Chapters 1 - 3

Basic Issues in Environmental

Science
Human activity is beginning to affect
environment globally.
 1. Population growth = underlying cause

 2. Industrialization

 3. Unsustainable practices
 Value of Environment?
 Utilitarian

-
 Ecological justification

-
 Aesthetic

-
 Moral

-
 Precautionary Priciple
 If there is a global threat of serious or
maybe irreversible environmental damage,
we should not wait till all the scientific
evidence is in before taking steps to prevent
the potential problem from occuring.
Value of Coral Reefs?
 Scientific Knowledge is Critical!
 Controlled Experiments
Independent variable
Dependent variable
Control

 Data
quantitative
qualitative
 Environmental science in…
 The media

 Politics

 Decision making
 Environmental Systems Change
 Amboseli National Park (case study)
(What happened and whose fault?)
 Systems
 Open

 Closed
System responses:
a. Negative feedback – most common
(an increase in some
output will lead to an eventual
decrease in that output - stabilizes)
 b. Positive feedback – output increase
leads to more output increase
(problem intensifies)
 Global Climate Change
Which feedback system will dominate?
 + Positive?

- Negative?
System Changes and Equilibrium
 Depletion: output larger than input
Examples:
 Growth: output smaller than input
Examples: bans on harvesting:

 Steady State: output = input

Examples: sustainable practices
 Natural and Human Impacts on
Systems
 Most natural disturbances tend to be in
balance and life has often co-evolved with
them.
 Many important!
Examples:
 Delays in Response
 Responses to change not always immediate
 May be non-linear, effects not seen for a
while
 Examples:

 Once seen, may be difficult to correct

 Residence Times
 Example: Pollutants
 Quick flow through (short A.R.T.) affects system
quickly but recovers quickly if problem remedied
 Slow flow through (long A.R.T.) takes a
longer time to show effects but longer to
recover even after problem remedied.
 Environmental Unity
 Everything affects everything else!
 Changes in one part of system has multiple
effects in that system and other systems.
 Uniformitarianism
 Processes happening in the present were
also happening in the past
– The magnitude and frequency of events may
vary over time, but the processes are the same
 Gaia
 Earth and all living things are part of a
single system
 Life greatly affects the system and regulates
the planetary environment to help sustain
life