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Environmental Science
Enviornmental Science 150
Greg Hueckel
– (360) 866-8564 home
– (360) 888-5667 cell
– Email ghueckel@centralia.edu
Required Text
Sustaining the Earth (Seventh Edition)
G. Tyler Miller Jr.
Confusing terms
• environmental science
• environmental studies
• environmentalism
• ecology
• ecosystem
Definitions
+
Definitions
• environmentalism
• social movement for protecting earth’s life
support systems for us and other species
More definitions
• ecology
• study of the interactions between organisms
and between organisms and their
environment
• ecosystem
• includes all organisms living in an area and
the physical environment with which these
organisms interact.
What is environment?
• Solar Capital
• Natural Capital
• natural resources
are natural
capital
Fig. 1-2, p. 7
Ecosystem Economics
Biological income must not exceed
biological expenditures.
• 6.4 billion
and
counting
• Exponential
Growth
• More in
chapter 4
Economic Growth
Increase in capacity of a
country to provide
people with goods
and services
Economic Growth
• Gross Domestic Product
(GDP)
• Annual market value of all
goods and services
produced by all firms and
organizations, foreign and
domestic, operating within
a country.
• Per Capita GDP
• Annual gross domestic
product (GDP) of a country
divided by its total
population at mid-year. It
gives the average slice of
the economic pie per
person.
Economic Development
Improvement of
(human) living
standards by
economic growth
Economic Development
Developed Countries
– mostly US, EU, Canada, Japan, Australia
– high per capita GDP
– 1.2 billion people
Developing Countries
– mostly Africa, Latin America, Asia
– moderate to low per capita GDP
– 5.2 billion people
Which has a bigger environmental
impact?
Is economic
development
positive?
Resources
Perpetual
– Solar – renewed
continuously
Renewable
– Replenished fairly
rapidly through natural
processes
Non-renewable
– minerals
Renewable Resources
Sustainable yield
– Highest rate at which a potentially renewable
resource can be used without reducing its available
supply throughout the world or in a particular area.
Environmental Degradation
– Depletion or destruction of a potentially renewable
resource such as soil, grassland, forest, or wildlife
that is used faster than it is naturally replenished. If
such use continues, the resource becomes
nonrenewable (on a human time scale) or nonexistent
(extinct).
Tragedy of the Commons
Depletion or degradation of a potentially
renewable resource to which people have
free and unmanaged access.
An example is the depletion of
commercially desirable fish species in the
open ocean beyond areas controlled by
coastal countries.
How do we avoid this?
Ecological Footprint
Prevention
– input control
Cleanup
– output control
Fig. 1-13 p. 15
Environmental Impact
United States citizen consumes about 100
times as much as the average person in
the world’s poorest countries.
Poor parents in a developing country
would need 70 to 200 children to have the
same lifetime resource consumption as 2
U.S. children.
Environmental Worldviews
• Disease
• Overpopulation
• Water Shortages
• Climate Changes
• Biodiversity Loss
• Poverty
• Malnutrition
Solutions
Current Emphasis
(Reactive)
Sustainability
Emphasis
(Proactive)
Fig. 1-16, p. 18