Costa Rica and Global Environmental Change

Humans dominate the earth: 40% of the earth's potential net primary productivity is consumed or altered by us. Human domination is increasing, due in equal parts to increasing human population size and increasing per capita consumption. This results in the seven forms of global environmental change: (1) Overexploitation of natural resources, (2) Changes in land use, (3) Spread of invasive species, (4) Loss of biodiversity, (5) Proliferation of synthetic organic chemical compounds, (6) Altered biogeochemical cycles, especially nitrogen and carbon cycles, and (7) Global climate change. These seven are all related to each other via various pathways that are characterized by synergies & feedbacks.

        Costa Rica is an ideal location for observing the causes and consequences of the seven forms of GEC. The government and people of Costa Rica have done many things right to reduce the magnitude of environmental change, and many things wrong which have exacerbated environmental change. We will provide an overview of GEC and point out some of the key issues related to Costa Rica. This will lead into a discussion about what we would like to discover & learn during the course about GEC in Costa Rica, and how these lessons will be relevant to our lives back home in the US.

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