Lecture 2: Environmental Science and Sustainability

Question 1

Results of the increase in global human population

Answer 1

Habitat destruction, eutrophication, desertification, air pollution, water pollution, over harvesting, malnutrition, diseases, disasters, global climate change

Question 2

What are the characteristics of science?

Answer 2

Disprovable, empirical, based on observation, a process (the scientific method), inductive reasoning (observations to generalizations)

Question 3

What is a hypothesis?

Answer 3

An “if…then” statement that attempts to explain a phenomenon or answer a scientific question

Question 4

What you measure- depends on the input

Answer 4

Dependent variable

Question 5

What the scientists manipulates

Answer 5

Independent variable

Question 6

Steps to the scientific method

Answer 6

Observe, questions, hypothesis, predictions, test of hypothesis, results, reject/accept hypothesis

Question 7

Offers a broad, fundamental explanation of many observations; based on all tested hypotheses, deals with how or why something happens, not just a ‘conjecture’ but is a great achievement

Answer 7

Theory

Question 8

Simple empirical statement that summarizes things as they are; states that something happens, allows you to predict what will happen, does not explain why

Answer 8

Law

Question 9

Thomas Kuhn- The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)

Answer 9

Claimed that science progresses through paradigm shifts, theories and inferences progress in fits and starts

Question 10

Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543)

Answer 10

Made celestial observations, published ideas that Earth rotated on its axis once daily and traveled once around the sun yearly. Conflicted with Ptolemy’s and biblical interpretation that Earth was the center of the univsere

Question 11

Galileo Galilei

Answer 11

Improved telescope in 1609, confirms Copernican theory, held under house arrest for rest of life after doing so

Question 12

What are scientific theories based on?

Answer 12

Consensus among scientists. Science is a continuous refinement of understanding rather than definitive ‘proof’

Question 13

Uncertainty

Answer 13

There will always be a level of uncertainty; instruments cannot make perfect measurements; until all of the important variables are understood, they cannot be controlled for; nature contains real variability; future is unknown

Question 14

Why is uncertainty difficult for people to process?

Answer 14

Uncertainty is sometimes used to discount scientific conclusions

Question 15

A broad discipline that tries to explain how life on earth is sustained, what leads to environmental problems, how those problems can be solved

Answer 15

Environmental science