IB ESS HL 1.1.1 Perspectives, values and environmental decisions Question Bank

Credit different interpretations of what is meant by "bigger" in this context e.g. bigger can refer to the scale/number of effects, or to how immediate/frightening/concrete the threat may seem, or in terms of whether the threat is to humans or to living systems in general.

Marking guidance:

Award [1] for a explicit statement of their view on which is the bigger threat. global warming is a bigger threat than biodiversity; biodiversity is a bigger threat than global warming;
Do not credit if the viewpoint is only implied in the response.
Award [8 max] for relevant arguments for why one issue is a bigger threat than the other.
Award [4 max] if response is simply a description of the threat/effects not a comparison with the other threat. e.g. global warming is the bigger threat because:
it will have big effects e.g. melting ice caps/shifting biomes/changing the world's weather/flooding land;
its effects will be more widespread than biodiversity/every country will be affected; whereas the loss of diversity in, e.g. a tropical rainforest, may have little direct impact on people elsewhere;
larger numbers of people will be affected e.g. Bangladeshi delta region low-lying and densely populated affected by sea level rises;
it will affect a bigger range of human activity, such as food supply/living space, health/disease;
it will lead to biodiversity loss as well (whereas loss of diversity will not cause global warming);
many biodiversity hotspots are particularly vulnerable e.g. coral reefs; it has a higher public/global profile;
it can lead to significant social consequences e.g. wars / mass migrations; is harder to solve than biodiversity loss which can be helped by e.g. seedbanks; current rate of warming is unprecedented, whereas there have been mass extinctions in the past and the biodiversity has recovered;
it may lead to positive feedback loops/potentially devastating tipping points/exponential change;
> e.g. biodiversity is the bigger threat because:
> biodiversity provides/ensures key essential ecological services; e.g. a balance of atmospheric $\mathrm{O}_{2}$ and $\mathrm{CO}_{2}$ /soil preservation/mineral cycles; without these there would be no life-supporting conditions on the planet; once biodiversity is lost it is gone forever; and whereas global warming may be mitigated by negative feedback mechanisms there are no feedback mechanisms to maintain diversity; to restore biodiversity it can take very long periods of time; whereas climatic variations are reversible/happen in cycles (and have occurred in the past);
> from a human point of view, loss of biodiversity may mean loss of critical resources;
> biodiversity provides many forms of natural income, e.g. aesthetic, economic, ecological services;
> at a point in human population growth where resources are possibly limiting; it is biodiversity that gives living systems the ability to adapt to change; and the more it is reduced, the lower the chances of adapting to change; biodiversity is being lost now/threats seem more immediate to people; there are some positive benefits of global warming but no benefits to biodiversity loss;