Chapter 1 Vocabulary

Question 1

Environmental Science

Answer 1

An interdisciplinary study of how humans interact with the living and nonliving parts of their environment. It also integrates information and ideas from the natural sciences such as biology, chemistry, and geology.

Question 2

Ecology

Answer 2

Is a key component of environmental science and the biological science that studies how organisms, interact with one another and with their environment.

Question 3

Environment

Answer 3

Is everything around us, or as the famous physicist Albert Einstein put it, “The environment is everything that isn’t me.” It also includes the living
and the nonliving things (air, water, and energy) with
which we interact in a complex web of relationships that connect us to one another and to the world we live in.

Question 4

Organisms

Answer 4

Is another name or word for living things.

Question 5

Species

Answer 5

Is a group of organisms that have a unique set of characteristics that distinguish them from all other organisms and, for organisms that reproduce sexually, can mate and produce fertile offspring.

Question 6

Ecosystem

Answer 6

Is a set of organisms within a defined area or volume that interact with one another and with and their environment of nonliving matter and energy.

Question 7

Reliance on solar energy

Answer 7

Without the sun, there would be no plants, no animals, and no food. It warms up the planet and supports photosynthesis, a complex chemical process used by plants to provide the nutrients, or chemicals that most organisms need in order to stay alive and reproduce.

Question 8

Biodiversity

Answer 8

This refers to the astounding variety of organisms, the natural systems in which they exist and interact and the natural services that these organisms and living systems provide free of charge.

Question 9

Chemical cycling (nutrient cycling)

Answer 9

Is the circulation of chemicals from the environment (mostly from soil and water) through organisms and back to the environment is necessary for life.

Question 10

Natural capital

Answer 10

Is the natural resources and natural services that keep us and other forms of life alive and support our human economies.

Question 11

Natural resources

Answer 11

Are materials and energy in nature that are essential or useful to humans and are often classified as renewable resources (such as air, water, soil, plants, and wind) or nonrenewable resources (such as copper, oil, and coal).

Question 12

Natural services

Answer 12

Are processes in nature, such as purification of air and water and renewal of topsoil, which support life and human economies.

Question 13

Perpetual resource

Answer 13

Is a resources where its supply is continuous and is
expected to last a long time. An example is solar energy which can last at least 6 billion years, while the sun completes its life cycle.

Question 14

Renewable resource

Answer 14

Is a resource that takes anywhere from several days to several hundred years to be replenished through natural processes as long as we do not use it up faster than nature can renew it.

Question 15

Sustainable yield

Answer 15

Is the highest rate at which we can use a renewable resource indefinitely without reducing its available
supply.

Question 16

Nonrenewable resources

Answer 16

Are resources that exist in a fixed quantity, or stock, in the earth’s crust. On a time scale of millions to billions of years, geologic processes can renew such resources.

Question 17

Reuse

Answer 17

Involves using a resource over and over

in the same form. For example, we can collect, wash, and refill glass bottles many times

Question 18

Recycling

Answer 18

Involves collecting waste materials and processing them into new materials. For example, we can crush and melt discarded aluminum to make new aluminum cans or other aluminum products.

Question 19

Economic growth

Answer 19

Is an increase in a nation’s output of goods and services.

Question 20

Gross domestic product (GDP)

Answer 20

The annual market value of all goods and services produced by all businesses, foreign and domestic, operating within a country. Economic growth is usually measured by the percentage of change in a country’s GDP.

Question 21

Per capita GDP

Answer 21

The GDP divided by the total population at midyear. Changes in a country’s economic growth per person are measured by this.

Question 22

Economic development

Answer 22

Is an effort to use economic growth to improve living standards.

Question 23

More-developed countries

Answer 23

Are those with high average income and they include the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and most European countries.

Question 24

Less-developed countries

Answer 24

All other nations, in which 81% of the world’s people live, are classified as this, most of them in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Question 25

Environmental degradation (natural capital degradation)

Answer 25

The process that we are living unsustainably by wasting, depleting, and degrading the earth’s
natural capital at an accelerating rate.

Question 26

Pollution

Answer 26

Any presence within the environment of a chemical or other agent such as noise or heat at a level that is harmful to the health, survival, or activities of humans or other organisms.

Question 27

Point sources

Answer 27

Are the single, identifiable sources that you can name or see.

Question 28

Non-point sources

Answer 28

These sources are dispersed and often difficult to identify or name.

Question 29

Pollution cleanup (output pollution control)

Answer 29

Involves cleaning up or diluting pollutants after we have produced them. (one of two ways to deal with pollution)

Question 30

Pollution prevention (input pollution control)

Answer 30

Reduces or eliminates the production of pollutants. (One of two ways to deal with pollution)

Question 31

Affluence

Answer 31

Many individuals in more-developed nations enjoy this, or wealth, consuming large amounts of resources far beyond their basic needs.

Question 32

Ecological footprint

Answer 32

The amount of biologically productive land and water needed to provide the people in a particular country or area with an indefinite supply of renewable resources and to absorb and recycle the
wastes and pollution produced by such resource use.

Question 33

Per capita ecological footprint

Answer 33

Is the average ecological footprint of an individual in a given country or area.

Question 34

Ecological tipping point

Answer 34

Time delays can allow an
environmental problem to build slowly until it reaches a threshold level, or this, which causes an often irreversible shift in the behavior of a natural system.

Question 35

Culture

Answer 35

Is the whole of a society’s knowledge, beliefs,

technology, and practices, and human cultural changes have had profound effects on the earth.

Question 36

Sustainability revolution

Answer 36

Many environmental scientists and other analysts 
now call for a fourth major cultural change in the 
form of (this word) during this century. This cultural transformation would involve learning how to reduce our ecological footprints and to live more sustainably.

Question 37

Exponential growth

Answer 37

Occurs when a quantity such as the human population increases at a fixed percentage per unit of time, such as 2% per year.

Question 38

Poverty

Answer 38

Occurs when people are unable to fulfill their

basic needs for adequate food, water, shelter, health, and education.

Question 39

Environmental worldview

Answer 39

Is your set of assumptions and values reflecting how you think the world works and what you think your role in the world should be.

Question 40

Environmental ethics

Answer 40

Are beliefs about what is right and wrong

with how we treat the environment, are an important element in our worldviews.

Question 41

Planetary management worldview

Answer 41

Holds that we are separate from and in charge of nature, that nature exists mainly to meet our needs and increasing wants, and that we can use our ingenuity and technology to manage the earth’s life-support systems, mostly for our benefit, indefinitely.

Question 42

Stewardship worldview

Answer 42

Holds that we can and should manage the earth for our benefit, but that we have an ethical responsibility to be caring and responsible managers, or stewards, of the earth.

Question 43

Environmental wisdom worldview

Answer 43

Holds that we are part of, and dependent on, nature and that nature exists for all species, not just for us.

Question 44

Environmentally sustainable society

Answer 44

Is 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.

Question 45

Natural income (living sustainably)

Answer 45

Are the renewable resources such as plants, animals, and soil provided by the earth’s natural capital. It also means not depleting or degrading the earth’s natural capital, which supplies this income, and providing the human population with adequate and equitable access to this natural capital and natural income for the foreseeable future.

Question 46

Social capital

Answer 46

Making the shift to more sustainable societies and economies includes building what sociologists call (this word). This involves getting people with different views and values to talk and listen to one another, to find common ground based on understanding and trust, and to work together to solve environmental and other problems facing our societies.