APES VOCABULARY CHAPTER 1

Biocapacity

The ability of a productive ecosystem to regenerate renewable resources in a given

Biodiversity

Variety of different species (species diversity), generate variability among individuals within each species (generates diversity), variety of ecosystems (ecological diversity), and functions such as energy flow and matter cycling needed for the survival of species and biological communities. (keeps populations from growing to large and helps them adapt)

Biomimicry

the scientific effort to understand, mimicry, and catalog the ingenious ways in which nature had sustained life on earth for 3.8 billion years.

Biosphere

The parts of the earth's air, water, and soil where life is found (where organisms interact with each other)

Biosphere-based model

view human economic systems as subsystems of the biosphere depends heavily on earth's irreplaceable natural resources and ecosystem services

Dependence on Solar Energy

sun's energy warms the planet and provides energy that plants use to produce nutrients. Ex: solar panels

doubling time

the amount of time for a population to double in size

doubling time in years=70/percent annual natural increase

Ecological Footprint

Amount of biologically productive land and water needed to supply a population with the renewable resources it uses and to absorb or dispose of the pollution and wastes from such resource use. using renewable resources benefits us; results in natural capital degradation; pollution and wastes

Ex: Pollution and wastes

Ecology

Biological science that studies relationships between living organisms and their environment (both living and nonliving parts)

Ecosystem

One or more communities of different species interacting with one another and with the chemical and physical factors making up their nonliving environment

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

Ex: ponds, rainforests, desert

Ecosystem Services

Natural services or natural capital that support life in earth and are essential to the quality of human life and the functioning of the world's economies (human economies; no cost to us)

Ex: forests purify, air and water, reduce soil erosion, regulate climate, recycle nutrients

Economic Growth

increase in capacity of a nation, state, city, or company to provide goods and services to people

Ex: books;education

Economics

social science that deals with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services to satisfy people's needs and wants

most use three types of capital/resources

Environment

All external conditions, factors, matter, and energy, living and nonliving, that affect any living organism or other specified system (everything around us)

Ex: plants, animals, air, water, and sunlight

Environmental Degradation/Natural Capital Degradation

depletion or destruction of a potentially renewable resource

Ex: 83% of earth's land surface (growing crops, grazing livestock, etc.) Destroying forests and grasslands, withdrawing water, littering, pollutants

Environmental Ethics

Human beliefs about what is right or wrong with how we treat the environment

Ex: why should we care about the environment?

Are we the most important species on the planet or are we just another one of earth's millions of forms of life?

Should we seek to live more sustainable, and if so how?

Environmentalism/Environmental Activism

Social movement dedicated to protecting the earth's life-support systems for us and other species.

Ex: consumption of ecosystems, waste dumping

Environmental Policy

Consists of environmental, laws, regulations, and policies not designed, implemented and enforced by one or more government agency

Environmental Science

Interdisciplinary study that uses information and ideas from the physical sciences (such as biology, chemistry & geology) with those from the social sciences (such as economies, politics, and ethics) to learn how nature works, how we interact with the environment and how we can help to deal with environmental problems.

study of connections in nature

how the earth (nature) works and has survived and thrived

how humans interact with the environment

how we can live more sustainably

Environmental Worldview

Set of assumptions and beliefs about how people think the world works, what they think their role in the world should be, and what they believe is the right and wrong environmental behavior

how natural world works and how to interact with it

determined partly by environmental ethics

Ex: environmental wisdom, species centered

exponential growth

Growth in which some quantity, such as population size or economic output increases at a constant rate per units of time (fixed % per unit of time) (curve)

Ex: 0.5 or 2% per year

Full-cost pricing

including harmful environmental and health costs of producing and using goods and services in their market prices

gives consumers information about harmful environment impacts of products

Ex: direct cost $500 indirect cost $1000

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

Annual market value of all goods and services produced by all firms and organizations, foreign and domestic, operating within a country

high-throughput economy

attempts to boost economic growth by increasing the flow of matter and energy resources through the economy system to produce more goods and services

human capital

physical and mental talents of the people who provide labor, organizational, management skills and innovations

Ex: communication skills, teaching

inexhaustible (perpetual) resource

renewed continuously

Ex: solar energy, expected to last at least 5 billion years

Less Developed Country

Countries that has low-to moderate industrialization and low-to-moderate per capita GDP

Ex: mostly in Africa, Asia and Latin America

low-throughput (low-waste) economy

work with nature by:

- reusing and recycling most nonrenewable matter resources

- using renewable resources no faster than natural processes can replenish them

- reducing resource waste by using matter and energy resources more efficiently

- reducing environmentally harmful forms of consumption

- promoting pollution prevention and waste reduction

manufactured capital

machinery, material and factories people create using natural resources

Ex: tools, technology, machines

More Developed Country

Country that is highly industrialized and has a high per capita GDP (high average income per person)

Ex: US, Japan, Canada, Australia, Germany, and most European countries

natural capital

Natural resources and natural services that keep us and other species alive and support our economies (produced by earth's natural processes)

Ex: minerals, water, fossil fuels

natural income

Renewable resources

Ex: plants, animals, soil, clean air, and clean water

natural resources

Materials such as air, water, and soil, and energy in nature that are essential or useful to humans

falls into 3 categories:

1. inexhaustible resources

2. renewable resources

3. nonrenewable resources

Nonrenewable/exhaustible resources

Resource that exists in a fixed amount (stack) in the earth's crust and has the potential for renewal by geological, physical, and chemical processes taking place over hundreds of millions to billions of years (use faster than nature can replace)

Ex: fossil fuel energy resources(oil, coal, & natural gases)

metallic mineral resources (copper & aluminum)

nonmetallic mineral resources (salt & sand)

chemical cycling (nutrient cycling)

The circulation of chemicals necessary for life from the environment through organisms and back to the environment

- continually recycle chemicals needed to survive

- no land plants, humans or land animals without it

Ex: earth recycling, energy from sun, decayed bodies of organisms

Nutrients

Any chemical an organism most takes in to live, grow or reproduce (need to survive)

Ex: carbs, minerals, fats, proteins, fruits/vegetables

per capita ecological footprint

average ecological footprint of an individual in a given county or area

Ex: 2012 increased by 50%

per capita GDP

The GDP divided by the country's total population at midyear

Ex: Luxembourg $132,370 (high)

percent annual natural increase

number of births minus number of deaths per year

Ex: 28 births within 1000 people (crude birth rate)

17 deaths per 1000 people (crude death rate)

poverty

clothing, and shelter (lack of moneY

1/3 or 2.6 billion people lived in poverty (2015) ($3.10 per day)

1 billion extreme poverty ($1.90 per day)

private lands

Lands owned by individuals and businesses

Purpose: growing crops, grazing livestock, harvesting timber, mining, housing, and other buildings

public lands

Lands typically owned jointly by the citizens of a country, but managed by the government

Ex: National Post System, National Forest System, National Wildlife Reserve, National Wilderness Preservation System, Bureau of Land Management

renewable resource

Resource that can be replenished rapidly (hours to several decades) through natural processes as long as it is not used up faster than it is replenished.

Ex: forests, grasslands, fertile topsoil, fishes, clean air