Principles of Environmental Science Practice Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering core principles, methods, major themes, and the historical stages of environmental science as presented in the lecture notes.

Environmental Science

A field that uses scientific approaches to understand complex systems, focusing on basic explanations for system functions by integrating biology, chemistry, earth science, and geography.

Observation

The use of the five senses to gather information about phenomena.

The Scientific Method

An orderly approach to asking questions, collecting observations, interpreting data, and drawing conclusions that depends on reproducibility and replication.

Quantitative Reasoning

The practice of comparing numbers and interpreting graphs to understand changes in values, such as population changes over time.

Uncertainty

The understanding of how much is unknown in order to improve confidence about what is known.

Science

The process for producing knowledge based on observations.

Probability

A measure of how likely something is to occur, usually based on previous observations or standard statistical measures.

Greenhouse gases

Heat-trapping gases, especially $CO_2$, which increased in the atmosphere from $280\,ppm$ to $410\,ppm$ in the last $200$ years.

Replacement age (Fertility)

The fertility rate of $2.1$ children per woman required for a population to stabilize.

Biodiversity Loss

The elimination of species caused by habitat destruction, over-exploitation, pollution, and the introduction of exotic organisms.

Ecosystem services

The services or resources provided by environmental systems, including provisioning, supporting, regulating, and cultural services.

Supporting services

A type of ecosystem service that includes water purification, production of food and atmospheric oxygen by plants, and decomposition of waste.

Regulating services

A type of ecosystem service including the maintenance of temperatures suitable for life by the atmosphere and carbon capture by green plants.

Cultural services

A type of ecosystem service providing recreation, aesthetic, and nonmaterial benefits.

Planetary Boundaries

The thresholds of irreversible environmental change for nine major systems; boundaries for climate change, biodiversity loss, and nitrogen cycling have already been passed.

Sustainability

A search for ecological stability and human progress that can last over the long term.

Sustainable Development

Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Human Development Index (HDI)

An annual calculation by the UN used to monitor well-being using factors such as life expectancy, years of school, gross national income, and income equity.

Indigenous peoples

The guardians of little-disturbed habitats who possess valuable ecological wisdom and safeguard biodiversity in traditional homelands.

George Perkins Marsh

Author of Man and Nature (1864), whose observations of environmental damage in the Mediterranean laid the foundation for environmental protection in North America.

Pragmatic utilitarian conservation

The policy philosophy of Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot stating that resources should be used for the greatest good, for the greatest number, for the longest time.

John Muir

First president of the Sierra Club who argued for nature preservation based on the idea that nature deserves to exist for its own sake regardless of its usefulness to humans.

Aldo Leopold

Pioneering wildlife ecologist who planted trees to restore land health and described conservation as a positive exercise of skill and insight.

Rachel Carson

Author of Silent Spring (1962), who awakened the public to the threats of pollution and toxic chemicals to humans and other species.

Modern environmentalism

The third stage of environmental history characterized by concerns extending to both natural resources and environmental pollution.

Global environmentalism

The fourth stage of environmental history, which focuses on the explicit links between environmental quality and social progress on a global scale.