environmental science final
Four Is of environmental policy making
Ideas, Interests, Institutions and Instruments
Ideas
Environmental Concern & Jobs vs Environment
Interests
Stakeholders & their power, Governments captive by industry, future generations
Institutions
Jurisdiction, Governance, treaties, colonialism (What we use to make decisions)
Instruments
Regulations & taxes/fees, subsidies and indecentives, decision making tools (EIA, modelling) (what we do)
Course themes
Science, government, values & ideas, politics & interests & power, scale & jurisdiction, uncertainty risk & complication, technology
Activities on campus that impact the environment
Studying, developing new buildings and parking, getting to and from campus and eating
How do activites on campus positively impact the environment
New knowledge & Ideas, graduates from envrionmental programs
How do activities on campus negativley impact the environment?
Energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, impacts natural landscape, waste of natural resources, release of toxic chemicals, new buildings
What are some responses to environmental impacts on campus
Campus & environmental policy, landscape natural areas planning, energy conservation programs, waste management programs
why are cities valuble
Full of values, ideas and expectations. hold government institutions and technology like buildings, roads and cars
The density of an area is impacted by what
power and politics of an area
Economic and political forces that push against densification
Growing population, agriculutre land development, people prefer suburban living
Benefits of urban trees
Protect biodiversity, cool city streets, manage stormwater
Downsides to urban trees
Dont fit in easily with the landscape, highly managed ecosystem and high maintenance
What is the law of induced demand
Adding in supply of something (roads) leads to increased consumption of that thing (more driving)
Natural systems are ___
dynamic
Two broad ways of considering natural systems
Structuon & functions and the flow of nutrients throughout them
Species-populations
Focus on boundaries, population densities and population dynamic (population= group of same species)
Community-ecosystem
Many populations of species living in the same space. focus on components, structure and function
Tolerance limits
Species exist within the tolerance limits for different environmental factors
Critical factor
A specific factor that affects the distribution of a species
Generalist species
Species with a broad range of tolerance
Specialist species
A species with a limited range of tolerance
Indicator species
Widely found species that act as early warnings of environmental change (ex. coral, moss, etc)
Factors that influence the structure of an ecological community
Species present, habitat, biological interactions and disturbances
BioMONITOR
Any species that acts as a biological indicator of the health of an environment
BioINDICATOR
Any species that provides quantitative information about the environment and provides data that can be used in analysis
Invasive species
Often introduced by humans, can outcompete native species and can alter the structure of the natural ecosystem
Climax-community
A community that develops and resists further change
Disturbances
Communities never reach a stable climax becaude they are adapted to periodic distribution
Intermediate disturbance hypothesis
The hypothesis that species diversity is highest when disturbance is neither too frequent or too rare
Why are human disturbances undesirable
Cause impacts like biodiversity loss, pollution, climate change and shift ecosystem structure and function
Restoration ecology
Restoring disturbed systems through human intervention
All energy comes from the ___
sun
Earths energy is balanced between ___ and ____
Inputs and outputs
Two laws of thermodynamics
1. Energy is neither created or destroyed, it only changes form
2. Quality of energy degrades with time and use
High quality energy
Intense, concentrated and high in temperature (ex. energy in gasoline and high voltage electricity)
Low quality energy
Diffused, dispersed and low in temperature
____ is the source of stored chemical energy in ecosystems
Photosynthesis
Energy efficency goes up how much each trophic level
~10%
Primary productivity
An indication of the rate of solar energy conversion to higher quality stored chemical potential energy
How much of the Earths surface is water
75%
Where is most of Earths freshwater?
Snow and ice
How much of Earths water is unusable salt water?
97.5%
How is human water use broken down
69% agriculture
19% Industrial
12% municipal
Water withdrawal
Water not returned to the system
Particular matter
Made up of inorganic elements and certain metals (the worst pollutant)
Primary pollutant
Pollutants that and formed and emitted from a particular source
Secondary pollutants
Pollutants formed in the lower atmosphere through chemical reactions
Active sampling
Requires power and used physical and chemical methods to collect pollutant samples
Continuous sampling
Active method that continuously monitors data
Passive sampling
No power required, collection is controlled by diffusion and deposition
Environmental policy
A course of action adopted by a government or organization that relates to protecting the natural environment
Greenhouse effect
Certain gases in the atmosphere trap the suns heat near the Earths surface
Radiative forcing
A measure of the change in Earths energy balance
Virtual water
The total volume of freshwater used to produce a product or service