INTRODUCTION TO

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
Confusing terms

• environmental science
• environmental studies
• environmentalism
• ecology
• ecosystem
Definitions

• environmental science (or studies)

• interdisciplinary studies in natural sciences, including
geology, climatology, hydrology, ecology, and their
interaction with social sciences such as economics,
political science, sociology, anthropology, geography
The Role of Science and People

+
Definitions

• environmentalism
• social movement for protecting earth’s life support
systems for us and other species
More definitions

• ecology
• study of the interactions between organisms and
between organisms and their environment
• ecosystem
• includes all organisms living in an area and the physical
environment with which these organisms interact.
What is environment?

• Environment is everything that affects a living

organism.
• Environment can include both living (biotic) and non-
living (abiotic) components.
• What makes up a forest environment?
• What makes up a marine environment?
• What makes up your personal environment?
What Keeps Us Alive?

• Solar Capital
• Natural Capital

• natural resources
are natural capital

Fig. 1-2, p. 7
 Ecosystem Economics
 Biological income must not exceed biological
expenditures.

 Protect your capital and live off the income it

provides.
 With no predators, and unlimited life requirements,
an organism’s population can grow unchecked.
 Population Growth

• 6.4 billion and

counting
• Exponential
Growth
• More in
chapter 4
Economic Growth

Increase in capacity of a
country to provide
people with goods and
services
Economic Growth
• Gross Domestic Product
(GDP)
• Annual market value of all
goods and services produced
by all firms and organizations,
foreign and domestic,
operating within a country.
• Per Capita GDP
• Annual gross domestic product
(GDP) of a country divided by
its total population at mid-year.
It gives the average slice of the
economic pie per person.
Economic Development
Improvement of (human)
living standards by
economic growth
 Economic Development

 Developed Countries
 mostly US, EU, Canada, Japan, Australia
 high per capita GDP

 1.2 billion people

 Developing Countries
 mostly Africa, Latin America, Asia
 moderate to low per capita GDP

 5.2 billion people

Which has a bigger environmental impact?
Is economic
development
positive?
Resources

 Perpetual
 Solar – renewed
continuously
 Renewable
 Replenished fairly rapidly
through natural processes

 Non-renewable
 minerals
 Renewable Resources
 Sustainable yield
 Highest rate at which a potentially renewable resource can
be used without reducing its available supply throughout the
world or in a particular area.
 Environmental Degradation
 Depletion or destruction of a potentially renewable resource
such as soil, grassland, forest, or wildlife that is used faster
than it is naturally replenished. If such use continues, the
resource becomes nonrenewable (on a human time scale) or
nonexistent (extinct).
 Tragedy of the Commons
 Depletion or degradation of a potentially
renewable resource to which people have free and
unmanaged access.
 An example is the depletion of commercially
desirable fish species in the open ocean beyond
areas controlled by coastal countries.
 How do we avoid this?
Ecological Footprint

 Amount of biologically productive land and water needed to supply each

person or population with the renewable resources they use and to absorb
or dispose of the wastes from such resource use. It measures the average
environmental impact of individuals or populations in different countries and
areas.
 www.redefiningprogress.org
 Non-Renewable Resources
 Resource that exists in a fixed amount (stock) in various places
in the earth's crust and has the potential for renewal by
geological, physical, and chemical processes taking place over
hundreds of millions to billions of years.
 Energy, metals, and other minerals
 Examples are copper, aluminum, iron, salt, clay, coal, and oil.
 Any potentially renewable resource can become non-renewable
if used improperly
 Theoretically, never exhaust due to economic feasibility for
extracting.
Non-renewable resources and natural capital
degradation
Extracting, processing and use come at an
environmental expense
 Pollution

 An undesirable change in the physical, chemical, or biological

characteristics of air, water, soil, or food that can adversely
affect the health, survival, or activities of humans or other living
organisms.
 Point source
 Single identifiable source that discharges pollutants into the environment.
( smoke stack, exhaust pipes, industrial discharge)
 Non-point source
 Large or dispersed land areas such as crop fields, streets, and lawns that
discharge pollutants into the environment over a large area. (stormwater,
septic tanks)
Dealing With Pollution

 Prevention
 input control
 Cleanup
 output control

 Which strategy is more effective?

 Why?
 Where should we put more emphasis?
Environmental and Resource Problems
Environmental and Resource Problems
 Resource consumption
 Do you have “shop-till-you-drop” symptoms?
 Between 1998 and 2001, more Americans declared
bankruptcy than graduated from college

 Affluent countries depend on consumption for

economic growth.
 Don’tinclude resource costs with price of goods (water
use and in stream flows)
Environmental Impact (I) = (P)(A)(T)

Fig. 1-13 p. 15
Environmental Impact
 United States citizen consumes about 100 times as
much as the average person in the world’s poorest
countries.
 Poor parents in a developing country would need
70 to 200 children to have the same lifetime
resource consumption as 2 U.S. children.
Environmental Worldviews

 Are things getting better or worse?

 Depends on your perspective…
 Human ingenuity, tech advances and economic growth will clean up
pollution
 Environmentalists and scientists disagree – degrading and disrupting
earth’s ecosystems
 Planetary Management – of human growth
 Environmental Wisdom – wise use of our natural
resources
 What is Our Greatest Environmental
Problem?

• Disease
• Overpopulation
• Water Shortages
• Climate Changes
• Biodiversity Loss
• Poverty
• Malnutrition
Solutions

 Current Emphasis
(Reactive)
 Sustainability Emphasis
(Proactive)

Fig. 1-16, p. 18