Chapter 1 Vocabulary

Question 1

Developed countries

Answer 1

The term developed country is used to describe countries that have a high level of development according to some criteria

Question 2

Developing countries

Answer 2

Developing country is a term generally used to describe a nation with a low level of material well-being (not to be confused with third world country)

Question 3

Ecological footprint

Answer 3

The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth’s ecosystems. It compares human demand with planet Earth’s ability to produce

Question 4

Ecology

Answer 4

Noun
The branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings.
The study of the interaction of people with their environment.

Question 5

Economic development

Answer 5

Economic development is the increase in the standard of living in a nation’s population with sustained growth

Question 6

Environment

Answer 6

Noun
The surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates.
The setting or conditions in which a particular activity is carried on.

Question 7

Environmental degradation

Answer 7

Environmental degradation is the deterioration of the environment through depletion of resources such as air, water and soil.

Question 8

Environmental ethics

Answer 8

Environmental ethics is the part of environmental philosophy which considers extending the traditional boundaries of ethics from solely including humans to including the non-human world.

Question 9

Environmental science

Answer 9

Interdisciplinary study of how humans interact with the living and nonliving parts of their environment

Question 10

Environmentalism

Answer 10

Social movement dedicated to protecting the earth life-support systems for us and other species

Question 11

Environmentally sustainable economic development

Answer 11

Development that meets the basic needs of the current generations of humans and other species without preventing future generations of humans and other species from meeting their basic needs

Question 12

Environmentally sustainable society

Answer 12

Society than meets the current and future needs of its people for basic resources in a just and equitable manner without compromising the ability of future generations of humans and other species from meeting their basic needs

Question 13

Exponential growth

Answer 13

Growth in which some quantity, such as population size or economic output, increases at a constant rate per unit of time

Question 14

Gross domestic product GDP

Answer 14

Annual market value of all goods and services produced by all firms and organizations, foreign and domestic, operating within a country

Question 15

Input pollution control

Answer 15

Device, process, or strategy used to prevent potential pollutant from forming or entering the environment or to sharply reduce the amount entering the environment

Question 16

Natural capital

Answer 16

Natural resources a natural services to keep us and other species alive and support our economies

Question 17

Nonpoint sources

Answer 17

Broad and diffuse areas, rather than points, from which pollutants enter bodies of surface water or air

Question 18

Nonrenewable resources

Answer 18

Resources that exist in a fixed amount in the Earth’s crust and have the potential for renewal by geological, physical, and chemical processes taking place over hundreds of millions to billions of years

Question 19

Output pollution control

Answer 19

Device a process that removes the reduces the level of a pollutant after has been produced or has entered the environment

Question 20

Per capita geological footprint

Answer 20

Amount of biologically productive land and water needed to supply each person and population with the renewable resources they use and to absorb or dispose of the waste from such resource use

Question 21

Per capita GDP

Answer 21

Annual gross domestic product of a country divided by total population at midyear. It gives the average slice of the economic pie per person

Question 22

Perpetual resource

Answer 22

Essentially inexhaustible resource on human timescale because it is renewed continuously. Solar energy is an example

Question 23

Planetary management worldview

Answer 23

Worldview holding that humans are separate from nature, the nature exists mainly to meet our needs and increasing wants, and that we can use our ingenuity and technology to manage the earth life-support systems, mostly for our own benefit. It assumes that economic growth is unlimited

Question 24

Point sources

Answer 24

Single identifiable sources the discharge pollutants into the environment. Examples include the smoke stack of a power plant or an industrial plant

Question 25

Pollution

Answer 25

Undesirable change in the physical, chemical, or biological characteristics of a air, water, soil, or food that can adversely affect the health, survival, or activities of humans or other living organisms

Question 26

Poverty

Answer 26

Inability of people to meet their basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter

Question 27

Recycling

Answer 27

To collect and reprocess a resource so that it can be made into new products; one of the three R’s of resource use.

Question 28

Renewable resource

Answer 28

Resource that can be replenished rapidly through natural processes as long as it is not used up faster than it is replaced

Question 29

Resource

Answer 29

Anything obtained from the environment to meet human needs and wants. It can also be applied to other species.

Question 30

Reuse

Answer 30

To use a product over and over again in the same form.

Question 31

Social capital

Answer 31

Result of getting people with different views and values to talk and listen to one another, find common ground based on understanding and trust, and work together to solve environmental and other problems

Question 32

Solar capital

Answer 32

Solar energy that warms the planet and supports photosynthesis, the process that plants use to provide food for themselves and for us and other animals. This direct input of solar energy also produces indirect forms of renewable solar energy such as wind and flowing water

Question 33

Stewardship worldview

Answer 33

Worldview holding that we can minister for our benefit but that we have an ethical responsibility to be caring and responsible managers, or stewards, of the earth. It calls for encouraging environmentally beneficial forms of economic growth discouraging environmentally harmful forms

Question 34

Sustainability

Answer 34

Ability of Earth various systems, including human cultural systems and economies, to survive and adapt to changing environmental conditions indefinitely

Question 35

Sustainable yield

Answer 35

Highest rate at which a potentially renewable resource can be used indefinitely without reducing its available supply

Question 36

Environmental wisdom worldview

Answer 36

Worldview holding that humans are part of an totally dependent on nature and the nature exist for all species, not just for us. Our success depends on learning how the earth sustains itself and integrating such environmental wisdom into the ways we think and act

Question 37

Environmental worldview

Answer 37

Set of assumptions and beliefs about how people think the world works, but they think the role in the world should be, and what they believe is right and wrong environmental behavior