AP Environmental Science Q

1 . The environment is the surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates; the natural world affected by human activity. 2. Environmental science Is the study of the Interaction between living and nonliving, physical, chemical, and biological components of the environment including their effects on all types of organisms but most often the Impact humans have on the environment. Ecology, conservation biology, forestry, sol science, forest technology and physics are related to environmental science. . Environmentalism is a theory that views environment rather than heredity as the important factor in the placement and especially the cultural and intellectual development of an individual or group; advocacy of the preservation, restoration, or improvement of the natural environment; especially the movement to control pollution. 4. Natural capital is the air, land, water, living organisms and all the formations of the Earth's biosphere that provides us wit h ecosystems goods and services imperative for survival and well- being. . A natural resource occurs naturally within environments that exist relatively undisturbed by humanity; in a natural form; anything that people can use which comes from nature; we gather them from nature. EX: air, water, wood, 011, Iron, wind energy, coal, hydroelectric energy. A natural/ecosystem service are regularly Involved In the provisions of clean drinking water and the decomposition of waste.Natural ecosystem services is split into four categories: provisioning, such as the production of food and water; regulating, such as the control of climate and disease; supporting, such as nutrient cycles and crop pollination; and cultural, such as spiritual and recreational benefits. 6. An environmentally sustainable society is a community that is in balance with nature; people in the society do actions that are DOD for the environment. 7. A developing country is a nation with lower living standards, underdevelop ed industrial base, and low human development index relative to other countries.A developed country Is a nation that has a highly developed economy and advanced technological Infrastructure in comparison to other less developed countries. 8. A developing country has lower life expectancy, less education, lower population, lower resource level usage and less money(lonesome). A developed country has a higher life expectancy, more education, higher population, higher resource level usage and more money(income). . A resource is a source of supply, support or aid that can be readily drawn upon when needed.Conservation is the prevention of injury, decay, waste, or loss; the careful preservation of a natural resource in order to prevent depletion. 10. A renewable resource is a natural resource which can replenish with the passage of time, either through biological reproduction or other naturally reoccurring processes. EX: geothermal energy, hydrophone, corn starch, manure. A nonrenewable r esource is a resource that does not renew Itself at a sufficient rate for sustainable economic extraction in meaningful unman time-frames. EX: coal, petroleum, natural gas, and nuclear energy. 1. The difference between the concept of reuse and recycle Is that reusing Is when a product that Is newly purchased Is put to another use after the first use Is completed. Recycling is processing of used materials (waste) into new products to prevent waste resource which does not exceed the growth; the amount of renewable resources taken should not exceed the amount at which it can be replaced. 13. An ecological footprint is an accounting system that tracks how much land and water area a human being uses to provide all it takes from nature. . Pollution is the presence in or introduction into the environment of a substance or thing that has harmful or poisonous effects. Point source pollution is a single identifiable source of air, water, thermal, noise or light pollution coming from a single location. EX: A certain factory is producing chemicals. As part of the manufacturing process, certain poisonous chemicals and toxic gases result, such as benzene. The chemical company permits these toxins to be released from the stack at the factory without treating them.The untreated, toxic chemicals are released directly into the air. Nonprofit pollution is when contaminants are introduced into the environment over a large, widespread area. EX: Acid rain from the air can enter the water cycle. The result is that it enters the environment. The acid is harmful to fish and other creatures in freshwater lakes and streams. Whenever there is snow or ice on the roads in winter, the salt trucks come out and spread salt. The salt dissolves the snow and ice and makes the roads safe. But it also washes off the roads into lakes and streams and makes them salty.The salt is also carried down into the groundwater where it enters the groundwater apply. 15. Biodegradable: capable of decaying throu gh the action of living organisms. Orange peels: 6 months, paper 2-5 months; Non-biodegradable: cannot be changed to a harmless natural state by the action of bacteria and may damage the environment. Ceramics(fleer glass, carbon fiber), plastics(legal, irony), metals(iron, tin). 16. Five environmental problems the world faces today are population growth, poverty, wasting resources, poor environmental accounting, and ecological ignorance.Population growth is one of the biggest problems because humans consume so much energy, space and resources. With the rising population the Earth is unable to keep reproducing enough to accommodate the world. Poverty is another big problem because people/nations begin to take land resources to â€Å"pay off their debts† or survive. Wasting resources is the practice of wasting valuable resources by human beings for unnecessary motives. Poor environmental accounting is when business do not take the environmental impact into account when using th e resources to make their products.Ecological ignorance is the failure to understand the effects of human behavior on the relationship between the environment and living things. 7. When someone says that the price of goods does not include the value of natural capital they mean that they do not take into account the loss of biodiversity and puts economic concern in a way that the government and institutions can deal with. People often think of conservation in terms of its cost rather than its value, and think of manufactured goods in terms of value rather than their environmental costs. 18.A government subsidy is a benefit given by the government to the groups or individuals usually in the form of cash payment or tax reduction; usually given to remove some type of burden. A harmful effect they cause is environmental degradation like exploitation of resources, pollution, loss of landscape, misuse and overuse of supplies. A benefit example is that the U. S. Government makes goods more easily attainable for citizens such as gasoline prices are subsidized so that they are what they think their role in the world should be, and what they believe is right and wrong environmental behavior.Environmental ethics is the discipline is philosophy that studies the moral relationship of human beings to, and the value and moral status of the environment and its nonhuman contents. 0. Planetary management worldview beliefs that as the planets most important species, we are in charge of the Earth; we will not run out of resources because of our ability to develop and find new ones; the potential for economic growth is especially unlimited; and our success depends on how well we manage the Earth's life support systems mostly for our own benefit.Stewardship worldview beliefs that we are the planets most important species but we have an ethical responsibility to care for the rest of nature; we will probably run out of resources but they should not be wasted; we should encourage envi ronmentally harmful forms of economic growth; and our success depends on how well we can manage the earth's life-support systems for our benefit and the rest of nature.Environmental wisdom worldview beliefs that nature exists for all the earths species and we are not in charge of the earth; resources are limited, should not be wasted, and are not all for us, we should encourage earth sustaining life forms of economic growth and discourage earth-degrading forms of economic growth; and our success depends on learning how the earth sustains itself and integrating such lessons from nature into the ways we think and act. 21 . The four scientific principles of sustainability are reliance of solar energy, biodiversity, nutrient cycling, and population control.The reliance of solar energy is how and how much of the sun energy we reuse. Biodiversity is the amount of variation and variety there is in the population. Nutrient cycling is how one population can benefit from another population. P opulation control is when one type of species population is too large and what we do to control and handle that. 22. A. Nutrient Cycling b. Nutrient Cycling c. Population Control, Biodiversity d. Nutrient Cycling e. Nutrient Cycling f. Nutrient Cycling g. Reliance on Solar Energy