Natural resources, environment and climate change
This domain tests how resources are used, why environmental degradation occurs, and how societies respond to climate risk. Questions ask you to distinguish mitigation from adaptation, explain common-pool resource problems, and evaluate policies such as carbon pricing or environmental impact assessment.
Resource types and degradation
- Renewable resources regenerate if harvested below their sustainable yield; non-renewable resources are finite and their depletion raises questions of intergenerational equity.
- Common-pool resources are rivalrous but hard to exclude users from, so overuse - the tragedy of the commons - is a real risk. Ostrom showed that communities can govern commons successfully with clear boundaries, monitoring and sanctions.
- Environmental costs are often externalities: pollution damages third parties who are not compensated.
- Key processes include deforestation, soil erosion, desertification, overfishing, loss of biodiversity and urban air pollution.
Climate change
- Distinguish weather (short-term) from climate (long-term patterns).
- Mitigation reduces causes: renewable energy, efficiency, afforestation, carbon taxes, emissions trading.
- Adaptation reduces harm: drought-resistant crops, flood defences, early-warning systems, irrigation, crop insurance.
- Vulnerability = exposure + sensitivity − adaptive capacity. Low-income groups are usually more exposed and have less capacity to adapt, which is the basis of climate justice claims.
- Compare emissions per capita, not only national totals, when discussing responsibility.
Worked example
A fishery has a stock of 50,000 tonnes growing at 4% per year. Sustainable offtake ≈ 0.04 × 50,000 = 2,000 tonnes per year. A harvest of 3,000 tonnes exceeds regeneration, so the stock falls and future yields decline; a harvest of 2,000 tonnes or less keeps the stock stable. Show the reasoning about regeneration and time, since the exam rewards the mechanism, not just the arithmetic.
Traps that cost marks
Mixing up mitigation and adaptation; treating one hot year as evidence about climate; comparing national emissions totals without population context; assuming tree planting solves every environmental problem; ignoring how environmental policy can shift costs onto poor households.