Text Book Definitions Flashcards
(72 cards)
I = PAT, where
• I is the impact of any group or nation;
• P is population size;
• A is per capita affuence, as measured by consumption;
• T is technology employed in supplying that consumption
Exponential growth
Human population growth has accelerated at an exponential rate, which makes
the problems especially urgent.
the three pillars of sustainability:
environmental, social, and economic
ecological footprint
a measure of how fast individuals or populations use resources and
generate waste in comparison to biocapacity
biocapacity
how rapidly nature can replenish the resources and absorb the waste
collectively humans are consuming resources and generating waste so rapidly that it would take how many Eathrs to kept up?
1.75 earths to keep pace over
time.
impoundment
Impoundments cover acres and can hold millions of gallons of sludge containing dangerous heavy metals such as mercury, lead, and arsenic, along with a variety of carcinogenic compounds
Why are chemical pesticides necessary?
because monocultures are less pest resistant
than biologically diverse plantings.
carbon sequestration
(the removal and storage of atmospheric CO2) and rainforest rapidly disappearing
planned obsolescence
intentionally designing products to have a limited lifespan so that consumers would have to intermittently
perceived obsolescence,.
consumers’ feeling that a perfectly functional
item needs replacing simply because it is dated or out of fashion
Anthropocene
to signify the scale at which human activity is altering the planet
permafrost,
a thick layer of rock, soil, sediments, and ice that
stays frozen for years at a time, sometimes for tens of thousands or hundreds
of thousands of years. The permafrost holds the remains of plants and animals
that have not decomposed.
adaptive features
; that is, those that enhanced survival and reproduction, enabling the transmission of those features to offspring.
Dominant social paradigm
Equating progress with growth is one of the ways of thinking that together comprise the dominant social paradigm (DSP) in industrialized culture (Pirages & Ehrlich, 1974). Although any culture might have a dominant social paradigm, in this text, the term is used to refer specifcally to the worldview that spurred industrial development in the Western world and has now spread to other industrialized nations
Scientific racism
scientifc racism, the pseudoscientifc attempt to group humanity into categories such as civilized and savage
Our coverage of the roots of the DSP will be limited to four of its funda- mental assumptions:
- Humans are separate from, and superior to, nature.
- Nature can and should be controlled.
- Individuals have a right to maximum economic gain.
- Progress equals growth.
Tran- scendentalists.
Tran- scendentalists rejected materialistic values and the utilitarian view of nature.
Transcendentalism was also characterized by the rejection of social inequali- ties based on race, gender, and class.
What were the first environmentalist concerned about
the frst urban environmentalists were concerned about the emerging problems of water contamination, air pollution, lack of adequate sanitation, solid and hazardous waste disposal, and occupational dangers faced by factory laborers who worked with toxic substances.
When was the green decade and what did they do
Some environmental historians refer to the 1970s as the green decade, because it was shortly after Earth Day that some major policy changes took place, including (but not limited to) the formation of the United States Environ- mental Protection Agency (EPA), and passage of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Endangered Species Act.
What is colony collapse disorder
A large percentage of losses each year are thought to be due to a mix of new patho- gens and parasites, contact with incapacitating chemical insecticides, and habitat stressors such as lack of plant diversity, and reduced access to clean water, a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder.
What is biomagnification
where biomagnifcation occurs: Plankton
digest particles, small fsh eat plankton, big fsh eat small fsh, and we love to eat the big fsh like tuna and halibut, which now have elevated levels of mercury in their delicious fatty tissue
How do industrial systems tend to function ?
In a linear manner- For example, in industrial farming, nutrients are extracted from the soil repeatedly until it can no longer provide any more, at which point synthetic chemicals are added or the now-exhausted feld is abandoned in favor of one that still has some life left.
What is aquatic hypoxia
Their decomposition consumes oxygen from the water, lowering the concentration below the level necessary to support most animal life; this is called aquatic hypoxia.
