Environmental Science Chapter 1 Study Guide – Flashcards
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What are the two primary areas of focus of environmental science?
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How we use natural resources, how our actions alter the environment.
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What are the primary goals of environmental science?
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To understand and solve environmental problems.
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Describe the characterestics of hunter-gatherer societies.
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People who obtain food by collecting plants and hunting wild animals or scavenging their remains.
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What type of impact did hunter-gatherers have on the environment?
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Set fires to prairies and prevented the growth of trees, helped spread plants to new areas.
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Describe the impact of the agricultural revolution on populations and the environment.
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The agricultural revolution allowed the human population to grow at unprecedented rates. Habitat was destroyed. Soil loss, floods, and water shortages occured.
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Describe the impact of the industrial revolution on populations and the environment.
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The industrial revolution allowed for populations in urban areas to grow, and pollution and habitat loss became much more common.
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What has improved the quality of life of our populations?
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Light bulbs, agriculture productivity. Sanitation, nutrition, and medical care improvements.
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What has beens sacrificied along the way of this imporvement in the quality of life?
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The well-being of the environment.
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Describe the earth as a closed system.
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The only thing that enteres Earth's atmosphere in large amounts is energy from the sun, and the only thing that leaves in large amounts is heat.
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What are the three scales that environmental problems can occur?
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Local-your community buying a new landfill. Regional-a polluted river over 1,000 miles away affecting the region's water. Global-depletion of the ozone layer.
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What is the effect of population growth on our resources?
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Producing enough food for large populations has environmental consequences such as habitat destruction and pesticide pollution.
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What is a natural resource?
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Natural resources are any natural materials that are used by humans, such as water, petroleum, minerals, forests, and animals.
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What is a renewable resource?
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Renewable resources can be replaced relatively quickly by natural process, such as energy from the sun, water, wood, soil, or air.
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What is a nonrenewable resource?
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Nonrenewable resources form at a much slower rate than they are consumed, such as metals (iron, aluminum, copper), nonmetallic materials such as salt, sand and clay, fossil fuels.
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Would sunlight entering the earth's atmosphere be considered a closed or open system?
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Open.
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What is pollution?
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Pollution is an undesirable change in the natural environment that is caused by the introduction of substances that were harmful to living organisms or by excessive wastes, heat, noise, or radiation.
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What are biodegradable pollutants?
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Pollutants that can be broken down by natural process, such as human sewage or newspapers.
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What are nondegradable pollutants?
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Pollutants that cannot be broken down by natural processes, such as mercury, lead, and some kinds of plastics.
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What is meant by loss of biodiversity?
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Decreasing of number and variety of species that live in an area.
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What is extinction?
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When a species disappears from the earth entirely.
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What is mass extinction?
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Large-scale extinctions.
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Are life forms natural resources?
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Yes.
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What is the lesson of the Tragedy of the Commons?
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We must focus on the long-term welfare of society instead of the short-term interest of individuals.
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What is supply and demand?
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States that the greater the demand for a limited supply of something, the more that something is worth.
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What is a cost benefit analysis?
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Balances the cost of the action against the benefits one expects from it.
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What is a risk assessment?
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A tool that helps us create cost-effective ways to protect our health and the environment.
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What are the characteristics of a developed country?
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Developed countries have higher average incomes, slower population growht, diverse industrial economies, and stronger social support systems.
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What are the characterestics of a developing country?
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Developing countries have lower average incomes, simple and agriculture based economies, and rapid population growth.
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Describe population and consumpition, and the pressures they exert on our resources.
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The human population in some areas is growing too quickly for the local environment to support, and people are using up, wasting, or polluting many resources faster than they can be renewed, replaces, or cleaned up. With so many people and so few resources, the exisiting resoruces are used up completely until there is nothing left.
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What are the consumption trends in developed countries?
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Developed nations use up about 75% of the world's resources, even though they only make up about 20% of the world's population.
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What is an ecological footprint?
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Shows the productive area of Earth needed to support one person in a particular country.
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What must we do to attain a sustainable world?
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All parts of society, individual citizens, industry and government must cooperate.
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Define sustainability.
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The condition in which human needs are met in such a way that a human population can surivive indefinitely.
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