Chapter 1 - Science and Sustainability Flashcards
Natural resources
Any of the various substances and energy sources that we take from our environment and that we need in order to survive.
Environmental science
The study of how the natural world works, how our environment affects us, and how we affect the environment.
Renewable natural resources
Natural resources that are virtually unlimited or that are replenished by the environment over relatively short periods.
Non-renewable natural resources
Natural resources with limited supply and are formed relatively slowly compared to renewable natural resources.
Ecosystem services
Supports life, and makes economic activity possible. For example, ecosystems naturally purify air and water, cycle nutrients, provide for plants to be pollinated by animals, and recycle the waste that we make.
Agricultural revolution
Humans transition from hunter gatherer to farmers (happened 10,000 years ago).
Industrial revolution
A shift from rural life, animal-powered agriculture towards an urban society provisioned by the mass production of factory- made goods and powered by fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels
Non-renewable energy sources including oil, coal; and natural gas.
Ecological footprint
Expresses environmental impact in terms of the cumulation area of biologically produced land and water required to provide the resources a person or population consumed and to dispose of or recycle the waste the person or population produces.
Overshoot
The amount by which humanity’s resource use, as measured by its ecological footprint, has surpassed earths long-term capacity to support us.
Sustainability
A guiding principle of environmental science entailing conservation if resources maintaining functional ecological systems, and developing long term solution, such that earth can sustain our civilization and all life for the future, allowing our decedents to live at least as well as we lived.
