Sustainability Defined: Inexhaustible resources

The ability of ecosystems and human – Perpetually available and expected to last
cultural systems to survive, flourish, and • Renewable resources
adapt together to constantly changing – Replenished by natural processes within their
environments over long periods of time sustainable yield
What is the environment? • Nonrenewable/exhaustible resources
– Everything around us, living and nonliving
– Available in fixed quantities that can be
• Ecosystem:
renewed, but only through long-term geologic
– Group of organisms in a defined geographic
processes
area (terrestrial or marine) that interact with
How Are Our Ecological Footprints
each other and their environment
Affecting the Earth?
• Environmentalism:
Over time, growth of ecological footprints
– A social movement dedicated to sustaining
depletes and degrades earth’s natural
the earth’s life-support system
capital (natural resources and ecosystem
Three Scientific Principles of Sustainability
services)
Dependence on solar energy
– Environmental degradation
– Supplies nutrients, directly and indirectly
• Biodiversity What is an Ecological Footprint?

– Provides ecosystem services and adaptability • An ecological footprint

• Chemical/nutrient cycling – The amount of land and water needed to

– In nature, waste = useful resources supply a population or geographic area with

What is a Resource? renewable resources, as well as the ability to

A resource is anything we obtain from the absorb/recycle wastes and pollution produced
environment by resource usage
– Can be readily available for use • The growth of ecological footprints
– Or – can require technology to acquire – Leads to degradation of natural capital
• Sustainable solutions for resource use – Results in the creation of pollution and waste
– Reduce
– Reuse
– Recycle
Affluence Has Harmful Environmental – Manage all public lands wisely and

Effects scientifically, primarily to provide resources for

• High levels of consumption and waste of people

resources

• More air pollution, water pollution, and

land degradation

• Acquisition of resources without regard for

the environmental effects of their

consumption

Affluence Has Beneficial Environmental

Effects

• Better education

• Scientific research

• Technological solutions resulting in

improvements in environmental quality

(e.g., safe drinking water)

• Three major types of world views:

– Human-centered

• Planetary management world view

• Stewardship world view

– Life-centered

– Earth-centered

The Rise of Environmental Conservation

and Protection in the United States

• The preservationist school (John Muir)

– Leave wilderness areas on some public lands

untouched

• The conservationist school (Theodore

Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot)

Ecosystems • Food chains

Earth’s Life-Support System Has Four – A sequence of organisms, each of which

serves
Major Components
as a nutritional source for the next (big fish eat
• Atmosphere – composed of the troposphere
little fish)
and the stratosphere. (AIR)
• Food webs
• Hydrosphere – water at or near the earth’s
– A complex network of interconnected food
surface (ice, water, and water vapor) chains
• Geosphere – composed of a hot core, a thick, • Pyramid of energy flow
mostly rocky mantle and a thin outer crust – Energy flow through various trophic levels
• Biosphere – wherever life is found within the

other three spheres (living organisms) GPP (gross primary productivity)

– The rate that an ecosystem’s producers

Three Factors Sustain the Earth’s Life convert

• The one-way flow of high-quality energy energy into biomass

– Solar energy principle of sustainability

– Greenhouse effect • NPP (net primary productivity)

• The cycling of nutrients – The rate that producers use photosynthesis to

– Chemical cycling principle of sustainability produce and store chemical energy minus the

• Gravity rate at which they use energy for aerobic

respiration

Producers and Consumers The Carbon Cycle

• Producers (autotrophs – plants) use • Atmospheric carbon dioxide, a key

photosynthesis to make nutrients component of the carbon cycle, has a

• Consumers (heterotrophs) feed on other significant temperature effect (greenhouse

organisms or their remains effect)

– Can be herbivores (plant eaters), carnivores • How does carbon cycle through the

(meat eaters) or omnivores (eat both plants and biosphere?

meat) – Photosynthesis by producers

– Aerobic respiration by producers, consumers Ecosystems and Three Big Ideas
and
• Life is sustained by the flow of energy and
Decomposers
nutrients through ecosystems which are
The Phosphorus Cycle
continually recycled
How does phosphorus cycle through the
• Ecosystems are characterized by producers,
biosphere?
consumers, and decomposers – All aid in the
– Cycles through soils, rocks, water and plants,
cycling process
but
• Human activities impact ecosystem cycling,
not through the atmosphere
sometimes negatively, sometimes positively
– Can be temporarily removed from natural
cycling (e.g., Yellowstone)
when washed into oceans and trapped in
marine

sediments

– As with nitrogen, contributes to agricultural

runoff

The Sulfur Cycle

• How does sulfur cycle through the biosphere?

– Via mining of ore deposits/ocean sediments

– From active volcanoes – as poisonous

hydrogen

sulfide and sulfur dioxide gases

– Through decomposition of organic matter in

wetlands

– From sea spray, dust storms, and forest fires

– Absorption by plant roots

Biodiversity and Evolution
What Is Biodiversity and Why Is It
Important?
Sustaining life on the earth depends on the
biodiversity found in genes, species,
ecosystems, and ecosystem processes
• Biodiversity is the variety in:
– Species (species diversity)
– The genes they contain (genetic diversity)
– Ecosystems (ecological diversity)
– Ecosystem processes, such as energy flow and
nutrient cycling (functional diversity)
Species and Biomes
• Species
– Set of individuals that can mate and produce
fertile offspring – every organism is a member
of
a certain species
• Ecosystem diversity
– Deserts, grasslands, forests, mountains,
oceans,
lakes, rivers, and wetlands
– Biomes are major habitations/large
ecosystems
with distinct climates and species
Each Species Plays a Role in Its
Ecosystem
• Niche
– The role the species plays in an ecosystem
and
everything that affects its survival and
reproduction
• Habitat
– The geographic location of the species
• Species
– May be generalists with broad niches, or
specialists with narrow niches
• Generalist species (broad niches)
– Can live in a wide range of environments; less
prone to extinction
• Specialist species (narrow niches)
– Live in only a few types of habitats; more
prone to
extinction because of their inability to tolerate
environmental change
• Native species
– Live and thrive in a specific ecosystem
• Nonnative species
– Immigrate into, or are deliberately or
accidentally
introduced, into an ecosystem
– Can threaten native species through
competition
for resources, reducing the number native
species
– Can spread rapidly if they find a favorable
niche