Environmental Science Finals

Approximately how many years ago did our species, Homo sapiens, begin to migrate out of Africa and settle in Europe, Asia, and Australia?

100,000 years

Tertiary consumers are usually in which tropic level?

4th Trophic level

What are some of the consequences of global warming?

All of the above

Vampire" power is energy used when ______.

Appliance is turned off, but in "standby" mode.

What is the basic subunit of elements?

Atoms

When populations approach their carrying capacity, their resources ________.

Becomes more sacred as growth rate is below 0.

The process by which the concentration of a pesticide increases through a food chain is called ____________.

Biomagnification

To determine your specific impacts on the environment, one can

Calculate your ecological footprint

Teratogens are often times also

Carcinogens

Most hazardous wastes come from ______________. You just purchased a new cell phone. Why is it a bad idea to throw the old one in the trash?

Chemical and petroleum industries ; it contains heavy metal

Which of the following may not be a good choice when eating sustainably?

Choosing natural foods choosing natural foods

Ninety percent of Earth's garbage is generated in/on ________

Cities

Demoted folliculorum are tiny mites that live in the spores of your face. Being that you were probably unaware they existed until now this would be an example of _____________.

Commensalism

The Superfund, established to clean up hazardous waste sites in the United States, is a part of the __________.

Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and liability Act.

Scientist use ________ to forecast climate change.

Computer simulation modules

______________ use mirrors to concentrate the sun's rays on a series of pipes, which heats fluid inside the pipes to boiling, producing steam. The steam is then used to spin a turbine and generate electricity

Concentrating solar Power

Throughout any introductory examination of ecosystems and environmental sustainability, the importance of human population numbers is cited. Currently, the world and U.S. populations are closest to ________

7 billion, 300 million

An artesian well is created when the well is drilled into __________.

A confined aquifer under great pressure

Wood consumption by humans in developing countries is primarily used for ________

Fuel

Stratospheric ozone depletion is currently most serious ________________.

Over New Zealand and Australia

The primary cause of soil erosion is _______________.

Over cultivation

Toxicologists designate particularly long-lived and widely dispersed organic chemicals as persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Which of the following chemicals are in this category?

Pcb

________ is an example of a pesticide that qualifies as a form of biological pest control.

Pheromones

____________ Standards is a government mandate that a certain percentage of energy use come from renewable energy resources.

Renewal Portfolio

An effective water conservation strategy that you could take would be to

Repair dripping faucets

What was one of the main causes of the Galapagos Island finches' death in 1977?

Severe drought

In meosis, ____________ are formed which have one set of chromosomes.

Gametes

Deforestation increases ___________.

Greenhouse gas

Of all the threats biodiversity, the single greatest is ___________.

Habitat destruction

Primary forests _________.

Have been largely unaffected by human

Chestnut blight fungus kills U.S.chestnut trees because the trees _______.

Have not co-evolved with the fungus

A grass root organization is attempting to preserve a stretch of forest that is being considered for purchase by a manufacturing plant. The organization's main strategy is to inform the nearby housing developments of the effect on their home values if the manufacturing plant goes versus the preserved forest. This approach is using ________.

Hedonic valuation

Cities tend to require very _______inputs of energy and materials resulting in _______ outputs of waste.

High, high

The pH scale is a quantitative representation of the relative amounts of ________.

Hydrogen and hydroxide ions in solution

Why is data on industrial solid waste (ISW) difficult to find?

ISW is usually managed by the private sector.

IPAT stands for

Impact, population, affluence, and technology

Globally, what is the main reason that life expectancy has increased dramatically over the last five decades?

Improved health case, nutrition, and sanitation.

Where do most human population live?

In the temperate zone

One limitation of wind power is that it __________.

Is intermittent

The law of energy and mass conservation states that ________.

It implies that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but can be change from one form to another.

Air and water pollution are directly responsible for the loss of some species. In their studies of these population effects, biologist have determined that ______________ are especially sensitive to air population, are now being used as an index of urban air quality.

Lichen

Which of the following are pioneer species on recently glaciated rock?

Lichens and mosses

What makes up an ecosystem?

Living and nonliving parts and the process that connects

Bioassessment uses _________ to determine water quality.

Living organisms

An S-shaped population growth curve best describes ________.

Logistic growth

In the hierarchical system of classification, a family can be defined as ________.

Major subdivision of an order containing one or more geta

Indoor air is likely to be contaminated by all of the following except ___________.

Mercury

DDT was originally intended to kill ________.

Mosquitos

Which of the following is not a reason that poor families in developing countries might have many children?

Most children survive beyond one year.

The ecosystem boundary of a drainage basin can be defined by ________.

Mountains, hills and valley that determines where the rivers flows

Which of the following is an inflow to an urban ecosystem?

Natural Resources

What makes it possible for the coexistence of several warbler species that feed on the same insect larvae?

Niche differentiation

A greenway is __________.

The link that provides pathways for wildlife to travel between parks and preserves

The type of ocean current that is driven by differences in temperature and salinity is a ________ circulation.

Thermohaline ciruclation

Which of the following influences perceptions of risk? These all influence risk perception

These all influence risk perception

How is genetic variation maintained in most populations?

Through sexual reproduction

In toxicity testing, the dose of a chemical above which there is a measurable decline in the health of the organism being tested is referred to as the ______

Toxicity threshold

A major concern with natural gas demand is ___________.

Transportation

Which biomes is characterized by little rainfall, low grasses and shrubs, and cold temperatures?

Tundra

In using the IPAT equation, much of the impact of affluence and technology is associated with _________

Use energy to generate electricity and power cars

Which of the ethical traditions best describes the building of the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir as right because it benefited a large number of people?

Utilitarianism

Which of the following is a cause of natural climate change?

Volcanic eruption

Keeping energy prices artificially low encourage ________

Waste and rapid depletion of energy.

Which is the most important molecule in the ecosystem?

Water

Which of the following best describes a marsh?

Wet lands that are periodically or continually flooded and are dominated by herbaceous plant

One proposed site for a permanent geologic repository for nuclear waste was _________.

Yuccan Mountain, Nevada

In urban planning, _____ is the designation of specific areas for different categories of land use.

Zoning

Rotation time is ______________.

The average interval between successive cut

In Brazil, what is the primary cause for increase in CO2 in the atmosphere?

Deforestation

A specific example of nonconsumptive use of water is __________.

Disposal of sewage wastewater

Most ocean ridges coincide with ________.

Divergent plate boundaries

Which of the following is a way in which humans pay directly for the ecosystem services forests provide?

Ecotourism

Transportation efficiency refers especially ______________.

Employing more hybrid vehicle technology

The constitutional basis for environmental justice is rooted in ________.

Equal protection for all citizens

What is a growing concern related to sea level rise?

Eroding shorelines in coastal areas

The entire flux of water into the atmosphere is represented by _________

Evapotranspiration

What is the major deterrent to the widespread use of desalination?

Expense

Which of the following is not a renewable energy source?

Oil

The most common use of bioremediation has been to assist in the cleanup of _____.

Oil spills

In which situation would you expect to be closest to peak load?

On an extremely hot day

Why is biomass energy renewable?

Once plants are harvested, they can grow again if proper conditions are provided and rate of harvest does not exceed rate of planting

Which statement most accurately describes the population control efforts in China?

One child policy that is enforced, their taxation and penalties work best for controlling population

Consumer are ____________

Organisms that feed on other living organisms.

Bioaccumulation is ________.

Process by which chemicals are stored in the tissues of living organisms.

________ are synthesized in a two-step process: transcription and translation.

Protein

Scrubbers removes 90% of ___________.

SO2- sulfur oxides

Which of the following did not contribute to the collapse of agricultural ecosystems during the Dust Bowl?

Shelter belt planting

Which of the following best describes the human population from early times to the present?

Slow, uneven growth until the 1800's then increasing rapid growth

____________ is/are formed during primary wastewater treatment.

Sludge

In many developing countries a primary indoor air pollutant is __________.

Smokes from wood fuel stoves

Most environmental policy is set by ________.

State and local government

What one thing remains relatively constant through the seasons in tropical biomes?

Temperature

Toxicology is the study of

The effects on human health.

Sustainable forest management ____________.

includes varied uneven-aged management approaches