Chapter+Questions

Chapter 1: Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and Sustainability. Kuwait:

1) What is its location, neighboring countries, and major types of topography? 2) Picture of a flag and indicate major languages. 3) Is it an LDC or MDC? What are some clues? 4) Is there ecnomic growth, and if so is it sustasinable? 5) What is the average ecological footpraint? Do the citizens suffer from affluenza? 6) Picture of the native costumes >
 * Neightboring countries
 * Iraq
 * Saudi Arabia
 * Topography
 * Almost entirely flat, desert plain. Highest point of elevation is 306m
 * Location
 * Middle East
 * latitude 29º30, longitude 45º45
 * Languages
 * Arabic or variations of Arabic
 * Picture
 * [[image:http://www.mapsofworld.com/images/world-countries-flags/kuwait-flag.gif width="142" height="80"]]
 * Went from and LDC to wealthy almost over night in the 70's due to an increased petroleum prices.
 * Clues would be because it has highways, airports, universities, and telecommunication networks.
 * Yes, there has been a lot of ecnomic growth since the 1970's
 * They refrain from spending a lot and when they do spend they use it on development projects.
 * So far, they look sustainable.
 * The average ecological footpraint in Kuwait is 8.01
 * By the large footpraint size, im sure some of Kuwait's people have become affluent beacuse of the sudden wealth in the last 40 years.

Chapter 3: Ecosystems: What are they and how do they work?

1) A typical food web would involve differnent types of fish and meat, with humans at the top of the food web. 2) Oil contributes to 50% of Kuwait's GDP and its 90% of its exports. in the last year their gross investments were at 30% of the net savings. 3) Carnivores- African lion, leopard, wild cat, cheetah. Producers- zooplankton, plankton, differnet sea creatures. Herbivores- Elephants. Omnivores- Humans. Decomposers- Bacteria, fungi. Scavengers- Vultures. 4) Some of the human based effects on the majors cycles, would be harvesting too much fresh water before it has time to replenish itself. Cutiing down trees and forests which changes the weather patterns in areas of the world. Burning fossil fuels adds a lot of nitrogen in the atmosphere. Run off of phosphate from fertilizers ruins some of the water supply we have and creates too many producers. Buring coal also adds a lot of sulfer into the air which causes acid rain. 5) There are poeople studying how to save the many unique plants in Kuwait that are about to go extinct.

Chapter 4: Biodiversity and Evolution. 1) Kuwait is very abundant with desertland so many animals that live there meet their needs with what the desert provides. Becasue there is so much desertland their is very little vegetation, a couple things they do have would be the camel thorn, and some shrubs around the costal strip. Between October and March they do get a sufficent amount of rainfall the desert transforms for a while into a grass area with flowers and mushrooms cane be found. Some of the other animals that can be found in greater number during this time would be gerbils, jerboas, and desert hares. Reptile species include various lizards, geckos, and snakes. Fish are plentiful. Among the species of migratory birds are swallows, wagtails, chiffchaff, skylarks, wrens, eagles, cormorants, hoopoes, and terns. 2) Fossils have been found in Kuwait. The desertland created a good environment for people to dif them up and they were leftr in good condition, One fossil they were extremly proud of that they published about in the Kuwait Times was about a fossil 67 million-year-old snake found coiled around a dinosaur egg. 3) The climate in Kuwait can be very hard to live in, it can hit really high temperatures and during some months all in does is rain making it very hard for some plants and animals to survive there. Natural selection helped for the animals that were able to adapt to such harsh conditions and that could reproduce at a high enough rate that keep that certain species from becoming extinct. 4)There were no major extinctions but one animal that kuwait talks about that used to inhabit the middle easten area that is no longer there is the Arabian Ostrich that lived in an open semi-desert and desert plains. 5)Indicator- Swallow Keystone- Geckos Foundation- Wagtails Non-native- Gerbil Specialist- eagles

Chapter 6: The Human Population and its Impact 1) Population: 2,505,559 and this year they have had a 3.5% growth rate. 2)Birth Rate: 21.64 per 1000 Death Rate: 2.29 per 1000 Immigration:14.96 per 1000 Emigration: 8.5% of population This data does agree with the rate of growth because the birth rate per 1000 people is greatly higher then the death rate per 1000 people. 3) People ages 20-30 is greatly higher then any other age in the pyramid especially on the male side. There are not enough children in pre-reproductive stages to replace the current amount of people in the reproductive stages, this will cause a change in the job market with they hit that age, there wont be enough people to take over for the people retiring.



4) Kuwait is in the Transitional stage in the demographic transition. The population is growing rapidly because of high birth rates and high immigration and their death rates have dropped greatly because of improved health care. 5) Family planning is not helping the population of Kuwait. The average birth rate per woman is still at 4.0. This is going to cause great problems if it stays at this rate, over population is going to cause problems in the job market, and increased poverty. 6)There is no government sponsored family planning program, Even though this is true the birth control needs of the population are being met. Birth control is easily available to women through health care and pharmacies without a perscription, but many women of Islam believe that family planning is forbidden.