LIFE
Chemical that can be used for cooling refrigerators and air conditioners.
What are Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)?
A commitment by 24 nations to reduce CFC production by 50 percent by the year 2000
What is the Montreal Protocol?
Change that occurs in the chemical, biological, and physical properties of the planet
What is Global Change?
A type of global change that is focused on changes in the average weather that occurs in an area over a period of years or decades.
What is Global Climate Change?
Absorption of infrared radiation by atmospheric gases and re-radiation of the energy back toward Earth.
What is the Greenhouse Effect?
The amount of oxygen a quantity of water uses over a period of time at a specific temperature.
What is Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD)?
An estimate of how much a molecule of any compound can contribute to global warming over a period of 100 years relative to one molecule of CO2.
What is Greenhouse warming potential (GWP)?
A process in which an increase in ocean CO2 causes more CO2 to be converted to carbonic acid, which lowers the pH of the water
What is Ocean Acidification?
An international agreement that sets a goal for global emissions of greenhouse gases from all industrialized countries to be reduced by 5.2 percent below their 1990 levels by 2012
What is the Kyoto Protocol?
A pledge by 196 countries to keep global warming less than 2C° above pre-industrial levels. Also known as the Paris Climate Accord.
What is the Paris Climate Agreement
Species that are likely to go extinct in the near future.
What are endangered species?
An experiment that exposes organisms to an environmental hazard for a long duration.
What is a Chronic Study?
A U.S. act that prohibits interstate shipping of all illegally harvested plants and animals.
What is the Lacey Act?
A 1972 U.S. law that prohibits the killing of all marine mammals in the United States and prohibits the import or export of any marine mammal body parts.
What is the Marine Mammal Protection Act?
A 1973 treaty formed to control the international trade of threatened plants and animals.
What is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)?
A fee charged for trucks that deliver and tip solid waste into a landfill or incinerator.
What is the Tipping Fee?
The process of burning waste materials to reduce volume and mass, and sometimes to generate electricity or heat.
What is incineration?
A group of microorganisms that live in the intestines of humans, other mammals, and birds that serve as an indicator species for potentially harmful microorganisms associated with contaminated sewage.
What is Fecal coliform bacteria?
The residual nonorganic material that does not combust during incineration.
What is Ash?
A system in which heat generated by incineration is used as an energy source rather than released into the surrounding environment.
What is Waste-to-energy?
Liquid, solid, gaseous, or sludge waste material that is harmful to humans, ecosystems, or materials.
What is Hazardous Waste?
The common name for the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA); a 1980 U.S. federal act that imposes a tax on the chemical and petroleum industries, uses those funds for the cleanup of abandoned and nonoperating hazardous waste sites, and authorizes the federal government to respond directly to the release or threatened release of substances that may pose a threat to human health or the environment.
What is the Superfund Act?
Contaminated industrial or commercial sites
that may require environmental cleanup before they can be redeveloped or expanded.
What are Brownfields?
An experiment that exposes organisms to an environmental hazard for a short duration.
What is an Acute Study?
A popular phrase promoting the idea of diverting materials from the waste stream. Also known as the three Rs .
What are Reduce, Reuse, Recycle?
An approach to waste management that seeks to cut waste by reducing the use of potential waste materials in the early stages of design and manufacture.
What is Source Reduction?
Recycling a product into the same product.
WHat is Closed-Loop Recycling?
Recycling one product into a different product.
What is Open-Loop Recycling?
A systems tool that examines the materials used and released throughout the lifetime of a product — from the product design and procurement of raw materials through their manufacture, use, and disposal. Also known as cradle-to-grave analysis
What is Life-Cycle Analysis?
A study that exposes animals or plants to different amounts of a chemical and then looks for a variety of possible responses, including mortality or changes in behavior or reproduction.
What is Dose Response Study?