bowl forming in north-western China, and the
depletion of the U.S. Great Plains aquifer. As stated previously, these changes bring about
their own consequences so that these events expand and multiply way beyond their
immediate contexts.

The sector of the economy most likely to untangle first is food production. Eroding soils,
deteriorating rangelands, collapsing fisheries, falling water tables and rising temperatures all
conspire to undermine the Earth’s ability to produce enough food for its population. The 2002
grain production fell short of demand by 100 million tons, or 5 percent, the largest on record
and for the third consecutive year.

Two key indicators of the well-being of the human population – life expectancy and hunger –
therefore reveal significant deterioration. Unfortunately rising temperatures resulting from
global warming will exacerbate this problem: if the temperatures rise to the lower reaches as
predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, grain harvests could drop 11
percent by 2020 and 46 percent by 2050.

The most vivid example of the fine balance between environmental and human development
is China: its human population of 1,3 billion together with the 400 million cattle, sheep and
6