Functions of the Environment
The environment performs certain vital functions, like sustaining life. It would be able to function properly as long as the demand for these functions is within its carrying capacity. The rising population in developing nations and the affluent consumption standards of the developed nations has placed a huge stress on the environment. Resources are becoming extinct and waste is being generated beyond the absorptive capacity. As a result, we are on the threshold of an environmental crisis. Due to the overuse of renewable resources, we are compelled to spend on research and technology to explore new alternatives. Added to this are the health costs of the degraded environment, which are higher than the benefits received. Thus, the expenditure on health is also rising. Global environmental issues like global warming and ozone depletion also add up to the financial commitments of the government. These problems are not new, but the problems have escalated due to increased industrialisation and urbanisation. The need of the hour is to take effective steps at both the individual level and at the level of the governments around the globe to combat climate change and to prevent the planet. A UN conference on climate change held in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 resulted in an international agreement to fight global warming which called for reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases by industrialised nations.
Which of the following statements gives the meaning of Absorptive Capacity?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Ability of the environment to absorb degradation
Nature can clean up a certain amount of our waste: rivers dilute it and soil breaks it down. This ability of the environment to absorb degradation, taking in wastes and pollution without being harmed, is its absorptive capacity. When the wastes generated go beyond this capacity, as the passage says they now do, the environment is degraded.
Why the other options are incorrect
Option (1) Resource extraction rate is above the resource generation rate — Incorrect. This describes over-use of resources, the case in which the demand on the environment exceeds its carrying capacity; it is not the meaning of absorptive capacity.
Option (3) Ability of the environment to stop degradation. — Incorrect. The environment can absorb a certain amount of degradation, but it cannot stop it; the source of the degradation is human activity.
Option (4) Capacity of the environment to get polluted — Incorrect. Absorptive capacity is the ability to take in waste without being polluted; pollution is what happens when that capacity is exceeded.
NCERT (2025-26): “Functions of the Environment: … The rising population of the developing countries and the affluent consumption and production standards of the developed world have placed a huge stress on the environment in terms of its first two functions. Many resources have become extinct and the wastes generated are beyond the absorptive capacity of the environment. Absorptive capacity means the ability of the environment to absorb degradation.…” |