APES - Chp 1,2,3
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80 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Exponential growth | a quantity increase at a fixed percentage per unit of time (i.e. 2% per year) |
| Species | earth's life forms |
| Biodiversity | the diversity of plant and animal life in a particular habitat (or in the world as a whole) |
| Environment | sum of all living and nonliving things that affect any living organism |
| Environmental science | the study of how nature works, how humans interact with the environment, and how we can live more sustainably |
| Ecology | the branch of biology concerned with the relations between organisms and their environment |
| Environmentalism | the activity of protecting the environemnt from pollution or destruction |
| Sustainability | the ability of earth's various systems to survive and adapt to changing environment conditions indefinitely |
| Natural capital | the natural resources and natural services that keep us and other species alive and support out economies |
| Sound science | the concepts and ideas that are widely accepted by experts in a particular field of the natural or social sciences |
| Environmentally sustainable society | Society that satisfies the basic needs of its people without depleting or degrading its natural resources and thereby preventing current and future generations of humans and other species from meeting their basic needs. |
| Economic growth | increase in capacity of country to provide people with goods and services - measured by GDP |
| Developed countries | highly industrialized countries with high incomes and high standards of living |
| Developing countries | countries with less productive economies and a lower quality of life |
| Rule of 70 | Use to calculate doubling time: 70/% growth rate = doubling time in years |
| Perpetual resource | An essentially inexhaustible resource on a human time scale. Solar energy is an example. |
| Renewable resource | any natural resource (as wood) that can be replenished fairly rapidly through natural processes |
| Sustainable yield | Highest rate at which a renewable resource can be used indefinitely without reducing its available supply |
| Tragedy of the commons | Garrett Harden, 1968, said there will always be a struggle because individuals will use up resources that are common even though that's not what they intend. |
| Ecological footprint | The amount of biologically productive land and water needed to support a person or population. |
| Causes of environmental problems | 1. Population growth, 2. Unsustainable resource use, 3. Poverty, 4. Not including final environmental outcome costs, and 5. Environmental Ignorance/Apathy |
| Nonrenewable resource | a resource that cannot be reused or replaced easily (ex. gems, iron, copper, fossil fuels) |
| Affluenza | unsustainable addiction to overconsumption and materialism exhibited in the lifestyles of affluent consumers in the United States and other developed countries |
| (P)(C)(T) = (I) | Population x Consumption per person (affluence) x Technological impact = Environmental Impact of population |
| Four scientific principles of sustainability | 1) reliance on solar energy 2) biodiversity 3) population control 4) nutrient recycling |
| Scientific theory | a widely tested and accepted hypothesis that explains a wide range of observations |
| Scientific law | a rule that describes a pattern in nature |
| Inductive reasoning | using specific observations and measurements to arrive at a conclusion |
| Deductive reasoning | using logic to arrive at a specific conclusion based on a generalization or promise |
| Paradigm shifts | Shifts in scientific thinking that occur when the majority of scientists in a field or related fields agree that a new explanation or theory is better than the old one. |
| Frontier science | Preliminary scientific data, hypotheses, and models that have not been widely tested and accepted |
| Sound science | the concepts and ideas that are widely accepted by experts in a particular field of the natural or social sciences |
| Junk science | Scientific results or hypothesis presented as sound science without having undergone the rigors of the peer review process. |
| Feedback loop | Occurs when an output of matter, energy, or information is fed back into the system as an input and leads to changes in that system. |
| Synergistic interaction | Interaction of two or more factors or processes so that the combined effect is greater than the sum of their separate effects |
| pH | (chemistry) p(otential of) H(ydrogen); a value that indicated the acidity or alkalinity of a solution on a scale of 0-14, based on the proportion of H+ ions. |
| Law of conservation of matter | in a chemical or physical reaction, atoms can be neither created nor destroyed, only rearranged |
| Persistence | how long the pollutant stays in the air, water, soil, or body |
| Half-life | the time required for one half of the atoms of a radioisotope to emit radiation and decay products |
| Nuclear fission | a nuclear reaction in which a massive nucleus splits into smaller nuclei with the simultaneous release of energy |
| Nuclear fusion | a nuclear reaction in which nuclei combine to form more massive nuclei with the simultaneous release of energy |
| Kinetic energy | energy of motion |
| Potential energy | stored energy |
| Law of conservation of energy | aka first law of thermodynamics; the law that states that energy cannot be created or destroyed but can be changed from one form to another |
| Second law of thermodynamics | States that with each successive energy transfer or transformation in a system, energy quality always decreases (90% mostly lost as heat) |
| Energy efficiency | The percentage of energy put into a system that does useful work |
| Population | a group of organisms of the same species populating a given area |
| Genetic diversity | the amount of variation in the genetic material within all members of a population |
| Biological community | The populations of plants, animals, and microorganisms living and interacting in a certain area at a given time. |
| Ecosystem | a system formed by the interaction of a community of organisms with their physical environment |
| Biosphere | made up of all earth's ecosystems where living organisms exist |
| Atmosphere | the mass of air surrounding the Earth |
| Troposphere | the lowest atmospheric layer (i.e. from 4 to 11 miles high (depending on latitude)) |
| Stratosphere | the atmospheric layer above the troposphere (11-30 miles high) |
| Hydrosphere | the watery layer of the earth's surface |
| Lithosphere | the solid part of the earth consisting of the crust and outer mantle |
| What sustains life on earth? | 1) flow of high quality energy from the sun 2) cycling of nutrients 3) gravity |
| Biomes | terrestrial regions of the biosphere |
| Abiotic | nonliving, physical features of the environment, including air, water, sunlight, soil, temperature, and climate |
| Biotic | of or relating to living organisms (producers, consumers, and decomposers) |
| Limiting factor principle | Too much or too little of any abiotic factor can limit or prevent growth of a population of a species in an ecosystem, even if all other factors are at or near the optimum range of tolerance for the species |
| Producers | organisms that make their own food |
| Consumers | Organisms that eat living producers and/or other consumers for food |
| Decomposers | organisms that break down wastes and dead organisms and return raw materials to the environment |
| Photosynthesis | process by which plants and some other organisms use light energy to convert water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and glucose (CO2 + H2O + sunlight --> C6H12O6 + O2) |
| Aerobic respiration | cellular respiration that uses oxygen, sequentially releasing energy and storing it in ATP |
| Anaerobic respiration | Respiration that does not require oxygen |
| HIPPO | Five major causes of species decline and premature extinction: Habitat destruction and degradation, Invasive species, Pollution, Population [human] growth, and Overexploitation/overhunting/overconsumption |
| Food chain | a series of steps in which organisms transfer energy by eating and being eaten |
| Trophic levels | The hierarchical levels of the food chain through which energy flows from producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers and so on. |
| Food web | (ecology) a community of organisms where there are several interrelated food chains |
| Biomass | the total mass of organic matter in a given organism |
| Ecological efficiency | Percentage of energy transferred from one trophic level to another in a food chain or web |
| Gross primary productivity | The rate at which an ecosystem's producers capture and convert solar energy into a given amount of chemical energy as biomass in a given length of time. |
| Net primary productivity | rate at which producers use photosynthesis to store energy minus the rate at which they use some of this stored energy through aerobic respiration; NPP = R - GPP |
| Water cycle | the continuous movement of water between Earth's surface and the air, changing from liquid to gas to liquid; collects, purifies, distributes, and recycles the earth's fixed supply of water |
| Carbon cycle | the circulation and reutilization of carbon atoms especially via the process of photosynthesis and respiration. |
| Nitrogen cycle | the circulation and reutilization of nitrogen through earth's air, water, soil, and living organisms. |
| Phosphorus cycle | The movement of phosphorus atoms from rocks through the biosphere and hydrosphere and back to rocks. |
| Sulfur cycle | The chemical and physical reactions by which sulfur moves through the biosphere and hydrosphere and back to rocks. |
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