Chapter 2 - Human Impacts

Question 1

Objects of Protection?

Answer 1

Water, Human Beings, Air ,Climate

Question 2

What are the Midpoint and Endpoint of Environmental Mechanisms?

Answer 2

Midpoint: Point within environmental mechanism (Ozone depletion, Climate change, Human Toxicity, Ecotoxicity )
Endpoint - outside of environmental mechanisms Impact on Areas of Protection (Objects of protection, intrinsic and instrumental, cultural)

Question 3

What does the DPSIR Framework stand for?

Answer 3

Driver, Pressure, State, Impact, Response

Question 4

What is the Driving Force?

Answer 4

Economic Activities like Manufacturing and Waste Management

Question 5

What are the Pressures?

Answer 5

Resource extraction, Emissions, Waste, pollutants

Question 6

What is the State?

Answer 6

the state of the environment or the ecosystem

Question 7

What are the Impacts (Midpoint categories and Damages)

Answer 7

Midpoint categories:
Human toxicity, Noise, Climate Change, Biotic resources depletion

Damages to:
Human health, biotic and abiotic natural environment, biotic and abiotic resources, biotic and abiotic man-made environment

Question 8

Biotic vs. Abiotic

Answer 8

Living things like humans birds, plants
vs
Temperature, water, sunlight

Question 9

Whats the Life Cycle Impact Assessment Framework

Answer 9

It differentiates damage into categories - the intrinisc, instrumental cultural

Question 10

The impacts on the objects of protection can be classified into —-

Answer 10

Intrinsic, Instrumental, and Cultural

Question 11

Acid rain attacks cultural heritage: damage category(ies)?

Answer 11

Cultural

Question 12

Bee products like honey are polluted by pesticides because bees eat pesticides, and hurts humans: damage category(ies)?

Answer 12

Intrinsic because of human health and instrumental because the ecosystem services

Question 13

The marine environment has been changed, most land and freshwater resources are used for livestock, People are fishing at unsustainable levels

Answer 13

instrumental because of natural resources and socioeconomic assets and ecosystem services as well as intrinsic because of the ecosystem quality

Question 14

Two things that are intrinsic damage

Answer 14

human health and ecosystem quality- bc it hurts us in the end

Question 15

Three things that are Instrumental

Answer 15

Socioeconomic assets, natural resources, ecosystem services

Question 16

Two things that are cultural

Answer 16

cultural and natural heritage

Question 17

What is SETAC and what did they do?

Answer 17

the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) divided environmental
changes into 10 environmental impact categories. all about toxicology

Question 18

Say 3 examples of SETA environmental impact categories

Answer 18

acidification of soil and water pollution, Human toxicity, ecotoxicity, degredation of ozone, summer smog

Question 19

What are some important environmental mechanisms?

Answer 19

an environmental mechanism is the cause-effect chain towards environmental impacts

An environmental mechanism can be described as “a system of physical, chemical and biological processes for a given impact category linking the life cycle inventory analysis results to category indicators and to category endpoints”. Therefore,

Question 20

What is Human toxicity

Answer 20

the degree to which a substance can harm a human

Question 21

What is ecotoxicity

Answer 21

the branch of toxicology concerned with the study of toxic effects, caused by natural or synthetic pollutants, to the constituents of ecosystems, animal (including human), vegetable and microbial, in an integral context - oil spill or pesticides

Question 22

What are three ways humans interact with the environment

Answer 22

waste disposal, agriculture, mining, water (drinking, sewage, manufacturing)

Question 23

What is the Greenhouse effect? (one of the impact categories)

Answer 23

It’s that the sunlight comes into the earth’s atmosphere and normally bounces off the earth back into space. greenhouse gases (CO2, Methane- agriculture)make the atmosphere so that the heat can escape less, so keeping the heat trapped and hence is heating up the world.

Question 24

What objects of protection are affected by the greenhouse effect?

Answer 24

Climate

Question 25

What are the consequences of GHG emissions?

Answer 25

climate change, weather extremes, rising sea level

Question 26

What’s the Biogeosphere?

Answer 26

Plants (biosphere) draw water and nutrients from the soil (geosphere) and release water vapor into the atmosphere. Humans (biosphere) use farm machinery (manufactured from geosphere materials) to plow the fields, and the atmosphere brings precipitation (hydrosphere) to water the plants.