APES STUDY GUIDE EXAM QUESTIONS
WITH COMPLETE SOLUTIONS
Sustainability - Answer-The ability of a system to support itself
Gaia Hypothesis - Answer-proposes that organisms interact with their inorganic
surroundings on Earth to form a self-regulating, complex system that contributes to
maintaining the conditions for life on the planet.
Spaceship Earth - Answer-1968 Picture of Earth from Space
Precautionary Principle - Answer-The precautionary principle or precautionary approach
states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to
the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is
harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking an action.
Tragedy of the Commons - Answer-Some shithead is dumping shit into the environment
and screws up everybody else's shit
preservationist - Answer-People who want to protect the environment for its own sake
(not as a resource for humans).
Conservationist - Answer-an environmentalist who wanted to meet present economic
needs and conserve natural resources for future generations
Feedback Loop - Answer-Occurs when an output of matter, energy, or information is fed
back into the system as an input and leads to changes in that system. (Can be positive
or negative)
Perpetual Energy - Answer-Natural resources such as sunlight and wind that are widely
available and in no danger of being used up.
Non Renewable Energy - Answer-a source of energy that exsists in limited quantities
and once used, cannot be replaced except over the course of millions of years
Renewable Energy - Answer-Any source of energy that can be continually produced
and is inexhaustible given current conditions. (Needs effort like trees)
Absolute Energy - Answer-Anything that provides energy
Relative Scarcity - Answer-imbalance in the distribution of a resource rather than
insufficiency of the total supply
, High Quality Energy - Answer-organized and concentrated; can perform useful work
(fossil fuel and nuclear)
Low Quality Energy - Answer-disorganized, dispersed (heat in ocean or air wind, solar)
Neo Malthusian View Point - Answer-Gonna be a giant disaster because we overshot
the carrying capacity
Cornucopia View Point - Answer-There are plenty of available resources and there is
nothing to worry about
Hard Path - Answer-refers to use of large centralized power plants; may be coupled with
energy conservation and cogeneration. (Fossil fuels)
Soft Path - Answer-Energy policy that relies on renewable energy resources and other
sources that are diverse, flexible, and matched to end-use
Biomagnification - Answer-accumulation of pollutants at successive levels of the food
chain
Ecological efficiency - Answer-Ecological efficiency describes the efficiency with which
energy is transferred from one trophic level to the next
Primary Succession - Answer-An ecological succession that begins in an area where no
biotic community previously existed
Secondary Succession - Answer-Succession following a disturbance that destroys a
community without destroying the soil
Seral Stages - Answer-The communities in between the pioneer and climax community
during the stages of succession
Inertial Stability - Answer--an ecosystem with this has the ability to resist some low level
disturbance
Resilience Stability - Answer-able to deal with small disturbances, and then return to
how they were before.
Constancy Stability - Answer-lack of fluctuations in composition or functions in an
ecosystem
Zeroth law of thermodynamics - Answer-If two systems are in thermal equilibrium with a
third system, they must be in thermal equilibrium with each other. This law helps define
the notion of temperature.
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