ENVS 1126 Final
In the United States, emissions of which one of the following air pollutants has declined by 99% since 1970?
lead
Irrigated acreage currently accounts for
less than half of all cropland and produces less than half of the world's food
In regions where various types of vegetation coexist and compete, periodic fires do not tip the balance in favor of
oak trees
The United States has extensive deposits of ________________ in Colorado, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming that, if exploited, could yield the equivalent of an estimated 800 billion barrels of oil.
oil shale
In Japan, the majority of rice farming is done by people who are ____________ years old.
older than 60
A uranium-235 fueled nuclear power plant emits about ___________ as much radioactivity as a coal-burning power plant that produces the same amount of electricity.
one percent
Which one of the following is the greatest source of exposure to radiation for people in the United States?
radon gas in average house
Climate moderation is an example of which one of the following kinds of ecosystem services?
regulating
Which one of the following accounted for the greatest amount of U.S economic contributions to developing countries in 2010-2011?
remittances
A Bt crop is a genetically modified crop that is
resistant to many insect pests
The three crops that account for the greatest areas of farmland devoted to the production of genetically modified (GM) crops do not include which one of the following?
rice
The three crops that account for about 50% of global food demands are
rice, wheat, and corn
Which one of the following insect pests has been eliminated from the United States by release of sterile males?
screwworm flies
Which one of the following is the most sprawling metropolitan region in the United States?
An influx of middle-class people displaces poor residents from a formerly deteriorating neighborhood where homes and businesses were repaired and rebuilt
In the United States, the principal source of mercury emissions to the environment is
Burning of coal and oil by fossil fuel power plants
Which one of the following soil horizons does not contain humus?
C
Hydroxyl radicals (OH) require more than one month to remove which of the following two pollutants from the troposphere?
CO and methane
Which one of the following countries accounts for the most oil imported by the United States?
Canada
Pheromones have not been used to control which one of the following pests?
Cassava mealybug
Which one of the following is not an example of a parasite?
Cattle egret
Which one of the following is not an example of mutualism?
Cattle egrets and water buffalo
The country with the greatest number of solar hot water heaters is
China
The outbreak of Southern Corn Leaf Blight in 1970 in the United States was dealt with by importing corn from _____________ that was resistant to the fungus that causes the disease.
China
Which of the following areas experienced a net gain of forest area between 2000 and 2010?
China and Europe
The Montreal Protocol was an international agreement to phase out the production of
Chlorofluorocarbons
Which one of the following is the major cause of mortality in the least developed countries of the world?
Communicable diseases
Which one of the following accounts for the smallest percentage of the US federal budget?
Compliance with environmental regulations
Which one of the following is not among the primary reasons that poor people in developing countries have large families?
Contraceptives are readily available
Which one of the following is not a technique used in integrated pest management?
Cosmetic spraying
Which of the following countries have centrally planned economies?
Cuba and North Korea
Which one of the following is considered to be the most livable city in Latin America?
Curitiba, Brazil
The environmental problems associated with disposal of chemical wastes at Love Canal resulted from which one of the following?
Disposal of wastes in a dump
The eutrophication of Lake Washington was mitigated by which one of the following methods?
Diverting treated sewage effluents to Puget Sound
Which one of the following is not one of the three major components of a nation's capital that determines its wealth?
Financial capital
Public policy with respect to long-term disposal of nuclear wastes from commercial nuclear power plants is currently in the ____________________ stage.
Formulation
Which of the following countries generates the greatest percentage of its electricity from nuclear power plants?
France
Which one of the following measures of the economic progress of China would you expect to have increased the most since 1980?
Gross domestic product
Which one of the following millennium development goals has been achieved?
Have halted, by 2015, and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
Consider the following statements: (I) In any energy conversion, some of the usable energy is always lost (II) Energy is neither created nor destroyed, but it may be converted from one form to another, (III) Systems will go spontaneously in one direction only, toward increasing entropy. Which of these are statements of the second law of thermodynamics?
I and III
Which one of the following problems is not attributable to habitat destruction?
In Texas, fire ants are estimated to kill 20% of songbird babies before they leave the nest
In the last 20 years, rainfall has become more acidic in which of the following countries?
India and China
Of the 20 cities with the most serious air pollution problems, the greatest number are found in which of the following countries?
India and China
Which one of the following is the correct order of these revolutions?
Industrial (first), medical (second), green (third)
Which one of the following is a consumptive use of water?
Irrigating crops
Which of the following reasons explains why few farmers in the United States irrigate their crops via drip irrigation?
Irrigation water is cheap, and initial installation costs are high
Which one of the following sources of energy is not used by electric power plants that generate electricity by boiling water?
Natural gas
The largest 'garbage patch' of plastic waste in the ocean is found in the
North Pacific
In a soil profile, the order of horizons from top to bottom is
O, A, E, B, C
A plastic container with a code of 2 (high-density polyethylene) may be combined for recycling purposes with which one the following?
Only plastic with a code of 2
The high concentrations of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in wildlife and humans living in the Arctic are not associated with which one of the following?
POPs are very soluble in water
Global warming during the 21st century is expected to
Speed up the hydrologic cycle and slow the thermohaline circulation of the ocean
Which one of the following statements is not true about the Grameen Bank?
The loans have been found to have the greatest social benefits when focused on men
Which one of the following countries has the highest fertility rate?
United States
Which one of the following countries has the largest area of arable land?
United States
At which one of the following places is bottom water formed in the ocean?
Weddell Sea off the coast of Antarctica
The site recommended by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for long-term disposal of radioactive waste from the nuclear power industry in the United States is
Yucca Mountain, Nevada
In a nuclear power plant fueled with uranium-235, what is the purpose of the moderator?
slow neutrons
Which one of the following human diseases has been eradicated through immunization by administration of a vaccine?
smallpox
In EPA's waste management hierarchy, which one of the following is given the highest priority?
source reduction and reuse
Biodiesel is a fuel made from a mixture of normal diesel fuel and oil from
soybeans
The number of states with bottle laws is
10-19
Current rates of extinction of species are estimated to be roughly ___________ rates of extinction prior to the Anthropocene.
100 to 1000
Over the next 30 years, roughly what percentage of the world's net population growth is expected to occur in urban areas?
100%
The ecological efficiency in a food chain is 15%. A pollutant (X) is transferred from one trophic level to the next with an efficiency of 45%. The concentration of X on trophic level 2 is 4 ppm. What is the concentration of X on trophic level 5?
108
Pangaea began to break up about 225 million years ago. If the Atlantic Ocean is now about 4500 kilometers wide, how fast has the width of the Atlantic Ocean been increasing during the last 225 million years
2 centimeters per year
The percentage of adults in the United States who smoke is ________, and the percentage of total deaths each year in the United States due to cancer is __________ .
20% and 23%
In hypothetical country A, everyone dies when they reach the age of 60. In hypothetical country B, which has a better health care system, everyone dies when they reach the age of 75. If the total population of both countries is stable, what percentage of the total population would you expect to be in the age group 32-46 years inclusive?
25% in country A and 20% in country B
Suppose that a potentially toxic substance was added to the feed of experimental mice. Which one of the following scenarios would be associated with the largest dose of the toxic substance?
3 mg/kg for 20 days
The amount of biomass on successive trophic levels in a food chain forms a pyramid in which the biomass on trophic level N+1 is only 25% of the biomass on trophic level N. If pesticide P is transferred from one trophic level to the next with 100% efficiency, what will be the concentration of P on trophic level 5 if the concentration of P on trophic level 2 is 5 parts per million (ppm)?
320 ppm
Anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge takes about ______________.
4-6 weeks
What percentage of U.S. adults are obese?
40
A population is growing exponentially with a doubling time of 10 years. If the size of the population now is 50, what will be the size of the population 30 years from now?
400
As a result of the urban heat island effect, cities are typically ___________ degrees Celsius warmer than surrounding areas.
5
Of the CO2 that has been emitted to the atmosphere as a result of human activities since the start of the industrial revolution, approximately what percentage is currently in the atmosphere?
50
The amount of biomass on successive trophic levels in a food chain forms a pyramid in which the biomass on trophic level N+1 is only 20% of the biomass on trophic level N. If pesticide P is transferred from one trophic level to the next with 100% efficiency, what will be the concentration of P on trophic level 5 if the concentration of P on trophic level 2 is 4 parts per million (ppm)?
500 ppm
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations at today's levels would require an immediate reduction of global carbon dioxide emissions by at least ____________ percent.
60 percent
Melting all the ice on Greenland will cause sea level to rise by approximately __________.
7 m
In the United States, raw wastewater is about ___________ pure water.
99.90%
Which one of the following is an example of adiabatic heating?
A descending mass of air is warmed as it is compressed
Which one of the following is the definition of a biome?
A large area of Earth's surface that shares climate and has similar vegetation
Which one of the following was not part of China's one-child policy?
Additional food rations for same-sex couples
The gradual decrease of global average temperatures from 1940 to 1980 was caused by
Aerosols emitted by coal-burning power plants
The greatest decreases of forest area between 1990 and 2010 occurred in
Africa and South America
Which one of the following statements is true about a Hadley cell?
Air rises at the equator and sinks at 30 degrees latitude
In which one of the following parts of the United States is the impact of climate change caused by global warming expected to be the greatest?
Alaska
Which one of the following regions of the world has the greatest installed PV panel electricity generating capacity?
Europe
Which one of the following is not an example of a mechanism to escape predation?
Exotic plumage of peacock
Which of the following countries are continuing commercial whaling despite the 1986 moratorium on whaling imposed by the International Whaling Commission?
Japan and Norway
The most common source of groundwater contamination is
Leaking underground storage tanks
Which one of the following is an example of primary succession?
Lichens appear on basalt rock 50 years after a volcanic eruption on the Big Island of Hawaii
Which one of the following is not an example of resource partitioning?
Male songbirds sing to defend their territory during the nesting season
As climate change progresses, which one of the following events is expected to occur first?
Melting of the ice on the Arctic Ocean
Which one of the following nations has the greatest abundance of phosphate rock?
Morocco
Emissions of which one of the following gases as a result of fossil fuel burning leads to the production of ozone in the troposphere?
NO
Between 1973 and 1979 the average level of lead in the blood of people in the United States dropped from roughly 16 micrograms per deciliter to less than 10 micrograms per deciliter. Which one of the following was the principal reason for this decline?
Phaseout of leaded gasoline
The fertility rate in Burkino Faso has exceeded the replacement rate for many years and is currently about 5.3. if the fertility rate were to suddenly drop to the replacement rate, why would the population of Burkino Faso continue to increase?
Population momentum
The 50 most populous cities in the United States have been ranked for sustainability based on transit ridership, street congestion, air and water quality, green building, local food and agriculture, energy and climate change, and green economy. The city with the highest ranking is
Portland, Oregon
Energy policies can be broadly classified as supply-side policies that increase the use of fossil fuels and demand-side policies that lower the use of fossil fuels. Which one of the following is not a demand-side policy intended to lower the use of fossil fuels?
Provide economic incentives to electric power companies to build integrated gasification combined cycle power plants
Which one of the following statements is true?
R-strategists have high biotic potential and poor recruitment most of the time
Which one of the following is not an example of blue water?
Rainwater taken up by plants
Which one of the following is not an example of a keystone species?
Reindeer
Deterioration of which of the following ecosystems has been attributed in part to extensive changes of the inputs of water to or withdrawals of water from the system?
Rio Grande River and Florida Everglades
Which one of the following diseases is not transmitted by the bite of a mosquito?
Salmonellosis
Which one of the following is not one of the vital concepts that move societies toward a sustainable future?
Security
Which of the following is the environmentally preferred form of silviculture?
Shelter-wood cutting and selective cutting
The two forms of renewable energy that have the drawback that they unintentionally kill birds are
Solar towers and wind turbines
Amensalism is an example of
Symbiosis
Production and/or use of the so-called 'dirty dozen' toxic substances was banned or greatly restricted as a result of
The 2004 Stockholm Convention
Which one of the following international agreements assures that wealthy nations cannot mine the genetic resources of other countries and then patent products that indigenous people have used for millennia?
The Convention on Biological Diversity
Which one of the following statements is true?
The epidemiologic transition has preceded the fertility transition
The 1854 cholera outbreak near Broad Street in London came to an end when
The handle was removed from the Broad Street pump
Over the past 40 years, human well-being has been steadily improving, while natural ecosystems, from which we derive many goods and services, have been declining. Which one of the following does not help to explain this so-called environmentalist's paradox?
The measurements of human well-being have been flawed; it is actually declining
Cabbages and Condoms is
The name of a restaurant chain in Thailand
Which of the following statements correctly characterizes the results of using pesticides in agriculture globally?
The quantity of crops lost to pests has increased and the percentage of crops lost to pests has increased
Which one of the following statements is not one of the four basic assumptions of the scientific method?
The total entropy of an isolated system can never decrease over time
Further increases of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are expected to warm temperatures more at high latitudes than at low latitudes because
There is less water vapor in the atmosphere at high latitudes than at low latitudes
In the United States, eutrophication problems associated with nonpoint source pollution are corrected through enforcement of ___________________.
Total maximum daily load criteria
The two countries that account for the greatest amount of ethanol production as a fuel are
USA and Brazil
The forms of renewable energy that currently account for the greatest amount of electricity production in the world are
Wind and hydroelectric
The average depth of a lake is 6 meters. Which one of the following would you expect to increase as a result of eutrophication?
abundance of phytoplankton
If the BOD of raw sewage is 200 ppm, by how much would that water have to be diluted to prevent the oxygen in a stream from dropping from 10 ppm to less than 2 ppm?
at least a factor of 25
Global dimming is a phenomenon attributable to which one of the following?
atmospheric brown clouds
Which one of the following is not an example of a species that has become invasive?
buffalo
A bag of fertilizer is labeled 12-20-15. This label tells you that the percentage of organic matter in the fertilizer is
cannot tell
Rosy periwinkles produce two compounds that have been used to treat
childhood leukemia
Overfishing for which one of the following fish on the Grand Banks and Georges Bank resulted in the collapse of the fisheries during the period from 1980 to 2000?
cod
Which one of the following is not one of the purposes of pumping water through the core of a nuclear reactor fueled with uranium-235?
control the rate of the chain reaction
The cost/benefit ratio associated with the implementation of environmental regulations
decreases with time
Which one of the following non-sustainable practices of the Easter Islanders led to their downfall?
deforestation
In the United States today, the principal use of mercury is
dental fillings
Which one of the following is not a primary source of energy?
electricity
Roughly 99% of crop irrigation globally is done by
flood irrigation and center pivot methods
Which of the following types of organisms are both consumers?
herbivores and carnivores
In which one of the following types of countries does organic waste (e.g., yard and food waste) not account for more than 50% of the composition of municipal solid waste?
high-income
In the United States, the industry responsible for the release of the greatest amount of toxic chemicals per year is
metal mining
The principal gas in the biogas produced in a landfill is
methane
Which one of the following is the best soil for agriculture?
mollisol
What percentage of the people living in India lack access to toilets?
more than 50%
Most electric power plants built in the United States since 2000 use which one of the following sources of energy?
natural gas
Nitrogen-fixing organisms convert which one of the following forms of nitrogen into a form that can be used by all photosynthetic organisms?
nitrogen gas (N2)
Which of the following kinds of property rights are associated with the Tragedy of the Commons?
open access
Which one of the following kinds of pesticides is responsible for most pesticide poisonings of humans?
organophosphates
What is the principal reason that western rangelands in the United States produce less than half the livestock forage that they did in the early 19th century?
overgrazing
Which one of the following soils would you expect to find in a tropical rain forest?
oxisol
The single largest component of municipal solid waste in the United States is
paper and paperboard
Which of the following are autotrophic organisms?
plants and chemosynthetic bacteria
Terrestrial biomes are groups of ecosystems characterized by similar types of
plants and climate
Which one of the following fissionable isotopes is produced in a breeder reactor?
plutonium-239
The Neolithic Revolution began in
the Middle East about 12,000 years ago
Which one of the following is not one of the three main trophic categories?
transformer
Which one of the following accounts for the fact that the abundance of mangroves along the Louisiana coast has increased dramatically in the last 20 years?
warmer winters
Which one of the following gases accounts for the greatest percentage of the greenhouse effect globally?
water vapor