Chapter 1

notes
• Exponential • Non renewable resources
growth

Exponential growth is when a quantity increases at a

• Environment constant rate per unit of time, this is important
words and their because we live in an exponential age. This affects
differences five different environmental issues: population
growth, resource use and waste, poverty, loss of
biological diversity, and global climate change.

Environment is everything that affects a living

organism, ecology is a science that studies
• Energy relationships between living organisms and their
environments, environmental science is a study of
how the earth works how we interact with it and how
to deal with enviro problems, and
• Population environmentalism is a social movement for
growth protecting the earth and the species.

Solar capital is energy from the sun or solar energy.

Natural capital and which is energy from natural
resources and ecological services that support and
sustain the earth’s life. Solar and natural capital is the
• Economic growth energy that all life and economies depend on.
and
development The exponential rate at which the earth’s population
grows, currently at 1.25% a year, though it is slowing
down.\
• globalization Economic growth provides people with more goods
and services, measured by the GDP, gross domestic
product, and economic development uses economic
growth to improve living standards.

Globalization is the process of social, economic, and

environmental global changes that lead to an
• resources increasingly interconnected world.

Resources are obtained from the environment to

meet our needs and wants, perpetual resources:
energy renewed continually (solar) and renewable
resources: energy that can be replenished through
• ecological natural processes (forests, animals, fresh water, air,
footprint/impact soil). When renewable resources are used faster than
they can be replenished environmental degradation
happens, caused by • Poverty and the environment
“free access” or
“common property.”

Per capita ecological

footprint is the amount
of biologically • Resource consumption and environmental
productive land and problems
water needed to supply
each person with
renewable resources.
Human’s ecological • Environmental worldviews
footprint exceeds the
earth’s biological
capacity to replenish
renewable resources
and absorb waste by • Greatest environmental problems
15%.
• Environmentally sustainable economic
Resources that exist in
development
a fixed quantity, they
can be economically
depleted to the point
where it costs too
much to obtain it. Much
of it can be recycled Pollutants are chemicals found at high enough levels
which allows us to in the environment to cause harm to people or other
reuse the same organisms. Pollution is the presence of the pollutants
resource. in air, water, soil, etc. Point source pollutants are
single, identifiable sources. Nonpoint sources are
dispersed and hard to identify.

Pollution prevention or Input pollution control

reduces or eliminates the production of pollutants.
Pollution cleanup or output pollution control
involves cleaning up or diluting pollutants already in
• Pollution the environment.

The major causes of environmental problems:

population growth, wasteful resource use, poverty,
poor environmental accounting, and ecological
ignorance.
• Pollution
prevention Land: poor people must deplete forests and other
ecosystems in order to grow food, Pollution: poor
people are forced to live in areas with great pollution
• The big five with great risk to natural disasters, pop growth: they
must have more kids in order to have economical
security.
Affluenza is the beneficial and sustainable activities and discourages
unsustainable addiction environmentally harmful and unsustainable activities.
to overproduction,
however, affluent
countries have the
money to do something
about the environment.

Environmental
worldviews: how YOU
think the world works,
Summary:
what YOUR role is, and
what YOU believe is
right or wrong.
Planetary
management world
views: WE are in
charge of nature and it
is OUR job to come up
with better resources.
Stewardship
worldview: we have a
responsibility to care
for the rest of nature,
we will not run out of
resources, but they
shouldn’t be wasted.
Environmental
wisdom world view:
we are not in charge of
the earth the earth’s
resources are not only
for us and therefore
should not be wasted.

Poverty, malnutrition,
smoking, infectious
diseases, water
shortages, biodiversity
loss, and climate
changes are the most
serious environmental
problems we face now
and in the future.

Environmentally
sustainable economic
development rewards
environmentally
This chapter, chapter 1,
told you the basics
about the environment,
what the biggest
problems are, and the
general things we can
do to improve it. This
chapter’s purpose is to
give you a very surface
level knowledge of the
problems we are facing
in the worlds, and to
give a definition of
many of the terms that
will be examined and
revisited throughout
the course. It gave the
reasons for our
problems, what the
problems are, and
different views on how
to approach these
problems.