Sustainability Flashcards
What is sustainability?
The ability to carry on with an activity/system/lifestyle indefinitely.
What is Natural income?
It is what is harvested from the natural capital.
What is the natural capital?
The natural resources available.
What is replenishment rate?
How quickly a population will increase?
What is energy density?
The energy stored per unit area/volume/mass
What is power density?
The rate at which energy can be put out.
What is a fuel?
A material which can be converted into energy.
What is a low energy-density resource?
Fuel with a relatively small amount of energy per unit area/volume/mass e.g. wood, coal, ethanol.
What is a high energy-density resource?
Fuel with a relatively large amount of energy per unit area/volume/mass e.g. uranium, natural gas, petrol, diesel.
What is cyclical system?
Cycling of material e.g. bio geochemical cycles/recycling.
What are raw materials?
Unprocessed material, unmodified, that is used to make a product.
What is a monomer?
A molecule that can be bonded to other identical molecules to form a polymer e.g. glucose, amino acids.
What are polymers?
Many/more that two monomers chemically bonded together e.g. carbohydrates and proteins.
What is a linear system?
Systems of reservoirs where the fluxes between them are directly proportional to the contents of the reservoirs they originate form.
What is resource depletion?
The consumption of a resource faster than it can be replenished.
What is the waste generation?
The amount of waste material generated by a particular source, or that enters the waste stream before recycling, composting, landfilling or incineration takes place.
What are fossil fuels?
Non-renewable energy resources.
What are mineral resources?
Non-renewable resources deposits of ore and minerals.
What is toxicity?
The extent to which something is poisonous or harmful.
What does biodegradable mean?
Capability of a substance/object of being decomposed by bacteria or other living organisms and therefore avoiding pollution.
What is a positive feedback mechanism?
When an event triggers a process which further exacerbates the initial event - they increase the change.
What is a negative feedback mechanism?
When an event triggers a process which counters the initial event - they resist change.
What is dynamic equilibrium?
Dynamic equilibrium is a state of balance between continuing processes.
What is a tipping point?
Change becomes self-sustaining when pushed beyond a threshold and Carrie son until a new system is reached.
What are examples of tipping points?
- Rainfall and vegetation in semi-arid regions, tips if forced beyond bistability, must become a lot wetter to return. E.g. amazon and boreal rainforests.
- Ice sheet albedo, tall reflective ice sheet keeps itself cold and stable, too warm to regrow some parts of the ice sheet. E.g. Greenland and Antarctica
How is the carbon cycle driven by renewable energy?
Incoming solar radiation by plants in photosynthesis —> leads to carbon being moved from the biosphere to the atmosphere.
How is the hydrological cycle driven by renewable energy?
Incoming solar radiation heats the water surface —> leading to evaporation moving water to the atmosphere.
How is the nitrogen cycle driven by renewable energy?
Insulation enables the chemical reduction of nitrates into nitrites to take place in plant leaves —> this means the plants can assimilate nitrogen up from the soil.
How is atmospheric circulation driving by renewable energy resources?
Solar radiation at the equator —> warms surface waters there and subsequently the air above —> warm air rises and then spreads sideways, starting the process of wind formation.
How is thermohaline circulation driving by renewable energy resources?
Solar insulation is concentrated at the equator —> this warms the surface waters —> warms surface waters and spreads polewards to replace the denser, cold, slaty water.
How are natural processes low energy-density resources?
They capture solar power at a low energy density, and contain limited amounts of energy relative to their volumes.
Examples of natural processes at low temperatures?
- Nitrogen fixation to produce ammonia (25-37’C)
- Decomposition of organic matter by microbes (32-60’C)
Examples of human processes at high temperatures?
- Haber process to make ammonia (450’C)
- Municipal waste is destroyed in incineration plants (850’C) to convert organic compounds into co2 and water.
How can the use and re-use of abundant, simple raw materials in natural cycles be applied to human systems?
- Using products formed from fewer ingredients e.g. beeswax candles.
- Using products formed from inter-locking parts which makes different ways to vary the final products e.g. customisable bikes.
- Using products formed from abundant raw materials e.g. wool insulation.
- Using products formed from simple raw materials e.g. wooden furniture with wooden joinery.
- Emsuring products can be disassembled and their components re used easily e.g. aluminium cans.
How are coral reefs and tropical rainforests diverse?
- They are older as they didn’t get wiped out during the ice age, so more time for speciation, they receive the most concentrate energy from the sun = highest primary productivity, have lots of symbiotic relationships as it is so competitive.
- This means they have high species richness, abundance and more inter-species relationships
- Therefore lots of ecological niches, large gene pools, large range of tolerance and functioning redundancy = loss of one species has a smaller impact.
How do agroecosystmes have a low diversity?
- Focus on most flavoursome and easily produced products, narrow range of seeds, cloning existing plant, few males are sued to impregnated females, its more efficient to sow one crop so all can be managed at the same time.
- So low species richness, low genetic diversity and lots of single species fields.
- Therefore, if one crop dies out = huge loss, smaller range of tolerance, more affected by disease, pests and extreme weather.
How does low toxicity minimise environmental problems and provide sustainable supplies?
Low toxicity means it isn’t harmful or poisonous to some extent.
- natural resources are biodegradable and so can be used over and over again.
- if something is highly toxic it will be biomagnified and bioaccumulated up through the tropic levels.
What is the Peat and Forest fire feedback mechanism?
Fire —> CO2 —> hotter and drier —> more fires —> wood gets hot —> releases methane —> catches on fire —> causing it to get hotter —> more wood catches on fire —> more gas released —> ignites, causing more heat and more gas.
What is the cirrus cloud feedback mechanism?
Warmer air temperatures—> altitudes at which water condenses increases —> more cirri’s clouds formed —> they are thin and wispy —> don’t reflect as much radiation —> so more radiation is absorbed —> increases earth temp.
What is the decomposition rate positive feedback mechanism?
Temperature increases —> bacteria and detritivores work faster to break down —> DOM in the soil —> methane + co2 is released at a faster rate, further enhancing the greenhouse gas effect —> further increasing temperatures
What is the methane hydrates positive feedback?
Temperatures warm —> causes destabilised of methane hydrates causing bubble of methane and co2 —> Enhance global warming further.
What is the ocean acidification positive feedback?
Biological pump = carbon captured form the atmosphere by marine organisms primarily phytoplankton, then is transported to ocean depths.
• As pH decreases, algae species struggle to build strong cell walls and therefore grow smaller.
• This limits the amount of photosynthesis being completed.
• This slows the biological pump, leaving more CO2 in the atmosphere
