sustainability and human impacts Flashcards
What is a carbon footprint? Does it differ from ecological footprint?
- average Canadian ecological footprint is 7.5 hectars per person, whereas planet has a capacity of only 1.6 hectars per person
- Earth cannot sustain this usage
What factors are considered when calculating a carbon footprint?
- food (red meat, vegetarian, local goods, processed/packaged foods)
- housing (size of home, what type of energy home uses)
- mobility(how you get around, how often, what kind of car ie gas, electric, hybrid)
- goods ( consumption of stuff)
- services
Is the use of carbon footprint a valid metric for assessing sustainability, human impacts, and the predication of our future?
- both valid and widely adopted, but it also has limitations that are important to consider.
- valuable tool for understanding and reducing the environmental impacts of human activities, it should not be the sole metric for assessing sustainability. A comprehensive approach that considers multiple environmental, social, and economic factors is essential for a more accurate and holistic assessment of sustainability and human impacts on the planet.
- it is measurable, raises awareness, gudies polocies, and compares options
- but it also is narrow, it is very simple, there cna be data erros, and can be misleading to companies (focus on footprint but not on environment)
Would you describe humans as a highly interactive species? Why?
- yes
- we are constantly interactiving with other organisms
- we interact with eachother greatly but also with other species
- we interact with species which interact with another whci has a great impact on environment we live in. this can be pos or neg. ie. we do stuff to harm the bees, bees die, no pollenation, we die
Generate a definition for a ‘human impact.’ Why do you define it this way?
- humans acting in a way that affects other species/ environmens
- effect that human activities have on the environment, ecosystems, and other living organisms. I define it this way because it encompasses the wide range of ways in which human actions can alter the natural world
Outline and describe how ecological concepts (Population and Community) help us study conservation***
Contrast ‘ecosystem function’ and ‘ecosystem integrity.’
ecosystem function: the specific contribution of an ecosystem component to maintain the ecosystem (ie. what we get)
- gives integrity
- mess with integrity, affect function
ecosystem integrity: the capacity to support and maintain a balanced, integrated, adaptive community of organisms having species composition, diversity, and sunctional organization comparable to the habiata of the region (ie. sustainability)
- the buffering of distrubance of ecosystem. we can disturbe it and it can come back. buffering ability
integrity and function INTERACT
What is ‘environmental injustice’ how does this affect how we define ‘sustainability’?**
- environmental injustice: The concept of environmental injustice arose from the fact that some communities or human groups are disproportionately subjected to higher levels of environmental risk than other segments of society.
- not respecting environment
- we should be environmetnally just to be be sustainable
- not only think about ourselves but think aout toers
Discuss the question “Are Homo sapiens natural?”
- yes
- we evolved like every other species. we aree extant
- we have common ancestors (LUCA)
- we create unnatural things but we ourselves are natural
what is human impact
- no true definition
- human impacted
- “blank” is human impacted
what is sustainability
- textbook def: human society functioning in a way that is socially just and living within the limits of natures systems
- it is more than a state; it is a goal
- it is perspective dependant
- interaction of terms
- complex and hard to define
- not just about reasource use and allocation
what is a sustainabile society
- one that satisfies its needs without jeprodizing the opprotunity for future generation
what is social acceptabilty, economic vialility, and environmental suitablity
- social acceptability: social strucure in our environment
- economic viabilty: economic stability; goods and services
- environmental suitability: is it suitable for the environment
- social acceptability, economic viability, and environmental suitabiluty overlap. finding a perfect balance between all of them is hard but we can still try
ecological perspective
- we are highly interactive species
major threats of expanding human population
- habitat destruction (complete elimination of habitat)
- habitat alteration (altered regimens, habitat fragmentation, global warming, introduced species)
- reasource acquisition: fitness
