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• environment: everything around us, living and nonliving

• environmental science: an interdisciplinary study of how humans interact with the environment: natural & social sciences - humanities

• ecology: how everything interacts w/ each other - environment

• organism: living things

• species: a group of organisms that share distinct characteristics

• ecosystem: a set of organisms that interact with each other and their environment within a set space

• environmentalism: political/social movement to protect the environment

scientific purples of sustainability: lessons from nature

a) dependence on solar energy: warmth, nutrients, water, and wind power · nutrients: chemicals for life processes

b) Biodiversity: variety in organisms; supports but limits growth, pro-adaptation

c) chemical/nutrient cycling: finite resources must be continuously reused

• natural capital: resources + services that support life - activity · natural resource: materials and energy in nature used by humans (renewable- nonrenewable · Natural/ecosystem services: processes that occur in a healthy ecosystem · degradation: using natural capital too much too fast

social sciences principles of sustainability: include full cost pricing, win-win solutions, and responsibility to the future

a) full cost pricing: adjust market paces to reflect the environmental cost

b) win-win solutions: solutions with the best outcome for people and the planet

c) responsibility to the future: protecting the environment for future generations

• resource: obtainable from nature for use inexhaustible: continuous supply renewable: replenished in a cycle that can be disrupted (OB)

• sustainable yield: rate of use of renewable resources indefinitely

• nonrenewable: finite supply for consumption who renewal

• environmental degradation: human wasting, degrading, and depleting the earth

• pollution: contamination (physical or other) that harms health survival

• Point sources: 1, identifiable source of pollution

• nonpoint sources: disposed, difficult to ID and treat

• Pollution clean-up: cleaning and diluting existing pollutants tragedy of the commons: common resources are degraded a harmfully privatized affluence: wealth of more developed nations

• eco-footprint: the amount of resources to sustain a lifestyle

• per-capita eco-footprint: average toolpant per citizen

• Impact: Population * Affluence * Technology

• affluence trade-off: More consumption = bigger footprint but more wealth access to education = pollution reduction

• poverty: a state of being unable to fulfill basic needs (food, water, healthcare, shelter) environmentally

• harmful subsidies: benefit businesses at the expense of environment

• subsidies shift: taxing pollution waste more and goods/income less Nature deficit disorder: increased health issues due to nature isolation