ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE 1

• Atmosphere


  Protective blanket of gases surrounding the earth
• Atmosphere


  • Sustains life on the earth
  • Saves it from the hostile environment of outer space
  • Absorbs most of the cosmic rays from outer space and a major potion of the electromagnetic radiation from the sun
  • Transmits only the UV, visible, near infrared radiation and radio waves while filtering the tissue-damaging ultraviolet waves
• Lithosphere


  Outer mantle of the solid earth which consists of minerals occurring in the earth's crusts and the soil (e.g. minerals, organic matter)
• Biosphere


  Realm of living organisms and their interactions with environment
• Hydrosphere


  Comprises all types of water resources
• 97% of the earth's water supply is in the oceans
• About 2% of the water resources is locked in the polar icecaps and glaciers
• Only about 1% is available as fresh surface water (e.g. rivers, lakes, streams, and ground water) fit for human consumption and other uses
• Environmental Science


  Interdisciplinary academic field that integrates various fields (particularly sciences) to study the structure and function of our life-supporting environment and to understand causes, effects, and solutions of different environmental problems
• Natural resources


  Substances and energy sources needed for survival
• Types of natural resources

  • Renewable resources
  • Non-renewable resources
• Renewable resources


  • Perpetually available (e.g. sunlight, wind, wave energy)
  • Renew themselves over short periods of time (e.g. timber, water, soil)
• Non-renewable resources


  • Can be depleted (e.g. oil, coal, minerals)
• Environmental history


  New field of study that shows how environmental change and human actions are interconnected
• Ethics


  The study of good and bad, right and wrong
• Ethical perspectives

  • Relativist: ethics vary with social context
  • Universalists: right and wrong remains the same across cultures and situations
• Anthropocentrism


  • Only humans have rights
  • Costs and benefits are measured only according to their impact on people
  • Anything not providing benefit to people has no value
• Biocentrism


  • Certain living things also have value
  • All life has ethical standing
  • Development is opposed if it destroys life, even if it creates jobs
• Ecocentrism


  • Whole ecological systems have value
  • Values the well-being of species, communities, or ecosystems
  • Holistic perspective, stresses preserving connections
• Environmental Economics


  • Distinct branch of economics that acknowledges the value of both the environment and the economic activity and make choices based on those values
  • The theories are designed to consider the costs of pollution and natural resource depletion
  • Scarcity is a misallocation of environmental resources due to a pricing problem
• Environmental science


  The pursuit of knowledge about the natural world
• Environmentalism


  A social movement through which citizens are involved in activism to further the protection of environmental landmarks and natural resources
• Jane Goodall is most well-known for her love of chimpanzees and her extensive years of field research on the species
• In July 1960, she traveled from England to Tanzania and set out to discover the secrets of the chimpanzee species. Her unconventional approach to her research transformed relationships between humans and animals