MB #167

William Cohen
CBE 5772 HW #2
1/27/2015
1. A) The Green Revolution created a drastic increase in agricultural production worldwide
and it was especially monumental in developing regions of the world. This increase in
production created more available food than ever existed before, and thus we could
sustain more people on earth and the population grew rapidly. With a growth in
population, people needed places to live, which create spatial issues throughout the
world. In order to accommodate the space for more people, deforestation and draining of
waterways most likely occurred to clear land for people to live. Additionally, the increase
in humans lead to an increase in waste products, both biological waste and physical
waste, which led to an increase in sanitation organizations. The increase in population
due to a large food supply caused other problems throughout the world.
B) Genetically modified crops have some incredible benefits including adding insecticide
genes to keep bugs away and larger, more fruitful crops. However, these benefits come
with plenty of unanticipated issues. By using crops that create their own insecticides,
natural selection is causing bugs to adapt, making stronger insects that are resistant to
both the genetically modified crops and from traditional spray chemical insecticides. If
the population of these bugs increases enough, this could become a detrimental problem
for farmers who cannot control the insects. Another problem is that these insecticides are
killing natural pollinators like bees. Bees and other pollinators are needed for cross
pollination of crops. Without cross pollination, bio diversity will decrease and it will
become much more difficult to reproduce crops. Finally, genetically modified crops must
be purchased, so farmers cannot create them on their own. Therefore, every season
farmers must purchase seeds, and so every farmer buying seeds from the same place will
have the exact same genetically modified crop. This will cause a huge biodiversity
decrease.

MB #167

2.

6.0218109 metric tons

100 years
1 year
A rea=
130 metric tons /hectare
Area=4.6109 hectares
The entire area of the United States can be approximated at about 900 million hectares,
which is an order of 10 in magnitude less than what would be needed to sequester the
amount of CO2 in a year based on the 2007 data. This clearly indicates that the
sustainability of CO2 emissions cannot be dealt with solely from trees. If we plan to
continue producing this much CO2 in the future, we will need to find a way to handle it,
because we cannot sustain our production by relying on trees.

3. Carbon emissions have grown rapidly as the world uses more and more energy. The

burning of fossil fuels to produce electricity is a major cause of the raised carbon
emissions in the atmosphere. In this tragedy of the commons scenario, carbon
emissions is a negative impact of electricity, since consumers are using the electricity for
themselves, but the emissions from burning fossil fuels impacts a much larger population,
including plants and other animals since the CO2 is contributing to climate change. From
this standpoint, the benefits of electricity are privatized, but the negative impact is
socialized. However, pressure from stockholders on companies is helping to internalize
these externalities because now shareholders are backing up sustainability efforts instead
of just reaping the benefits of electricity. Stockholders may now be satisfied with taking a
temporary hit in stocks to support sustainability efforts, which could also increase
electricity prices, and therefore would allow these externalities to now be accounted for.