Introduction to

Environmental Science

Enviornmental Science 150

Greg Hueckel

– (360) 866-8564 home

– (360) 888-5667 cell

– Email ghueckel@centralia.edu

Required Text

Sustaining the Earth (Seventh Edition)

G. Tyler Miller Jr.

Confusing terms

• environmental science (or studies)

• environmentalism

• ecology

• ecosystem

Definitions

• environmental science (or studies)

• interdisciplinary studies in natural sciences,

including geology, climatology, hydrology,

ecology, and their interaction with social

sciences such as economics, political

science, sociology, anthropology, geography

The Role of Science and People

+

Definitions

• environmentalism

• social movement for protecting earth’s life

support systems for us and other species

More definitions

• ecology

• study of the interactions between organisms

and between organisms and their

environment (example)

• ecosystem

• includes all organisms living in an area and

the physical environment with which these

organisms interact.

What is environment?

• Environment is everything that affects a living

organism.

• Environment can include both living (biotic) and

non-living (abiotic) components.

• Biotic components are the living things that

shape an ecosystem

• Abiotic components are non-

living chemical and physical factors in

theenvironment, which affect ecosystems

What Keeps Us Alive?

Fig. 1-2, p. 7

• Solar Capital

• Natural Capital

• natural resources are natural capital

Ecosystem Economics

Biological income must not exceed

biological expenditures.

Protect your capital and live off the income

it provides.

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).

Tragedy of the Commons

Depletion or degradation of a potentially

renewable resource to which people have

free and unmanaged

access.

An example is the depletion of

commercially desirable fish species in the

open ocean beyond areas controlled by

coastal countries.

How do we avoid this?

Ecological Footprint

Amount of biologically productive land and water needed to supply each person or population with the renewable resources they use and to absorb or dispose of the wastes from such resource use. It measures the average environmental impact of individuals or populations in different countries and areas.

www.redefiningprogress.org

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.

Non-renewable resources and natural

capital degradation

Extracting, processing and use come at

an environmental expense

ECOLOGY: Integrative levels, scope, and scale of organization

backM

ore

Ecology: Habitat

backM

ore

Ecology: Community

backM

ore

Ecology: Ecosystem

backM

ore

BIOTIC component of

environment

Food chain

BIOTIC component of

environment

Food Web

back

ABIOTIC component of

environment

ABIOTIC component of

environment

ABIOTIC component of

environment

back

Renewable: Sustainable yield

back