Chapter 1: An Introduction to Environmental Science

1. Chapter 1: An Introduction to Environmental Science

2. Section 1: Our Environment

3. Environmental scientists study how the natural world works, and how humans and the environment affect each other. • The environment includes all the living and nonliving things with which organisms interact. • Includes continents, oceans, clouds, icecaps, animals, plants, forests, and farms as well as buildings, urban centers, and houses.

4. Humans and the Environment • Humans are part of nature. • We interact with our environment and rely on the planet for everything we need – air, water, food, and shelter. • Without a healthy environment, we cannot survive.

5. Understanding Human Influences • Environmental science is the study of how the natural world works, how our environment affects us, and how we affect our environment. • Understanding interactions between humans and the environment is the first step toward solving environmental problems.

6. Environmental Science vs. Environmentalism • Environmental science is an interdisciplinary field, one that borrows techniques from numerous disciplines and brings research results from these disciplines together. • Environmentalism, or environmental activism, is a social movement dedicated to protecting the natural world from undesirable changes brought about by human actions.

7. Environmental scientists may study many of the same issues environmentalists care about, but they try to maintain an objective approach in their work, avoiding bias whenever possible. • Bias is a preference or viewpoint that is personal, not scientific

8. Population Up, Resources Down • In the last several hundred years, both human population and resource consumption have increased dramatically. • Natural resources are materials and energy sources found in nature, that humans need to survive.

9. Renewable or Nonrenewable? • Renewable natural resources = naturally replenished over short periods of time • Nonrenewable natural resources = naturally formed much more slowly than we use them

10. Resource use is considered sustainable if it can continue at the same rate into the foreseeable future. • In recent years, consumption of natural resources has increased to unsustainable levels, driven by the growth of the largest human population in history.

11. What does the Bible tell us about sustainability and stewardship? • Find three Bible passages that inform us about our relationship with creation, stewardship, or sustainability. • Write down the reference and what it tells us about our interaction with the environment

12. Human Population Growth • For nearly all of human history, only a few million people lived on Earth at any one time.

13. The remarkable increase in population size can be attributed to two events in recent human history. • The Agricultural Revolution: as people began to grow crops, raise domestic animals, and live in villages, they found it easier to meet their nutritional needs resulting in humans living longer and more children surviving to adulthood.

14. The Industrial Revolution: shift from rural life to an urban society powered by nonrenewable energy sources called fossil fuels. • Fossil fuel = a carbon-containing fuel formed over millions of years from the remains of living things

15. Ecological Footprints • An ecological footprint expresses the environmental effects of an individual or population in terms of the total amount of land and water required: (1) to provide the raw materials the individual or population consumes and (2) to dispose of or recycle the waste the individual or population produces.

16. Every organism and natural or synthetic object has a footprint. • There is no universal way to calculate an ecological footprint.

17. The Tragedy of the Commons • Garrett Hardin of the University of California based his argument on a scenario described in an 1833 English pamphlet describing public pastures, or “commons,” that were open to unregulated community grazing.

18. As more people acted in their own self-interest more animals were added to the pasture. • The increase in the number of animals grazing resulted in the animals eating the grass faster than it could grow. • Eventually no grass was left and all the animals suffered.

19. Hardin argues that when resources are left unregulated, everyone takes what he or she can until the resource is depleted. This is called the tragedy of the commons. • To avoid this, responsible use of a resource needs to be established either voluntarily or through private ownership of the resource.

20. Section 2: The Nature of Science

21. What Science Is and Is Not • Science is both an organized and methodical way of studying the natural world and the knowledge gained from such studies. • The term science also refers to the accumulated body of knowledge that arises from the study of the natural world. • Science assumes that the natural world functions in accordance with rules that do not change unpredictably from time to time or place to place.

22. Scientists examine the workings of the natural world by collecting evidence. • Ideas that cannot be tested against evidence gathered and analyzed cannot be evaluated by science. • Nothing in science can be absolutely proven no matter how much evidence is collected. Ideas can only be repeatedly supported by rigorous scientific testing. • Scientists seek evidence that provides answers to scientific questions, and are open to results that change, or even refute, a previously accepted idea.

23. The Process of Science • The process of science involves making observations, asking questions, developing hypotheses, making and testing predictions, and analyzing and interpreting results – often many times and in many changing orders. • The early stages of an investigation often involve the observation of some phenomenon that the scientist wishes to explain.

24. A hypothesis is a testable idea that attempts to explain a phenomenon or answer a scientific question. • Scientists use hypotheses to generate predictions, which are specific statements about what we would expect to observe if the hypotheses are true. • Scientists often use models to generate predictions when they cannot observe a phenomenon directly.

25. An experiment is an activity designed to test the validity of a prediction or a hypothesis, and involves manipulating variables – conditions that can change. • Independent variable: a variable the scientist manipulates • Dependent variable: depends on the conditions set up in the experiment

26. In an observational study, scientists look for evidence in the naturalworld that would help confirm or contradict the predictions generated by their hypotheses. • Often rely on correlation – a meaningful and predictable relationship among variables

27. Controlled studies, in which all variables are controlled except one, allow scientists to be more confident that any differences observed were caused by the factor they are investigating. • Important in both experimental and observational experiments.

28. Whenever possible, it is best to repeat the same test many times. • Scientists collect and record data, or information, from their studies. • Quantitative data = information expressed using numbers

29. Section 3: The Community of Science

30. Community Analysis and Feedback • The scientific community, through peer review and replication, helps to verify the accuracy of results and contributes to the establishment of scientific theories. • Peer review is the formal process of submitting research for examination by the scientific community.

31. Sound science is based on replication rather than a one-time occurrence. After results are published, other scientists may attempt to reproduce the results by performing their own experiments and data analysis. • Theories are well-tested explanation of observations and experimental findings. • To be accepted as a scientific theory, an idea must effectively explain a phenomenon, make accurate predictions in a wide range of situations, and have undergone extensive, rigorous testing.

32. Benefits and Outcomes • Environmental ethics explores how environmental science interacts with, and is guided by, a society’s morals and principles.

33. Ethics and Culture • Ethics is a branch of philosophy that involves the study of behavior: good and bad, right and wrong. • Also refers to the set of moral principles or values held by a person or society

34. People of different cultures may differ in their ethical standards • Culture is the ensemble of knowledge, beliefs, values, and learned ways of life shared by a group of people.

35. The application of ethical standards to relationships between humans and their environment is known as environmentalethics. • Human interactions with the environment frequently give rise to ethical questions that can be difficult to resolve. • Ex: Do present generations have an obligation to conserve resources for future generations?

36. There are three important ethical standards in environmental ethics: • Anthropocentrism: places highest value on humans and human welfare.

37. Biocentrism: gives value to all living things, both human and nonhuman. • Ecocentrism: places value on the whole ecological systems, both living and nonliving elements and the relationships among them.

38. The environmental justice movement promotes the fair and equitable treatment of all people with respect to environmental policy and practice, regardless of their income, race, or ethnicity.