Topic 1 - Foundations (Geography SL)

Perspective

The viewpoint on an issue shaped by personal background, location, or role. Example: An Amazonian indigenous villager and a foreign logging executive view forest clearing very differently.

Worldview

The broad, core background beliefs shaped by your culture, religion, family, wealth, and life experiences. Example: "I believe humans are meant to steward the Earth" or "I believe economic growth is the ultimate goal."

Environmental Value System (EVS)

A worldview or "lens" that shapes how an individual or society evaluates environmental issues. It operates as a system with inputs (culture, education, media) and outputs (decisions, perspectives) and includes ecocentric, anthropocentric, and technocentric mindsets.

Ecocentrism

A nature-centered view: nature comes first and humans should consume less. Example: Setting aside wilderness areas where human access is completely banned.

Anthropocentrism

A human-centered view: humans should sustainably manage nature using laws and policy. Example: Setting international fishing quotas to prevent bluefin tuna collapse.

Technocentrism

A technology-centered view: technology and economic growth will solve environmental problems. Example: Using giant carbon-capture machines to pull greenhouse gases from the air.

Intrinsic Value

The worth something has just by existing, not because humans can use it. Example: Protecting a deep-sea snail even if it has no commercial value.

Biorights

The idea that all living things have a moral right to exist free from human destruction. Example: Believing polar bears deserve ice habitat regardless of human economic desires.

N.G.O.

Independent, non-profit organisations that work to achieve a particular social, environmental, or humanitarian goal rather than being controlled by a government. Example: Greenpeace is an NGO that campaigns on environmental issues such as climate change, deforestation, and ocean protection.

System

A set of connected parts working together as one unit. Example: A tropical rainforest where soil, plants, animals, and rain interact.

Stores

A place where energy or matter is kept or built up. Example: Carbon stored inside Amazon trees or fresh water held in a glacier.

Flow

The movement of energy or matter through a system, represented by an arrow in a diagram. There are two types: transfers and transformations. Example: Nitrogen moving through food chains or heat radiating from oceans.

Transfer

A flow where matter or energy moves from one place to another without changing its form. Example: A river carrying sediment from mountain rock down to an estuary.

Transformation

A flow where matter or energy changes its chemical state or form. Example: Forest plants converting sunlight into chemical glucose during photosynthesis.

Open System

A system that lets both energy and matter in and out. Example: A natural pond receiving rainwater and losing organic leaf litter downstream.

Closed System

A system that lets energy in and out but keeps matter locked inside. Example: Planet Earth taking in solar energy and radiating heat without exchanging significant amounts of matter with space.

Negative Feedback Loop

A self-correcting process that counteracts change to restore balance. Example: Increased prey increases predator numbers, which reduces prey numbers back toward stable levels, such as rabbits and foxes.

Positive Feedback Loop

A process that amplifies change and pushes a system further away from its original state. Example: Melting Arctic sea ice reveals dark ocean, which absorbs more heat and causes more ice to melt.

Steady-State Equilibrium

A state of balance where inputs equal outputs, so overall conditions stay roughly constant. Example: A climax forest maintaining stable total biomass despite trees dying and growing.

Tipping Point

The point at which a small change can cause a system to shift or collapse into a new state. Example: Global warming thawing Arctic permafrost, releasing greenhouse gases that accelerate further warming.

Resilience

How well a system can withstand a disturbance and recover to its original or stable state. Example: A mangrove forest regenerating quickly after a severe tropical hurricane.

Emergent Properties

New features that appear only when individual parts work together as a whole system. Example: Nutrient cycling that occurs only when soil microbes, fungi, and plants interact together.

Model

A simplified picture, diagram, or equation used to represent real life. Example: A food web diagram showing energy transfer through a savannah ecosystem.

Sustainability

The extent to which practices allow for the long-term viability of a system. Example: Using natural resources at a rate that allows them to replenish naturally.

Sustainable Development

Meeting present human needs without destroying natural systems for future generations. Example: Transitioning a national power grid from coal power to wind and solar energy.

Ecological Footprint

How much biologically productive land and water a population needs to supply resources and absorb waste. Example: The high resource area required to support a high-consuming city like Dubai.

Biocapacity

The total amount of resources nature can naturally produce and the waste it can absorb each year. Example: The total fish yield a country's coastal waters can safely produce annually.

Environmental Justice

The principle that all people deserve equal protection from environmental hazards and fair access to clean resources regardless of wealth or identity. Example: Ensuring low-income communities have the same access to clean drinking water and green spaces as wealthy neighborhoods.

Planetary Boundaries

Nine critical environmental limits that Earth must stay within to avoid destabilising the planet's systems. Example: Keeping atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations within safe limits to reduce the risk of irreversible climate change.

Doughnut Economics

A framework designed to meet everyone's basic needs without exceeding Earth's ecological limits. Example: Ensuring universal access to nutritious food while preventing agricultural deforestation.

Circular Economy

An economic system where products and materials are reused, repaired, refurbished, or recycled to minimise waste. Example: Recycling industrial copper and electronic parts back into new manufacturing cycles.

Environmental Sustainability

Using and managing natural resources at a rate that allows them to naturally replace themselves and ecosystems to recover. Example: Harvesting timber from a forest at a rate equal to or lower than the forest's natural growth rate.

Social Sustainability

Creating and maintaining social structures, such as health, education, and equity, that support human well-being and allow societies to thrive over time. Example: Guaranteeing clean drinking water and healthcare access to low-income communities as well as wealthy ones.

Economic Sustainability

Creating economic systems that meet human needs without depleting the natural resources required for the future. Example: Investing in solar energy manufacturing jobs rather than expanding finite fossil fuel extraction.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

An economic measure of the total financial value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a year. Example: A country increasing its national output by harvesting more timber and selling more industrial equipment.

Green GDP

An economic metric that adjusts standard GDP by subtracting the financial costs of environmental degradation and natural capital depletion. Example: Deducting the clean-up costs of oil spills and lost timber reserves from a nation's total economic output.

UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs)

A collection of 17 interlinked global goals created by the UN to balance economic growth, social equity, and environmental protection by 2030. Example: Goal 14 calling for the protection of marine ecosystems from land-based plastic pollution.

IGO

An Intergovernmental Organization involving multiple countries that can coordinate policies and actions. Example: The UN (United Nations) or WHO (World Health Organization).

Cryosphere

Regions of Earth where water exists in frozen form, including ice and snow. The cryosphere is also involved in the ice-albedo feedback.

Hydrosphere

All areas of Earth containing water, including oceans, rivers, lakes, groundwater, glaciers, and other freshwater systems.

Biosphere

The region of Earth containing living organisms, ecosystems, and biodiversity, including plant and animal populations.

Geosphere

The solid parts of Earth, including rocks, soils, minerals, nutrients, and Earth's crust.

Anthroposphere

The part of Earth associated with human activities, populations, settlements, technology, and human systems.

Atmosphere

The layer of gases surrounding Earth.

Natural Income

The yield or harvest obtained from natural resources without reducing the underlying stock of natural capital.

Natural Capital

The stock of natural resources on Earth, including rocks, water, air, soil, and living organisms. It also includes natural processes and ecosystem services that support life, such as photosynthesis and the water cycle.