Journal of Siberian Federal University. Biology / Stability of the Biosphere and Sustainable Development: a Challenge to Biospherics

Full text (.pdf)
Issue
Journal of Siberian Federal University. Biology. 2017 10 (2)
Authors
Bartsev, Sergey I.; Degermendzhi, Andrey G.; Sarangova, Antonina B.
Contact information
Bartsev, Sergey I.: Institute of Biophysics SB RAS Federal Research Cnter “Krasnoyarsk Science Center SB RAS” 50/50 Akademgorodok, Krasnoyarsk, 660036, Rusesia; Siberian Federal University 79 Svobodny, Krasnoyarsk, 660041, Russia; ; Degermendzhi, Andrey G.: Institute of Biophysics SB RAS Federal Research Center “Krasnoyarsk Science Center SB RAS” 50/50 Akademgorodok, Krasnoyarsk, 660036, Russia; Sarangova, Antonina B.: Siberian Federal University 79 Svobodny, Krasnoyarsk, 660041, Russia
Keywords
problems of sustainable development; stability of ecosystems and the biosphere; optimal nature management
Abstract

The central point of the concept of sustainable development proposed for overcoming unwelcome trends in the development of the environment – “The right to development must be fulfilled so as to equitably meet developmental and environmental needs of present and future generations” – contains certain conflict. The bottom line is that modern human beings cannot live without the infrastructure that pollutes the environment, and the future generations will not be able to live without this environment. The conflict can be mitigated by switching to the optimal infrastructure, which will maintain human impact on regional ecosystems at levels that fall within the range of their resilience. To achieve this goal, the following objectives must be fulfilled: 1) to develop methods for evaluating “resilience” of local ecosystems and the biosphere; 2) to develop technologies for production of goods that have the lowest possible environmental impact in all stages of their lifecycle: production, use, and disposal; 3) to develop methods for designing systems of optimal environmental management at regional levels and formulate an adequate optimality criterion. Difficulties arising in achieving these objectives have been illustrated by using rather simple examples. In some instances, the ecosystem shows a threshold response to upsetting impact, and on the way to the threshold, there may be no indications of the pending disaster. The possibility of the threshold response to the gradually increasing impact – a rise in the greenhouse gas concentrations – has been shown by using a low-dimensional model of the biosphere. An example of electric vehicles is used to show that if, by analogy with the input-output model (IOM) developed by W. Leontief, one takes into account the direct and indirect ecological damage caused by production, use, and disposal of the product, the resulting assessment of the environmental harm may be drastically different from the claimed one. Simple examples demonstrate dramatic dependence of the configuration of the optimal infrastructure on optimality criteria used by decision makers

Pages
134-152
Paper at repository of SibFU
https://elib.sfu-kras.ru/handle/2311/33365

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