Quiz 1 Study Guide Flashcards

Question

Definition of Ethics

Answer 1

Ethics is a branch of philosophy that involves the study of good and bad, right and wrong. Tells us how we ought to behave.

Answer 2

Relativists believe ethics do and should vary with social context Universalists believe there exist objective notions of right and wrong that hold across cultures and contexts

Answer 3

Anthropocentrism describes a human centered view of our relationship with the environment Biocentrism ascribes value to certain living things or to the biotic realm in general Ecocentrism judges actions in terms of their effects on whole ecological systems (living and non living) and the relationships among them.

Answer 4

In the late 1800s, as the continent became more populated and its resources were increasingly exploited, public perception and government policy toward natural resources began to shift. Laws of this period aimed to alleviate some of the environmental impacts associated with westward expansion. In 1872, Congress designated Yellowstone as the world’s first national park. In 1891, Congress passed a law authorizing the president to create “forest reserves” in order to prevent overharvesting and protect forested watersheds. In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt created the first national wildlife refuge. These acts enabled the creation of a national park system, national forest system, and a national wildlife refuge system that still stand as global models. These developments reflected a new understanding that the continent’s resources were exhaustible and required legal protection.

Answer 5

Very much about resource conservation for human use. With the onset of the industrial revolution, more people began adopting biocentric and ecocentric worldviews due to the rapid expansion and exploitation of resources.

Answer 6

Gifford Pinchot who founded the US Forest Service who had a more anthropocentric view - promoted the conservation ethic that people should put resources to use but should have a responsibility to manage them.

Answer 7

John Muir was a pioneering advocate for conservationism. He promoted the preservation ethic -we should protect our environment in a pristine,unaltered state. He argued that nature deserved protects for its own inherent value (ecocentric) and he maintained that nature promoted human happiness(anthropocentric).

Answer 8

Aldo Leopold was also a pioneering environmental philosopher who articulated a new relationship between people and the environment. Ceased to view certain species as good or bad, instead that a healthy ecosystem depends upon all of its interacting parts. He wrote The Land Ethic and argued that the people should view themselves as the land as members of the same community and that we are obligated to protect it.

Answer 9

Historians believe the major advances invite environmental policy occurred in the 1960s and 1970s because.... Evidence of environmental problems was widely readily apparent. People could visualize the policies to deal with the problems. The political climate was ripe with supportive public leaders that were willing to act. Photographs from the space program ﬁnally had allowed humanity to see for the ﬁrst time ever images of the earth from space and at the time those images were extremely powerful and revolutionized many peoples worldviews by making us aware of the ﬁnite nature of our planet.

Answer 10

1962 Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (pp. 98-99) - A landmark event was the 1962 publication of Silent Spring, a book by American scientist and writer Rachel Carson. Silent Spring awakened the public to the negative ecological and health effects of pesticides and industrial chemicals. The book’s title refers to Carson’s warning that pesticides might kills as many birds that few would be left to sing in springtime.

Answer 11

Ohio’s Cuyahoga River also drew attention to pollution hazards. The Cuyahoga was so polluted with oil and industrial waste that the river actually caught fire near Cleveland a number of times in the 1950s and 1960s. This spectacle, coupled with an oil spill offshore from Santa Barbara, California in 1969, moved the public to urge Congress and the president to do more to protect the environment. The first Earth Day in 1970 helped to galvanize public support for action to address pollution problems. Today, largely because of environmental policies enacted since the 1960s, public health is better protected and the nation’s air and water are considerably cleaner.

Answer 12

NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) made the leap to actually check for consequences prior to implementing any changes. This is the EIS (environmental impact statement). Some call it "red tape". National Environmental Policy Act enacted by Richard Nixon in 1970 created an agency called the Council on Environmental Quality and required that an environmental impact statement or an EIS is prepared for any major federal action that may signiﬁcantly affect environmental quality. An EIS results from studies are done as predictions for the environmental impacts that could happen from any given governmental action. This order from Nixon was followed up by another order to create the Environmental Protection Agency or the EPA to put all elements of agencies regulating water quality, air pollution, solid waste, and any other environmental issues under their umbrella. Example: (pp. 100) The EIS process forces government agencies and businesses that contract with them to evaluate environmental impacts before proceeding with a new dam, highway, or construction project. Although the EIS process generally does not halt such projects, it can serve as an incentive to minimize environmental damage. NEPA also grates ordinary citizens input in the policy process by requiring that EISs be made publicly available and that policymakers solicit and consider public comment on them.

Answer 13

Endangered Species Act created a protocol to decide which species are endangered and protocol to protect them. States what you can and cannot do.

Answer 14

A protest in the early 1980s by African Americans in Warren County, North Carolina, against a toxic waste dump in their community is widely seen as the beginning of the movement. The state had chosen to establish the dump in the county with the highest percentage of African Americans.

Answer 15

The environmental justice movement has been fueled by the perception that poor people tend to be exposed to a greater share of pollution, hazards, and environmental degradation than are richer people. Environmental justice advocates also note that racial and ethnic minorities tend to suffer more exposure to hazards than whites. Indeed, studies across North America repeatedly document that poor and nonwhite communities each bear heavier burdens of air pollution, lead poisoning, pesticide exposure, toxic waste exposure, and workplace hazards. This is thought to occur because lower-income and minority communities often have less access to information on environmental health risks, less political power with which to protect their interests, and less money to spend on avoiding or alleviating risks. Environmental justice proponents also sometimes blame institutionalized racism and inadequate government policies. Example:

Answer 16

Environmental justice involves the fair and equitable treatment of all people with respect to environmental policy and practice, regardless of their income, race, or ethnicity.

Answer 17

A guiding principle of modern environmental science, means living within our planet’s means, such that Earth and its resources can sustain us - and all life - for the foreseeable future. Sustainability means leaving our children and grandchildren a world as rich and full as the world we live in now. It means conserving Earth’s resources so that our descendants may enjoy them as we have. It means developing solutions that work in the long term. Sustainability requires maintaining fully functioning ecological systems, because we cannot sustain human civilization without sustaining the natural systems that nourish it.

Answer 18

Triple bottom line - environmental impact, promotion of economic well being, and social equity.

Answer 19

Sustainable Development the use of resources in a manner that satisﬁes our current needs but does not compromise the future availability of resources

Answer 20

Provides inputs (resources) look at figure in book about environment supporting the economy (six violations of assumptions for reasons for market failure) Absorbs outputs (whatever outputs of any economic activity - everything goes into the environment) Provides ecosystem services - thinking of natural resources as goods, and the earths natural systems provide "services" upon which we depend. Ecosystem services arise from the normal functioning of natural systems and are not meant for our benefit, yet we could not survive without them. Example: ecological systems purify air and water, cycle nutrients, and recycle our waste.

Answer 21

Free market is expected to allocate resources optimally for society. If everyone works in their own self-interest, everything will work itself out naturally.

Answer 22

We rely on nutrient cycling, if the nutrient cycling didn't work we couldn't do something else. Pollination by bees, if bees stopped existing/pollinating we have no other options.

Answer 23

Economists try to ﬁgure out the value of the future and put a monetary value of it, not only a mathematical decision but an ethical decision. Example: Put in a hydro dam and it may immediately beneﬁt serve its purpose of producing power. The costs that may be that it changes the hydrology of the area, changing the ecosystem, damaging the runs of ﬁsh in the area. Direct beneﬁts are usually near term, and the environmental costs are usually long term. Typically discount rates are high with respect to environmental costs.

Answer 24

Difficulty of valuing non-market goods and services All actors may not behave rationally (i.e., in their own best interest; e.g. commons problem) Actors have incomplete knowledge; complexity of environment and problems often not understood These violations of assumptions lead to “market failure” (sub-optimal allocation of society’s resources.)

Answer 25

Human health problems Property damage Declines in desirable features of the environment, such as fewer fish in a stream Aesthetic damage, such as from air pollution or clear cutting Stress and anxiety experienced by people downstream or downwind from a pollution source

Answer 26

Environmental policy aims to promote fairness by eliminating external costs which is an attempt to ensure that some parties do not use resources and ways of harm others. Example, a factory may get greater proﬁts by a discharging waste irresponsibly to avoid paying for disposal. This in turn creates an external cost of the people who live nearby and have to deal with a waste.

Answer 27

Cost-benefit analysis neoclassical economists use to evaluate an action or decision. Economists total up estimated costs for a proposed action and compare these to the sum of benefits estimated to result from the action. If benefits exceed costs, the action should be pursued, if the costs exceed benefits, it should not. Given a choice of alternative actions, the one with the greatest excess of benefits over costs should be chosen. Example: This reasoning seems eminently logical but problems often arise because not all costs and benefits can be easily identified, defined, or quantified. For example, it may be easy to tally up the costs of installing equipment to reduce pollution, yet difficult to assess the effects of pollution on people’s health or lifestyles. Moreover, monetary values can often be assigned more easily to economic benefits (such as jobs created by a factory) than to environmental costs

Answer 28

“Tragedy of the commons” problem - Garrett Hardin of UC Santa Barbara 1968 essay. When resources are open for unregulated exploitation they inevitably become overused. Example: In agriculture, public grazing... Each person is motivated by self interest to increase their herd. If no one owns the grazing land, no incentive to take care of resource and conserve - called Tragedy of the Commons. Some say private ownership best addresses problem by voluntary organized use and cooperation for responsible use - others say that dilemma justiﬁes governmental

Answer 29

``` Free riders (a common result of volunteer actions) (pp. 97) - Because of the free rider problem policy is needed to be developed publicly instead of privately. Example, a group of factories all work together to create a water pollution limitation, but one of them takes liberties and takes advantage of the sacriﬁces that others are making. This is the free ride. Because not all of them are equally accountable to some outside source the effort can ultimately collapse. ```

Answer 30

When placing a cost upon externalities you are "internalizing" the externalities. When deciding a cost for something, a possibility is to evaluate the cost of repair, remediation, or cleanup.

Answer 31

Voluntary measures - Voluntary (e.g. A burn ban) Advantage - extremely inexpensive to enact, takes little time, less governmental control so less of a regulatory feel Disadvantages- not everyone complies, free rider situation, doesn't usually get very high compliance rate

Answer 32

``` Legal requirements (not voluntary) - Non-voluntary requirements or command and control style, most environmental regulation is this style Advantages - Very effective once passed Disadvantages - Tends to be economically inefﬁcient, so often hard to pass the legislation Enforcement can tend to be expensive Tends to have a lot of social opposition, feels like a violation of personal freedoms. ```

Answer 33

Tax breaks or subsidies given as payments to compensate given to people to do these things. E.g. A farmer gets compensated to do something. Less heavy handed, positive reinforcement. Can sometimes not be beneﬁcial to the environment. Each taxpayer pays about $2000 in environmentally destructive subsidies every year. Logging of the national forests is often funded by the government and Fossil fuels are subsidized.

Answer 34

Green taxes - where the polluter pays to offset the price of their pollution. A way of internalizing the externalities. Incentive to move to a greener standard. Adjusts the price to allow the optimal amount of the good to be produced. Avoids the assumption that all production costs of goods are internal Example: Four factories that produce 1300 tons of pollution, but they don't produce equally across the whole factory (three produce three hundred and one produces 1000). Scenario: $1/ton tax,may make the factory that is overproducing pollution may invest to reduce their pollution output. This is an example of letting the market efﬁciencies operate. The industries decide themselves what the most efﬁcient way to go about the adjustment. A way of providing free market efﬁciencies but still getting environmental protection.

Answer 35

Government sets a cap (cap must be low enough to help the environment - often times the cap decreases over time to even further decrease the pollution). Companies buy and sell these permits (e.g. If you're a really efﬁcient company, you can sell your permits to companies that are less efﬁcient)

Answer 36

Eco-labeling - ways to get producers to do the right thing, usually based upon consumer action, a way of getting more information in the hands of the consumer to allow them to make the choice

Answer 37

Market incentives - provides incentives for people to do the right thing. See text for local market incentives ------- example is trash pickup rate to increase garbage rate to encourage recycling

Answer 38

The three branches of the US federal government (legislative, executive, and judicial) are each involved in aspects of environmental policy. Once legislation, or statutory law, is passed by Congress and signed into law by the president, its implementation and enforcement is assigned to an administrative agency within the executive branch. Administrative agencies are the source of a great deal of policy, in the form of regulations, specific rules intended to help achieve the objectives of the more broadly written statutory law. Besides issuing regulations, administrative agencies monitor compliance with laws and regulations and enforce them when they violated. The judicial branch interprets law as needed in response to suits in the courts. Example: Bill from House of Representatives is introduced by a member of the House / Senator If appropriate, bill is referred to House/Senate committee and subcommittee / Subcommittee marks changes and votes on bill Full committee marks changes and votes on bill Bill is voted on by the full House/Senate, in a House/Senate floor vote A conference committee made up of both House and Senate committees that worked on the bill works out any differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill House/Senate approves final bill Final bill is sent to the president, who signs or vetoes it.

Answer 39

CITES - Convention on International trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora protects endangered species by banning the international transport of their body parts. When nations enforce it, CITES can protect tigers and other rare species whose body parts are traded internationally.

Answer 40

1987 Montreal Protocol - a treaty to stop producing ozone depleting chemicals. Signatory nations agreed to cut CFC production in half by 1998. Five follow-up agreements deepened the cuts, advanced timetables for compliance, and addressed additional ozone-depleting substances. As a result, we have stopped the Antarctic ozone hole from growing worse. However, the ozone layer is not expected to recover completely until 2060-2075. Much of the 5 billion kg of CFCs already in the troposphere has yet to diffuse up into the stratosphere, so concentrations may not peak there until 2020. Widely viewed as a model for international cooperation on global problems like biodiversity loss, pollutants, and climate change.

Answer 41

2005 Kyoto Protocol - Mandated signatory nations, by the period 2008-2012, to reduce emissions of six greenhouse gases to levels below those of 1990. The US was the only developed nation that didn’t ratify, and it’s refusal to join the global effort generated widespread resentment and undermined the treaty’s effectiveness (since the US generates ⅕ of greenhouse gases). The protocol itself has not had an effect on greenhouse gases.

Answer 42

Lithosphere - contains the rock and sediment beneath our feet, in the planet’s uppermost layers Atmosphere - is composed of the air surrounding our planet Hydrosphere - encompasses all water - salt and fresh, liquid, ice, or vapor - in surface bodies, underground, and in the atmosphere. Biosphere - consists of all planet’s living organisms and the abiotic (nonliving) portions of the environment with which they interact.

Answer 43

Feedback loops - when a system's output serves as an input to that same system

Answer 44

Negative feedback loop - output that results from a system moving in one direction acts as an input that moves in the system in the other direction. Most systems in nature involve negative feedback loops. Negative feedback loops enhance stability, and in the long run, only those systems that are stable will persist. Example: A thermostat stabilizes a room’s temperature by turning the furnace on when the room gets cold and shutting it off when the room gets hot. Example: Our body temperature is regulated by negative feedback. If we get too hot, our sweat glands pump out moisture that evaporates to cool us down, or we may move from sun to shade. If we get too cold, we shiver, creating heat, or we move into the sun or put on clothing.

Answer 45

Positive feedback loop rather than stabilizing a system of positive feedback loop drives it to further extreme. Example: The melting of glaciers and sea ice in the Arctic due to global warming. Ice and snow, being white, reflect sunlight and keep surfaces cool. But if the climate warms enough to melt the ice and snow, darker surfaces of land and water are exposed, and these darker surfaces absorb more sunlight. The absorption of light warms the surface, causing further melting, which in turn exposes more dark surface area, leading to further warming.

Answer 46

Hydrologic cycle - Water transports nutrients, sediments, and pollutants from the continents to the oceans via rivers, streams, and surface runoff. Nutrients can then be carried thousands of miles on ocean currents. Water also brings atmospheric pollutants from the air back down to the surface when they dissolve in falling rain or snow.

Answer 47

the entire area in which water drains into a given river

Answer 48

elements - a fundamental type of matter, a chemical substance with a given set of properties, they cannot be broken down into substances with other properties in chemical reactions

Answer 49

Unstable isotopes decay as they break down, called radioactive - emitting high energy radiation. Half life is the length of time it takes for one half of the material to decay is half life. Example: The radioisotope uranium-235 is our society’s source of energy for commercial nuclear power. It decays into a series of daughter isotopes, eventually forming lead-207, and it has a half life of 700 million years. 10 lbs > 700 million years… 5 lbs > 700 million years…. 2.5 lbs > 700 million years

Answer 50

One of several forms of an element having differing numbers of neurons in the nucleus of its atoms. Chemically, isotopes of an element behave almost identically, but they have different physical properties because they differ in mass.. Stable - isotopes that are not radioactive

Answer 51

ions - atoms the gain or lose electrons Ions of differing charge bind with one another to form compounds with ionic bonds

Answer 52

Water is a very special compound with several special properties - Hydrogen bonding - molecules stick together weakly. More compact... Liquid form is denser than the solid form. Solids tend to be denser than liquids, but water is an exception. Water has very high thermal inertia. Water has dissolved oxygen. Water can dissociate into ions...This controls how acidic the water is.

Answer 53

molecules - atoms bonded together and form with combinations of two or more atoms

Answer 54

Organic compounds - consist of carbon atoms joined by bonds, and they may include other elements, such as hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur, and phosphorus. Carbon’s unusual ability to build elaborate molecules by linking carbon molecules to one another in chains, rings, and other structures has resulted in millions of different organic compounds. Inorganic compounds lack carbon bonds. Example: hydrocarbons - consist solely of atoms of carbon and hydrogen. Hydrocarbons make up the fossil fuels we combust for so many of our energy needs.

Answer 55

Law of conservation of matter - matter may be transformed from one type of substance into others, but it cannot be created or destroyed

Answer 56

Gulf of Mexico - Fueled by nutrients from Midwest farms carried by the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers. The low oxygen conditions have adversely affected marine life and reduced catches of shrimp and fish to half of what they were in the 1980s.

Answer 57

Process by which hypoxia occurs.... Nitrogen is imported into the water which allows phytoplankton to ﬂourish and eventually they die and sink to the bottom provides food for Decomposers, while digesting the Decomposers consume oxygen, eventually the oxygen in the water is too low for life to exist

Answer 58

Eutrophication - process of nutrient over enrichment, blooms of algae, increased production of organic matter, and subsequent ecosystem degradation

Answer 59

Plant trees or vegetation near the rivers that will absorb the nitrogen Change to organic or compost fertilizers to reduce the nitrogen Change policy (corn and soybeans) to remove subsidies for inorganic farming Green taxes to provide an incentive to use less polluting fertilizers Strong difﬁculty in regulation - a very regulation intensive to use non market based approaches

Answer 60

Ecology - Ecology is the scientiﬁc study of living organisms/species and their relationships or interactions with their environment and each other

Answer 61

organism, population, community, ecosystem Organisms - an individual living thing, tend to be found in population Population - a group of individuals of a species that live in a particular area Communities - A set of populations of different species living together in a particular area Ecosystems - A functional system consisting of a community, its nonliving environment, and the interactions between them. Nutrients, inorganic, inputs and outputs, feedback loops Example: antelope eats grass, excretes excrement, and thus gets recycled Harder to draw boundaries with ecosystems because they blend

Answer 62

Organisms are generally well adapted to their environments. Physical environmental factors, e.g., temperature, moisture, light, pH Lots of factors (abiotic) = Temperature, Moisture, Ph, These factors vary over space and time Day light…Sunlight will be different for different ecosystems, moving along the forest ﬂoor differently Organisms are adaptive to conditions, and adaptations are evolved characteristics genetically based that help organisms survive and reproduce Example: Kangaroo rat - Nocturnal (to avoid heat), Highly evolved nostrils to lose less moisture, Evolved kidneys to conserve moisture Organisms require relatively constant internal conditions

Answer 63

Operates by negative feedback, which is inherently stabilizing provide organisms with the relatively constant internal conditions that they need Enzymes catalyze things, and enzymes act different at different temperatures Done with a negative feedback loop (response to something counteracts the stimulus) which is inherently stabilized Homeostasis applies to all conditions Oxygen in the blood, salinity, etc Snakes go bask in the sun and the go under a rock to cool off

Answer 64

Every organism has a tolerance range. There's a certain range where an organism does best.

Answer 65

Tolerance ranges and geographic distributions of organisms Example: Saguro cactus are really intolerant to freezing. So they mapped the area where the freezing happened more than twelve hours a day, and noted a distinct line where the growth of the cactus stopped. Example: Oaks were mapped in California (four different kinds). Each type tolerates a completely different set of conditions and grows in an area where it will grow optimally.

Answer 66

The distribution and abundance of an organism is usually set by the most limiting factor in the environment Example: limiting nutrients for phytoplankton Example: Growth of algae in lake water. Took samples to the lab and watched how fast the algae grows. When you add nitrogen, it does not differ from the control, but when phosphorus was added a rapid expansion. In freshwater, phosphorous is the limiting factor, but in saltwater and terrestrial scenarios nitrogen is the limiting factor.