APES Chapter 1; What is an Environmentally Sustainable Society?

Environmentally sustainable economic development

Involves using political and economic systems to discourage environmentally harmful and unsustainable forms of economic growth that degrade natural capital and encourage environmentally beneficial and sustainable forms of economic development that sustain natural capital

Aldo Leopold

Leader of a conservation movement who believed that the role of the human species was to protect nature, not conquer it. He published the Sand County Almanac.

1/2

More than ________ the world live in extreme poverty with less than 2$ of income per day.

Developing countries

Most in Africa, Aisa, and Latin America. Middle income, moderately developed countries such as China, Thailand, and Mexico

Nonpoint sources

dispersed and often difficult to identify. such as pesticides, fertilizers, etc.

Solar capital

energy from the sun in which all natural capital will collapse without it.

Nonrenewable resources

exist in a fixed quantity, or in stock, in the earth's crust. On a time scale of millions to billions of years, these resources can be replaced. Such resources include energy resources, metallic mineral resources, and nonmetallic mineral resources.

Biodegradable pollutants

harmful materials that can be broken down by natural processes, such as human sewage and newspapers.

Non-degradable pollutants

harmful materials the natural processes cannot breakdown, such as toxic chemicals.

pollution cleanup/output pollution control

involves cleaning up or dilution pollutants after they have been produced.

Recycling

involves collecting waste materials and processing them into new materials.

Environmental worldview

is a set of assumptions and values reflecting how you think the world works and what you think your role in the world should be

Natural resources

materials and energy in nature that are essential or useful to humans. Often classified as renewable and nonrenewable.

Poverty

occurs when people are unable to meet their basic need for adequate food, water, shelter, health, and education.

Environmental Ethics

our beliefs about what is right and wrong with how we treat the environment.

Open access renewable resources

owned by no one and available for use by anyone at little or no charge

Economic Development

Has the goal of using economic growth to improve the standard of living.

Ecological deficit

If a country's total ecological footprint is larger than its ecological capacity to replenish its renewable resources and absorb he resulting waste and pollution

Social capital

Involves getting people with different views to talk and listen to one another and find common ground. Solving environmental and other problems

Nutrient cycling

the circulation of chemicals necessary for life, from the environment (soil and water) through organisms back into the environment. Example of this is the nutrients in top soil being replaced when organisms die and decay.

Conservation

the management of natural resources with the goal of minimizing resources waste and sustaining resource supply for current and future generation

Natural Capital

the natural resources and natural services that keep us and other forms of life alive and support our economies.

Ecology

the subfield of environmental science that studies how organisms interact with their environment and each other.

Ecosystem

A set of organisms interacting with one another and with their environment of nonliving matter and energy within a defined area or volume

Environmentalism

A social movement dedicated to protecting the earth's life-support systems for us and all other forms of life. Practiced more in the political and ethical areas than the realm of science.

97%

About _______% of the projected increase in world population is expected to occur in developing countries

62%

According to the UN's Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, human activities are degrading _______% of the earth's natural services

Three major cultural changes

Agricultural revolution, industrial/medical revolution, and the information globalization revolution

Environment

All of the living and the nonliving things with which we interact. Humans are dependent on this for air, water, food, and energy.

Chatanooga, Tennessee

An American city that was highly polluted in the 1960's but what cleaned up and turned into one of the US's most sustainable cities.

Environmental science

An interdisciplinary study of how humans interact with the environment of living and nonliving things.

4 ways to live more sustainable:

Reliance on solar energy, having more biodiversity, population control, an nutrient cycling the chemicals we put out.

Environmentally Sustainable Society

Society that meets the current and future basic resource needs of its people in a just and equitable manner without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their basic needs.

Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)

The amount of goods one could purchase with the country's currency, and when combined with GDP, it shows the amount of goods the average person could buy in that country.

30, 100

The average American consumes _______ more than the average citizen in India, and _____ more than the average citizen in the world's poorest countries.

Sustainable yield

The highest rate at which a renewable resource can be indefinitely without reducing its available supply.

Per capita ecological footprint

the average ecological footprint per individual in a given country or area.

Developed countries

US, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, most countries of Europe. Most are industrialized and have high per capita GDP PPP.

Environmental Wisdom Worldview

We are a part of, and totally dependent on, nature and that nature exists for all species, not just for us. It also calls for encouraging earth-sustaining forms of economic growth and development. Our success depends on learning how earth sustains life and integrating environmental wisdom into the way we think and act.

Planetary Management Worldview

We are separate from nature, that nature exists mainly to meet our needs and increasing wants, and that we can use our ingenuity and technology to manage the earth's life support systems, mostly for our benefit indefinitely

Stewardship Worldview

We can and should manage the earth for our benefit, but that we can have a ethical responsibility for caring and responsible stewards of earth. Encourage environmentally beneficial forms of economic growth and development and discourage harmful forms

Environmental degradation

When we exceed a renewable resource's natural replacement rate, the available supply begins to shrink.

38%

________% of the world doesn't have access to proper bathroom facilities.

Species

a group with distinctive traits and, for sexually reproducing organisms, can mate and produce fertile offspring.

Perpetual Resource

a resource that is renewed continuously. The sun is an example is expected to last at least 6 billion years as it completes its life cycle.

Pollution

anything in the environment that is harmful to the health, survival, or activities of humans and other living organisms.

Resource

anything obtained from the environment to meet our needs and wants.

Natural services

are functions of nature, such as purification of air and water, which support life and human economics. Ecosystems provide us with these at no cost.

Garrett Hardin

biologist who called the degradation of lands a tragedy of the commons. People believe that their pollution is not enough to matter

renewable resource

can be replenished fairly quickly through natural processes as long as it is not used up faster than it is renewed. Examples include forests, grasslands, freshwater, air, and fertile soil.

pollution prevention/input pollution control

reduces or eliminates the production of pollutants

Point sources

single, identifiable sources. Such as a smokestack, factory, drainpipe, exhaust pipe.

Per capital GDP

the GDP divided by the total population at midyear, and is used to reassure the changes in a country's economic growth per person.

Sustainability

the ability of the earth's various natural systems and human culture systems and economies to survive and adapt to hanging environmental conditions indefinitely

Ecological footprint

the amount of biologically productive land and water needed to supply the people in a particular country or area with resources and to absorb and recycle the wastes and pollution produced by such resource use.

Gross domestic product (GDP)

the annual market value of all goods and services produced by all farmland organizations, foreign and domestic, operating within a country.

Culture

the whole of society's knowledge, beliefs, technology, and practices, and human cultural changes have ad profound effects on the earth.

Reuse

using a resource over and over in the same form

Private property

where individuals or firms own the rights to land, minerals, and other resources.

Common property

where the rights to certain resources are held by a large group of individuals. Example being that 1/3 of the US land is owned by citizens but managed by the US government.