Toxicology
The study of how toxic substances affect living things.
What is toxicology?
The total solid waste from institutions, households, & businesses.
What is municipal solid waste?
A toxic substance that harms living organisms.
What is a pollutant?
This greenhouse gas is produced from burning fossil fuels.
What is carbon dioxide?
If carbon dioxide levels were far higher in the ancient past (>10 million years ago), why should we worry about it happening now?
Humans did not yet exist; we have evolved during a cooler period in earth's history.
A poison produced by humans.
These countries produce more waste overall, and more toxic in particular.
What are wealthy countries?
This is a single and identifiable source of pollution.
What is point-source pollution?
This greenhouse gas increases with surface temperature.
What is water vapor?
A poison produced by a living thing.
What is a toxin?
This type of waste is harmful even at low concentrations.
What is toxic waste?
This type of pollution includes sewage and animal waste.
What is organic pollution?
This climatic factor has a greater effect than distance to the sun on surface temperature.
These three factors determine the overall toxicity of a substance.
What are duration of exposure, concentration of substance, and frequency of exposure?
This industrial sector is responsible for producing the majority of toxic waste.
What is chemical manufacturing?
These atmospheric pollutants cause harm when released into the environment.
What are primary pollutants?
This component of the Milankovitch cycle describes the shape of Earth's orbit around the sun.
What is eccentricity?
A toxin that affects embryonic growth.
What is a teratogen?
These massive, slow-moving ocean currents collect garbage in large patches.
What are gyres?
These atmospheric pollutants form in the environment through chemical reactions.
What are secondary pollutants?
These feedback loops can increase or decrease Earth's temperature.
What are carbon dioxide feedback loops?
This term describes combined effect of two substances.
What is additive effect?
This federal program requires that hazardous waste sites be identified and cleaned up.
What is the Superfund program?
These organic pollutants remain in the environment indefinitely and can biomagnify.
What are Persistant Organic Pollutants (POPs)?
Melting of ice in these areas does not cause sea levels to increase.
What is sea ice?
This term describes the accumulation of toxins within an organism over its lifetime.
What is bioaccumulation?
These communities are far more likely to be impacted by toxic waste.
What are communities of color?
A waterway with high levels of organic pollution will likely experience these conditions.
What are low oxygen conditions?
These two carbon sinks have absorbed the majority of greenhouse gases to date.
What are oceans and soils?
These two factors determine how a toxin moves through the environment.
What are persistence and solubility?
This is the best way to reduce waste production.
Excessive levels of nutrients in a water body, often leading to algae blooms.
What is eutrophication?
This effect is when sunlight reflects off of snow and ice.
What is the albedo effect?
This is a common source of antibiotic resistant bacteria.
What are feedlots?
This type of waste includes cathode ray tubes and circuit boards.
What is e-waste?
This is an important source of phosphorus for the Amazon rainforest.
What is Saharan dust?
This climate mitigation strategy involves converting degraded lands to forests.
What is afforestation?
These pathogens are smaller than bacteria and require a host cell in order to reproduce.
What are viruses?
These sites are considered hazardous and cannot be developed, but are not Superfund sites.
What is a Brownfield?
These persistant chemicals are present in a large section of the Hudson river in NY.
What are PCBs?
This climate mitigation strategy involves pyrolysis of organic matter, which can then be added soil.
What is biochar?