Water on Earth

Question 1

Water facts

Answer 1

-Covers 70% of Earth’s surface
-Controls our climate and is a major factor
in shaping our landscape via erosion and
sediment transport
-The origin of all life on our planet
-Makes up 60 % of the human body’s mass
-key to many body functions-breathing, cooling, flushing, brain health
-We rely on it for drinking, cooking, bathing, washing clothes, recreation, industry, transportation mining, and the generation of electric power
-provides food-aquatic and land
-can be linked to famine, severe illnesses, millions of human deaths annually
-loss of property and infrastructure
-loss of critical wildlife habitat

Question 2

Where did water come from?

Answer 2

-ice in meteors (minority_
-rain from volcanic outgassing (majority)

Question 3

Hold old is water?

Answer 3

-could be as old as 4.6 billion years old (older than the solar system)

Question 4

Why is water important?

Answer 4

-key to survival for plants and animals
-agriculture: grows plants and feeds animals
-energy-production (hydro, steam, turbine), and cooling
-mining and manufacturing - in products and waste
-transportation and shipping
-recreation-swimming, boating fishing

Question 5

Why is water important to us?

Answer 5

-human survival
-bodies
-transport nutrients to and waste from organs and tissues
-lubricates joints and moisturizes lungs
-regulates body temperature
-water is a lifesaver but also a major threat

Question 6

Clean Water act

Answer 6

-1972
-aims to prevent, reduce, and eliminate pollution in the nation’s water in order to “restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters”

Question 7

Safe Drinking Water Act

Answer 7

1974
-main federal law that ensures the quality of Americans’ drinking water… to protect against health effects from exposure to naturally-occuring and manmade contaminants

Question 8

Regulatory Systems

Answer 8

all of these have: planning and priority setting, standard setting, permitting, monitoring and surveillance, remediation and restoration, enforcement

Question 9

What is policy?

Answer 9

-The formal expression of what elected or
appointed officials are trying to accomplish
-It is a roadmap of how to implement the law
-Elected/appointed officials typically lack expertise to successfully create/implement public
policy on their own
-Turn to the govt. bureaucracy and other scientists to
provide policy guidance
-This is being “reviewed” by SCOTUS RIGHT NOW
-Congress provided EPA with discretion to determine how much pollution is allowed in U.S. waterways and in drinking water systems
-This is the Chevron Policy being assessed by SCOTUS

Question 10

Policy Implications

Answer 10

-these have outcomes in terms of winners and losers
-promotes certain types of behavior while punishing others
-individuals or corporations that it favors are most likely to benefit or win whereas it ignores or punishes those who are likely to lose
-even the best-intended ones can have unintended consequences and may even ultimately cause harm: due to personal restrictions, higher costs to individuals, businesses, and industries
-for it to be good the benefits must outweigh the costs/restrictions