Environmental Science: Systems & Solutions
Fifth Edition – Michael L. McKinney, Robert M. Schoch, Logan
Yonavkjak
Week 1: Introduction
1 - Chapter 1: Introducton
- Environmental science is very important: humanity now stands at unique crossroads.
- Environmental science involves all felds of natural science as they bear on the physical and
biological environment around us. Aspects of biology, geology, chemistry, physics, meteorology, and
many other disciplines must be considered when studying environmental science.
- These days there is a lot of informaton overload, we need to achieve environmental wisdom.
- Throughput = the input of materials and energy through society. Environmental resources are
referred to as sources of throughput.
- Human-environmental interactons evolve through 5 basic stages: gathering and huntng,
agriculture and conservatonism, industry and environmentalism, transiton and sustainability, and
the post industrial stage.
- We are now in the transitonal phase which produced the sustainable movement. This movement
focuses on reducing societal consumpton of resources, seeks to solve holistcally the structural social
causes of environmental problems such as poverty and relies on grassroots actvism.
- Environmental impact, involves either resource depleton or polluton. .mpact is promoted by
populaton and consumpton: . = P x C.
- The world populaton is growing about 77 million a year.
1 - Chapter 2: Populaton
- How do we shrink the world populatonn Create development. According to the demographic
transiton model, populaton growth will decrease when a country undergoes development.
Queston is whether the transiton model is accurate for every country in the world. Not in every
country the birth rate drops.. And also not every country has high industrializaton (like Europe)
- Afer industrializaton massive populaton growth. Now it is growing more in the developing
countries. .n US populaton growth mainly because of immigraton.
- .ncreasing the educatonal level & social status of women helps: decrease in fertlity rates. The
subject of human populaton is a complex emotonally charged issue.
1 – Chapter 3: The Biosphere
- Earth’s natural environment can be divided into the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and
biosphere.
- Water, air and energy are the three major aspects of the physical environment.
- Ecology studies how organisms interact with each other at the physical environment.
- Populatons or organisms go through three distnct phases: growth, stability and decline.
- Energy fow through an ecosystem can be studies using food webs & biomass pyramids.
- Biogeochemical cycles are cycles of elements and substances that move through the 4 spheres.
- Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it is degraded when transformed from one form of energy
to another.
, 1 – Chapter 4: The Distributon of Life on Earth
- Primitve bacteria arose at least 3.5 billion years ago. New species originate through natural
selecton.
- Biodiversity is ofen measured as number of species.
- Rain forest sampling, ecological ratos, and species area curves estmate biodiversity.
- Biomes are suites of communites that share many basic adaptatons.
- Climate, especially temperature and rainfall, largely determine biomes.
- The seven terrestrial biomes are tropical forests, savanna, grasslands, deserts, temperate forests,
taiga, and tundra.
- The two aquatc biomes are marine and fresh water.
1 – Chapter 5: The Dynamic Earth and Natural Hazards
- Major components of the Earth’s internal structure include the crust, lithosphere, asthenosphere,
mantle, and core.
- The lithosphere (crust and upper mantle) is divided into plates that move relatve to one another.
- Plate tectonics, the unifying theory of geology, can account for the distributon of major features
(such as mountain ranges, earthquake zones and volcanoes) on the surface of the earth.
- Rocks are forces primarily of minerals, which are in turn formed of atoms.
- Diferent types of rocks igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary can be transformed from one
to another during the rock cycle.
- Weather is short-term perturbatons in the atmospheric/hydrologic cycles, and climate is average
weather over many years.
- The earth is about 4.6 billion years old and has been undergoing major changes since.
- Natural hazards from a human perspectve include earthquakes, volcanic eruptons, foods, land
instability, cyclones and other storms, droughts, and fres.
Week 2: Environmental limits to development
2 – Chapter 6: People and Natural Resources
- Resources are raw materials that society uses. The need for resource management is inescapable.
Resources should be managed for both living and future generatons.
- Preservaton, conservaton and restoraton manage resources for future generatons.
- The “fve Es” are key values: aesthetc, emotonal, economic, environmental services, ethical.
- Dispersion (change of opinion, spread) depletes mater resources.
- Energy resources are depleted (uitgeput) when energy is changed to a less usable form.
- As a resource is depleted, we should conserve, not intensify its use.
- Net yield and maximum sustainable yield (MSY) represent intensifcaton of resource use.
- Three ways to conserve resources are raise efciency, recycle/reuse, and substtute.
- Conservaton typically is discouraged because natural resources are undervalued.
- Sustainable industries not only conserve resources but ofen produce more jobs.
2 – Chapter 14: Principles of Polluton Control, Toxicology and Risk
- Polluton = populaton x consumpton.
- Three myths of polluton control are: purity of nature, zero polluton and zero risk.
- The beneft-cost approach seeks to reduce polluton to acceptable levels while minimizing economic
cost.
- .nput reducton is more efcient than output control in reducing polluton.
- Persuasion, regulaton, and economic incentves are three basic ways to implement polluton
controls. (overtuiging, regulering, economische stmulansen)
