Ch 1

*Poverty

when people are unable to fulfill their basic needs for adequate food, water, shelter, health, and education -affects increasing population growth -> poor families have more babies because all of the children aren't likely to survive

*Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

-measures economic growth -the annual market value of all goods and services produced by all businesses, foreign and domestic, operating within a country.

*Less-Developed Countries

-middle income, moderately developed (ex: China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Thailand, Mexico) -low income, least-developed (ex: Congo, Haiti, Nigeria, and Nicaragua)

*Organisms

living things

Biotic

living things

*Non-renewable resource

natural resources that we have a limited supply of and form too slowly than the rate at which we use them ex. Mineral ores and crude oil

Abiotic

non-living things

Fossil fuels

non-renewable energy sources produced by the decomposition and fossilization of ancient life (oil, coal, natural gas)

*Sustainablility

not depleting Earth's natural capital, so that after we are gone our descendants will enjoy the use of resources as we have -ability to maintain healthy environment conditions with the help of solar energy, biodiversity, and chemical/nutrient cycling

*Natural Services

processes in nature, such as purification of air and water and renewal of topsoil, which support life and human economies.

*Pollution Prevention/Input Pollution Control

reduces or eliminates the production of pollutants -works better in the long run and is cheaper than pollution cleanup

*Natural Income

renewable resources (plants, animals, and soil) provided by the earth's natural capital -necessary to live sustainably

*Environmental Worldview

set of assumptions and values reflecting how one thinks the world works and what one thinks our role in the world should be

Industrial revolution

shift from rural, animal-powered agriculture, and craftsmen manufacturing to urban society powered by fossil fuels

*Natural resource

substances and energy sources we need to survive

*Environment

surroundings and the things we interact with, living and non-living

*Ecology

the biological science that studies how organisms interact with one another and with their environment.

*The Tragedy of the Commons

the mindset of "what I do doesn't matter, it'll have little affect to the outcomes" -> if everyone thinks this, there will be a big enough impact on the environment that resources will be degraded and eventually exhausted or ruined.

*Natural Capital

the natural resources and natural services that keep us and other forms of life alive and support our human economies Natural Capital = Natural Resources + Natural Services

*Environmental science

the study of how the natural world works, how our environment affects us, and how we affect our environment

Agricultural Revolution

the transition from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to an agricultural way of life (growing crops, domesticating animals, sedentary lives)

*Reuse

using a resource over and over in the same form

*Affluence

wealth

*Exponential Growth

when a quantity increases at a fixed percentage per unit of time (start off slowly but eventually grow rapidly)

*Perpetual Resource

when a there is a continuous supply of a resource (ex: solar energy-> it is expected to last at least 6 billion years)

*Per Capita GDP

-measures changes in a country's economic growth per person -GDP/total population at midyear

*Economic Development

-an effort to use economic growth to improve living standards -UN classifies countries as more vs. less developed based on their average income per person

*Chemical Cycling/Nutrient Cycling

-circulation of chemicals from environment through organisms and back to the environment -without this process, there would be no air, no water, no soil, no food, and no life.

*Sustainability Revolution

-cultural change necessary to improve the environment -would involve learning how to reduce our ecological footprints and to live more sustainably -> copy nature's three principles of sustainability

*Renewable resource

-natural resources that are virtually unlimited or that can be replenished over short periods of time ex. forests, grasslands, fish populations, freshwater, fresh air, and fertile soil. -takes anywhere from several days to several hundred years to be replenished

What are three principles of sustainability?

-nature has sustained itself for billions of years by relying on solar energy, biodiversity, and chemical/nutrient cycling -our lives and economies depend on energy from the sun and on natural resources and natural services (natural capital) provided by the earth

*4 Causes of Environmental Problems

-population growth -wasteful and unsustainable resource use -poverty -failure to include the harmful environmental costs of goods and services in their market prices

*Nonrenewable Resources

-resources that exist in a fixed quantity in the earth's crust. -we deplete these resources much faster than nature can form them

*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. -respects the concept of sustainability and it's 3 principles

*Biodiversity

-the cumulative number and diversity of living things -provides countless ways for life to adapt to changing environmental conditions

*Reliance on solar energy

-the sun warms the planet and supports photosynthesis (provides plants with nutrients) -the sun powers indirect forms of solar energy such as wind and flowing water, which we can use to produce electricity

*Culture

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

*Ecological Tipping Point

-threshold level -often causes an irreversible shift in the behavior of a natural system *rubber band comparison* - we can stretch it beyond it's natural length, but it will eventually reach an irreversible tipping point where the rubber band breaks

*Environmental Wisdom Worldview

-we are part of, and dependent on, nature -nature exists for all species, not just for us -our success depends on learning how life on earth sustains itself and integrating such environmental wisdom into the ways we think and act (ex: mimicking nature's processes such as the 3 principles of sustainability)

*Planetary Management Worldview

-we are separate from and in charge of nature -nature exists mainly to meet our needs and increasing wants -we can use our ingenuity and technology to manage the earth's life-support systems, mostly to our benefit

*Stewardship Worldview

-we can and should manage the earth for our benefit -we have an ethical responsibility to be caring and responsible managers/stewards -we should encourage environmentally beneficial forms of economic growth and development and discourage environmentally harmful forms

*Environmental Degradation

-we live unsustainably by wasting, depleting, and degrading the earth's natural capital at an accelerating rate -natural capital degradation (air pollution, climate change, shrinking forests, decreased wildlife habitats, species extinction, aquifer depletion, declining ocean fisheries, water pollution)

*Principles of Sustainability

1. Solar Energy: provides energy for electricity, supports photosynthesis, and warms the planet. 2. Biodiversity: provides countless ways for life to adapt to changing environmental conditions 3. Nutrient Cycling: without nutrient cycling in topsoil, life as we know it could not exist because it provides nutrients that support plants, animals, and microorganisms living on land. -Natural Capital (from sun energy): without solar energy, natural capital and the life it supports would collapse. -Human activities can degrade natural capital by using normally renewable resources

Thomas Malthus

British economist who believed that unless population growth was controlled by laws the number of people would outgrown the available food supply

*IPAT

Impact = Population * Affluence * Technology (I)- impact of human activities (P)- population size (A)- affluence/resource consumption per person (T)- beneficial and harmful environmental effects of technologies

What is an environmentally sustainable society?

Living sustainably means living off the earth's natural income without depleting or degrading the natural capital that supplies it.

Why do we have environmental problems?

Major causes of environmental problems are poverty, population growth, wasteful and unsustainable resource use, and the exclusion of environmental costs of resource use from the market prices of goods and services

Garrett Hardin

a scientist from UC Santa Barbara who disputed the economic theory that unfettered exercise of individual self-interest will serve the public interest. He believed that resources that are open to unregulated exploitation would eventually be depleted.

*Ecosystem

a set of organisms within a defined area or volume that interact with one another and with their environment of nonliving matter and energy.

*Economic Growth

an increase in a nation's output of goods and services

*Pollution

any presence within the environment of a chemical or other agent such as noise or heat at a level that is harmful to the health, survival, or activities of humans or other organisms -can occur naturally or through human act

*Resource

anything we can obtain from the environment to meet our needs and wants.

How are our ecological footprints affecting the earth?

as our ecological footprints grow, we are depleting and degrading more of the earth's natural capital

*Per Capita Ecological Footprint

average ecological footprint of an individual in a given country or area

*Environmental Ethics

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

*Pollution Cleanup/Output Pollution Control

cleaning up or diluting pollutants after we have produced them. 3 PROBLEMS: -only a temporary bandage as long as population and consumption levels grow without corresponding improvements in pollution control technology (ex: catalytic converters in car exhaust systems have reduced some forms of air pollution -> # of cars and total distance each care travels have reduced the effectiveness of this cleanup approach -cleanup often removes a pollutant from one part of the environment only to cause pollution in another -once pollutants become dispersed into the environment at harmful levels, it usually costs too much to reduce them to acceptable levels

*Recycle

collecting waste materials and processing them into new materials (not oil or coal-> once burned, their concentrated energy is no longer available to us.)

*Non-Point Sources

dispersed and often difficult to identify (ex: pesticides blown from the land into the air and the runoff of fertilizers, etc.)

*Ecological Footprint

expresses the environmental impact of an individual or population in terms of the cumulative amount of land and water required to provide the raw materials the person or population consumes and to dispose of or recycle the waste the person or population produces

*Social Capital

getting people with different views and values to talk and listen to one another, to find common ground based on understanding and trust, and to work together to solve environmental and other problems facing our societies.

*Species

group of organisms that have a unique set of characteristics that distinguish them from all other organisms and, for organisms that reproduce sexually, can mate and produce fertile offspring.

*More-Developed Countries

high average income (ex: US, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and most European countries -only 19% of the world's population -use about 88% of all resources -produce about 75% of the world's pollution and waste

*Sustainable Yield

highest rate at which we can use a renewable resource indefinitely without reducing its available supply.