Ch. 1 Flashcards
Environmental world view
A set of assumptions and values reflecting how you think the world works and what you think your role in the world should be.
Environmental ethics
The study of varying beliefs about what is right and wrong with how we treat the environment.
Human- centered environmental world view
Sees the natural world primarily as a support system for human life.
Life-centered environmental world view
All species have value as participating members of the biosphere regardless of their potential or actual use to humans.
Earth-centered environmental world view
We are part of and dependent on nature and that the earths life-support system exists for all species.
Environmentally sustainable society
One that meets the current and future basic resource needs of its people in a just and equitable manner without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their basic needs.
Natural income
The renewable resources.
Exponential growth
Quantity of human population increases at a fixed percentage per unit of time.
Per capita ecological footprint
The average ecological footprint of an individual in a given county or area.
Ecological footprint
The amount of land and was an needed to supply a population or an area with renewable resources.
Pollution prevention
Efforts focused on greatly reducing or eliminating the production of pollutions.
Poverty
A condition in which people are unable to fulfill their basic needs for adequate food, water, shelter, health care and education.
Pollution cleanup
Involves cleaning up or diluting pollutions.
Non point sources
Dispersed and often difficult to identify.
Point sources
Single identifiable sources.
Pollution
Contamination of the environmental by any chemical or other agent such as noise or heat to a level that is harmful to the health.
Environmental degradation
Living unsustainably by wasting depleting and degrading the earths natural capital.
Less-developed countries
83% of the worlds people live or classified as it.
More-developed countries
Industrialized nations high average income per person.
Non renewable or exhaustible resources
Fixed quantity or stock in the earths crust.
Sustainable yield
Highest rate at which we can use renewable resources indefinitely without reducing its available supply.
Inexhaustible resources
One that can be replenished by natural process within hours to centuries.
Resources
Anything that we can obtain from the environment to meet our needs and wants.
A responsibility to future generations
That we should leave the planets life-support systems in an least as good a condition.
Win-win solutions
Where we can learn to work together in dealing with environmental problems.
Full-cost pricing
Gives consumers better info about environmental impacts, lifestyles allows them to make more informed choices about goods and services they use.
Ecosystem services
Process provided by healthy ecosystems that support life and human economics at no monetary cost to us.
Natural resources
Materials and energy in nature that are essential or useful to humans.
Natural capital
Natural resources and ecosystem services that keep us and other species alive and support human economies.
Chemical cycling
Circulation of chemicals nessary for life from the environment through organisms.
Biodiversity
Variety of genes, organisms, species, and ecosystems in which organisms exist and interact.
Nutrients
The chemicals necessary for their own life processes.
Solar energy
Warms the planet and provides energy that plants use to produce nutrients.
Environmentalism
A social movement dedicated to trying to sustain the earths life-support systems for all forms of life.
Ecosystem
A set of organisms within a defined area of land or volume of water that interact with one another and with their environment of no living matter and energy.
Species
A group of organisms that has a unique set of characteristics that distinguish it from other groups of organisms.
Organisms
What these living things are called.
Ecology
A key component of environmental science where the biological science that studies how living things interact with one another and with their environment.
Environmental science
Interdisciplinary study of humans interact with living and non living things of their environment.
Environment
Everything around us which includes living and non living things.
Sustainablity
The capacity of the earths natural systems and human cutural systems to survive, flourish, and adapt to changing environment conditions into the very long-term future.
