• What is environment?

• What makes up your

environment?
What is environment?

• Environment is everything that affects

a living organism.
• Environment can include both living
(biotic) and non-living (abiotic)
components.
• What makes up a forest environment?
• What makes up a marine
environment?
• What makes up your personal
environment?
2 Major reasons why we study the environment:

1. To study the environmental problems

and issues, and priorities regarding
acceptable environmental preservation of
natural species and habitats; recognize the
freedom and limitations of nations to do as
they please, within their own potential
boundaries and issues on the quality of life,
fairness and ethics.
2. To develop a sustainable world,
a world where the supply of
food, water, building materials,
clean air, and other resources
can sustain human population to
continue to exist indefinitely with
a high standard of living and
health.
The Role of Science and People

+
The future of our planet
depends on how we deal with
human populations and the use
of resources. We have our roles
to play in choosing whether:
1. to act affirmatively toward a
sustainable future for ourselves
and for other species, OR
2. to do nothing

What is the role you choose?

Definition:

• environmentalism
• social movement for
protecting earth’s life support
systems for us and other
species
Interrelated definitions
include:
• ecology
• study of the interactions between
organisms and between
organisms and their environment
• ecosystem
• includes all organisms living in an
area and the physical
environment with which these
organisms interact.
What Keeps Us Alive?

• Solar Capital
• Natural Capital

• natural
resources are
natural capital

Fig. 1-2, p. 7
 With no predators, and unlimited life requirements,
an organism’s population can grow unchecked.
Population Growth

• 6.4 billion
and
counting
• Exponential
Growth
Is economic
developmen
t positive?
Resources

 Perpetual
 Solar– renewed
continuously
 Renewable
 Replenished fairly
rapidly through
natural processes

 Non-renewable
 minerals
Renewable Resources
 Sustainable yield
 Highest rate at which a potentially renewable
resource can be used without reducing its
available supply throughout the world or in a
particular area.
 Environmental Degradation
 Depletion or destruction of a potentially
renewable resource such as soil, grassland,
forest, or wildlife that is used faster than it is
naturally replenished. If such use continues, the
resource becomes nonrenewable (on a human
time scale) or nonexistent (extinct).
Non-Renewable Resources
 Resource that exists in a fixed amount (stock) in
various places in the earth's crust and has the
potential for renewal by geological, physical, and
chemical processes taking place over hundreds of
millions to billions of years.
 Energy, metals, and other minerals
 Examples are copper, aluminum, iron, salt, clay,
coal, and oil.
 Any potentially renewable resource can become
non-renewable if used improperly
 Theoretically, never exhaust due to economic
feasibility for extracting.
Pollution

 An undesirable change in the physical, chemical, or

biological characteristics of air, water, soil, or food
that can adversely affect the health, survival, or
activities of humans or other living organisms.
 Point source
 Single identifiable source that discharges pollutants into the
environment. ( smoke stack, exhaust pipes, industrial
discharge)
 Non-point source
 Large or dispersed land areas such as crop fields, streets,
and lawns that discharge pollutants into the environment
over a large area. (stormwater, septic tanks)
Environmental and Resource
Problems
Environmental and Resource
Problems
 Five root causes
What is Our Greatest
Environmental Problem?
• Disease
• Overpopulation
• Water Shortages
• Climate Changes
• Biodiversity Loss
• Poverty
• Malnutrition