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Ozone Depletion
Climate Change
Loss of Biodiversity
Sustainability
Environmental Laws
100
Ozone is a form of oxygen that is a human-made pollutant in the troposphere, but naturally produced and essential here.
What is the stratosphere?
100
Examples include water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, clorofluorocarbons, and tropospheric ozone.
What are greenhouse gases?
100
Variation among organisms.
What is biodiversity?
100
Goals include improve living conditions for all people while maintaining a healthy environmental system in which natural resources are not overused and excessive pollution is not generated.
What is sustainable development?
100
Passed in 1973 to authorize the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to protect endangered and threatened species.
What is the Endangered Species Act?
200
The relatively high concentrations of ozone in the stratosphere form a layer that shields the surface from much of this type of radiation coming from the sun.
What is ultraviolet radiation?
200
Greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere are a result of human activities are causing this.
What is an enhanced greenhouse effect?
200
A species in imminent danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range.
What is an endangered species?
200
Rapidly growing areas, especially in the developing world, including Jakarta, Indonesia and Mumbai, India.
What are megacities?
200
Calls for states and EPA to solve multiple air pollution problems through programs based on the latest science and technology information.
What is the Clean Air Act?
300
Used as propellants for aerosol cans, as coolants in air conditioners and refrigerators, as foam-blowing agents for insulation and packaging, and as solvents, this class of chemicals is linked to stratospheric ozone destruction.
What are chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)?
300
The measure of reflectivity.
What is albedo?
300
Two reasons species are becoming endangered and extinct.
What are habitat loss, invasive species, population growth (human), pollution, over-harvesting, climate change?
300
What can the government do to encourage sustainable living?
What are education and legislation?
300
Established the basic structure for regulating discharges of pollutants into the waters of the United States and regulating quality standards for surface waters.
What is the Clean Water Act?
400
Excessive exposure to UV radiation, including that due to the thinning ozone layer, is linked to several health problems in humans, including these two.
What are cataracts, skin cancer, and weakened immunity?
400
There are several indicators of current increasing temperatures, including the following two.
What are increasing humidity, increasing temperatures over oceans, increasing sea surface temperatures, decreasing sea ice, increasing ocean heat content, increasing temperature of lower atmosphere, decreasing glaciers, increasing sea levels, decreasing snow cover, increasing temperatures over land?
400
These are two examples of ecosystem services.
What are lumber sources, watersheds/freshwater filtration and recharge, control the severity and number of floods, pollination by insects, soil development and maintenance, formation of oxygen?
400
Excise taxes on environmental pollutants or on goods whose use produces pollutants.
What are green taxes?
400
Provides the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) broad strategic assessment and planning authority for the conservation, protection, and enhancement of soil, water, and related natural resources.
What is the Soil and Water Resources Conservation Act?
500
Along with Paul Crutzen, these scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995 for their explanation of the connection between the thinning ozone layer and chemicals such as CFCs.
Who are Rowland and Molina?
500
The 1996 meeting of the parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change at which highly developed countries agreed to establish legally binding timetables to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. Note: The U.S. did not ratify this treaty.
What is the Kyoto Protocol?
500
Somewhat controls the exploitation of endangered species at the international level.
What is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES)?
500
The directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system.
What is the World Health Organization (WHO)?
500
Commonly known as Superfund, this law created a tax on the chemical and petroleum industries and provided broad Federal authority to respond directly to releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances that may endanger public health or the environment.
What is the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA)?