ToF: Giant reptiles dominate the earth during (cretaceous) period
(False: Jurassic)
ToF: It is during (Holocene) epoch that man started to disturb the balance of nature.
(False: Anthropocene)
ToF: Ape man appeared and increased in number during (Pliocene epoch). (True)
ToF: Geologic time is (not easy) to grasp mentally because of its magnitude (True)
ToF: The story of the earth is written in the rocks. (True)
Planet Earth
The only known planet in the solar system that has all the elements important for our survival.
Humans
have the greatest influence in every aspect of the Earth on a scale similar to the great forces of nature.
The rocks unfold the story of the earth, the geologic events and the succession of life. Its history is very long that geologists feel the need to divide it
Earth’s history is divided into a hierarchical series of smaller chunks of time,
These divisions, in descending length of time, are called
eons,
eras,
periods,
epochs, and
ages.
These units are classified based on Earth’s rock layers, or strata, and the fossils found within them. From examining these fossils, scientists know that certain organisms are characteristic of certain parts of the geologic record.
The study of this correlation is called stratigraphy.
Holocene
The current epoch is the 12,000 years of stable climate since the last ice age during which all human civilization developed
Anthropocene Epoch
unofficial unit of geologic time, used to describe the most recent period in Earth’s history when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet’s climate and ecosystems.
Anthropocene Epoch
age of the human epoch
Anthropocene
comes from the Greek terms
human (’anthropo’)
new (’cene’).
Anthropocene
coined in the 1980s, then popularized in 2000 by atmospheric chemist Paul J Crutzen and diatom researcher Eugene F Stoermer.
Human activity has:
Pushed extinction rates of animals and plants
Increased levels of climate-warming CO2 in the atmosphere
Put too much plastic in our waterways and oceans
Doubled the nitrogen and phosphorus in our soils
Left a permanent layer of airborne particulates in sediment and glacial ice
ToF: Since people’s lifestyles differ, some people use more resources than others. (True)
These resources are mostly from lithosphere and hydrosphere.
Food, electricity, and other basic amenities for survival must be produced within the confines of nature, using raw natural resources.
The processing of raw materials into products that man can use produce pollution that has an impact on our environment.
Ecological footprint
the amount of biologically productive land and water needed to supply the people in a particular area or country with resources and to absorb and recycle the wastes and pollution produced by such resource use.
per capita ecological footprint
the average ecological footprint of an individual in given country or area.
estimate of how much of the earth’s renewable resources an individual consumes
Ecological deficit
if the country’s total ecological footprint is larger than its biological capacity to replace its renewable resources and absorb the resulting waste products and pollution.
Among the affluent countries the United States has the world’s total ecological footprint.
United States
has the world’s second largest per capita ecological footprint, 4.5 times the average global footprint per person and 12 times the average per capita footprint in the world’s low – income countries.
Ecological footprint
also measures how much land and water area a human population requires to produce the resources it consumes and to absorb its wastes
The per capita ecological footprint is the average ecological footprint of an individual in a given country or area.
climate change
a result of producing more carbon than can be reabsorbed by the forests and seas.
According to the Global Footprint Network, humanity uses the equivalent of 1.5 planets worth of resources. This means that it takes the Earth one year and five months to regenerate what we use in a year.
Footprint standards
Standard used in comparing a country’s, city’s, or region’s footprints.
The top three countries with the highest ecological footprint per head:
Qatar
Kuwait
United Arab Emirates
Resource
Anything obtained from the environment to meet our needs and wants.
Conservation
Management of natural resources with the goal of minimizing resource waste and sustaining resource supplies for current and future generations
Perpetual resource
Like solar energy, it is renewed continuously and is expected to last at least 6 billion years as the sun completes its life cycle
Also called renewable resources
Renewable resource
Can be replenisher fairly quickly (from hours to hundreds of years) through natural processes as long as it is not used up faster than it is renewed (forests, grasslands, fisheries, freshwater, fresh air, and fertile soil)
Sustainable yield
The highest rate at which a renewable resource can be used indefinitely without reducing its available supply.
Environmental degradation
When we exceed a renewable resource’s natural replacement rate, the available supply begins to shrink
Non-renewable resources
Exists in a fixed quantity, of stock, in the earth's crust
These resources can be depleted much fast than they are formed
Such exhaustible resources include energy resources (coal and oil), metallic mineral resources (such as salt and sand)
Reuse
Using a resource over and over in the same form
Recycling
Involves collecting waste materials and processing them into new materials.