Summer Assignment
Terms : Hide Images
| 865891209 | Exponential Growth | a quantity increases at fixed percentage per unit of time | |
| 865891210 | Environment | The sum total of all living and nonliving things that affect any living organism | |
| 865891211 | Environmental Science | Interdisciplinary study that integrates information and ideas from the natural sciences that study the natural world and social sciences that study how humans and their institutions interact with the natural world | |
| 865891212 | Ecology | A biological science that studies the relationships between living organisms and their environment | |
| 865891213 | Environmentalism | A social movement dedicated to protecting the earth's life-support system for us and other species Political in nature | |
| 865891214 | Sustainability or Durability | The ability of earth's various stystems, including human cultural systems and economies, to survive and adapt to changing environmental conditions indefinitely | |
| 865891215 | Natural Capital | The natural resources and natural services that keep us and other species alive and support our economies | |
| 865891216 | Solar Capital | Energy from the sun | |
| 865891217 | Is natural capital fixed? | No, it changes in response to environmental changes | |
| 865891218 | Key variable in natural capital degradation | Rate | |
| 865891219 | How do humans degrade natural capital? | By using normally renewable resources (such as forests) faster than nature can renew them | |
| 865891220 | Sound Science | Concepts and ideas that are widely accepted by experts in a particular field of the natural or social sciences | |
| 865891221 | Environmentally Stable Society | One that meets the current and future needs of its people for basic resources in a just and equitable manner without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs | |
| 865891222 | Economic Growth | Increase in capacity of a country to provide people with goods and services | |
| 865891223 | How is economic growth usually measured? | Through the percent change in a country's GDP | |
| 865891224 | GDP (Gross Domestic Product) | The annual market value of all goods and services produced by all firms and corporations | |
| 865891225 | Per capita GDP | The GDP/the total population at mid-year | |
| 865891226 | Economic Development | The improvement of human living standards by economic growth | |
| 865891227 | Which types of countries have a higher GDP? | Developed countries; most highly industrialized | |
| 865891228 | How can we use our political and economic systems to better the environment? | Analysts suggest our goal should be: Use political and economic systems to encourage environmentally beneficial and more sustainable forms of economic development | |
| 865891229 | Doubling Time | How long it takes to double the world's population | |
| 865891230 | How to calculate doubling time | The Rule of 70 | |
| 865891231 | The rule of 70 | 70/% growth rate = doubling time (in years) | |
| 865891232 | Resource | (From a human standpoint) anything obtained from the environment to meet our needs and wants | |
| 865891233 | 3 Classifications of Resources | Perpetual, Renewable, Nonrenewable | |
| 865891234 | Perpetual Resource | Renewed Continuously Ex. Solar power | |
| 865891235 | Renewable Resource | Can be replenished fairly rapidly (hours to several decades) as long as it is not used up faster than it is replaced | |
| 865891236 | Sustainable Yield | The highest rate at which a renewable resource can be used indefinitely without reducing its available supply | |
| 865891237 | Environmental Degradation | When we exceed a resources' natural replacement, the available supply begins to shrink | |
| 865891238 | The Tragedy of the Commons | Process in which overuse of common property of free-access resources leads to environmental degradation | |
| 865891239 | 2 Solutions to Tragedy of the Commons | 1. Use free-access resources at rates well-below their estimated sustainable yields 2. Convert free-access resources to private ownership-not always successful | |
| 865891240 | Ecological Footprint | The amount of biologically productive land and water needed to supply an acre with resources and to absorb the wastes and pollution produced by such resource use | |
| 865891241 | Per Capital Ecological Footprint | Average ecological footprint of an individual in an area | |
| 865891242 | The three things that have the greatest environmental impact (in order) | 1. Agriculture 2. Transportation 3. Cooling Buildings | |
| 865891243 | Nonrenewable Resources | Exist in a fixed quantity or stock in earth's crust Can be depleted much faster than they are formed as a reuslt of exponential growth in resource use | |
| 865891244 | Economically Depleted | A resource is economically depleted the cost of extracting and using what is left exceeds its economic value | |
| 865891245 | Recycling | Collecting waste materals, processing them into new materials and selling these new products | |
| 865891246 | Reuse | Using a resource over and over in the same form | |
| 865891247 | Pollution | The presence of chemicals at high enough levels in air, water, soil or food to threaten the health, survival or activities of humans or other living organisms | |
| 865891248 | 2 Sources of Pollution | Point: single, identifiable sources Non-Point: Larger, dispersed and more difficult to identify | |
| 865891249 | Unwanted Effects of Pollutants | 1. Disrupt or degrade life-support systems for humans and other species 2. Can damage wildlife, human health and property 3. Can create nuisances like noise and unpleasent smells, tastes and sights | |
| 865891250 | Pollution Prevention or input pollution control | Reduces or eliminates production of pollutants | |
| 865891251 | Pollution Clean Up/Output Pollution Control | Cleaning up or diluting pollutants after they've been produced | |
| 865891252 | Key Causes of Environmental Problems | Population Growth Unsustainable Resource Use Poverty Not inc. environmental costs of economic goods and services in their MP Trying to manage and simplify nature with too little knowledge abt how it works Global Trade policies that can undermine environmental protection Infuluence of $ in politics Failure of those concerned abt Enviro, quality to provide an inspiring and positive visions of a more sustainable and durable economic and environmental future | |
| 865891253 | Poverty | The inability to meet one's basic economic needs | |
| 865891254 | Those in poverty die prematurely from: | 1. Malnutrition 2. Increased susceptibility to normally nonfatal infectious diseases 3. Lack of access to clean drinking water 4. Severe respiratory disease and premature death form inhaling indoor air pollutants | |
| 865891255 | Affluenza | The unsustainable addiction to overconsumption and materialism exhibited in the lifestyles of many affluent consumers in the U.S./ other developed countries like China and India | |
| 865891256 | Benefits of Affluence on Environmental Quality | Can lead ppl to be more concerned w/ environmental quality Provided $ for developing tech to decrease pollution, environment degradation and resource waste | |
| 865891257 | Environmental Impact (I) | Depends on three key factors: (P)=number of people (A)= average resource use per person, affluence (T)=Beneficial and harmful effects of technologies | |
| 865891258 | Agricultural Revolution | Began 10-12 thousand years ago Led to a shift from rural villages and animal powered agricultural to an urban society using fossil fuels | |
| 865891259 | Technological Optimists | Tend to overstate situation (of environment) by telling us to not worry, because technological innovations and conventional economic growth will lead to 'wonder world' for all | |
| 865891260 | Environmental Pessissmists | Overstate problems to point where our environmental situation seems hopeless | |
| 865891261 | Environmental Worldview | A set of assumptions and values about how you think the world works and what you think your role in the world should be | |
| 865891262 | Environmental Ethics | Your beliefs about what is right and wrong w/ how we treat the environment | |
| 865891263 | Planetary Management Worldview | We are separate from nature-it exists mainly to meet our needs and increasing wants Can use our technology and ingenuity to manage life-support systems | |
| 865891264 | Stewardship Worldview | We can manage earth for our benefit but have an ethical responsibility to be caring and responsible about it | |
| 865891265 | Environmental Wisdom Worldview | We are part of and totally dependent on nature, it exists for all species Our success depends on learning how the earth sustains itself and integrating this wisdom into ways we think and act | |
| 865891266 | Four Scientific Principles of Sustainability | Reliance on solar energy Biodiversity Population Control Nutrient Recycling | |
| 865891267 | Social Capital | Getting people with different vale and views to talk and listen to each other, find common ground and work together to build shared visions of that the world could and should be |
