Environmental Value Systems
A worldview that affects the way an individual or society perceives and acts on environmental issues, based on their background (e.g. economic, cultural and sociopolitical contexts)
What is an Environmental Value System (EVS)?
An assemblage of parts and the relationships between them, which together constitute an entity or whole.
What is a system?
A measure of the amount of disorder, chaos or randomness in a system; the greater the disorder, the higher the level of this.
What is entropy?
The use and management of resources that allows full natural replacement of the resources exploited and full recovery of the ecosystems affected by their extraction and use.
What is sustainability?
The addition of a substance or an agent to an environment through human activity, at a rate greater than that at which it can be rendered harmless by the environment, and which has an appreciable effect on the organisms in the environment.
What is pollution?
The foundation that was formed to protect endangered animals from international trade.
What is C.I.T.E.S?
A simplified description designed to show the structure or workings of an object, system or concept.
What is a model?
This is the tendency in a system for it to return to a previous equilibrium condition following disturbance.
What is stable equilibrium?
A term used for natural resources that can produce a sustainable natural income of goods and services.
What is natural capital?
Clean up and restoration (removing pollutants from ocean) is an example of what level of pollution management?
What is the highest level?
This book led to a ban on DDT for agricultural uses and inspired the formation of the EPA.
What is Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring"?
In this kind of system, energy and matter are both exchanged.
What is an open system?
The degree of change within a system that will destabilize it, causing it to adopt a new equilibrium.
What is a tipping point?
Timber/wood, Plants and animals for food, plant extracts, and medicines are examples of these.
What are goods?
CO2 being released from burning fossil fuels and actively contributing to global warming is an example of this type of pollutant.
What is a primary pollutant?
This Environmental Value System believes that "The Earth is for use by humans for our benefit."
What is anthropocentrism?
What is a storage?
This is an example of what type of feedback mechanism: Blood pressure needs to remain high enough to pump blood to all parts of the body, but not so high as to cause damage while doing so. While the heart is pumping, baroreceptors detect the pressure of the blood going through the arteries. If the pressure is too high or too low, a chemical signal is sent to the brain via the glossopharyngeal nerve. The brain then sends a chemical signal to the heart to adjust the rate of pumping; if blood pressure is low, heart rate increases, while if blood pressure is high, heart rate decreases.
What is negative feedback?
What are services?
When CO2 combines with seawater to form carbonic acid that has an impact on calciferous shelled organisms or corals is an example of this type of pollutant.
What is a secondary pollutant?
The belief that the natural world has integral worth independent of its value to anyone or anything else, such as the belief that all life on Earth has a right to exist.
What is intrinsic value?
This is a system that does not exchange matter or energy with its surroundings.
What is an isolated system?
The greater the ________, the greater the _________ of the system.
What are diversity and resilience?
What is the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment?
This controversial pesticide is used to control diseases such as malaria and in improving crop yields.
What is Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT)?