| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Environment | everything that affects a living organism |
| environmental science | a study of how the earth works, how we interact with the earth, and how to deal with environmental problems |
| ecology | a biological science that studies the relationships between living organisms and their environment |
| environmentalism | a social movement dedicated to protecting the earth's life support systems for us and other species |
| sustainability | the ability of the earth's various systems, including human cultural systems and economies, to survive and adapt to changing environmental conditions |
| natural capital | the natural materials and processes that sustain life on the earth and our economies |
| capital | wealth used to sustain a business and to generate more wealth |
| exponential growth | growth in which some quantity such as population size or economic output, increases at a constant rate per unit of time. An example is the growth sequence 2,4,8,16,32,64 and so on. when the increase in quantity over time is plotted, this type of growth yields a curve shaped like the letter J. |
| degrade natural capital | using normally renewable resources faster than nature can renew them |
| examples of degrade natural capital | cutting down or burning diverse natural forests to grow crops, graze cattle, and supply us with wood and paper |
| solution examples | stop clear-cutting diverse mature forests |
| trade-off | the search for solutions often involves conflicts and resolving these conflicts with compromises |
| individual matter | when one individual comes up with an idea for bringing about a solution. |
| examples of trade-off | to provide wood and paper and crops such as coffee we can promote the planting of tree and coffee plantations in areas that have already been cleared or degraded |
| individual matter examples | some found ways to elimate the need to use trees to produce paper by using residues from crops and by planting rapidly growing plants and using their fiber to make paper |
| sound science | the concepts and ideas that are widely accepted by experts in a particular field of the natural or social sciences |
| sound science examples | it tells us that wee need to protect and sustain the many natural services provided by diverse mature forests |
| subthemes of sustainability | natural capital, natural capital degradation, solutions, trade-offs, and individual matter |
| environmentally sustainable society | meets the basic resources of its people indefinitely without degrading or depleting the natural capital that supplies these resources |
| living sustainably | means living off natural income replenished by soils, plants, air and water and not depleting or degrading the earth's endowment of natural capital that supplies this biological income |
| worlds population rate | 1.2% per year |
| economic growth | an increase in the capacity of a country to provide people with goods and services |
| gross domestic product | the annual market value of all goods and services produced by all firms and organizations, foreign and domestic, operating within a country |
| per capita GDP | the GDP divided by the total population at midyear |
| Economic development | the improvement of human living standards by economic growth |
| developed countries | United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and the countries of Europe. |
| developing countries | nations with 5.3 billion people including Africa Asia and Latin America |
| perpetual | sunlight, winds, and flowing water |
| renewable | fresh air and water, soils, forest products, and food crops |
| nonrenewable | fossil fuels, metals, and sand |
| perpetual resource | an essentially inexhaustible resource on a human time scale for example solar energy |
| renewable resource | resource that can be replenished rapidly through natural processes. |
| nonrenewable resource | resource that exists in a fixed amount (stock) in various places in the earth's crust and has the potential for renewal by geological, physical, and chemical processes taking place over hundreds of millions to billions of years |
| sustainable yield | highest rate at which a renewable resource can be used indefinitely without reducing its available supply |
| environmental degradation | when we exceed a resource's natural replacement rate, the available supply begins to shrink |
| examples of environmental degradation | urbanization of productive land, excessive topsoil erosion, pollution, deforestation, groundwater depletion, overgrazing of grasslands by livestock and reduction in the earth's forms of wildlife by elimination of habitats and species |
| common property | or free-access resources which means that no one owns these resources and they are available to users at little or no charge |
| common property examples | clean air, the open ocean and its fish, migratory birds, wildlife species, gases of the lower atmosphere and space |
| tragedy of the commons | the degradation of renewable free-access resources because everyone assumes if they don'tso use a resource someone else will |
| solutions to tragedy of the commons | free-access resources at rates well below their estimated sustainable yields or convert free-access resources to private ownership |
| per capita ecological footprint | the amount of biological productive land and water needed to supply each person with the resources he or she uses and to absorb the wastes from such resource use |
| humanity's ecological footprint | exceeds the earth's ecological capacity to replenish its renewable resources and absorb waste by about 21% |
| economically depleted | the costs of extracting and using what is left exceed its economic value |
| pollution | chemicals found at high enough levels in the environment to cause harm to people or other organisms |
| point sources | pollutants are single identifiable sources |
| nonpoint sources | are dispersed and often difficult to identify |
| examples of point sources | smokestack of a coal burning power or industrial plant |
| examples of non point sources | pesticides sprayed into the air or blown by the wind into the atmosphere and runoff of fertilizers and pesticides from farmlands and suburban lawns and garden streams and lakes |
| unwanted effects of pollutants | they can disrupt or degrade life-support systems for humans and other species...they can damage wildlife, human health, and property....they can create nuisances such as noise and unpleasant smells, tastes, and sights |
| pollution prevention | input pollution control reduces or eliminates the production of polluants |
| pollution cleanup | output pollution control involves cleaning up or diluting pollutants after they have been produced |
| problems with pollution cleanup | it is only temporary bandage as long as population and consumption levels grown without corresponding improvements in pollution control technology....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 |
| major causes of environmental problems | population growth, wasteful resource use, poverty, poor environmental accounting, and ecological ignorance |
| four preventable health problems | malnutrition, increased susceptibility to normally nonfatal infectious diseases, lack of access to clean drinking water, severe respiratory disease and premature death from inhaling indoor air pollutants produced by burning wood or coal for heat and cooking in open fires or in poorly vented stoves |
| affluenza | to describe the unsustainable addiction to overconsumption and materialism exhibited in the lifestyles of affluent consumers in the US and other developed countries |
| law of progressive simplification | true growth occurs as civilizations transfer an increasing proportion of energy and attention from the material side of life to the nonmaterial side and thereby develop their culture, capacity for compassion, sense of community and strength of democracy |
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