Unit 1: Sustainability 1.3 Flashcards
Sustainability
Ensuring long-term viability of a system, where rate of resource use is equal to the rate of replenshiment
Natural Income
The harvest or yield from natural resources.
Environmental Sustainability
Managing resources to allow their replacement and ecosystem recovery.
Social Sustainability
Creating systems that support human well-being and social structures.
Economic Sustainability
Building economic systems that ensure future production and consumption.
Renewable Natural Capital
Resources that regenerate as fast as they are used.
Non-Renewable Natural Capital
Resources that are irreplaceable or take geological timescales to replace.
Environmental Justice
Ensuring all people have equal rights to a clean environment and fair resource access.
Ecological Footprint
The land and water needed to sustain a population’s resource use and waste.
Carrying Capacity
The maximum population a species’ environment can support sustainably.
Biocapacity
The ability of an area to generate renewable resources and absorb waste.
Regenerative Design
Systems that renew themselves with minimal inputs.
Distributive Design
Sharing value from the start of a process, promoting equitable wealth distribution.
Questionnaire
A set of questions aimed at gathering information.
Sampling
A statistical method to collect representative data from a portion of a population
GDP
Measures economic growth as the annual increase in a country’s goods and services.
Environmental Ethics
The study of moral principles related to the environment.
Ethics
The study of what is morally right or wrong.
Morals
Personal beliefs about right and wrong.
Ecological footprint
A method that determines how dependent humans are on natural resources.
Precautionary principle
It advocates taking protective action against environmental harm even if full scientific evidence is lacking, placing the burden of proof on those proposing potentially harmful activities.
Natural capital
The resources in nature that provide goods and services useful to humans (e.g., forests, water, soil).
(Natural income
of…) Goods
The physical products provided by natural capital, like timber, fish, or crops.
(Natural income
of…) Services
The benefits provided by natural capital, like pollination, water purification, or climate regulation.
