Module 1 Flashcards
ENVIRONMENT
From? Means?
French word - environner which means to surround, to encircle
Environment defined
The physical, living and non-living, surrounding of a society with which it has a reciprocal relationship.
Functions of Environment
- Source of Resource Inputs
- Source of Amenity Services
- Provides Life Support
- Receptacle for Waste
4 ECOSYSTEM
SERVICES
PROVISIONING SERVICES
CULTURAL SERVICES
REGULATING SERVICES
SUPPORTING SERVICES
The products directly obtained
from ecosystems
PROVISIONING SERVICES
Provisioning Services:
Food
Raw Materials
Water
Medicine
PROVISIONING SERVICES
More than 90% of the calories consumed by people worldwide come from 80 plant species
Food
PROVISIONING SERVICES
Ecosystems provide a great diversity of materials including wood, biofuels, and fibers from wild or cultivated plant and animal species.
Raw Materials
PROVISIONING SERVICES
No water, no life. Ecosystems play a vital role in providing the flow and storage of fresh water.
Water
PROVISIONING SERVICES
Natural ecosystems provide a variety of plants and mushrooms which offer effective cures for many kinds of health problems.
Medicine
Nonmaterial benefits people obtain from ecosystems
CULTURAL SERVICES
Cultural Services:
Recreation and mental and physical health
Tourism
Aesthetic Appreciation and Inspiration for Culture, Art and Design
Spiritual Experience and Sense of Place
CULTURAL SERVICES
Nature-based opportunities for recreation play an important role in maintaining mental and physical health, e.g. walking and playing sports in parks and urban green spaces.
RECREATION AND MENTAL AND
PHYSICAL HEALTH
CULTURAL SERVICES
Enjoyment of nature attracts millions of travelers worldwide. This cultural ecosystem service includes both benefits to visitors and income opportunities for nature tourism service providers
Tourism
CULTURAL SERVICES
Animals, plants and ecosystems have been the source of inspiration for much of our arts, culture, and design; they increasingly inspire science as well.
AESTHETIC APPRECIATION AND
INSPIRATION FOR CULTURE, ART AND
DESIGN
CULTURAL SERVICES
Nature is a common element in most major religions. Natural heritage, spiritual sense of belonging, traditional knowledge, and associated customs are important for creating a sense of belonging.
SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE AND SENSE
OF PLACE
The benefits obtained from the regulation of ecosystem processes
REGULATING SERVICES
Regulating Services:
Local Climate Air Quality
Carbon Sequestration and Storage
Moderation of Extreme Events
Waste Water Treatment
Erosion Preventions and Maintenance of Soil Fertility
Pollination
Biological Control
Regulation of Water Flow
REGULATING SERVICES
Ecosystems influence the local climate and air quality.
LOCAL CLIMATE AIR QUALITY
REGULATING SERVICES
Ecosystems regulate the global climate by storing greenhouse gases.
CARBON SEQUESTRATION AND STORAGE
REGULATING SERVICES
Ecosystems and living organisms create buffers against natural disasters. They reduce damage from floods, storms, tsunamis, avalanches, landslides and droughts.
MODERATION OF EXTREME EVENTS
REGULATING SERVICES
Ecosystems such as wetlands filter effluents, decompose waste through the biological activity of microorganisms, and eliminate harmful pathogens.
WASTE WATER TREATMENT
REGULATING SERVICES
Vegetation cover prevents soil erosion and ensures soil fertility through natural biological processes such as nitrogen fixation
EROSION PREVENTION AND
MAINTENANCE OF SOIL FERTILITY
REGULATING SERVICES
Insects and wind pollinate plants and trees which is essential for the development of fruits, vegetables and seeds.
POLLINATION
REGULATING SERVICES
The activities of predators and parasites in ecosystems that act to
control populations of potential pest and disease vector.
BIOLOGICAL CONTROL
REGULATING SERVICES
Water flow regulation is a key service provided by land cover and configuration, but its dynamics are poorly understood by most policy makers and land management organizations.
REGULATION OF WATER FLOW
Indirect services, as they are necessary for the production of provisioning, regulating or cultural services
SUPPORTING
SERVICES
Supporting Services:
• HABITAT FOR SPECIES
• MAINTENANCE OF GENETIC
DIVERSITY
SUPPORTING SERVICES
Ecosystems provide living spaces for plants and animals; they also maintain a diversity of complex processes that underpin the other ecosystem services. Some habitats have an exceptionally high number of species which makes them more genetically diverse than others; these are known as ‘biodiversity hotspots’
Habitat for Species
SUPPORTING SERVICES
Conserving and using genetic diversity can provide the options needed for coping with stresses
MAINTENANCE OF GENETIC DIVERSITY
Natural resources that can be replenished in a short period of time
Renewable Resources
Example of Renewable Resources:
Solar
Wind
Geothermal
Water
Biomass
Natural resource that cannot be re-made or re-grown at a scale comparable to its consumption
Nonrenewable Resources
Example of Nonrenewable Resources:
Nuclear Energy
Coal
Natural Gas
Petroleum
SEVEN ENVIRONMENTAL PRINCIPLES
- Nature knows best
- All forms of life are important
- Everything is connected to everything else
- Everything changes
- Everything must go somewhere
- Ours is finite Earth
- Nature is beautiful and that humans are the stewards of God’s
creation
Environmental Science defined
The use of scientific approaches TO UNDERSTAND THE COMPLEX SYSTEMS in which we
live.
Environmental Science is ___
Integrative
Global
Informative
INTEGRATIVE
Environmental Science is ____
Multidisciplinary
(Politics, Ethics, Demography, Anthropology, Geography, Geology, Physics, Ecology, Chemistry, Biology, Philosophy, and Economics)
INFORMATIVE
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
helps us ______
understand our remarkable planet
Main Goals of Environmental Science
· Learn how the natural world works
· Understand how we humans interact with the environment
· Determine how humans affect the environment also includes finding ways to deal with these effects on the environment.
Environmentalism defined
Concerned about and action aimed at
PROTECTING ENVIRONMENT
A social movement or an ideology
focused on the welfare of the
environment, ____ seeks to protect and conserve the elements of earth’s ecosystem.
Environmentalism
Environmental Science is not the same as ____
Environmentalism
Plato had noticed the adverse
effects of deforestation.
4th CENTURY B.C.
During this period, the connections
between deforestation, soil erosion,
and local climate change were already observed and understood.
Some of the earliest recorded scientific studies of environmental damage were carried out French or British colonial administrators.
18th Century
During this year, Stephen Hale’s idea of conserving green plants preserves rainfall were put into practice on the Caribbean island, where about 20 percent of the land was marked as “reserved in wood for rains.”
1764
Pierre Poivre, an early French governor of Mauritius ordered that one-quarter of Mauritius be preserved in forests, particularly on steep mountain slopes and along waterways.
Poivre was appalled at the environmental and social devastation caused by destruction of wildlife (such as the flightless dodo) and the felling of ebony forests on the island by early European settlers.
1769
4 STAGES BEFORE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTALISM
- Resource waste triggered pragmatic resource conservation
- Ethical and aesthetic concerns inspired the preservation movement
- Rising pollution levels led to the modern environmental movement
- Environmental quality is tied to social progress
RESOURCE WASTE TRIGGERED PRAGMATIC RESOURCE CONSERVATION
Personalities:
GEORGE PERKINS MARSH
AUTHOR, MAN AND NATURE
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
PRESIDENT, USA | 1901-1909
GIFFORD PINCHOT
CHIEF, FOREST SERVICE
RESOURCE WASTE TRIGGERED
PRAGMATIC RESOURCE CONSERVATION
The basis of Roosevelt’s and Pinchot’s policies was _____.
pragmatic utilitarian conservation
ETHICAL AND AESTHETIC CONCERNS
INSPIRED PRESERVATION MOVEMENT
Personalities:
JOHN MUIR
GEOLOGIST | AUTHOR
ALDO LEOPOLD
WILDLIFE ECOLOGIST
ETHICAL AND AESTHETIC CONCERNS
INSPIRED PRESERVATION MOVEMENT
Aldo Leopold, says:
“We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”
RISING POLLUTION LEVELS LED TO THE MODERN ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT
Personalities:
RACHEL CARSON
AUTHOR, SILENT SPRING
DAVID BROWER
ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVIST
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IS
TIED TO SOCIAL PROGRESS
Personalities:
BARRY COMMONER
MOLECULAR BIOLOGIST
WANGARI MAATHAI
FOUNDER, GREEN BELT MOVEMENT
GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
Environmental Quality
Human Population and Well-being
Natural Resources
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
- concentrations of CO2 in the
atmosphere have increased nearly 50 percent. Climate models indicate that by 2100, if current trends continue, global mean temperatures will probably increase by 2° to 6°C compared to 1990 temperatures.
Climate Change
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
- At least 1.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and twice that many don’t have adequate sanitation.
•Polluted water contributes to the death of more than 15 million people every year, most of them children under age 5
• About 40 percent of the world population lives in countries where water demands now exceed supplies, and;
• the United Nations projects that by 2025 as many as three-fourths of us could live under similar conditions.
Clean Water
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
- the United Nations estimates, more than 2 billion metric tons of air pollutants (not including carbon dioxide or windblown soil) are released each year.
Air Quality
•Population growth, Hunger and Food - There are well over 7 billion people on earth, about twice as many as there were 40 years ago.
• Soil scientists report that about two-thirds of all agricultural lands show signs of degradation
• Currently more than 850 million people are chronically undernourished, and at least 60 million people face acute food shortages due to weather, politics, or war.
Human Population and Well-being
Natural Resources
• 800 species have disappeared and at least 10,000 species are now considered threatened.
• In 2004, most bird and butterfly populations had declined by 50 to 75 percent over the previous 20 years.
• At least half of the forests existing before the introduction of agriculture have been cleared.
Biodiversity Loss
Natural Resources
According to the World Resources Institute, more than three-quarters of the 441 fish stocks for which information is available and are severely depleted.
Some marine biologists estimate that 90 percent of all the large predators, including blue fin tuna, marlin, swordfish, sharks, cod, and halibut, have been removed from the ocean.
Marine Resources
Natural Resources
The costs of extracting and burning these fuels are among our most serious environmental challenges.
Costs include air and water pollution,
mining damage, and violent conflicts,
in addition to climate change.
Energy Resources
“Freedom in a commons brings
RUIN TO ALL.”
GARRETT HARDIN
living within the means of our natural resource.
Environmental Sustainability
requires a business or a country to use its resources efficiently.
Economic Sustainability
- ability of society to persistently achieve good social well-being.
Social Sustainability
