Contemporary Environmental Issues
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84 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Causes of the Dust Bowl | 1) Fields left bare over winter months when the winds are highest 2) Increased exposure to erosion |
| Why would Island dwellers be at greatest risk? | Limited immigration; isolated evolution free from competitors, predators, & diseases. Thus fewer defenses when introduced |
| ___ of mammals threatened by extinction | (1/4) |
| Threatened Species | Population low but extinction less imminent |
| Endangered Species | Numbers so low that extinction imminent |
| What are 5 extinction risk factors? | 1)Small [localized] range 2)Extensive range but significantly modified by humans 3)Island dwellers 4)Low reproductive success 5)Large [easily hunted] |
| What is FSC? | Forest Stewardship Council- certification system provides internationally recognized standards & accreditation |
| Taxonomy | Science dealing with classification & identification of living things |
| Phylogeny | The evolutionary history of a species or group of related species |
| Hotspots lost at least __% of original habitat | 70% |
| How many hotspots are there? | 34; Covering 2% of Earth's total land area |
| What is palm oil & what's its impact on the land? | Not native to asia; Most productive oil; Seed [biofuel] 6000 L/ha; Asia's rain forests are being converted to palm oil [Malaysia, Indonesia, & Thailand] ingredient in food, engine lubricants, & cosmetics |
| How does the FAO define a forest? | Land which has greater than 10% forest cover and is not used for agricultural or urban purposes |
| Deforestation occurs at a rate of ___ annually | 50,000 square miles [roughly the size of England] |
| What is the main cause of deforestation? | Human Activity [Poverty] |
| WHat was the 1st agricultural revolution? | Neolithic Revolution [10,000 BCE] |
| What are Villages? | Groups of farmers living in homes |
| What are towns? | Social division of work, not all inhabitants are farmers, accumulation of wealth now possible |
| Where did city-states 1st appear? | Mesopotamia [3000 BCE] |
| Neolithic Revolution [10,000 BCE- 1700 CE] | Most of major crops & domesticated animals were established within first thousands of agriculture |
| (1450-1700) What came from the New World? | Potatoes, maize, beans, & squash |
| (1450-1700) What came from Asia? | Rice |
| What did Europeans bring to the New World? | Wheat, onions, sugar, & domesticated animals |
| What was the 2nd food revolution? | [18-19th century] British Agricultural Revolution |
| What was thought to have facilitated the Industrial Revolution? | The British Agricultural Revolution |
| Shift from ___ to enclosed farms whereby land was owned by individuals because of advances in farming mechanization | Open field system |
| Passage of General Inclosure Act [1801] | Process caused unemployment for many & increased dependency on Poor Law [Social Safety Net] |
| What was the 1st iron plough to become commercially successful & why? | Rotherham Plough [1730]- lighter & easier to pull them the other ploughs |
| Scots Plough [1763] | Increased efficacy of plow & decreased strain on plough team |
| Threshing Machine [1786] | Separated grain from stalks, drove many subsistence farmers from the countryside to the cities to seek other unemployment |
| Who made first advances in agricultural mechanization- seed drill? | Jethro Tull |
| Jethro Tull also invented? | Horse-drawn hoe |
| Technology advances like ___ changed the face of farming? | Steam powered engine |
| What was the 3rd agricultural revolution? | Modern-Farming/ Green Revolution |
| Modern-Farming/ Green Revolution Characteristics | 1)Increase use in mechanization [tractors/threshers/combines] 2)Hybridized seeds-traditional cross breeding for desired genes 3)Irrigation 4)Fertilization 5)Pesticides |
| Farming is __% of total US workforce | 15% |
| In the US, farms have dropped from ___ to ___ | 6.8 million to 2.3 million |
| What is the 4th agricultural revolution? | Gene Revolution |
| Genes are now able to be exchanged between ___? | Plants, animals, & bacteria |
| Transgenic Breed | Cross breeds between different plants |
| Hawaiian papaya farmers in 1990's | [Put genes into the chromosomes] fighting an insect borne virus, decimating the state's 2nd largest fruit crop, traditional bioengineering failed, researches took genes from the virus & put it into the fruit |
| What was the first genetically engineered product? | Tomato, hit the market in 1994 |
| As of 2003, there were ___ genetically engineered foods FDA says are safe | 50 |
| Grocery Manufacturers [2003], estimated that __% of all processed foods contain materials from GMOs | 70-75% |
| How many acres of GMOs are there in the US [as of 2003] | 100 million acres |
| ___ countries grew GMO crops commercially in 2000 | 13 [US=68%, China=1%, Argentina=23%, Canada=7%] |
| Soybeans & corn made up ___% of total GMO crops harvested in the world | 82% |
| Arguments against GMOs | 1)Environmental hazards 2)Human health risks 3)Economic |
| Arguments for GMOs | 1)Increased productivity 2)Vitamin fortified-golden rice enriched with beta-carotene 3)Phytoremediation-using poplar trees to to clean up heavy metals in soil & ground water |
| GMOs, Federal Government & Testing | No federal statutes requiring testing but a "voluntary" consultation during the development process |
| Who is the "Father of the Green Revolution" | Norman Borlaug [presidential medal of freedom, nobel Laureate, congressional gold medal winner] |
| Where do most of our calories come from? | 99.7% come from terrestrially grown sources |
| What does it mean to be a slow food? | An eating movement trying to support local farming. Eat food less than 500 miles away & only eating seasonal food, tends to work based upon where you live |
| What is the leading cause of the loss of biodiversity? | Habitat loss |
| What is a buffer zone? | Associated with edge communities, one way to address habitat loss is to set up buffer zones, keep a pristine forest with a zone around it where humans can get resources without going into deep forest, humans CAN'T live here |
| What is a corridor? | increase connectivity between protected zones |
| What role do forests have in the global carbon cycle? | Take up atmospheric CO2 & turn it into an organic source- process called carbon sequestration CO2 + H2O + hv --> C6H12O6 + O2 + H2O |
| What is the Dead Zone & how is it caused? | What= the area that has dissolved oxygen levels so low it can't support life Where= Gulf of Mexico Why= the way we farm, sediment comes down Mississippi river & gets dumped into the gulf, fertilizers are in it, floats around |
| What was the 1st patented life? | Anand Chakrabarty- General Electric scientist patented an oil-eating microbe |
| Who decided life could be patented? | American Supreme Court |
| What is a seed bank? | In case of a catastrophe, America has warehouse with seeds from every species [almost] |
| Why was the patenting of life so controversial? | The voting public never had to say in it & corporations own what's available to you as a food consumer |
| What is a hot spot? | An area of extreme conservation risk, habitat is rapidly being destroyed by an encroaching human population. An area of high human interaction, high biodiversity & high # of endemic species |
| How much land is arable? | Less than 10% of the total surface of the Earth [cultivating almost 50% of that] |
| What is island biogeography theory? | The larger the conservation area & the closer the areas are, the better it is. Healthiest islands are big & close to the mainland |
| Species Richness | Looks at the # of different, distinct species, quantifies how many unique species there are but says nothing about the health of the populations |
| Simpson's Diversity | Whether the populations are near extinction or over populated. Calculates the level of diversity in an area |
| What does it mean to be organic? | 1)No GMOs, radiation, sewage sludge in production 2)Generally natural substances are allowed 3)No conventional pesticides-petroleum based fertilizers 4)livestock must be fed organic feed & access to outdoors |
| What is fair trade? | Social movement that helps growers in developing worlds get a fair price for the crops they grow- coffee, cocoa, sugar, tea, bananas, honey, cotton, and wine |
| What is CSA? | (Community Supported Agriculture) Participants pay for a "share" of crops, funds farmer(s), shares of crops given (bi)weekly failure of crops not as devastating to farmer |
| How many people are undernourished? | 850 million people |
| How much arable land is lost a year? | 37,000 square miles |
| Who produces 1/2 of all meat? | China, US, & Brazil |
| What are 7 factors influencing infiltration? | 1)Texture [sand,silt, clay] 2)Crust [Crytogamic crust for ex. can help desert plants retain water] 3)Compaction 4)Aggregation & Structure 5)Water Content 6)Frozen Surface 7)Organic Matter |
| What is infiltration? | The process by which water on the ground surface enters the soil |
| How does the way we farm impact water quality in the Gulf of Mexico? | When we remove vegetation, soil is available for erosion--> washes into Mississippi river --> Gulf of Mexico |
| Which soil texture would have the fastest infiltration & which would have the slowest? | Fastest=Sand Slowest=Clay |
| Available Water Capacity | the range of available water that can be stored in soil & be available for growing crops |
| Permanent Wilting Point | The minimal point of soil moisture the plant requires not to wilt |
| Field Capacity | The amount of soil moisture or water content held in soil after excess has been drained away, bulk water content contained in soil |
| Forest area makes up ___ of total land cover | 30.3% [4 billion hectares] |
| More than 1/2 of the world's forests are found in ___? | Russian Federation, Brazil, Canada, US, China [10 countries account for 2/3 world's forest] |
| ___% of the world's forests are publicly owned | 84% |
| Eutrophication | Movement of a body of water's trophic status in the direction of increasing plant biomass by the addition of artificial or natural substances, such as nitrate & phosphates, through fertilizers or sewage, to an aquatic system- hypoxia can occur |
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