Environmental Impact Assessment and Soft Tools

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ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT AND SOFT TOOLS
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Question one
Using the article “Revisiting the Limits to Growth After Peak Oil”provided in the class
summarise key learnings in terms of limit to growth. What are the means by which your
country is now tackling these issues? (4%)
Hall & Day (2009) in the article “Revisiting the Limits to Growth After Peak Oil” discusses the
relationship between food production, industrialization, pollution, population and consumption
of natural resources. The study explores ‘limit to growth' by considering the fact that these
variables seem to be exponentially increasing while advancements in technology to keep with
growth is linear. Hall and Day sought to explore the possibility of a sustainable feedback pattern
that is based on the alteration of the growth trends of the 5 variables investigated. According to
Hall and Day (2009), the world has experienced a reduction in resource base for human beings
due to human activities on the environment.
According to Hall and Day (2009), early warning signs of peak oil were initially highlighted by
Thomas Malthus in 1978 where he observed that the population growth rate is far much higher
than the ability of the earth’s subsistence production from activities of man. Besides, Malthus
noted that population growth increases geometrically meaning that even the little resource base
will soon become depleted. Also, Richard Heinberg argues that everything has reached its peak
(Hall & Day, 2009). An increase in energy use especially the fossil fuels has increased
agricultural productivity thus averting famine.
Another scholar who added light on the need to regulate the environment was Hardin who
highlighted the impacts of overusing common property. He warns that if people are allowed to
breed freely, then overall ruin is inevitable (Hall & Day, 2009). Impacts of people’s activities on
the ecosystem and population insurgence wreak havoc on the supply of food, nature, and human

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health. Malthus believed that events like famine, war, death, and pestilence would control human
population as it did happen in the coastal town of Bangladesh where thousands of people
drowned due to typhoon (Hall & Day, 2009). Furthermore, what disturbs environmentalists is
the degree to which the oil, gases, and fossil fuels will continually remain abundant and cheap.
Moreover, predictions on limits to growth got fulfilled by the energy crisis of 1973 which lead to
escalated oil prices across the world. Still, the impacts of the limits in oil production repeated
itself in the 1980s global economic meltdown. Scientists, however, pointed to global warming,
climatic changes, and loss of biodiversity, pollution, global warming, acid rain, and ozone layer
depletion as the reasons behind the environmental problems. As a consequence, it became clear
that the economy and population had exceeded the ability of the earth to sustain them. People
thought that the world was being ripped apart; thus it dawned on the scientists that the earlier
predictions were indeed valid. The chief concern of this article is grounded on the assessment of
the cost of energy and environmental management including food supply, supervision of rivers
and how to obtain power sustainably. Hall and Day (2009) conclude that constraints caused
limits to energy to nature leading to scarcity.
The economic problems of the 1970s and 1980s were reversed by the discovery of oil outside the
United States, especially in the Middle East. Technological advancements, social incentive
systems, and the market economy have increased the earth's carrying capacity. Technological
advancement is characterized by increased efficiency in production of goods and services thus
lowering prices leading to high consumption rates (Hall & Day, 2009). With the rapid increase in
population, the current oil base may as well reach its peak soon.
Australia has been active in promoting sustainable exploitation of oil. Besides, environmental
protection is achieved through the activities of the state governments with the federal

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government through her institutions acting as a watchdog. Australia as a country has been using
technology to counteract the natural pressure exerted by the environment against any growth
process. According to Wilson (2015) application of technology in the physical pressure
environment exerts on growth process has been so successful such that interaction of various
problems which results into capital growth and limit population (Zuo & Wheeler, 2019).
Question two
Compare the steps one needs to follow to obtain approval for a project that requires EIA
in two of your chosen state. Please choose the state as per the guide below. Specify the
commonalities or differences? (5%) State selection guide: VIC& QLD.
Currents trends and historical approaches have continued to shape environmental protection and
management in Australia most notable is the constitutional arrangement (McDonald and Hobday,
2014). The government of Australia has a federal structure with the constitution dictating the
roles played by the Commonwealth as well as the territorial governments. Besides, the federal
government is not given powers by the constitution to legislate on the environment. As a result,
the states have been playing the traditional role on development, policy implementation, and
regulation on the exploitation of resources, conservation, and protection of the environment. The
federal government, however, uses her constitutional heads such as corporations, external affairs,
and interstate trade powers in enacting environmental measures that conform to the international
treaties and obligations towards environmental management upon which state laws adhere to
(McDonald and Hobday, 2014).
Although the federal government relies on her corporations to enact laws governing
environmental management, most of the tasks are done by the states. Besides, these states must