Term
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Definition
Anthropocentric
• Established the National Forest Service (was Governor of PA in 1920s and 1930s)
• Advocated using natural resources, but exploiting them wisely, for the greatest good for the greatest number for the longest time
Using principle of conservation as guide: conserving the resources for future – maximize the use of resources for human |
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Term
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Definition
Biocentric
• Founder of Sierra Club
• Advocated preserving unspoiled nature, for its own sake and for human fulfillment.
• Preservation: preserve as they are; less altered or unaltered by human. |
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Term
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Definition
Ecocentric
• The “Land Ethic” : a call for moral responsibility to natural world
• Urged people to view themselves as part of nature, and to strive to maintain “the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community.”
• Restoration: restore the degraded environment to healthy state |
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Term
| Intrinsic (aka Inherent) Value |
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Definition
a thing has value just because it exists
• Animals are valuable because they live their own lives
• Preservation approach |
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Term
| Utilitarian (aka Instrumental) Value |
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Definition
valuing something for its benefits by using it; a thing has value if it is useful to humans
• Animals: valuable because we can eat them; Trees: lumber, paper, etc.
• Conservation approach |
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Term
| Anthropocentric Worldview |
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Definition
Humans are the only morally significant organism. Our duty to the environment is based on the fact that the environment is essential to human life.
• Gifford Pinchot |
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Term
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Definition
The environment is on a moral par with humans. Both living (biotic) and nonliving (abiotic) things and the way they interact (systems) should have direct moral consideration.
• Aldo Leopold |
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Term
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Definition
All forms of life have the right to exist and have moral standing.
• John Muir |
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Term
| What is the tragedy of the commons? |
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Definition
| An economic theory of a situation within a shared-resource system where individual users acting independently according to their own self-interest behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting or spoiling that resource through their collective action. |
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Term
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Definition
| Belong to no one, available to everyone Examples: Air (available to all), Water in oceans and rivers, Water in the Great Lakes, Fish of the sea |
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Term
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Definition
| A substance or process from nature which is useful to humans. |
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Term
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Definition
| Can be replaced by natural processes in the environment over a relatively short period of time (human scale) |
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Term
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Definition
| Limited in supply because it takes a long time to form (geologic scale) |
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Term
| Which types of resources are the crude oil, natural gas, fresh water, lumber, gold, etc.? |
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Definition
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Term
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Definition
1. Everything is connected to everything else.
2. Everything must go somewhere.
3. Nature knows best. You can’t fool Mother Nature.
4. There is no such thing as a free lunch. |
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Term
| The “Fertile of Crescent”: what is the major environmental problem? |
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Definition
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Term
| The Anasazi ("Ancient Ones") case: what's the name and the author of the book that Dr. Liu showed in class? |
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Definition
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Term
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Definition
• One of the significant environmental and ecological collapses in American history
• Drought coupled with poor farming practices impacted society and ecology of the Great Plains
• 500,000 farmers and city people left Midwest for work camps like refugees everywhere not welcome |
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Term
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Definition
| The ability to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. |
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Term
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Definition
| “We have an economy where we steal the future, sell it in the present, and call it GDP [gross domestic product].” |
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Term
| What is the Three-Legged Stool? |
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Definition
A popular analogy for sustainable development
• economic prosperity (economy)
• healthy Earth (environment)
• good quality of life (social equity)
• Three components working together to keep the stool stable and are considered equal |
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Term
| Triple Bottom Line Models |
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Definition
More from those having business point of view
• The 3 components of the triple bottom line are: People, Planet, and Profit.
• These represent social systems, natural systems and economic systems.
• The Toledo‐Lucas County Sustainability Plan uses the triple bottom line as the framework for its proposed plan. |
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Term
| What is closed loop production? |
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Definition
| When a product is manufactured in a way that producers take responsibility for the product from the extraction of raw materials to disposal of the final product. |
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Term
| High Plains Aquifer and Amazon Rain Forest Cases |
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Definition
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Term
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Definition
Measuring sustainability by calculating a person’s or a country’s ecological footprint
• The impact of a person or community on the environment, expressed as the amount of land required to sustain their use of natural resources.
o All inclusive: land used for our housing, growing food, to harvest trees for paper and lumber, to build the roads, to house the stores & factories, the impact of pollution we produce… |
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Term
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Definition
| Consuming more resources and ecosystem services than they are contributing. |
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Term
| IPATS Model - What does it represent? |
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Definition
I – Impact
P – Population
A – Affluence
T – Technology |
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Term
| When was the IPAT model developed? Who are the authors? |
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Definition
| In a series of papers in early 1970s, Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren proposed the following equation to estimate the overall impact (I) of our activities on the environment. |
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Term
| What do we mean when we say that population, affluence and technology are driving forces behind environmental impacts? |
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Definition
| The greater the population density, affluence (wealth, consumptive habits) of a society, and use of technology to industrialize (make uninhabitable places livable, arid land farmable, distances easily overcome), the more devastating the environmental impact. |
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Term
| How has human population grown over the last 10,000 years? |
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Definition
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Term
| What is the current world population? |
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Definition
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Term
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Definition
Number of individuals of a species that can be indefinitely sustained in a given area
• Nature keeps nonhuman populations “in balance” (Nature’s Way: predator/prey interactions, disease, etc.) |
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Term
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Definition
Number of individuals of a species that can be indefinitely sustained in a given area
• Nature keeps nonhuman populations “in balance” (Nature’s Way: predator/prey interactions, disease, etc.) |
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Term
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Definition
| The study of human populations (includes comparing statistics such as births, deaths, gender, race, and economic status). |
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Term
| What are the 3 components of population change? How do demographers measure each of the components? |
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Definition
1. Births:
o Crude Birth Rate (CBR): annual number of live births per
1,000 people.
o Total Fertility Rate (TFR): average number of children a
woman will have in her lifetime.
2. Deaths
o Crude Death Rate (CDR): annual number of deaths per
1,000 people.
o Infant Mortality Rate (IMR): number of infant deaths per
1,000 live births
3. Migration
o Immigrants are people who move into a country or area.
Emigrants are people who leave a country or area |
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Term
| How is the age and sex distribution of a population related to population change? |
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Definition
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Term
| What is the demographic transition? (4 Stages) |
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Definition
Stage 1: high birth rates, high death rates, small total population, stable population
Stage 2:
Population Explosion ‐ rapidly declining death rates, high birth rates, fast population growth
Stage 3:
declining birth rates, death rates beginning to stabilize, slower population growth, but population still growing
Stage 4:
birth rates have fallen back into balance with death rates: low birth rates, low death rates, stable total populations |
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Term
| What changes lead to the demographic transition? |
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Definition
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Term
| What changes resulted in the rapid growth in population? |
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Definition
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Term
| What changes resulted in the decrease in birth rates in most countries? |
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Definition
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Term
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Definition
| All developed countries are in Stage 4 (or 5?), Transition began with industrialization, rising incomes leads to declining birth rates, women have equal legal status (US) |
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Term
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Definition
| Most are in Stage 3 (some still in Stage 2), challenge is to escape the cycle of poverty, high birthrates, little education, poor health, transition most related to education and changes in the status of women. (Africa) |
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Term
| How do demographers forecast that the world population will change between now and 2100? |
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Definition
| Most demographers believe the world population will stabilize sometime during the next century. |
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Term
| What are the names of modern countries associated with The Fertile Crescent? |
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Definition
| Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Jordan |
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Term
| GDP vs. GPI (when pollution is created) |
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Definition
GDP gains double the amount: it increases once upon creation (as a side‐effect of some valuable process) and again when the pollution is cleaned up;
GPI counts the initial pollution as a loss rather than a gain, plus the cost of any negative impact the pollution will have in the mean time. |
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Term
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Definition
| “Modern technology owes ecology an apology” |
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Term
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Definition
| refers to the fact that technological change often has both positive and negative impacts on people and society. Linked to the solution to environmental problems and the creation of environmental problems. |
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Term
| Four Revolutions: What are they? What are their impacts? |
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Definition
Agricultural Revolution – when humans shifted from hunting and gathering to settled agriculture domesticating plants and animals.
Industrial Revolution – shift from rural society dependent on human and animal labor to urban society powered by fossil fuels
Information Revolution – transformation in human society that began with the development of telecommunications, such as telephones and computers.
Green Revolution – research and development of technology transfer initiatives that largely increased crop production in developing countries by using fertilizers, pesticides, and high-yield varieties (1930-60) |
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Term
| What is qanat? Where was it originated or developed? |
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Definition
| Hand-dug tunnel system for extracting groundwater in the dry mountain basins. Developed in ancient Iran. |
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