Environmental Geology and History Vocabulary

A comprehensive vocabulary review set covering key definitions, worldviews, economic concepts, and historical figures from the lecture notes on Environmental Geology.

Environmental Geology

The application of the scientific method to an interdisciplinary study of life systems, earth history, and connections in the natural environment.

Environmentally Sustainable Society

A society that meets the current and future basic resource needs of its people in a just and equitable manner without compromising the ability of future generations and other species to meet their basic needs.

Exponential Growth

Growth in which a quantity increases at a fixed percentage per unit of time.

Carrying Capacity

The maximum population of a particular species that a given habitat can support over a given period.

Economic Growth

An increase in the capacity of a country to provide people with goods and services, often measured using Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

The annual market value of all goods and services produced in a country.

Economic Development

The improvement of living standards through economic growth.

Globalization

The interconnectedness of the world culturally, economically, and in other spheres that allows capitalistic societies to expand markets and achieve greater economic growth.

Government Subsidies

Financial assistance such as cash, tax breaks, land, procurement policies, loan guarantees, or risk assumptions provided to industries like resource extraction and chemical companies.

Natural Capital (Natural Resources)

The earth's materials (goods) and processes (services) that sustain life on earth and are not traditionally valued in the economy.

Renewable Resources

Resources that can be replaced indefinitely because they are replenished through natural processes.

Nonrenewable Resources

Resources that exist in a fixed quantity on the human time scale.

Planetary Management Worldview

A human-centered worldview asserting that humans are separate from and in charge of nature, nature exists mainly to meet human needs, and technology can manage earth's life-support systems.

Stewardship Worldview

A human-centered worldview holding that humans should manage the earth for their benefit, but have an ethical responsibility to be caring and responsible managers.

Environmental Wisdom Worldview

An earth-centered worldview asserting that humans are part of and dependent on nature, earth's life-support systems exist for all species, and success requires learning how the Earth sustains itself.

Environmentalism

A life-centered social movement dedicated to protecting Earth's life and resources, asserting that all living organisms have intrinsic value and rights regardless of utility to humans.

Ecofeminism

An earth-centered political movement that reasons the domination and exploitation of women, children, minorities, and nature are intimately connected and mutually reinforcing.

George Perkins Marsh

An 1800s figure who published Man and Nature, calling for resource conservation and questioning the idea that the country's resources were inexhaustible.

John Muir

Leader of the preservation movement in the late 1800s and founder of the Sierra Club, who advocated for protecting large areas of public wilderness from human exploitation.

President Theodore Roosevelt

A conservationist U.S. President (1858-1919) who designated public land as federal wildlife refuges, national forests, and reserves.

Aldo Leopold

Founder of the U.S. Wilderness Society and author of A Sand County Atlas, who laid the groundwork for the Environmental Ethics subdiscipline.

Rachel Carson

Author of the 1962 book Silent Spring, which documented pesticide pollution (such as DDT) and catalyzed the modern environmental movement.

Wise-Use Movement

A movement organized by large private companies starting in the 1980s to weaken environmental laws.