APES ch 1-2

environment

everything around you, including all the living things (such as plants and animals) and the nonliving things (such as air, water, and sunlight) with which you interact.

Environmental science

an interdisciplinary study of how the earth (nature) works and has survived and thrived, how humans interact with the environment, and how we can live more sustainably. It integrates information and ideas from fields such as biology, chemistry, geology, geography, economics, political science, and ethics.

ecology

the branch of biology that focuses on how living organisms interact with the living and nonliving parts of their environment.

species

a group of organisms having a unique set of characteristics that set it apart from other groups.

ecosystem

a biological community of organisms within a defined area of land or volume of water that interact with one another and with their environment of nonliving matter and energy.

environmentalism or environmental activism

a social movement dedicated to protecting the earth’s life and its resources, practiced more in the realms of politics and ethics than in science.

scientific principles of sustainability

three science-based natural factors (solar energy, biodiversity, chemical cycling) that play key roles in the long-term sustainability of the planet’s life, based on how nature has sustained a huge variety of life on the earth for 3.8 billion years despite drastic changes in environmental conditions.

Solar energy

the sun’s energy which warms the planet and provides energy that plants use to produce nutrients.

nutrients

the chemicals that plants and animals need to survive.

Biodiversity

the variety of genes, species, ecosystems, and ecosystem processes; interactions among species provide vital ecosystem services, keep any population from growing too large, and provide ways for species to adapt to changing environmental conditions and for new species to arise.

Population bottleneck

a drastic reduction in a population's size, often due to environmental events or human activity, leading to a loss of genetic diversity

Founder effect

when a small group of individuals separates from a larger population to establish a new community, leading to a reduced genetic diversity compared to the original population

Tragedy of the commons

a situation where individuals acting rationally in their own self-interest deplete a shared resource, even though it's detrimental to the entire group

chemical cycling or nutrient cycling

the circulation of chemicals or nutrients needed to sustain life from the environment (mostly from soil and water) through various organisms and back to the environment, meaning that the wastes and decayed bodies of organisms become nutrients or raw materials for other organisms.

Sustainability

the integrating theme of the book, which involves living in a way that does not reduce the environment’s ability to support the earth’s current and future life.

natural capital

natural resources and ecosystem services that keep humans and other species alive and that support human economies.

Natural resources

materials and energy provided by nature that are essential or useful to humans, falling into three categories: inexhaustible resources, renewable resources, and nonrenewable (exhaustible) resources.

inexhaustible resource

a resource, like solar energy, that is expected to last for at least 5 billion years until the death of the star we call the sun.

renewable resource

a resource that can be used indefinitely because it is replenished through natural processes, available as long as it is not used faster than nature can renew it. Examples include forests, grasslands, fertile topsoil, fishes, clean air, and freshwater.

maximum sustainable yield

the highest rate at which people can use a renewable resource indefinitely without reducing its available supply, though difficult to establish meaningfully in the real world.

Nonrenewable or exhaustible resources

those that exist in a fixed amount, or stock, in the earth’s crust; technically renewable through geological processes over millions of years, but on the human time scale, we can use them faster than nature can replace them. Examples include fossil fuels, metallic mineral resources, and nonmetallic mineral resources.

Ecosystem services

the natural services provided by healthy ecosystems that support life and human economies at no monetary cost to us, such as purification of air and water, renewal of topsoil, pollination, and pest control.

natural capital degradation or environmental degradation

the process of wasting, depleting, and degrading much of the earth’s life-sustaining natural capital, mostly from population growth and increased resource use per person.

ecological footprint

a rough measure of the total environmental impacts of individuals, cities, and countries on the earth’s natural resources, natural capital, and life-support system.

per capita ecological footprint

the average ecological footprint of an individual in a given population or defined area.

biocapacity or biological capacity

the ability of an area’s ecosystems to regenerate the renewable resources used by a population, city, region, country, or the world, and to absorb the resulting wastes and pollution.

ecological deficit

occurs when the total ecological footprint is larger than the biocapacity, meaning people are living unsustainably by depleting natural capital instead of living off the renewable resources and ecosystem services provided by such capital.

IPAT model

a model developed by scientists Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren, stating that the environmental impact (I) of human activities is the product of three factors: population size (P), affluence or resource consumption per person (A), and the beneficial and harmful environmental effects of technologies (T).

P (in IPAT model)

population size.

A (in IPAT model)

affluence or resource consumption per person.

T (in IPAT model)

the beneficial and harmful environmental effects of technologies.

agricultural revolution

a major cultural change that began around 10,000 years ago when humans learned how to grow and breed plants and animals for food, clothing, and other purposes and began living in villages.

industrial–medical revolution

a major cultural change beginning about 300 years ago when people invented machines for large-scale production in factories, learned to get energy from fossil fuels, grew large quantities of food, and experienced medical advances leading to longer, healthier lives.

information–globalization revolution

a major cultural change that began about 50 years ago when new technologies were developed for gaining rapid access to all kinds of information and resources on a global scale.

sustainability revolution

an emerging fourth major cultural change in which we could learn to live more sustainably by avoiding degradation and depletion of the natural capital that supports all life and our economies and restoring natural capital that we have degraded.

Exponential growth

occurs when a quantity increases at a fixed percentage per unit of time, starting slowly but growing to enormous numbers because each doubling is twice the total of all earlier growth.

Full-cost pricing

finding ways to include the harmful environmental and health costs of producing and using goods and services in their market prices, which would give consumers information about the harmful environmental impacts and place a monetary value on the natural capital that supports all economies.

Win-win solutions

looking for solutions to environmental problems that involve cooperation and compromise that will benefit the largest number of people as well as the environment.

Responsibility to future generations

the ethical obligation, according to environmental ethicists, to leave the planet’s life-support systems in a condition as good as or better than what we inherited for future generations and for other species.

More-developed countries

industrialized nations with high average incomes per person, using about 70% of the world’s natural resources with 17% of the world’s population.

Less-developed countries

all other nations, most of them in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, with 83% of the world’s population using about 30% of the world’s natural resources, including middle-income, moderately developed countries and low-income, least-developed countries.

tragedy of the commons

the degradation of shared or open-access renewable resources that occurs because each user reasons that their small use or pollution is not enough to matter, leading to a cumulative effect that degrades the resource.

open-access resources

some renewable resources that are not owned by anyone and can be used by almost anyone, such as the atmosphere and the open ocean and its fish.

shared resources

examples of less open, but often shared renewable resources, such as grasslands, forests, streams, and underground bodies of water (aquifers).

nature deficit disorder

a phenomenon argued to occur when urban environments and increasing use of electronic devices isolate people from the natural world, leading to lost connectedness and potential negative health and environmental consequences.

environmental worldview

your set of assumptions and values concerning how the natural world works and how you think you should interact with the environment.

environmental ethics

what you believe about what is right and what is wrong in your behavior toward the environment.

human-centered environmental worldview

sees the natural world primarily as a support system for human life, with variations including the planetary management worldview and the stewardship worldview.

planetary management worldview

a variation of the human-centered worldview holding that humans are separate from and in charge of nature and that we should manage the earth for benefit of humans, believing technological ingenuity can find substitutes if resources are degraded or depleted.

stewardship worldview

a variation of the human-centered worldview holding that humans are separate from and in charge of nature and that we should manage the earth for benefit of humans, with a responsibility to be caring and responsible managers, or stewards, of the planet for current and future human generations.

stewards

caring and responsible managers of the planet for current and future human generations.

life-centered environmental worldview

holds that all species have value in fulfilling their ecological roles, regardless of their potential or actual use to society, and that people ought to avoid hastening the extinction of species through human activities.

earth-centered environmental worldview

holds that we are part of and live within nature, are dependent on nature, and the earth’s natural capital exists for all species, not just for humans; when we harm the earth’s life support system, we harm ourselves because everything in nature is connected.

environmentally sustainable society

a society that protects natural capital and lives on its income, meeting the current and future basic resource needs of its people in a just and equitable manner without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their basic resource needs.

natural income

the renewable resources such as plants, animals, soil, clean air, and clean water, provided by the earth’s natural capital.

Science

a field of study focused on discovering how nature works and using that knowledge to describe what is likely to happen in nature, based on the assumption that events in the natural world follow orderly cause-and-effect patterns.

scientific method

a general research process in which scientists identify a problem for study, gather relevant data, propose a hypothesis, gather data to test the hypothesis, and modify the hypothesis as needed.

data

information collected by scientists to answer their question.

scientific hypothesis

an explanation of the data scientists collected that can be tested by further observation or experiment.

model

a simplified physical or mathematical representation used by scientists to explain the behavior of some aspect of the real world and to study complex systems.

scientific theory

a well-tested and widely accepted scientific hypothesis or a group of related hypotheses, considered one of the most important and certain results of science and is based on a large body of evidence.

peer review

a process in which scientists publish details of their methods, results, and reasoning for evaluation by other scientists working in the same field (their peers), allowing scientific knowledge to advance in a self-correcting way.

scientific law or law of nature

a well-tested and widely accepted description of what we find always happening in the same way in nature.

Reliable science

consists of data, hypotheses, models, theories, and laws that are accepted by most of the scientists who are considered experts in the field under study.

Unreliable science

scientific results and hypotheses that are presented as reliable without having undergone peer review, or that are discarded because of peer review or additional research.

Tentative science

preliminary scientific results that have not undergone adequate testing and peer review, some of which may later be validated as reliable or discredited as unreliable.

Matter

anything that has mass and takes up space.

physical states (of matter)

the three forms matter can exist in at a given temperature and pressure: solid, liquid, and gas.

chemical forms (of matter)

the two forms matter can exist in: elements and compounds.

element

a fundamental type of matter with a unique set of properties that cannot be broken down into simpler substances by chemical means.

periodic table of elements

a chart where chemists have arranged the known elements based on their chemical behavior.

compounds

combinations of two or more different elements held together in fixed proportions.

atom

the smallest unit of matter into which an element can be divided and still have its distinctive chemical properties.

atomic theory

the idea that all elements are made up of atoms, the most widely accepted scientific theory in chemistry.

subatomic particles

the three types of particles (neutrons, protons, electrons) that each different type of atom contains.

neutrons

subatomic particles within an atom's nucleus that have no electrical charge.

protons

subatomic particles within an atom's nucleus that each have a positive electrical charge (+).

electrons

subatomic particles found outside an atom's nucleus in rapid motion that each have a negative electrical charge (−).

nucleus (of an atom)

the extremely small center of each atom which contains one or more protons and, in most cases, one or more neutrons.

organic compounds

chemicals containing at least two carbon atoms combined with atoms of one or more other elements (with the exception of methane), such as plastics, table sugar, vitamins, and proteins.

Complex carbohydrates

molecules consisting of two or more monomers of simple sugars linked together, such as starches and cellulose.

Proteins

large polymer molecules formed by linking together long chains of monomers called amino acids, used by living organisms for energy storage, components of the immune system, chemical messengers (hormones), structural components (hair, skin, muscle), and as enzymes.

amino acids

monomers that living organisms use to build a variety of proteins by linking them together in long chains.

Nucleic acids

large polymer molecules made by linking large numbers of monomers called nucleotides; DNA and RNA are examples that help build proteins and carry hereditary information.

nucleotides

monomers that are linked together to form nucleic acids, each consisting of a phosphate group, a sugar molecule, and one of four different nucleotide bases.

DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)

a nucleic acid molecule that helps build proteins and carries hereditary information used to pass traits from parent to offspring, consisting of two strands held together like a spiral staircase forming a double helix.

RNA (ribonucleic acid)

a nucleic acid molecule that helps build proteins and carries hereditary information.

Lipids

a chemically diverse group of large organic compounds that do not dissolve in water, including fats and oils for storing energy, waxes for structure, and steroids for producing hormones.

Cells

the fundamental structural and functional units of life; all organisms are composed of one or more cells.

cell theory

the idea that all living things are composed of cells, the most widely accepted scientific theory in biology.

genes

certain sequences of nucleotides within some DNA molecules that contain instructions, or codes, called genetic information for making specific proteins.

genetic information

instructions or codes contained in genes for making specific proteins.

trait

the coded information in each segment of DNA that passes from parents to offspring during reproduction.

chromosome

a double helix DNA molecule wrapped around one or more proteins, made up of thousands of genes.

physical change (of matter)

occurs when matter undergoes a change but there is no change in its chemical composition.

chemical change or chemical reaction

takes place when there is a change in the chemical composition of the substances involved.

chemical equation

a shorthand representation chemists use to show how chemicals are rearranged in a chemical reaction.

law of conservation of matter

a scientific law stating that whenever matter undergoes a physical or chemical change, no atoms are created or destroyed; instead, atoms, ions, or molecules can only be rearranged into different spatial patterns or chemical combinations.

Energy

the capacity to do work or to transfer heat.

work

done when any object is moved a certain distance using a certain amount of muscular force.