Introduction to Environmental Science
This field of study examines the complex interactions between human beings and the natural environment, including climate, soil, water, and air.
What is Environmental Science?
Farming began about 12,000 years ago in this rich agricultural region that required regular summer and fall irrigation.
What is the Fertile Crescent?
This term describes natural resources that are shared by society and not owned by any single individual.
What are commons
This type of natural resource, such as sunlight, cannot be used up.
What is an inexhaustible resource?
Nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands Triggered new concerns from the environment
Name two of the major components or factors of the natural environment studied in environmental science.
What are climate, soil, water, air, or other organisms? (Any two)
This historical period marked the major human transition to coal power, electricity, and factory production.
What is the Industrial Revolution?
An 1833 pamphlet described this primary human motive—individuals pursuing personal wealth at the expense of society—as a major cause of resource depletion.
What is greed?
Coal, oil, and natural gas are classified under this specific nonrenewable subcategory because they are destroyed when used.
What are single-use nonrenewable resources?
In 1969, public concern over water pollution surged after oil-soaked debris caught fire in this Ohio river.
What is the Cuyahoga River?
In the video the Lorax, the trees that were used for making the Thneeds
What are Truffula Trees
As river water evaporated in irrigated floodplains, minerals were left behind, causing this process that rendered soil too salty for crops.
What is salinization?
In the classic pasture scenario, an unregulated shared pasture experiences resource depletion because farmers do this to their herds.
What is overgrazing?
Minerals and metals are nonrenewable resources, but they are placed in this category because they can be reused repeatedly.
What are recyclable nonrenewable resources?
This federal agency was established in 1970 to enforce federal environmental laws across the United States.
What is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)?
This economic spectrum metric, abbreviated as GDP per capita, measures the monetary value of goods and services produced per person per year.
What is Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita?
The salinization of ancient farmland demonstrates this principle, which states that decisions can have unexpected effects.
What is the Law of Unintended Consequences?
Name two of the three major earth-scale global commons listed in the material that are at risk of degradation today.
What are soil, the atmosphere, and the oceans? (Any two)
These federal public lands are intended to be kept completely unaltered from their original state, banning logging, hunting, fishing, and livestock grazing.
What are National Parks?
Because pesticides like DDT do not break down naturally in the environment, they are classified by this term.
What is persistent?
This term describes an estimate of human environmental impact measured by the amount of land needed to support a person or country.
What is an ecological footprint?
This 1906 law passed during Theodore Roosevelt's presidency allowed the federal government to protect cultural and natural resources.
What is the Antiquities Act?
In a village where pastureland is managed by passing a law assigning each farmer a fenced section, this economic/environmental tragedy is prevented.
Resource depletion
Unlike National Parks, these federal lands allow commercial logging as well as recreational hunting and fishing with a required permit.
What are National Forests?
This major 1980 federal policy established a fund to finance the cleanup of hazardous waste sites, such as the one in Love Canal, New York.
What is CERCLA (Superfund)?