GE15

• Environment


  A place where different things are, can be living (biotic) or non-living (abiotic) community, which includes three essential forces: physical, chemical, and natural
• Science


  A systematized body of knowledge that builds and organizes a lot of information in a different form of testable experiments and predictions about everything in the universe
• Environmental Science


  An interdisciplinary academic field in science that integrates all the physical, biological, and information to the study of the environment, and the solution to environmental problems
• Ecology


  A branch of biology concerning interactions among organisms, and their biophysical environment includes both biotic and abiotic components
• Chemistry


  The study of matter, its properties, how and why substances combine or separate to form other elements, and how elements interact with energy
• Biodiversity


  A group of different individual life that inhibit the plant Earth, that varies on their genetic component and adaptation to the environment
• Biodiversity


  • Terrestrial biodiversity is composed of animals on land usually greater near the equator, which is an indicator of the warming of the climate
• Habitat


  An environment that is naturally occurring to a specific organism to survive, characterized by both physical and biological features
• Sustainability


  The ability of a system to exist continually at a cost, in a universe that evolves in the state of entropy toward the thermodynamic equilibrium of the planet, generally referring to the capacity for the biosphere and human civilization to coexist in the 21st century
• Ethics


  A branch of philosophy that could somehow be systematized, defend, recommend, and identify what right and wrong behavior is
• Environmental Ethics


  A discipline in philosophy that studies or focus on the moral relationship among human beings to the value and moral status of the environment, which includes plants and animals
• Ecosystem


  A community comprised of living organisms in conjunction or in relationship with the nonliving components of their specific environment that interact with each other
• Photosynthesis


  The process of all plants that transform into the release of energy ATP, where light energy of the sun is captured and water, mineral, carbon dioxide, and oxygen are converted
• Species


  A basic unit of classifying and identifying the taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity
• Food Chain


  A linear network of links in a food web starting from producer organisms and ending at apex predator species, detritivores, or decomposer species
• Food Web


  The natural interconnection of food chains and a graphical representation of what-eats-what in an ecological community, also known as the consumer-resource system
• To perform the unit learning outcomes for the first three weeks, students need to fully understand the essential knowledge laid down in the study material
• Environmental science is the systematic study of the environment and our proper place in it, integrating natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities in a broad, holistic study of the world around us
• Kinds of knowledge that contribute to solutions in environmental science

  • Ecology
  • Chemistry
  • Urban Planning
  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Engineering
  • Economics
• History of Environmentalism


  1. Began after the industrial revolution with increase in smoke pollution and chemical discharge, leading to formation of modern environmental laws

  2. 1863 - Britain's Alkali Acts passed to combat air pollution

  3. 1898 - Coal Smoke Abatement Society established in response to coal combustion

  4. After WWII - Industrialization expansion led to nature degradation, people became environmentally conscious

  5. 1948 - International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) created to protect and preserve nature

  6. 1956 - Clean Air Act formed following London Smog Episode

  7. 1960-1970 - Beginning of Modern Environmental Movement, establishment of World Wildlife Fund, Green Revolution in Agriculture

  8. 1980s - Environmental Justice Movement began

  9. Conferences like Stockholm, Montreal, Kyoto Protocols held

  10. 2000s - Millennium Development Goals, Sustainable Development Goals, Paris Agreement established
• Environmental Ethics


  Studies the ethical basis of environment or discussion of the ethical basis of environmental protection, dealing with the moral relationship of human beings to and the value and moral status of the environment and its nonhuman content
• Philosophical questions in environmental ethics are not merely academic or historical, as demonstrated by a 2004 study showing that fish feel pain
• Rational


  (in classical economic theory) economic agents are able to consider the outcome of their choices and recognise the net benefits of each one
• Rational agents will select the choice which presents the highest benefits
• Rational agents


  • Consumers
  • Producers
  • Workers
  • Governments
• Consumers act rationally by


  Maximising their utility
• Producers act rationally by


  Selling goods/services in a way that maximises their profits
• Workers act rationally by


  Balancing welfare at work with consideration of both pay and benefits
• Governments act rationally by


  Placing the interests of the people they serve first in order to maximise their welfare
• Rationality in classical economic theory is a flawed assumption as people usually don't act rationally
• Our values, or our decisions about what we should or should not do with natural resources, depend partly on our underlying worldviews
• Moral views in society also change over time
• In ancient Greece, many philosophers who were concerned with ethics and morality owned slaves; today, few societies condone slavery
• Most societies now believe it is wrong, or unethical, to treat other humans as property
• The Greeks granted moral value, or worth, only to adult male citizens within their community
• Women, slaves, and children had few rights and were essentially treated as property
• Ethical extensions


  The idea of gradually extending our sense of moral value to a broader circle
• In 2004, the journal science caused a public uproar by publishing a study demonstrating that fish feel pain
• Many recreational anglers had long managed to suppress worries that they were causing pain to fish
• If I hurt you, I owe you an apology. If I borrow your car and smash it into a tree, I don't owe the car an excuse. I owe you an apology—or reimbursement