Environmental implications of increasing affluence

The aim of this paper is to show that, first, the issue of population volume is rather important. That is, we cannot deny that a greater number of people require greater investment in terms of infrastructure and basic services, what is necessary even to reduce social vulnerability to climate change. However, due to the demographic transition, population growth in the country is close to its end.
However, on the other hand, there are other aspects to be considered in the relationship between people and environment, such as consumption of the population. Two of the most important aspects of consumption are the standard (how to consume) and the level (how much to consume). Thus, a small population, but with a high level of consumption may cause significant environmental impact.
The hypothesis we try to demonstrate is that the consumption pattern, conditioned by economic capacity, can be the deciding factor in increased demand on resources. To develop this argument we use the specific case of water consumption, showing the main aspects involved in the increased consumption of this essential good, in the Brazilian urban context.

Household energy consumption has increased in Mexican urban areas over the last 20 years. Explanations point, on the one hand, to changes on household wealth and, on the other hand, to life style transformations towards more energy intense everyday practices. We argue that disentangle these effects requires a cohort-period analysis since it is necessary to separate increments on income at older ages from those increases related to country wealth (period) and generational differences in consumption patterns. To examine these effects, we pooled multiple years of the Income and Expenditure Household Surveys (1992-2008), and we build synthetic cohorts to implement a hierarchical age-period-cohort analysis (HAPC) of household energy consumption in urban Mexico. After documenting the presence of cohort differences in energy consumption (Sanchez y Jasso 2012), this paper examines a) if changes Mexico´s economic wealth impacts household energy consumption, and b) whether such adjustment differs across cohorts.

Passive Smoking is a menace in Africa, particularly in Ghana. According to Scientist, over 60 out of 400 chemicals in tobacco are carcinogenic (cancer causing). In Techiman alone, about 70% of the youth smoke. It is therefore imperative to examine the knowledge on awareness of passive smoking to emphasize the awareness of the dangers associated with non-smokers close to active smokers and possible suggestions to avoid them.
In order to achieve the objectives of the study, a cross-sectional survey was used to collect information necessary for reliability and accuracy. In this, both primary and secondary data was useful. Structured and unstructured questionnaires were framed to reflect the objectives of the study.
About 17% of smoked due to fashion, 7% to relieve problems, whiles 60% smoked due to peer pressure. Analysis of smoking places identified 34% at home, 28% smoked in spots and 27% were floating smokers whiles 11% smoked in restaurants when eating or relaxing.
Related information shows that passive smoking causes heart diseases (tuberculosis) and cancer. There is the need to ban smoking and embark on health education of its dangers. Cigarette companies should help to find the possibility of banning smoking and recommendations to reduce cigarette smoking diseases.

Natural resources have in many cases been found to be a curse to some nations that possess it instead of being a blessing. Environmental and health hazards have resulted in many resource-rich developing economies. This study explores how some mining communities have experienced detrimental effects of possession of natural resources. Situated in the intepretivist philosophy, this case study research employed in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observations to collect data from the residents in Odumase and Teberebie communities in the Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipality, in the Western Region of Ghana. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques were used to select seventy-seven respondents for the study. Data collected was transcribed, coded into themes and manually analysed. The study found that the mining communities are confronted with environmental management challenges including pollution, abandoned mine pits, and dumping of rock waste on fertile agricultural lands. Residents have become vulnerable as it is difficult to access potable drinking water, agricultural lands and inability to come out of poverty due to the difficulty of maintaining sustainable livelihoods. The study recommended that collaborative efforts be adopted by various stakeholders to sustainably manage the exploitation of mineral resources.

Agricultural activities require extensive areas of productive lands. In Mexico, it is estimated that 80% of annual deforestation is due to agriculture activities, and almost 46% of wildfires are associated with agricultural cleanings (SEMARNAT, 2000). All over the world, expansion of arable land has been associated to population growth, production systems and consumption patterns (Kastner et al. 2012, Ramankutty et al., 1998). In recent decades, dietary changes have made important contributions to the expansion of productive land (Gerbens-Leenes et al., 2002; Zhen et al., 2010)
In this paper, we examine first whether the level and composition changes of household food intake changed between 1992 and 2008, expressing income distribution and demographic changes in Mexico. Using the Household Income and Expenditure Surveys (HIES) we compare household dietary patterns using latent class analysis to identify consumption profiles based on quantities of food consumed at two points in time (1992 & 2008). As a second goal, we estimate environmental impact of each food consumption profile and calculate the productive land requirements for every food item consumed by the household. Finally, we examine how consumption profiles are related to sociodemographic variables using multinomial models.

The demographic dynamic in countries with low fertility rates and falling mortality rates has contributed to the aging of the population structure, for the modification of the household composition and ownership of vehicles. In 2010 Brazil and South Korea occupied similar positions in world production of vehicles but the rates of inhabitants per vehicle corresponded to 6.1 and 2.7 respectively. Between 2000 and 2010, the increase in number of households was two times larger than the increase in the number of people in Brazil and 5 times greater in South Korea, which had large percentage of households consisting of one single person. The number of households increased by 21% in Brazil and 28% in South Korea but the vehicular fleet increased 60% and 39% respectively. One consequence is the increased concentration of the pollutant ozone in the atmosphere due to vehicular emission. Between 2000 and 2007, the record of high ozone concentration increased from 52 to 79 in Korea and 35 to 66 in one of the largest cities in Brazil.

Improving access to affordable clean energy is crutical for enhancing the quality of life. Rural households in India are almost entirely reliant on traditional biomass for cooking. This has adverse effect on health and productivity along with environmental degradation. The paper deals with three important issues, using National Sample Survey 66th round data (2009-10); Firstly, it shows the household energy use pattern in rural and urban India by economic class; Secondly, it analyzes the determinants of such use and thirdly it assess the amount of CO2 emission by Indian household using emission coefficient by fuel type. Household size, level of urbanization, literacy and age distribution of household have significant influence on type of fuel use. Monthly per capita expenditure shows a significant impact on the choice of cooking fuel. It calls for immediate interventions to protect the rural and poor households from their daily exposure of such risk factors.

Land use and land cover changes are local and place specific, occurring incrementally in ways that often escape our attention. This study sought to detect changes in land cover in the Tema Metropolis of Ghana from 1990 to 2010. Multispectral Landsat Thematic Mapper data sets of 1990, 2000 and 2007 were acquired, pre-processed and enhanced. Unsupervised classification of the images was performed and six land cover classes (water, wetlands, closed vegetation, open vegetation, cropped lands, and built-up) were derived. The post-classification change detection technique was performed to derive the changes in land cover and their corresponding change matrices. Between 1990 and 2010, built-up areas expanded steadily to become the most prevalent land cover type in the metropolis, reducing vegetation cover dramatically. High population growth with its attendant rise in the demand for housing, and increasing commercial activities, were found to have influenced land cover changes over the period.

Effective pro-ecological policies depend on how people act and perceive the environment. This is particularly relevant in areas undergoing a rapid and unplanned urbanization process, such as in Brazil. The international literature suggests that SES and environmental objective conditions are two major forces behind pro-ecological behavior and concern. This paper aims to answer the following questions: Are affluent households more environmentally concerned than low SES households in metropolitan Brazil; Do the objective environmental conditions impact environmental concern; Is the relation between SES, objective environmental conditions, and concern mediated by differences in perception about environmental issues and actors. Using random-effect latent class models and hierarchical regressions applied to a representative survey of urban residents of the metropolitan areas of São Paulo, we show evidence that more wealthy individuals and individuals living in communities with worse environmental conditions are more environmentally concerned. Falsifying the “Objective Problems Subjective Values” hypothesis, we found a significant positive association between environmental conditions and concern among the poor, and a negative association among richer households. We interpret these results as a spatial selection of residential units.

India is endowed with many river basins and rich civilizations have grown over which received high concentration of population. Urbanization attracts a large number of people to urban centers for better life and employment leading to concentration in cities. This leads to environmental problems which arise from lack of provision for piped water, waste water generation, sanitation/ drainage and solid waste collection. An attempt has been made to understand water quality degradation in class I cities of India. The total waste water generated by class I cities was 7,007 mld in 1978-79 and 16,662 mld in 1994-95, but only 39 percent of this is treated and drained into river or other water bodies. Only 24 percent waste water generated in class I cities, is treated in 1994-95 against to 39 percent in 1978. Mumbai alone generates 2456 mld waste water followed Kolkata and Delhi. The bulk of sewage gets retained on land to percolate/ get washed off to streams/ groundwater or drain into water bodies. There is a need to analyze water quality and correlate with demographic characteristics like life cycle, education and age- sex structure Since a large number of rivers are seasonal in nature the situation is alarming.