Envs 1/18

Front 1

Environment

Back 1

the total of our surroundings

Front 2

Biotic factors

Back 2

Living things – e.g.
Animals, plants, forests, fungi, etc.

Front 3

Abiotic Factors

Back 3

Nonliving things e.g.
Continents, oceans, clouds, soil, rocks

Front 4

Our built environment

Back 4

Buildings, human-created living centers

Front 5

We depend completely on the environment for survival

Back 5

- Increased wealth, health, mobility, leisure time
- But, natural systems have been degraded
- i.e., pollution, erosion and species extinction
- Environmental changes threaten long-term health and survival

Front 6

Environmental science is the study of:

Back 6

- How the natural world works
- How the environment affects humans and how we affect the
environment

Front 7

The Goals of Environmental Science:

Back 7

To establish general principals about how the natural
world works, and use these principles to form solutions
to environmental problems.

Front 8

Some environmental problems include: (7)

Back 8

- Population growth
- Degradation of soils
- Resource depletion such as: soil, water
- Global atmospheric warming
- Loss of biodiversity
- Pollution
- Deforestation

Front 9

Natural resources

Back 9

Natural resources = substances and energy sources needed for
survival; Are vital to our survival

Front 10

Renewable resources:

Back 10

- Are unlimited (e.g.sunlight, wind wave energy) or can be replenished by the
environment over short periods of time (e.g. timber, water, soil)
- These can be destroyed

Front 11

Nonrenewable resources:

Back 11

are limited, can not be replenished, are formed much
more slowly than we use them
- E.g. Oil, coal, minerals

Front 12

If overused – some renewable resources can become _____

Back 12

nonrenewable
E.g. populations of animals from the wild my become extinct if
over hunted

Front 13

The consumption of natural resources has increased due to...

Back 13

rising affluence and population growth

Front 14

Global human population growth

Back 14

• Is a central problem in
Env. Sci, one that links all
other problems together
• Human pop. numbers
have drastically increased
in a very short time span
• More than 6.7 billion
humans

Front 15

Why so many humans?

Back 15

Agricultural revolution & Industrial revolution

Front 16

Agricultural revolution

Back 16

occurred 10,000 years ago as humans
transitioned from hunter-gatherers to agriculture
- Stable food supplies

Front 17

Industrial revolution

Back 17

mid 1700’s shifting from agriculture
to more
- Urbanized society powered by fossil fuels
- Sanitation and medicines (chemotherapy, antibiotics, reduce
child mortality, clean water, vaccinations etc)

Front 18

Thomas Malthus

Back 18

British economist
• Population growth must be
restricted, or it will outstrip food
production
• Starvation, war, disease will
occur

Front 19

An Essay on the Principle of
Population

Back 19

1798; argued that
limits on births e.g.
abstinence/contraception were
not implemented, deaths would
increase through famine, plague,
war

Front 20

Pop. Growth meant parents had...

Back 20

more support in old age; more workers for factory

Front 21

Neo-Malthusians

Back 21

originally used to mean population limitation by birth control and/or abortion. Currently it may be used as a label for those who are concerned that overpopulation may increase resource depletion or environmental degradation to a degree that is not sustainable with the potential of ecological collapse

Front 22

Paul and Anne Ehrlich

Back 22

Neo-Malthusians
(Biologist)
The Population Bomb (1968)
• Population growth has disastrous
effects on human welfare
• Argued that the pop. was growing
faster than food supply;
population control was the only
solution
• Famine would occur by end of
20thC

Front 23

Garrett Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons

Back 23

•Essay published in 1968 – resources that are open to
unregulated exploitation will be depleted e.g. soil,
air,water

Front 24

•Resource users are tempted to increase use until the
resource is _____ – e.g in a public pasture – “common”,
each person who grazes will put more animals on the
pasture

Back 24

gone
• Results: overgrazing – causing the pasture’s food to
reduce
• No single individual owns the pasture, no one took
care of it, took what they can until resource was
depleted

Front 25

The “ecological footprint”

Back 25

Expresses the environmental
impact of a person or
population in terms of the
- Amount of productive
land + water required to
provide raw materials
consumed and to
dispose/recycle the waste
produced

Front 26

We are using ___ more of the planet’s resource than are
available on a sustainable basis

Back 26

30%
- We are depleting renewable resources 30% faster
than they are being replenished

Front 27

Overshoot

Back 27

term that describes the actions of humans
surpassing the Earth’s capacity
- If all the world’s people consume resources a the rate
of North Americans, we will need the equivalent of
four and a half additional planet Earths

Front 28

The ecological footprints of
countries vary greatly

Back 28

- The U.S. footprint is
almost 5 times greater
than the world’s average
- Developing countries have
much smaller footprints
than developed countries

Front 29

Environmental scientists aim to comprehend how earth's ________ function, how these systems affect ____, and how we are influencing those systems.

Back 29

natural systems
people

Front 30

ENVS has an applied goal:

Back 30

developing
solutions to environmental problems

Front 31

ENVS is an interdisciplinary field encompasing:

Back 31

-Natural sciences: information about
the natural world
-Social sciences: weighing values and
understanding human behavior

Front 32

1970 – air pollution was high;
vehicles accounted 78% of Lead
production

Back 32

- Engineers, medical researchers,
atmospheric scientist, politicians
merged their knowledge and
skills into a process that
eventually banned leaded
gasoline
- 1996 – all gasoline sold in US =
unleaded
- Lead emission was eliminated

Front 33

What is an “environmental problem”?

Back 33

A problem with any
undesirable change in the
environment

Front 34

The perception of what
constitutes a problem varies
between individuals and
societies

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- Ex.: DDT, a pesticide
- In developing countries:
welcome because it kills
malaria-carrying mosquitoes
- In developed countries: not
welcome, due to health
risks*

Front 35

Environmental science is not..

Back 35

environmentalism

Front 36

Environmental science

Back 36

The pursuit of knowledge
about the workings of the
environment and our
interactions with it

Front 37

Environmentalism

Back 37

A social movement dedicated
to protecting the natural world

Front 38

Science

Back 38

- A systematic process for learning about the world and testing
our understanding of it
- A dynamic process of observation, testing, and discovery
- The accumulated body of knowledge that results from this
process

Front 39

Science is essential

Back 39

- To sort fact from fiction
- Develop solutions to the societal problems we face
- Can be applied in policy and management decisions and in
technology e.g. forest fire and efficient automobiles

Front 40

The scientific method

Back 40

• A process in which scientist
follow
• A technique for testing ideas
with observations, involves
several assumptions and
interrelated steps

Front 41

A scientist makes an____ and
asks___ of some phenomenon

Back 41

observation
questions
- Observations set the scientific
method in motion

Front 42

Develop a hypothesis:

Back 42

statement
that attempts to explain the scientific
question

Front 43

The hypothesis is used to generate _____, which are specific statements that can be directly and unequivocally ____.

Back 43

predictions
tested

Front 44

Test the predictions:

Back 44

Test the
predictions one at a time to see if
hypothesis if false (rejected) or true
(accepted)

Front 45

Experiment

Back 45

is activity designed to test the validity of a
prediction or hypothesis.

Front 46

Experiments involves manipulating ______ – or conditions that can
change

Back 46

variable
- E.g. Test the prediction linking algal growth to fertilizer by
selecting two identical ponds; add fertilizer to one; leave other
in its natural state (the control)

Front 47

Control

Back 47

Control is un-manipulated and is used to compare with the
manipulated treatment pond

Front 48

Independent variable

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a variable that scientist manipulates
e.g. fertilizer input

Front 49

Dependent variable

Back 49

the quantity of algae that results; one
that depends on the fertilizer input

Front 50

Manipulative experiments –

Back 50

researcher actively chooses and
manipulates the independent
variable
•Provides the strongest type of
evidence

Front 51

Natural or correlational tests

Back 51

show real-world complexity
•E.g. comparing the growth of
wheat in two fields at two
different lattitudes; a cool
northern location vs. warm
southern location
•More difficult to hold
variables constant
•Results are not so neat and
clean, so answers aren’t
simply black and white

Front 52

The scientific process is part of a larger process

Back 52

• The scientific process
includes peer review,
publication, and debate
• A consistently
supported hypothesis
becomes a theory,

Front 53

theory

Back 53

a welltested
and widely
accepted explanation
• Consolidates many
related hypothesis
that have been
tested and not
refuted

Front 54

We face challenges in agriculture

Back 54

• Expanded food production led to increased
population and consumption
• Agricultural revolution/ advance technology

Front 55

Agriculture is one of humanity’s greatest
achievements, but at...

Back 55

enormous environmental cost
• Chemical fertilizers
• Pesticides - poisonous
• Erosion – poor irrigation
• Changed natural systems

Front 56

Nearly___ of the planet’s land surface is used
for agriculture

Back 56

half

Front 57

Each year, millions of
people die from...

Back 57

pollution
• Waste products
• Artificial chemicals
used in farms, Industries,
and households

Front 58

Scientists have firmly
concluded that humans are
changing the composition of
the _______.

Back 58

atmosphere

Front 59

Industrial Revolution caused...

Back 59

Combustion of fossil fuels

Front 60

Deforestation

Back 60

Increased carbon
dioxide by 37% vs.
650,000 years ago

Front 61

CO2 turns absorbs heat
which warm the earth

Back 61

• Glaciers melting
• Rise in sea levels
• Impacts
wildlife/crops
• Increased
destructive weather

Front 62

Human population growth exacerbates all environmental
problems

Back 62

The growth rate has slowed, but we still add more than
200,000 people to the planet each day

Front 63

Our consumption of _____ has risen even faster than
our population growth.

Back 63

resources
- Life has become more pleasant for us so far
- However, rising consumption amplifies the demands
we make on our environment.

Front 64

___are chemical messengers that regulate growth,
reproduction and other activities in the body

Back 64

Hormones

Front 65

Chemicals we produce can interfere with the actions of
the ________ in humans
and wildlife:

Back 65

endocrine system

Front 66

Endocrine Disrupters

Back 66

Lead, Mercury, PCB, DDT and Dioxine – a chlorine
containing organic compound used in many industries
and is slow to degrade in the environment

Front 67

Cerulean warblers

Back 67

Small song bird in North America
declined by 51% from
1960 to 1990

Front 68

Migratory Birds are stressed
by:

Back 68

- burning of tropical
rainforest in Central and
Sth America (their
destination in the winter
months),
- Nth America forest
fragmentation *

Front 69

fragmentation (not important)

Back 69

processes that slowly alter the layout of the physical environment[1] or by human activity such as land conversion, which can alter the environment on a much faster time scale. The former is suspected of being one of the major causes of speciation[1] and the latter is causative in extinctions of many species.

Front 70

Predation

Back 70

the consumption of one species (the prey) by another (the predator)

Front 71

Wolves in Yellowstone Park

Back 71

• Wolves were removed from Y.P. b/c they attacked livestock a
federal program assisted ranchers to remove them in 1930
• Numbers also decreased b/c of poisoning, trapping and hunting
the wolves in Mexico to Greenland
• The reintroduction of wolves restored a more natural balance
b/n predators and prey.
- Wolves prey was elk, deer, bison
- When wolves were removed, the above increased; numbers
were not managed, they overgrazed their habitat and
starved

Front 72

Invasive species

Back 72

foreign species whose
introduction causes economic or environmental
harm.
- E.g. 1982 comb jellyfish went from U.S. to the
Black sea via ship.
- The jellyfish reproduced quickly, (had a lot of
plankton as food, and no predators.)
- Since it consumed so much plankton, other fish
were deprived of food supply. NO NEMO !

Front 73

Stratosphere

Back 73

the layer of the
atmosphere that extends from
11 to 50 km (7 to 31miles)
above the Earth’s surface

Front 74

Ozone

Back 74

a molecule of 3 atoms
of oxygen; beneficial gas

Front 75

Stratospheric ozone

Back 75

absorbs
harmful ultraviolet radiation
from the sun.
- UV causes damage to tissue;
mutations in DNA

Front 76

Ozone reaches ____ in a
portion of the stratosphere,
giving rise to the term ozone

Back 76

a peak

Front 77

Ozone and O2 absorb and
scatter the ...

Back 77

suns UV radiation
- Much of the UV
penetrating the upper part
of the stratosphere fails to
reach the lower part

Front 78

________ reduces the
amount of UV radiation which
reaches the Earth

Back 78

The Ozone layer

Front 79

Chemists at University of California, Irvine in 1974,
hypothesized the depletion of stratospheric ozone.Causes??

Back 79

simple hydrocarbons compounds – eg.
Ethane, methane in which hydrogen atoms are
replaced by chlorine, bromine or fluorine

Front 80

CFC

Back 80

Chlorofluorocarbon
chemicals that attack ozone
-organic compound that contains carbon, chlorine, and fluorine, produced as a volatile derivative of methane and ethane
-commonly known by the DuPont trade name Freon. The most common representative is dichlorodifluoromethane (R-12 or Freon-12). Many CFCs have been widely used as refrigerants, propellants (in aerosol applications), and solvent

Front 81

CFC Releases ______ that split ozone

Back 81

chlorine atoms

Front 82

CFC ____ in the atmosphere and _____
ozone making parts of the ozone layer ____.

Back 82

builds up
reacts with
thinner

Front 83

Ozone hole

Back 83

ozone levels over Antarctica had
declined by 40-60% (1985)
- Depletion also in the Arctic and globally
- Causes skin cancer, harms crops and decreases
ocean productivity

Front 84

The Montreal Protocol (1987)

Back 84

- International policy to restrict CFC production
- Nations (180) agreed to cut CFC production in half
- Production of ozone depleting chemicals fell to 95%
since late 1980
- But 11 billion lbs of CFC in the troposphere has YET
to be diffuse into the stratosphere and CFC are slow to
break down

Front 85

As Earth’s surface absorbs solar radiation, the surface increases in ___ and ____.

Back 85

temperature and emits infrared radiation

Front 86

Greenhouse gases

Back 86

atmospheric gases that absorb infrared radiation
- Water vapor, ozone, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane,
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
- Greenhouse gases differ in their ability to warm the troposphere
and surface; Each gas has its own heat-trapping ability

Front 87

CO2

Back 87

most abundant green house gas
-accounts for 85% of warming

Front 88

Causes of C02

Back 88

- Burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) in homes,
factories, automobiles and emitting the carbon to the
atmosphere
- Deforestation

Front 89

Methane due to...

Back 89

livestock, landfills, and crops such as rice

Front 90

nitrous oxide due to

Back 90

auto emissions, chemical
manufacturing plants, auto emissions, and synthetic nitrogen
fertilizers

Front 91

The Earth’s surface warming is

Back 91

• Melting glaciers - initiated melting of the West
Antarctic and Southern Greenland ice sheet
• Rising sea levels
• Impacted wildlife and crops
• Increasingly destructive weather - produce
major shifts in patterns of rainfall

Front 92

Kyoto Protocol

Back 92

• a treaty, formed at an international climate
warming conference in Kyoto Japan, Dec. 1997
• stipulates that developed countries must
decrease CO2 emissions and other gasses that
cause warming by an average of 5.2% by 2012

Front 93

U.S says the kyoto protocol is “unfair” because

Back 93

the protocols calls
for industrialized nations need to reduce
emissions, but does not require the same of
rapidly industrializing nations (e.g. China/India)
U.S. is NOT a part of the protocol

Front 94

Global Warming Solutions Act

Back 94

2006 Governor – Arnold Schwarzeneggar passed act
- Aims to cut the state (CA) greenhouse gas emission by
25% by year 2020
- Is the first state with penalties for non-compliance
- Mandates higher fuel efficiency automobiles

Front 95

Biodiversity loss may be our ______; once a species is extinct, it is gone forever

Back 95

biggest environmental
problem

Front 96

Sustainable solutions exist
-solutions that protect both our quality
of life and the environment

Back 96

• Organic agriculture
• Technology
- Reduces pollution
• Biodiversity
- Protect species
• Waste disposal
- Recycling
• Alternative fuels

Front 97

Cornucopians

Back 97

Human ingenuity will solve any
problem

Front 98

Cassandras

Back 98

predict doom and disaster

Front 99

Sustainability

Back 99

- Leaves future generations with a rich and full Earth
- Conserves the Earth’s natural resources
- Maintains fully functioning ecological systems

Front 100

Sustainable development:

Back 100

the use of resources to satisfy
current needs without compromising future availability of
resources