Energy
Power harvested from sunlight often through photovoltaic panels and converted into electricity.
Solar Power
What is the Chemical equation for water
H2O
Primary gas released into the atmosphere from industrial and automotive emissions responsible for global warming
carbon dioxide (CO2)
Name a way you can prevent pollution
Use natural cleaning solutions, reduce, reuse, recycle plant a tree
Name three things that are commonly recycled.
paper, plastic, and glass
Non-renewable resources derived from dead organic material (i.e. plants and dinosaurs) that has been compressed over thousands of years and extracted for energy consumption.
Fossil Fuel
Name two ways you can help conserve water
take shorter showers, turn water off while brushing teeth, limit amount of water used for watering lawns and gardens.
Grab your inhaler! This chronic lung disease affects more than 25 million Americans is the result of air pollution such as particulate matter, pollen, and ground level ozone.
asthma
Although these chemicals promote plant growth on farms, gardens, and golf courses they become extremely harmful when they enter the atmosphere and waterways.
fertilizers or pesticides
Measure of an individual's impact on the environment by calculating Greenhouse gas emissions from their lifestyle (i.e. consumption and transportation)
carbon footprint
This energy source became even more controversial after the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan. Power is produced by splitting uranium atoms through a process called fission that produces heat which creates steam used to power a turbine.
Nuclear Power
The continuous circulation of water as it evaporates from the land and sea, enters the atmosphere, condenses and precipitates to the earth's surface, then moves underground by infiltration.
The water cycle.
The atmospheric layer where UV radiation from the sun is absorbed.
Ozone layer
Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emitted from industries and cars combine with precipitation in the atmosphere to form this.
acid rain
Female biologist from Pittsburgh that is often credited for advancing the environmental movement through her book Silent Spring.
Rachel Carson.
This dam produces enough hydroelectric power to serve 1.3 million people in Nevada, California, and Arizona
Hoover Dam
An area of land where any groundwater underneath of it or precipitation that falls on it drains into one river, basin, or sea.
watershed
Name two natural processes that emit pollution into the air.
volcanoes and forest fires.
An increase in the concentration of chemical nutrients (i.e. phosphates and nitrates) in a body of water that promotes excessive algae growth which then depletes the amount of oxygen available to other organisms
Eutrophication
International treaty signed in 1997 in Japan that binds industrialized nations to reduce their CO2 emissions
Kyoto Protocol
What is the 4th largest country in the world that consumes the most energy per capita.
china
Federal law passed in 1972 that placed limits on the amounts of toxic chemicals that can be discharged into a body of water. Provisions to this act include the Safe Drinking Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and the establishment of a superfund, or CERCLA.
Clean Water Act
Organic compound responsible for ozone depletion commonly used in refrigerants, aerosols, and solvents that has been restricted under the Montreal Protocol
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
Term used to describe cities that have consistently higher temperatures than surrounding areas because of a greater retention of heat from buildings, concrete, and asphalt.
heat island effect
Theory developed by Garrett Hardin that shared common resources are more likely to be overused and degraded when individuals act to fulfill their own short-term self interests over the interests of the group.
Tragedy of the Commons