22/03/24

Review for exam

● Foundations of environmental systems and societies

➔ Environmental value system: Is not talking about the environment, is talking
about the society.
★ Ecologist: Their value is to protect nature at all cost. Earth centered.
➢ Deep ecologist:They r the extreme, they don't believe that they
are the better species. They only use the environment when
they need it.
➢ Soft ecologist: They are taken into account but they are not as
extreme as the deep ones.
★ Anthropocentric: Human Centered, it's the thought that humans are the
dominant species
★ Tecnocentrics: The problems caused by humans can be saved by
technology.
➢ Cornucopians: See the world as having infinite resources to
benefit humanity, We can solve everything with technology.
➢ Environmental managers: Similar to anthropocentric views,
thay have more consciousness about the environment while the
cornucopians don't.

➔ Systems and models.

★ Systems can be on any scale, small or large. A system is the
representation of a model of a real thing.
➢ Open system: Exchange energy and matter
➢ Close system: Exchange Energy but not matter
➢ Isolated system: Does not exchange energy or matter. Do not
exist in real life as it's impossible to not exchange energy or
matter. Example the universe, we can say that it is isolated as
we don't know what's more than the universe.

In an open system we can know:

Transfers: Passage from one thing to another place, example: Water moving from a river to
the sea
Transformation: Change the state of the matter of something, example: Liquid to gas, light
to chemical energy.
Input: Something that gets inside our system.
Output: Something that gets outside our system.
★ Energy and equilibria.
★ Energy:
➢ 1st law of thermodynamics: Is the principle of conservation of
energy, which states that energy is an isolated system that can
be transformed but cannot be created or destroyed.
➢ 2nd law of thermodynamics (Entropy): Refers to the energy
being transformed through energy transfers.
Entropy: Is a measure of the amount of disorder in a system.
Entropy ↑ Energy↓. Al menos que tengamos que poner energía para
ordenarlo.Pero todo tiende al desorden

★ Equilibria:
➔ Equilibrium: Static, does not exist as we live in an environment. All the time
all the same
➔ Steady state: We are going to have the same ups and downs but we are going
to be constant with the steady state equilibrium. It breaks when a tipping
point can go up or down.
➔ Feedback: - or + feedback
➢ Negative feedback: Is the one that returns to the equilibrium state,
example: I'm cold i put something on)
➢ Positive feedback: Something that disturbs the equilibrium and you
end up having a new equilibrium.
➔ Resilience: The ability for a system to return to an equilibrium.

★ Sustainability:
❖ When a system or a model can return to normal equilibrium, we are always
going to have more than that. Water will not be sustainable anymore as we
contaminate the water from the rivers

➔ Sustainability indicators: The biotic (from the living things) and abiotic factors
(ph, good temperature, good air).

➔ Natural capital: The resources that you can sell, or purchase.

➔ EIA(Environmental impact assessment): A previous investigation we are
going to do before damaging the abiotic or biotic factors of the environment.
➔ Footprint: The things that we do to the environment will leave a mark in the
environment.
 ➔ Humans and pollutions.
Type of Pollutants:
- Matter
- Energy
- Living Organisms
Point source: The release from one indefinite site.
Non Point source: May have many sources, it is virtually impossible to detect exactly where
it is coming from.

Persistent: Are the ones that cannot be degraded by living organisms. And those desechos
leaves in the environment which can creates biomagnification or bioaccumulation (El pajarito
come una planta con DDT insecticida, entonces el insecticida queda dentro de los tejidos del
pajarito.)
Biodegradable Can be degraded by living organisims.

Greenhouse effect: The layer of gasses that allows us to leave the earth. The layer of gasses
can lead to global warming.

Chronic pollution: All the time is happening, example cars as they are always releasing
carbon dioxide

Acute pollution: Is the one that happens in a short period of time and contaminantes a lot of
pollution, example: Nuclear bomb.

● Measurements of pollution:
➔ Indirect pollution: Taking the measurement of the abiotic or biotic factors. If
there are lignans
➔ Strategies:
1. By changing the human activity which produces it.
2. By regulating or preventing the release of pollutants.
3. By working to clean up or restore damaged ecosystems.