Environmental Science Chapter 1 Miller Flashcards

876004897	Exponential Growth	Growth in which a quantity increases at a fixed percentage per unit of time	1
876004898	Environment	The sum total of all living and nonliving things that affect any living organism	2
876004899	Environmental Science	An interdisciplinary science that examines how humans and human institutions interact with the natural world	3
876004900	Ecology	A biological science that studies relationship between living organisms and their environments	4
876004901	Environmentalism	A social movement dedicated to protecting the earth's life-support systems for us and other species	5
876004902	Sustainability	The ability of earth's systems to survive and adapt to changing environmental conditions indefinitely	6
876004903	Natural Capital	The natural resources and services that keep us and other species alive and support our economies	7
876004904	Solar Capital	The energy from the sun that warms the planet and supports photosynthesis	8
876004905	Sound Science	Concepts and ideas that are widely accepted by experts in a particular field of the natural or social sciences	9
876004906	Environmentally Sustainable Society	A society that meets the current and future needs of its people for basic resources in a way that will preserve them for future generations	10
876004907	Economic Growth	An increase in the capacity of a country to provide people with goods and services	11
876004908	Gross Domestic Product (GDP)	The annual market value of all goods and services produced by all firms within a country	12
876004909	Gross National Product (GNP)	The annual market value of all the goods and services produced by a nation's firms, no matter where they are located	13
876004910	Economic Development	The improvement of human living standards by economic growth	14
876004911	Developed Countries	Highly industrialized countries with high average per capita GDP; includes the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and most European countries	15
876004912	Developing Countries	Countries with medium or low levels of industrialization that have medium or low levels of per capita GDP; included countries such as China, India, Brazil, Mexico and many African Countries.	16
876004913	Resource	Anything obtained from the environment to meet our needs	17
876004914	Perpetual Resource	A resource that is renewed continuously	18
876004915	Renewable Resource	A resource that can be replenished fairly quickly as long as it is not used up faster than it can be replenished	19
876004916	Sustainable Yield	The highest rate at which a renewable resource can be used without reducing available supply	20
876004917	Environmental Degradation	When the available supply of a resource is lower than the amount being used	21
876004918	Common-Property	Property that individuals do not or cannot own	22
876004919	Tragedy of the Commons	Degradation of free-access resources due to little or no regulation	23
876004920	Ecological Footprint	The amount of biologically productive land and water needed to supply an area with resources and to absorb the waste and pollution produced	24
876004921	Per Capita Ecological Footprint	The average ecological footprint of an individual in an area	25
876004922	Recycling	Collecting waste materials to be processed into new products	26
876004923	Reuse	Using a resource over and over again in the same form	27
876004924	Pollution	The presence of chemicals at high enough of a level in the environment to threaten the health, survival or activities of living organisms	28
876004925	Point Sources	Single, identifiable sources of pollution	29
876004926	Non-point Sources	Widespread, dispersed sources of pollution that are often hard to identify and locate	30
876004927	Pollution Prevention (Input Pollution Control)	Reduced or eliminates production of pollution	31
876004928	Pollution Cleanup (Output Pollution Control)	Cleanup or dilution of pollutants after they have been produced	32
876004929	Poverty	The inability to meet one's basic economic needs	33
876004930	Affluence	Unsustainable addiction to overconsumption and materialism	34
876004931	Frontier Environmental Worldview	View of North America as having vast resources meant to be conquered for human use	35
876004932	Environmental Worldview	Set of assumptions and values about how you think the world works	36
876004933	Environmental Ethics	Belief of what is right and wrong with how we treat the environment	37
876004934	Planetary Management Worldview	Idea that nature exists to meet our needs and increasing wants; assumes that economic growth is infinite	38
876004935	Stewardship Worldview	Idea that we can manage the earth for our own benefit, but also have a responsibility to manage the earth's systems sustainably	39
876004936	Environmental Wisdom Worldview	Holds that we are part of and dependent on nature and that nature exists for all species	40
876004937	Four Scientific Principles of Sustainability	Reliance on Solar Energy, Biodiversity, Population Control, Nutrient Recycling	41
876004938	Social Capital	Involves cooperation of people to solve world problems	42
876004939	John Muir	Early advocate of wildlife preservation; helped preserve many national parks and wildlife preservation areas	43