Terms : Hide Images
| 5389331966 | acid precipitation | the deposition of acidic or acid-forming pollutants from the atmosphere onto Earth's surface by precipitation. | 0 | |
| 5389331967 | acute exposure | exposure to a toxicant occuring in high amounts for short periods of time | 1 | |
| 5389331968 | aerosols | very fine liquid droplets or solid particles aloft in the atmosphere | 2 | |
| 5389331969 | air pollutants | gases and particulate material added to the atmosphere that can affect climate or harm people or other organisms. | 3 | |
| 5389331970 | air pollution | the act of polluting the air, or the condition of being polluted by air pollutants | 4 | |
| 5389331971 | allergins | a toxicant that overactivates the immune system, causing an immune response when one is not necessary. | 5 | |
| 5389331972 | anthropocentrism | a human-centered view of our relationship with the environment. | 6 | |
| 5389331973 | atmospheric deposition | the wet or dry deposition on land of a wide variety of pollutants, including mercury, nitrates, organochlorines, and others | 7 | |
| 5389331974 | bioaccumulation | the buildup of toxicants in the tissues of an animal. | 8 | |
| 5389331975 | biocentrism | a philosophy that ascribes relative values to actions, entities, or properties on the basis of their effects on all living things or on the integrity of the biotic realm in general. | 9 | |
| 5389331976 | biological hazards | human health hazards that result from ecological interactions among organisms. | 10 | |
| 5389331977 | biomagnification | the magnification of the concentration of toxicants in an organism caused by its consumption of other organisms in which toxicants have bioaccumulated. | 11 | |
| 5389331978 | brownfields | an area of land whose redevelopment or reuse is complicated by the presence or potential presence of hazardous material. | 12 | |
| 5389331979 | carbon monoxide | a colorless, odorless gas produced primarily by the incomplete combustion of fuel. | 13 | |
| 5389331980 | carcinogens | a chemical or type of radiation that causes cancer. | 14 | |
| 5389331981 | case history | medical approach involving the observation and analysis of individual patients | 15 | |
| 5389331982 | chemical hazards | chemicals that pose human health hazards. | 16 | |
| 5389331983 | chlorofluorocarbons | one of a group of human-made organic compounds derived from simple hydrocarbons, such as ethane and methane, in which hydrogen atoms are replaced by chlorine, bromine, or fluorine. | 17 | |
| 5389331984 | chronic exposure | exposure for long periods of time to a toxicant occurring in low amounts. | 18 | |
| 5389331985 | composting | a mixture produced when decomposers break down organic matter, including food and crop waste, in a controlled environment. | 19 | |
| 5389331986 | conservation ethic | an ethic holding that humans should put natural resources to use but also have a responsibility to manage them wisely. | 20 | |
| 5389331987 | corrosive | substances that corrode metals in storage tanks or equipment | 21 | |
| 5389331988 | cultural hazards | human health hazards that result from the place we live, our socioeconomic status, our occupation, or our behavioral choices. | 22 | |
| 5389331989 | deep-well injection | a hazardous waste disposal method in which a well is drilled deep beneath an area's water table into porous rock below an impervious soil layer. | 23 | |
| 5389331990 | dose | the amount of toxicant a test animal receives in a dose-response test. | 24 | |
| 5389331991 | dose-response analysis | a set of experiments that measure the response of test animals to different doses of a toxicant. | 25 | |
| 5389331992 | dose-response curve | a curve that plots the response of test animals to different doses of a toxicant, as a result of dose-response analysis. | 26 | |
| 5389331993 | ecocentrism | a philosophy that considers actions in terms of their damage or benefit to the integrity of whole ecological systems, including both biotic and abiotic elements. | 27 | |
| 5389331994 | ecofeminism | a philosophy holding that the patriarchal (male-dominated) structure of society is a rot cause of both social and environmental problems. | 28 | |
| 5389331995 | ecolabeling | the practice of designating on a product's label how the product was grown, harvested, or manufactured, so that consumers buying it are aware of the processes involved and can differentiate between brands that use processes believed to be environmentally beneficial (or less harmful than others) and those that do not. | 29 | |
| 5389331996 | economics | the study of how we decide to use scarce resources to satisfy the demand for goods and services | 30 | |
| 5389331997 | ED50 | the amount of a toxicant it takes to affect 50% of a population of test animals | 31 | |
| 5389331998 | electronic waste | discarded electronic products such as computers, monitors, printers, DVD players, cell phones, and other devices. | 32 | |
| 5389331999 | endocrine disruptors | a toxicant that interferes with the endocrine (hormone) system. | 33 | |
| 5389332000 | environmental ethics | the application of ethical standards to environmental questions. | 34 | |
| 5389332001 | environmental health | the study of environmental factors that influence human health and quality of life and the health of ecological systems essential to environmental quality and long-term human well-being. | 35 | |
| 5389332002 | environmental toxicology | the study of toxicants that come from or are discharged into the environment, including the study of health effects on humans, other animals, and ecosystems. | 36 | |
| 5389332003 | epidemiological studies | a study that involves large-scale comparisons among groups of people, usually contrasting a group known to have been exposed to some toxicant and a group that has not. | 37 | |
| 5389332004 | ethical standards | a criterion that helps differentiate right from wrong. | 38 | |
| 5389332005 | ethics | the study of good and bad, right and wrong. | 39 | |
| 5389332006 | externalities | a cost or benefit of a transaction that affects people other than the buyer or seller. | 40 | |
| 5389332007 | greenwashing | a public-relations effort by a corporation or institution to mislead customers or the public into thinking it is acting more sustainably than it actually is. | 41 | |
| 5389332008 | harmful algal blooms | a population explosion of toxic algae caused by excessive nutrient concentrations. | 42 | |
| 5389332009 | hazardous waste | waste that is toxic, chemically reactive, flammable, or corrosive. | 43 | |
| 5389332010 | ignitable | substances that easily catch fire (for example, natural gas or alcohol). | 44 | |
| 5389332011 | indoor air pollution | air pollution that occurs indoors | 45 | |
| 5389332012 | industrial smog | gray-air smog caused by the incomplete combustion of coal or oil when burned | 46 | |
| 5389332013 | industrial solid waste | nonliquid waste that is not especially hazardous and that comes from production of consumer goods, mining, petroleum extraction and refining, and agriculture. | 47 | |
| 5389332014 | infectious disease | a disease in which a pathogen attacks a host | 48 | |
| 5389332015 | instrumental value | value ascribed to something for the pragmatic benefits it brings us if we put it to use. | 49 | |
| 5389332016 | intrinsic value | value ascribed to something for its intrinsic worth; the notion that a thing has a right to exist and is valuable for its own sake. | 50 | |
| 5389332017 | landfill gas | a mix of gases that consists of roughly half methane produced by anaerobic decomposition deep inside landfills. | 51 | |
| 5389332018 | LD50 | the amount of a toxicant it takes to kill 50% of a population of test animals. | 52 | |
| 5389332019 | leachate | liquids that seep through liners of a sanitary landfill and leach into the soil underneath. | 53 | |
| 5389332020 | lead | a heavy metal that may be ingested through water or paint, or that may enter the atmosphere as a particulate pollutant through combustion of leaded gasoline or other processes. | 54 | |
| 5389332021 | lead poisoning | poisoning by ingestion or inhalation of the heavy metal lead, causing an array of maladies including damage to the brain, liver, kidney, and stomach; learning problems and behavioral abnormalities; anemia; hearing loss; and even death. | 55 | |
| 5389332022 | materials recovery facilities | a recycling facility where items are sorted, cleaned, shredded, and prepared for reprocessing into new items. | 56 | |
| 5389332023 | municipal solid waste | nonliquid waste that is not especially hazardous and that comes from homes, institutions, and small businesses. | 57 | |
| 5389332024 | mutagens | a toxicant that causes mutations in the DNA of organisms. | 58 | |
| 5389332025 | neurotoxins | a toxicant that assaults the nervous system. | 59 | |
| 5389332026 | nitrogen dioxide | a foul-smelling reddish brown gas that contributes to smog and acid deposition. | 60 | |
| 5389332027 | non-point source | a diffuse source of pollutants, often consisting of many small sources | 61 | |
| 5389332028 | outdoor air pollution | air pollution that occurs outdoors. | 62 | |
| 5389332029 | ozone hole | term popularly used to describe the thinning of the stratospheric ozone layer that occurs over Antarctica each year, as a result of chlorofluorocarbons and other ozone-destroying pollutants. | 63 | |
| 5389332030 | ozone-depleting substances | airborne chemicals, such as halocarbons, that destroy ozone molecules and thin the ozone layer in the stratosphere. | 64 | |
| 5389332031 | particulate matter | solid or liquid particles small enough to be suspended in the atmosphere and able to damage respiratory issues when inhaled. | 65 | |
| 5389332032 | photochemical smog | brown-air smog caused by light-driven reactions of primary pollutants with normal atmospheric compounds that produce a mix of over 100 different chemicals, ground-level ozone often being the most abundant among them | 66 | |
| 5389332033 | physical hazards | physical processes that occur naturally in our environment and pose human health hazards. | 67 | |
| 5389332034 | point source | a specific spot- such as a factory's smokestacks - where large quantities of pollutants are discharged. | 68 | |
| 5389332035 | polluter-pays principle | principle specifying that the party responsible for producing pollution should pay the costs of cleaning up the pollution or mitigating its impacts | 69 | |
| 5389332036 | pollution | any matter or energy released into the environment that causes undesriable impacts on the health and well-being of humans or other organisms | 70 | |
| 5389332037 | preservation ethic | an ethic holding that we should protect the natural environment in a pristine, unaltered state. | 71 | |
| 5389332038 | primary pollutants | a hazardous substance, such as soot or carbon monoxide, that is emitted into the troposphere in a form that is directly harmful. | 72 | |
| 5389332039 | radon | a highly toxic, radioactive, colorless gas that seeps up from the ground in areas with certain types of bedrock and can build up inside basements and homes with poor air circulation. | 73 | |
| 5389332040 | reactive | substances that are chemically unstable and readily react with other compounds, often explosively or by producing noxious fumes | 74 | |
| 5389332041 | recovery | waste management strategy composed of recycling and composting. | 75 | |
| 5389332042 | recycling | the collection of materials that can be broken down and reprocessed to manufacture new items. | 76 | |
| 5389332043 | red tides | a harmful algal bloom consisting of algae that produce reddish pigments that discolor surface waters. | 77 | |
| 5389332044 | relativists | an ethicist who maintains that ethics do and should vary with social context. | 78 | |
| 5389332045 | response | the type or magnitude of negative effects an animal exhibits in response to a dose of toxicant in a dose-response analysis. | 79 | |
| 5389332046 | risk assessment | the quantitative measurement of risk, together with the comparison of risks involved in different activities or substances. | 80 | |
| 5389332047 | risk management | the process of considering information from scientific risk assessment in light of economic, social, and political needs and values, in order to make decisions and design strategies to minimize risk | 81 | |
| 5389332048 | scrubbers | technology to chemically treat gases produced in combustion to remove hazardous components and neutralize acidic gases, such as sulfur dioxide and hydrochloric acid, turn them into water and salt, in order to reduce smokestack emissions. | 82 | |
| 5389332049 | secondary pollutants | a hazardous substance produced through the reaction of substances added to the atmosphere with chemicals normally found in the atmosphere. | 83 | |
| 5389332050 | sick-building syndrome | a building-related illness produced by indoor pollution in which the specific cause is not identifiable. | 84 | |
| 5389332051 | source reduction | the reduction of the amount of material that enters the waste stream to avoid the costs of disposal and recycling, help conserve resources, minimize pollution, and save consumers and business money. | 85 | |
| 5389332052 | sulfur dioxide | a colorless gas resulting in part from the combustion of coal. | 86 | |
| 5389332053 | surface impoundments | a hazardous waste disposal method in which a shallow depression is dug and lined with impervious material, such as clay. | 87 | |
| 5389332054 | synergistic effects | an interactive effect (as of toxicants) that is more than or different from the simple sum of their constituent effects | 88 | |
| 5389332055 | teratogens | a toxicant that causes harm to the unborn, resulting in birth defects. | 89 | |
| 5389332056 | threshold dose | the amount of a toxicant at which it begins to affect a population fo test animals | 90 | |
| 5389332057 | toxic | substances taht harm human health when they are inhaled, ingested, or contact human skin | 91 | |
| 5389332058 | toxicant | a substance that acts as a poison to humans or wildife | 92 | |
| 5389332059 | toxicity | the degree of harm a chemical substance can inflict. | 93 | |
| 5389332060 | toxicology | the scientific field that examines the effects of poisonous chemicals and other agents on humans and other organisms. | 94 | |
| 5389332061 | toxins | a toxic chemical stored or manufactured in the tissues of living organisms. | 95 | |
| 5389332062 | tropospheric ozone | ozone that occurs in the troposphere, where it is a secondary pollutant created by the interaction of sunlight, heat, nitrogen oxides, and volatile carbon-containing chemicals. | 96 | |
| 5389332063 | universalists | an ethicist who maintains that there exist objective notions of right and wrong that hold across cultures and situations. | 97 | |
| 5389332064 | volatile organic compounds | one of a large group of potentially harmful organic chemicals used in industrial processes. | 98 | |
| 5389332065 | waste | any unwanted product that results from a human activity or process. | 99 | |
| 5389332066 | waste management | strategic decision making to minimize the amount of waste generated and to dispose of waste safely and effectively. | 100 | |
| 5389332067 | waste stream | the flow of waste as it moves form its sources toward disposal destinations. | 101 | |
| 5389332068 | waste-to-energy | an incinerator that uses heat from its furnace to boil water to create steam that drives electricity generation or that fuels heating systems. | 102 | |
| 5389332069 | water pollution | the act of polluting water, or the condition of being polluted by water pollutants. | 103 | |
| 5389332070 | toxic air pollutant | air pollutant that is known to cause cancer, reproductive defects, or neurological, developmental, immune system, or respiratory problems in humans, and or to cause substantial ecological harm by affecting the health of nonhuman animals and plants. | 104 |
