Understanding our Changing Environment: Exploring Ecology and Environmental Science

1. Chapter 1 Our Changing Environment

2. Introduction • Environment • External conditions that affect living organisms • Ecology • Study of relationships between living orgasms and their environment • Environmental Science • Interdisciplinary study that examines the role of humans on the earth

3. Environmental Science • Combines information from biology, geography, chemistry, geology, physics, economics, sociology, anthropology and many more.

4. Environmental Science • Addresses interconnected issues involving, population, natural resources and pollution. • Environmental scientists develop principles to figure out how the natural world functions.

5. Environmental Worldviews • How people think the world works • What they think their role in the world should be • What they see as right and wrong environmental behavior (environmental ethics)

6. Western Worldview (anthropocentric) • Increasingly common during the past 50 years. • We are the planet’s most important species • We are in charge of the rest of nature • Also called Planetary Management Worldview and Expansionist Worldview

7. Western Worldview • There is always more • All economic growth is good • Potential for economic growth is limitless • Our success depends on how well we manage earth’s system for our benefit

8. Deep Ecology Worldview (biocentric) • Nature exists for all of the earth’s species, not just for us • There is not always more • Not all forms of economic growth is beneficial to the environment • Our success depends on learning to cooperate with one another and with the earth • Also called Earth-Wisdom Worldview

9. Working with the Earth • Deep Ecology Worldview • Learning as much as we can about how the earth sustains itself • Adapt to ever-changing environmental conditions • Integrating such lessons from nature into the ways we think and act

10. Environmental Sustainability • Ability to meet humanity’s current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. • To “sustain” means that the environment can function indefinitely without being degraded by humans (ex. soil, water and air)

11. Sustainability • $1,000,000 • 10% interest • Live on up to $100,000 per year

12. Sustainable Resource Harvest • Certain quantity of that resource can be harvested each year and not be depleted over a specified period • Sustainable supply of fish or timber

13. Sustainable Earth • Earth’s supplies of resources • Processes that make up earth capital are used and maintained over a specified period

14. Sustainable Society • Manages economy and population size without exceeding all or part of the planet’s ability to • Absorb environmental insults • Replenish resources • Sustain human and other forms of life over a specified period (100’s-1,000’s of years)

15. Sustainable Development • Obligation exists to pass the earth’s resources and services to future generations in as good or better shape than condition when passed to us • 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development-goals to reduce poverty, and environmental degradation

16. To be environmentally sustainable means… • Considering the effects of your actions • Not using resources faster than they can be replenished • Understanding ALL costs to the environment and society about the products we consume • Everyone shares in the responsibility of caring for the environment.

17. Why we are NOT environmentally sustainable… • Using nonrenewable resources (fossil fuels) as if they were unlimited • Using renewable resources (water and trees) faster than they can be replenished • Polluting the environment as if its limit to absorb them is limitless • Population continues to grow even though Earth’s ability to sustain us is finite.

18. What to do… • What may happen if these activities go “unchecked”? • There are many interactions between humans and the environment that have unknown consequences. • All issues are complex and hard to solve

19. Solutions… • The key challenge is meeting current human needs while protecting the environment for the future. • Balance is essential is determining solutions to environmental issues.

20. World Population • 6,706,993,152 and growing!! • Regions in poverty=higher populations • Human impacts on the env. are hard to assess

22. IPAT (model of env. Impact) • I=P x A x T • I=Environmental Impact • P=# of people • A=Affluence (measure of consumption or resources used per person) • T=env. effects of technologies used to obtain and consume the resources

23. Georges Bank Fishery • Example of overfishing (unsustainable practice) • Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act (2006): it mandates the use of annual catch limits and accountability measures to end overfishing.

24. Wolves in Yellowstone • Endangered Species Act allowed reintroduction of grey wolves to become a part of the Yellowstone ecosystem. • Ranchers opposed • Compromise is key to solving env. issues

25. Invasive Species • Foreign species that cause economic/env. harm • Ex. In Charlotte: Mimosa, English Ivy, Kudzu, Bradford Pear

27. Ozone Depletion • Ozone thinning is anthropogenic (caused by humans) • NOT THE SAME AS GLOBAL WARMING!!! • CFC’s • Seasonal due to global wind patterns

28. Global Warming • Higher levels of CO2 in atmosphere causes warming effect • Burning fossil fuels=more CO2 • Effects of human activities locally and regionally have global repercussions • Kyoto Protocol: control carbon emissions

29. Chapter 2 Using Science to Address Environmental Problems

30. What Is Science? • Science is a pursuit of knowledge about how the world works • Scientific data is collected by making observations and taking measurements • Observations involve the five senses, and help answer questions or problems

31. Observation • Qualitative • of, relating to, or involving quality or kind • Quantitative • of, relating to, or involving the measurement of quantity or amount

32. Qualitative Red Far from the earth Microscopic Burns quickly Hot Quantitative 700 nm wavelength 300 million light years Smaller than 1 um Burns candle at 1 cm per minute 350 degrees C

33. Inference • To conclude from evidence or premises • To reason from circumstance; surmise: We can infer that his motive in publishing the diary was less than honorable • To lead to as a consequence or conclusion: “Socrates argued that a statue inferred the existence of a sculptor”

38. Scientific Method • 1. Identify a question • 2. Develop a hypothesis • 3. Design and perform experiment • 4. Analyze and interpret data • 5. Share results with community

39. Vocabulary • Experiment • A procedure to study a phenomenon under known conditions • Must have a Control • Hypotheses • A possible explanation of something observed in nature. • Model • An approximate representation of a system being studied.

40. Theory and Law • Scientific Theory • A hypothesis that has been supported by multiple scientists’ experiments in multiple locations • A Scientific Law • a description of what we find happening in nature over and over again in a certain way

41. Scientific Laws • Law of Conservation of Matter • Matter can be changed from one form to another, but never created or destroyed. • Atomic Theory of Matter • All matter is made of atoms which cannot be destroyed, created, or subdivided.

42. Accuracy and Precision • Accuracy • The extent to which a measurement agrees with the accepted or correct value for that quantity. • Precision • A measure of reproducibility, or how closely a series of measurements of the same quantity agrees with one another.

43. Reasoning • Inductive Reasoning • Uses observations and facts to arrive at hypotheses • All mammals breathe oxygen. • Deductive Reasoning • Uses logic to arrive at a specific conclusion based on a generalization • All birds have feathers, Eagles are birds, therefore All eagles have feathers.

44. Experiments • Variables are what affect processes in the experiment. • Controlled experiments have only one variable • Experimental group gets the variable • Control group does not have the variable • Placebo is a harmless pill that resembles the pill being tested. • In double blind experiments, neither the patient nor the doctors know who is the control or experiment group.

45. Toxicology • Toxicants are chemicals that have adverse effects on health. . • Acute vs. Chronic • Dose is the amount of the toxicant that enters the body • LD50- the dose that is lethal to 50% of a population on TEST animals (mg of toxicant/kg of body weight)

46. LD50 • The smaller the LD50, the more toxic the chemical is. • Low LD50 for several species tests usually indicates that the chemical is also harmful to humans.

47. Effective Dose • ED50: Dose that causes 50% of a TEST population to exhibit whatever response is under investigation. • Dose-Response Curve: a graph that shows the different doses on a population of TEST organisms. • Threshold: the maximum dose that has no measurable effect.

48. GRAPHS!!!

49. Tragedy of the Commons • Garrett Hardin: essay, “Tragedy of the Commons” • “inability to solve complex environmental problems is the result of a struggle between short term individual welfare and long term environmental sustainability” • Pastureland example • Users destroyed the commons they depended on • Global Commons: Air, Oceans, Atmosphere, Forests, Wildlife, Fisheries, etc…

50. Environmental History of the U.S. • Post Civil War: US forests were decimated due to logging. • Many began to speak out again this in the late 19th century. • Audubon, Thoreau, Marsh, Roosevelt, Pinchot • General Revision Act: allows president to establish forest reserves on public land (Roosevelt protected 43 million acres this way)