envisci midterm

Vitamin A fortified GMO?

Golden rice

What Canadian mine was shut down and fined $11.5 million in 2018 due to environmental infractions?

Barrick Gold Corp's Pascua-Lama gold mine (in Chile).

What causes a lot of atmospheric particulate matter (think Sudbury)?

Smelting

What international 1987 legislation banned CFCs and helped the ozone layer recover?

The Montreal Protocol

What caused the hole in the ozone layer?

CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons)

What does HADD stand for?

Harmful alteration, destruction or disruption of fish habitat (May also be called Habitat alteration, destruction or disruption)

What caused the dust bowl?

Droughts, heat, and bad farming practices (e.g. over-plowing -> erosion)

What legislation was brought in by the Canadian government following the dust bowl?

Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act

Explain off-lease mining.

Damage away from the area of the lease / Often includes infrastructure sites / Off-lease damage is greater than on-lease

Define carrying capacity

Population that can be supported indefinitely.

Chemical that relies on sunlight/heat to increase

Ground level ozone

How does mercury bioaccumulate?

Atmospheric mercury comes down through the water cycle, ends up in fish, then goes up the food chain.

What is responsible for atmospheric mercury?

Small-scale gold mining

Explain cap-and-trade.

• Cap on how much a company can emit

• If you're under the cap, you can trade with companies that are over the cap for money

• Cap is lowered every year.

Cap-and-trade really helped get rid of...

Sulphur dioxide, which caused acid rain

This end-of-life option for plastics has been used more than recycling.

Incineration

This legislation was brought in to reduce the number of microbeads in cosmetic products in Canada.

Microbeads in Toiletries Act

Runoff from which crops was the source of the 2011 Lake Erie algal bloom?

Maize (corn) and soybeans

Name two mechanisms that lead to rising sea levels.

1. Thermal expansion (water expands with warming)

2. Glaciers melting (changes to the cryosphere)

Name some sources of phosphates that drive eutrophication.

1. Runoff from agricultural fields (fertilizers), laundry detergents, soap

This common additive at wastewater treatment plants helps prevent eutrophication.

Ferric solution - it binds to phosphates in the wastewater.

What are some issues with sea lice?

1. Fish illness and mortality, spreads fast

How can sea lice be prevented?

1. Lumpfish provide a biological control, government monitoring

How are sea lice currently monitored?

A mixture of industry and government counts. (Industry always undercounts - this is a conflict of interest.)

In this carbon tax design, individual citizens are given back the money accumulated from the carbon tax

Per-capita dividends

Which events kicked off environmental movements in the US vs Canada?

• US: The publishing of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962)

• Air of Death doc

What 3 restrictions help Canada manage its fisheries and prevent overfishing?

• Restricting fishing times, methods, habitat damage

Which type of meat is the worst in terms of conversion rate?

Beef

China put this plan into action to reduce PM 2.5 (particulate matter 2.5 microns in diameter)

• Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan

How does coral bleaching happen?

• Warm temps causes coral to spit out symbiotic partners called dinoflagellates

These five air pollutants are tracked by the provincial monitoring network

1. Particulate matter, no2, ground level ozone, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide

Who performs environmental impact assessments?

Impact Assessment Agency of Canada; Canadians and Indigenous peoples

What is the role of an environmental impact assessment?

When a corporation wants to create something (e.g. mine) they have to make a report on environmental problems that may arise and what mitigation strategies. Helps predict damages

What are some problems with mountaintop mining?

• Overburden dumped into valleys, clogs streams and freshwater

How do we extract coal?

• Sub-surface pit (dangerous, collapses), open pit mining, mountaintop

2 ways we use coal:

Heat and fuel

What responsibility is shared by federal and provincial governments?

Environmental assessments

What strategies did the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration use to limit soil erosion in the prairies? (remember that they intended to support farmers, not punish them)

• Creating reliable water supplies for farmers, experimental farms

The Green Revolution was associated with...

....Massive increases in agricultural productivity due to fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation. (Green Revolution 2.0 is GMOs)

What fertilizer emissions (chemical) are Canadian regulators trying to control?

Nitrous oxide

The Water Quality Act controlled phosphorus inputs from what?

Wastewater treatment plants and detergents (but not agriculture)

Besides crop runoff, what type of weather was said to contribute to the 2011 algal blooms in Lake Erie?

Rain caused fertilizer to enter water system; Calm wind conditions allowed the phosphorus to settle

Which industry polluted the English-Wabigoon river system with mercury?

Dryden pulp and paper

What is the purpose of UV lights at the wastewater treatment plants?

Destroys any extra bacteria in the water effluent (water leaving the plant)

Which international organization helps administer the Minamata convention?

UNEP - United Nations Environment Programme

Provide some examples of media events that drew attention to environmentalism.

• Silent Spring, air of death, stop sucking campaign

Canada has a massive pollutant registry that requires us to report air and water pollutants based on size. What is this registry called?

NPRI: National Pollutant Release Inventory, under the authority of CEPA: Canadian Environmental Protection Act

What causes acid rain? Describe the process.

• Mostly anthropogenic causes, burning fossil fuels

What are some issues with acid rain?

• Toxic, especially for aquatic life (also goes up the food chain to birds), reduces nutrients, hard for trees to absorb water

What does ground-level ozone do to plants?

Reduces photosynthesis / ability for carbon storage, which is bad for mitigating pollution

Why is it bad to eat too much fish in a week?

Mercury poisoning

How does the Environmental Damages Fund work?

Takes money made from fines and violations of environmental law and puts it into green initiatives, such as restoration/reclamation.

Where does overburden from mountaintop mining get dumped?

Nearby valleys - clogging streams and causing acid mine drainage.

How much of Canada's electricity grid is powered by coal?

9%

How does the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) primarily track greenhouse gas emissions?

Each country submits their own emissions. Not necessarily accurate...

What's going on with mercury in the Indigenous community of Grassy Narrows?

• Mercury from Dryden pulp and paper company has polluted their water

Describe impacts of particulate matter.

• PM 2.5 in particular is harmful to human health, contributing to a range of illnesses from mild respiratory problems to emphysema, pneumonia, and premature death

Describe impacts of ground-level ozone.

• Irritates human eyes, nose, throat, and lungs

How is ground-level ozone formed?

• Volatile organic compounds (carbon-containing compounds, such as vehicle exhaust) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) which react in the presence of sunlight and heat

Describe an impact of sulphur dioxide.

Sulphur dioxide, along with nitric acid, can cause acid rain.

Describe impacts of carbon monoxide.

• Vehicle fuels

Describe impacts of nitrous oxide.

• 300x more potent than CO2

What is the purpose of a life cycle assessment (LCA)?

• Life cycle assessments show the environmental impacts of every aspect of the production process.

Explain the process of eutrophication. What substance drives it? How do we know?

• Eutrophication is an excess of nutrients that causes algae and bacteria to grow at uncontrollable rates

Describe impacts of methane.

• Primary contributor to ground-level ozone, more potent than co2

Where does methane often come from? (Several potential answers)

• landfills, especially organic waste, coal mining, overpop

Fisheries

Federal

Rivers, lakes, drinking water and waste water

Provincial; drinking and waste water are commonly delegated to municipal watersheds

Air emissions from industry (mining and manufacturing)

Provincial

Oceans and marine pollution + protection

Federal

Emissions of toxic substances like GHGs

Federal

Emissions from aviation and international transport

Federal

Most wildlife at risk

Provincial

Waste management and recycling

Provincial

What are three ways fishery restrictions (re: times, methods, and habitat damage) are enforced?

Fines, seizure (of fish, fishing equipment or license), and imprisonment

What pesticide did Silent Spring take aim at?

DDT

What did the Montreal Protocol do?

• Internationally agreed to ban CFCs

How did budget Bill C-38 (2012) change the Fisheries Act and other environmental protections that were in place? Why did the Conservative government want this?

• Involved the removal of HADD, which removed habitat protection from infrastructure such as mining

What are some ways to manage nutrients while farming?

• Be careful with NPK fertilizers, as plants don't take all those nutrients up and runoff could lead to eutrophication

• crop rotation reduces strain on soil. Government satellites spy on this

What's wrong with pesticides?

• Can kill beneficial and/or native species

• Can kill predators of the pests

What are some things genetic modification can do for crops?

• Increase crop yield and size

• Increase certain nutrients

What is the most valuable aquaculture product in Canada?

Salmon

How are larval fish fed in aquaculture?

Microalgae is grown in tubes

What do people working in aquaculture have to step into before working with the tanks to avoid outside parasites coming in?

Cleaning solution / bleach

How do people working in aquaculture isolate the fish that have the best growth potential for their breeding systems?

Fish are tagged so that the ones that seem to grow the fastest are isolated and bred

Some issues with aquaculture?

• Sea lice

• Overexploitation of fish, big trawlers

• Feed can cause eutrophication

London Landfill: How is methane prevented from leaking out of cells (or from being created at all)?

• Cells are dug in clay to trap gases

Around what percent of landfill gas is methane?

50%

How does the Minamata Convention (UNEP) plan to control mercury?

• Control mercury supply and trade

• Phase-out and phase-down of mercury in products

• Control air emissions and releases to land and water

• Controls on small scale gold mining

• Work on storage, waste, and contamination

Conservation authorities are funded by the government but not a part of them. They manage watersheds. They make report cards and manage floods and water in parks. What is the name of our conversation authority?

Upper Thames River Conservation Authority

Describe the sewage treatment process.

1. Raw sewage through filtering grates so we can extract water

What are the 5 components of the earth system?

Lithosphere: Rocks and soil

Hydrosphere: Water

Atmosphere: Air and everything in it

Biosphere: All living things

Cryosphere: Ice

What are semidiurnal tides?

Two high tides and two low tides each day