Environmental Value Systems
Systems and Models
Energy and Equilibria
Sustainability
Humans and Pollutions
100

Inputs of system: culture, education, religion, politics, socioeconomics, family, media 

Processes: Evaluation, Thinking, Assimilating knowledge, agreeing or disagreeing 

Outputs: Actions, choices, views, decisions

What is the Environmental value system? 

100

a set of complex interactions between multiple interrelated parts. 

What is a system? 

100

"energy can neither be created nor destroyed"

what is the law of conservation of energy? 

100

the management of the exploitation of resources that allows for replacement of the resources and full recovery of the ecosystems that may be affected by extraction

What is sustainability? 

100

the addition of substances into the natural environment at a rate higher than they can be rendered harmless

What is pollution?

200

Nature is there to provide humans with benefit and we are there to manage sustainable global systems. This is often believed to be done through exploitation of natural capital for economic growth and regulated through legal agreements. 

What is Anthropocentrism? 

200

Both matter and energy can move in and out of...

What is an Open system

200

Point at which a system has been pushed to a new state of equilibrium 

What is a tipping point? 

200

Natural resources that produce sustainable natural income of goods and services 

what is natural capital? 

200

Pollution that comes from a single identifiable place

What is point-source pollution?

300

A global disaster that happened as a result of technocentric thinking about energy advancement and led to numerous global environmental policies and decision making. 

What is the Chernobyl Disaster? 

300

Examples: Percolation, Advection, Energy going up the food chain

What is a transfer? 

300

promotes stability in a system as it reverses the change and returns the system to the original state of equilibrium

What is negative feedback? 

300

the amount of land and water that is required to support a human population at a given standard of living

What is ecological footprint? 

300

Pollution that occurs suddenly and in large quantities vs. long-term pollution at low concentrations

What is acute vs. chronic pollution?

400

Key thinker, poet, and philosopher who wrote about preservationism and living simply/in harmony with nature in his book Walden 

Who is Henry David Thoreau?

400

Inputs: light, O2, rain, runoff, plants & animals

Outputs: heat, evaporation, plants & animals

Transfers: organisms, water flow

Transformations: evaporation, condensation, photosynthesis, cellular respiration 

What is a lake? 

400

an ecosystem's mechanisms that will maintain the system in a steady state during a disturbance vs an ecosystem's mechanisms that will return the system to a steady state after any disturbance 

What is resistance vs resilience? 

400

a formal process that is put into action before something major can be changed to identify impacts that may result 

What is an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)? 

400

An organic compound that is resistant to degradation and is toxic to human health

What is a persistent organic pollutant (POP)?

500

An oil project that was the subject of intense debate between all three EVS's, specifically for economic, and Ecological reasons. The project has since been stalled as a result of revocation of the permit by the US Government. 

What is the Keystone XL Pipeline?

500

Proposed by James Lovelock in 1972, it suggests that all organisms on the planet interact with their biotic and abiotic surroundings to form a synergetic system. 

What is the Gaia hypothesis? 

500

A well known event in the US in the 1900s where a positive feedback loop of soil degradation and destruction of agriculture led to a tipping point 

What is the dust bowl? 

500

A 2001 UN evaluation that assessed the human impacts on the environment. It concluded that "humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of time."

What is the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA)?

500

1962 book in which the author advocated against the use of DDT as an insecticide, and led to a new wave of conservationism that in part led to the creation of the EPA.

What is Silent Spring by Rachel Carson?