1. Unit 1 Powerpoint Review for Chapters 1 & 2

2. Introduction Environment Ecology Environmental Science
External conditions that affect living organisms
Ecology
Study of relationships between living organisms and their environment
Environmental Science
how nature works.
how the environment effects us.
how we effect the environment.
how we can live more sustainably without degrading our life-support system.

3. Solar Capital and Earth Capital
Energy from the sun
Provides 99% of the energy used on earth
Earth Capital
Life-support and Economic Services
Environment
Planet’s air, water, soil, wildlife, minerals, natural purification, recycling, pest control,…

4. Carrying Capacity
The maximum number of organisms of a local, regional, or global environment can support over a specified period
Variables
Location
Time
Short term ~ seasonal changes
Long-term ~global changes in factors such as climate
Technology

5. Sustainability
The ability of a specified system to survive and function over time
$1,000,000
10% interest
Live on up to $100,000 per year
Examples: Sustainable earth, resource harvest, and society
The steps to sustainability must be supported by sound science.

6. Linear Growth Quantity increases by a constant amount per unit of time
1,2,3,4,5, …
1,3,5,7,9, …
When plotted on a graph, growth of money yields a fairly straight line sloping upward

7. Exponential Growth Growth yields a J-shaped curve
Describes the human population problem that disturbs the environment today

8. Rule of 70 How long does it take to double? Rule of 70 Resource use
Population size
Money in a savings account
Rule of 70
70 divided by the percentage growth rate = doubling time in years
70 / 7% means it takes ten years to double

9. Economic Growth - Key Terms
Increase in the capacity to provide goods and services for people’s use
Gross National Product
Measures economic growth in a country
Gross Domestic Product
Market value in current dollars of all goods and services produced only within a country during one year

10. Economic Growth - Key Terms
More Developed Countries (MDC)
Highly industrialized
Average per capita GNP above $4000
Less Developed Countries (LDC)
Low to moderate industrialization
Average per capita GNP below $4000

11. Economic Growth - Key Terms
Development
Change from a society that is largely rural, agricultural, illiterate, poor and rapidly growing population
Per Capita GNP
GNP divided by the total population
Shows one person’s slice of the economic pie

12. POPULATION GROWTH, ECONOMIC GROWTH, AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Economic growth provides people with more goods and services.
Measured in gross domestic product (GDP) and purchasing power parity (PPP).
Economic development uses economic growth to improve living standards.
The world’s countries economic status (developed vs. developing) are based on their degree of industrialization and GDP-PPP.

13. Wealth Gap
The gap between the per capita GNP of the rich, middle-income and poor has widened since 1980
More than 1 billion people survive on less than one dollar per day

14. Sustainable Development
Assumes the right to use the earth’s resources and earth capital to meet needs
It is our obligation to create sustainability
Environmentally sustainable societies meets basic needs of its people in a just and equitable manner without degrading the natural capital that supplies these resources.

15. Potentially Renewable
Resources
Renewable
Non-Renewable
Potentially Renewable
Direct solar energy
Fossil fuels
Fresh air
Winds, tides, flowing water
Metallic minerals (iron, copper, aluminum)
Fresh water
Nonmetallic minerals (clay, sand, phosphates)
Fertile soil
Plants and animals (biodiversity)

16. Biodiversity Genetic Diversity Species Diversity Ecological Diversity
Variety in a genetic makeup among individuals within a single species
Species Diversity
Variety among the species or distinct types of living organisms found in different habitats of the planet
Ecological Diversity
Variety of forests, deserts, grasslands, streams, lakes, oceans, wetlands, and other communities

17. Environmental Degradation
Common Property Resources
Tragedy of the Commons
Resources owned by none, but available to all users free of charge
May convert potentially renewable resources into nonrenewable resources

18. Natural capital degradation
The exponential increasing flow of material resources through the world’s economic systems depletes, degrades and pollutes the environment.
Figure 1-11

19. Nonrenewable Resources
Nonrenewable/Exhaustible Resources
Exist in a fixed quantity in the earth’s crust and can be used up
Mineral
Any hard, usually crystalline material that is formed naturally
Reserves
Known deposits from which a usable mineral can be profitably extracted at current prices

20. Nonrenewable Resources
Recycling
Collecting and reprocessing a resource into new products
Reuse
Using a resource over and over in the same form

21. ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS: CAUSES AND CONNECTIONS
The major causes of environmental problems are:
Population growth
Wasteful resource use
Poverty
Poor environmental accounting
Ecological ignorance

22. Poverty and Environmental Problems
1 of 3 children under 5, suffer from severe malnutrition.
Figure 1-12 and 1-13

23. Our Ecological Footprint
Humanity’s ecological footprint has exceeded earths ecological capacity.
Figure 1-7

24. Pollution
Any addition to air, water, soil, or food that threatens the health, survival, or activities of humans or other living organisms
Solid, liquid, or gaseous by-products or wastes

25. Point Source Pollutants
From a single, identifiable sources
Smokestack of a power plant
Drainpipe of a meat-packing plant
Exhaust pipe of an automobile

26. Nonpoint Source Pollutants
Dispersed and often difficult to identify sources
Runoff of fertilizers and pesticides
Storm Drains (#1 source of oil spills in oceans)

27. Negativity of Pollutant
Chemical Nature
How active and harmful it is to living organisms
Concentration
Amount per unit volume or weight of air, water, soil or body weight
Persistence
Time it stays in the air, water, soil or body

28. Types of Pollutants
Factors that determine the severity of a pollutant’s effects: chemical nature, concentration, and persistence.
Pollutants are classified based on their persistence:
Degradable pollutants
Biodegradable pollutants
Slowly degradable pollutants
Nondegradable pollutants

29. Water Pollution Sediment Nutrient overload Toxic chemicals
Infectious agents
Oxygen depletion
Pesticides
Oil spills
Excess heat

30. Air Pollution Global climate change Stratospheric ozone depletion
Urban air pollution
Acid deposition
Outdoor pollutants
Indoor pollutants
Noise

31. Solution: Pollution cleanup
Output Pollution Cleanup
Involves cleaning up pollutants after they have been produced
Most expensive and time consuming

32. Solutions: Pollution Prevention
Input Pollution Control or Throughput Solution
Slows or eliminates the production of pollutants, often by switching to less harmful chemicals or processes
Four R’s
Reduce, reuse, refuse, recycle

33. Biodiversity Depletion
Habitat destruction
Habitat degradation
Extinction

34. Food Supply Problems Overgrazing Farmland loss and degradation
Wetlands loss and degradation
Overfishing
Coastal pollution
Soil erosion
Soil salinization
Soil waterlogging
Water shortages
Groundwater depletion
Loss of biodiversity
Poor nutrition

35. Agricultural Revolution
Cultural shift that began in several regions of the world
Involved a gradual move from a lifestyle based on nomadic hunting
Agroforestry
Planting a mixture of food crops and tree crops

36. Agricultural Revolution
Slash-and-burn
Cutting down trees and other vegetation and then burning the underbrush to clear small patches of land
Subsistence Farming
Family grew only enough food to feed itself.

37. What Is Science?
Science is a pursuit of knowledge about how the world works
Scientific data is collected by making observations and taking measurements
Observations involve the five senses, and help answer questions or problems

38. Observation Qualitative of, relating to, or involving quality or kind
ie.: red, hot, burns quickly, etc.
Quantitative
of, relating to, or involving the measurement of quantity or amount
ie.: 350 degrees Celsius, 5 inches, etc.

39. Vocabulary Experiment Hypotheses Model
A procedure to study a phenomenon under known conditions
Must have a Control
Hypotheses
A possible explanation of something observed in nature.
Model
An approximate representation of a system being studied.

40. Theory and Law Scientific Theory A Scientific Law
A hypothesis that has been supported by multiple scientists’ experiments in multiple locations
A Scientific Law
a description of what we find happening in nature over and over again in a certain way

41. Scientific Laws Law of Conservation of Matter Atomic Theory of Matter
Matter can be changed from one form to another, but never created or destroyed.
Atomic Theory of Matter
All matter is made of atoms which cannot be destroyed, created, or subdivided.

42. Accuracy and Precision
The extent to which a measurement agrees with the accepted or correct value for that quantity.
Precision
A measure of reproducibility, or how closely a series of measurements of the same quantity agrees with one another.

43. Reasoning Inductive Reasoning Deductive Reasoning
Uses observations and facts to arrive at hypotheses
All mammals breathe oxygen.
Deductive Reasoning
Uses logic to arrive at a specific conclusion based on a generalization
All birds have feathers, Eagles are birds, therefore All eagles have feathers.

44. Scientific Methods What is the question to be answered?
What relevant facts and data are known?
What new data should be collected?
After collection, can it be used to make a law?
What hypothesis can be invented to explain this? How can it become a theory?

45. Experiments Variables are what affect processes in the experiment.
Controlled experiments have only one variable
Experimental group gets the variable
Control group does not have the variable
Placebo is a harmless pill that resembles the pill being tested.
In double blind experiments, neither the patient nor the doctors know who is the control or experiment group.

46. Systems
A system is a set of components that function and interact in some regular and predictable manner
Human body, a river, an economy, The Earth!
The earth is a closed system for matter and an open system for energy

47. Feedback Loops
A feedback loop occurs when an output of a system is fed back as an input (two kinds)
Positive loops are runaway cycles where a change in a certain direction causes further change in the same direction
Negative loops occur when a change in a certain direction leads to a lessening of that change

48. Resource Consumption and Environmental Problems
Underconsumption
Overconsumption
Affluenza: unsustainable addiction to overconsumption and materialism.

49. The pH (potential of Hydrogen) is the concentration of hydrogen ions in one liter of solution.
Figure 2-5

50. Compounds and Chemical Formulas
Chemical formulas are shorthand ways to show the atoms and ions in a chemical compound.
Combining Hydrogen ions (H+) and Hydroxide ions (OH-) makes the compound H2O (dihydrogen oxide, a.k.a. water).
Combining Sodium ions (Na+) and Chloride ions (Cl-) makes the compound NaCl (sodium chloride a.k.a. salt).

51. Cells: The Fundamental Units of Life
Cells are the basic structural and functional units of all forms of life.
Prokaryotic cells (bacteria) lack a distinct nucleus.
Eukaryotic cells (plants and animals) have a distinct nucleus.
Figure 2-6

52. Macromolecules, DNA, Genes and Chromosomes
Large, complex organic molecules (macromolecules) make up the basic molecular units found in living organisms.
Complex carbohydrates
Proteins
Nucleic acids
Lipids
Figure 2-7

53. Matter Quality
Matter can be classified as having high or low quality depending on how useful it is to us as a resource.
High quality matter is concentrated and easily extracted.
low quality matter is more widely dispersed and more difficult to extract.
Figure 2-8

54. CHANGES IN MATTER
Matter can change from one physical form to another or change its chemical composition.
When a physical or chemical change occurs, no atoms are created or destroyed.
Law of conservation of matter.
Physical change maintains original chemical composition.
Chemical change involves a chemical reaction which changes the arrangement of the elements or compounds involved.
Chemical equations are used to represent the reaction.

55. Chemical Change
Energy is given off during the reaction as a product.

56. ENERGY Energy is the ability to do work and transfer heat.
Kinetic energy – energy in motion
heat, electromagnetic radiation
Potential energy – stored for possible use
batteries, glucose molecules

57. ENERGY LAWS: TWO RULES WE CANNOT BREAK
The first law of thermodynamics: we cannot create or destroy energy.
We can change energy from one form to another.
The second law of thermodynamics: energy quality always decreases.
When energy changes from one form to another, it is always degraded to a more dispersed form.
Energy efficiency is a measure of how much useful work is accomplished before it changes to its next form.

58. Sustainable Low-Throughput Economies: Learning from Nature
Matter-Recycling-and-Reuse Economies: Working in Circles
Mimics nature by recycling and reusing, thus reducing pollutants and waste.
It is not sustainable for growing populations.