Unit 1: APES

Living in the Environment by Miller, 16th Edition

Chapter 1

Environmental Problems, Their

Causes, and Sustainability
Introduction
 Environment
 External conditions that
affect living organisms
 Ecology
 Study of relationships
between living orgasms
and their environment
 Environmental Science
 Interdisciplinary study
that examines the role of
humans on the earth
 Sustainability
 ability of the earth’s various
natural systems and human
cultural systems and
economies to survive and
adapt to changing
environmental conditions
INDEFINITELY
Sustainable Society
 Manages economy and
population size without
exceeding all or part of the
planet’s ability to
 Absorb environmental
insults
 Replenish resources
 Sustain human and other
forms of life over a
specified period (100’s-
1,000’s of years)
Sustainable Resource Harvest
 Certain quantity of
that resource can be
harvested each year
and not be depleted
over a specified
period
 Sustainable supply of
fish or timber
Sustainable Earth
 Earth’s supplies of
resources
 Processes that make
up earth capital are
used and maintained
over a specified
period
Natural Capital
 Solar Capital
 Energy from the sun
 Provides 99% of the energy used on earthion
 Natural resources
 useful materials and energy
 Natural services
 purifications of air and water which support
life and human economics.
 ecosystems provide these services at no cost
Economic Growth - Key Terms
 Gross National Product
 Measures economic growth in a country
 Market value in current dollars of all goods and
services produced within and outside of a
country by the country’s businesses during one
year
 Gross Domestic Product
 Market value in current dollars of all goods and
services produced only within a country during
one year
Economic Growth - Key Terms
Per Capita GDP
 Changes in a county’s economic growth per
person
 the GDP divided by the total population at
midyear
Economics - Key Terms
 Economic Development
 has the goal of using economic growth to
improve living standards
 Economic Growth - Key Terms
 Developed Countries
 1.2 billion people
 Highly industrialized
 High per capita GDP PPP(Purchasing Power Parity)
 Developing Countries
 Middle income , moderately developed – China,
India, Brazil, Thailand, Mexico
 Low income, least developed – Angola, Congo,
Belarus, Nigeria, Nicaragua
 Wealth Gap
 The gap between the
per capita GNP of the
rich, middle-income
and poor has widened
 More than 1 billion
people survive on less
than one dollar per day
 Situation has worsened
since 1980
Sustainable Development
 Assumes the right to use the
earth’s resources and earth
capital to meet needs
 Obligation exists to pass the
earth’s resources and
services to future
generations in as good or
better shape than condition
when passed to us
 Intergenerational equity or
fairness
Resources
Potentially
Renewable Non-Renewable Renewable
Direct solar Fossil fuels Fresh air
energy
Winds, tides, Metallic minerals (iron, Fresh water
flowing water copper, aluminum)
Nonmetallic minerals (clay, Fertile soil
sand, phosphates)
Plants and
animals
(biodiversity)
Nonrenewable Resources
 Nonrenewable/Exhaustible Resources
 Exist in a fixed quantity in the earth’s crust and can be
used up
 Mineral
 Any hard, usually crystalline material that is formed
naturally
 Reserves
 Known deposits from which a usable mineral
can be profitably extracted at current prices
Biodiversity Depletion
 Habitat destruction
 Habitat degradation
 Extinction
Pollution
 Any addition to air,
water, soil, or food
that threatens the
health, survival, or
activities of humans
or other living
organisms
 Solid, liquid, or
gaseous by-products
or wastes
Point Source Pollutants
 From a single,
identifiable sources
 Smokestack of a
power plant
 Drainpipe of a meat-
packing plant
 Exhaust pipe of an
automobile
Nonpoint Source Pollutants
 Dispersed and often difficult to identify sources
 Runoff of fertilizers and pesticides
 Storm Drains (#1 source of oil spills in oceans)
Solutions: Pollution Prevention
 Input Pollution Control
or Throughput Solution
 Slows or eliminates the
production of pollutants,
often by switching to
less harmful chemicals
or processes
Water Pollution
 Sediment
 Nutrient overload
 Toxic chemicals
 Infectious agents
 Oxygen depletion
 Pesticides
 Oil spills
 Excess heat
Air Pollution
 Global climate
change
 Stratospheric ozone
depletion
 Urban air pollution
 Acid deposition
 Outdoor pollutants
 Indoor pollutants
 Noise
Solution: Four R’s of Resource
Management
 Refuse (don’t use)
 Reduce
 Reuse
 Recycle
Solution: Pollution cleanup
 Output Pollution
Cleanup
 Involves cleaning
up pollutants after
they have been
produced
 Most expensive
and time
consuming
 Environmental Degradation
Common Property Resources
 Tragedy of the Commons
 Resources owned by none, but
available to all users free of
charge
 May convert potentially
renewable resources into
nonrenewable resources
Model of Environmental Impact
 Number of People x Number of units of
resources used per person x Environmental
degradation and pollution per unit of
resource used = Environmental impact of
population
 PxAxT=I
Four Scientific Principles of
sustainability

 Reliance on solar energy

 Biodiversity
 Nutrient cycling
 Population control
Chapter 2 – Science, Matter, Energy
and Systems
 Endeavor to discover how nature works
and to use that knowledge to make
predictions about what is likely to happen
in nature.
 Science. Models, systems

“Scientific knowledge is a body of

statements of varying degrees of
certainty – some most unsure, some
nearly sure, and none absolutely
certain” – Richard Feynman
Scientific method
 HYPOTHESIS – proposed to
explain observed patterns
 Critical experiments
 Analysis and conclusions
Scientific Methods
 What is the question to be answered?
 What relevant facts and data are known?
 What new data should be collected?
 After collection, can it be used to make a
law?
 What hypothesis can be invented to explain
this? How can it become a theory?
Experiments
 Variables are what affect processes in the
experiment.
 Controlled experiments have only one variable
 Experimental group gets the variable
 Control group does not have the variable
 Placebo is a harmless pill that resembles the pill being
tested.
 In double blind experiments, neither the patient nor the
doctors know who is the control or experiment group.
Inference
1. To conclude from evidence or premises
2. To reason from circumstance; surmise:
We can infer that his motive in publishing
the diary was less than honorable
3. To lead to as a consequence or
conclusion: “Socrates argued that a statue
inferred the existence of a sculptor”
Theory and Law
 Scientific Theory
 A hypothesis that has been supported by
multiple scientists’ experiments in multiple
locations
 A Scientific Law
 a description of what we find happening in
nature over and over again in a certain way
Scientific Laws
 Law of Conservation of Matter
 Matter can be changed from one form to
another, but never created or destroyed.
 Atomic Theory of Matter
 All matter is made of atoms which cannot be
destroyed, created, or subdivided.
Reasoning
 Inductive Reasoning
 Uses observations and facts to arrive at
hypotheses
 All mammals breathe oxygen.
 Deductive Reasoning
 Uses logic to arrive at a specific
conclusion based on a generalization
 All birds have feathers, Eagles are birds,
therefore All eagles have feathers.
Frontier and Consensus Science
 Frontier Science
 Scientific “breakthroughs” and controversial
data that has not been widely tested or accepted
 String Theory
 Consensus or Applied Science
 Consists of data, theories, and laws that are
widely accepted by scientists considered experts
in the field involved
 Human Genome Project
 Accuracy Vs Precision
Accuracy – measurement agrees with the
accepted correct value
Precision – measure of reproducibility
Matter and Energy
Resources

Nature’s Building Blocks

anything that has mass and
takes up space
Definitions
 Atomic Number - number of protons
 Isotopes - same atomic number, different
mass number
 Ions - atoms can gain or lose one or more
electrons
 Mass Number - protons + neutrons
Building Blocks
 atoms - smallest units of matter-
protons,neutrons,electrons
 ion - electrically charged atoms
 molecules - combinations of atoms of
the same or different elements
 Isotope
 Elements
with same
atomic
number but a
different
mass number
Forms of matter
 elements – single type of atoms
 110 elements – 92 natural +18
synthesized
 compounds - 2 or more elements, held
together by chemical bonds
Law of Conservation of Matter
 elements and compounds changed
from one form to another, can
never be destroyed
 no “away” in “throw away”
Matter quality
 Measure of how useful a matter is
for humans based on availability
and concentration
Some Important elements- composition by
weight – only 8 elements make up 98.5% of
the Earth’s crust
Organic Compounds
 with carbon
 sugar, vitamins, plastics, aspirin
Environmental Organic
Compounds
 Hydrocarbons = methane gas
 Chlorinated hydrocarbons =. DDT,
PCB
 Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC)-
Freon 12
Polymers
 larger and more complex organic
compounds made up of monomers
 complex carbohydrates
 proteins - 20 amino acids
 nucleic acids - nucleotides
Inorganic compounds
 no carbon,not originating from a living
source
 Earth’s crust – minerals,water
 water, nitrous oxide, nitric oxide,
carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide,
sodium chloride, ammonia
Energy
 capacity to do work and transfer heat
 Kinetic Energy -energy in action
 electromagnetic radiation, heat,
temperature
 Potential energy - stored energy that is
potentially available
Energy sources
 97% solar
 without it earth’s temperature -
240 C
 1% - non commercial(wood, dung,
crops) + commercial ( burning
mineral resources)
Energy quality
 Measure of
how useful an
energy source
is in terms of
concentration
and ability to
perform useful
work
Electromagnetic radiation
 different wave lengths shorter – high
energy, disrupts cells with long term
exposure
Use….radioisotopes
 Estimate age of rocks and fossils
 Tracers in pollution detection and
medicine
 Genetic control of insects
Half - Life
 time needed for one-half of the nuclei in a
radioisotope to decay and emit their
radiation.
 Goes through 10 half –lives before it
becomes a non-radioactive form
1st Law of Energy or 1st Law of
Thermodynamics
 in all physical and chemical
changes energy is neither created
or destroyed
 energy input always equal to
energy output
2nd Law of Energy or 2nd Law of
Thermodynamics

 when energy is changed from one

form to another some of the useful
energy is always degraded to
lower quality, more dispersed, less
useful energy(heat)
Nuclear Changes
 nuclei of certain isotopes spontaneously change
(radioisotopes) or made to change into one or
more different isotopes
 Alpha particles – fast moving (2
protons+2neutrons); Beta particles – high speed
electrons ; Gamma particles - high energy
electromagnetic radiation
 radioactive decay, nuclear fission, nuclear
fusion
 certain isotopes Nuclear Fission
(uranium 235) split
apart into lighter
nuclei when struck
by neutrons
 chain reaction
releases energy
 needs critical mass
of fissionable
nuclei
Nuclear fusion
 two isotopes (hydrogen) forced together at
extremely high temperatures (100 million
C)
 uncontrolled nuclear fusion thermonuclear
weapons
 Environmental Science has
limitations……………….
 Cannot prove anything absolutely
 Cannot be totally free of bias
 Use of statistical tools
 Huge number of interacting variables
Feedback Loops
A feedback loop
occurs when an output
of a system is fed back
as an input
Two kinds of feedback
loops
 Positive
 Negative
 Positive feedback loop
 Exponential growth of population –
more individuals lead to increased
number of births
 Negative feedback loop
 Temperature regulation in humans –
increased temperature leads to decrease in
temperature by sweating
 Complex systems
 Time lags – change in a system leads to other
changes after a delay – lung cancer
 Resistance to change – built in resistance –
political, economic
 Synergy-when two or more processes interact
so that the combined effect is greater
 Chaos – unpredictable behavior in a
system
 Synergy and Chaos
 Synergy occurs when two or more processes
interact so the combined effect is greater
than the sum of the separate effects
 Grapefruit and Statins
 Chaos occurs in a system when there is no
pattern and it never repeats itself
 Noise versus Music
Implications for the environment –
High waste society
Implications for the environment –
Low waste society
Gaia Hypothesis (1970)
 James Lovelock and Lynn
Marguilis