Introduction to Environmental Science Notes
Chapter 1 Notes: Environment, Sustainability, and Science
Chapter 1: Lesson 1
Objectives:
● The fundamental insight of environmental science is that we are part of the natural world
and we are dependent on a healthy, functioning planet
The environment and you:
● Environment: physical, chemical, and biological factors; includes biotic factors and
abiotic factors
● Environmental science: the studies of all aspects of the environment
● Ecology: the study of organisms in relations to the environment
Environmental Problems:
● Human population is growing at a rapid rate
○ 200,000 or more people per day are born
○ There is about 84 million people per year that are born
○ Exponential growth
● Affluence has harmful and beneficial effects
● Poverty has harmful environmental and health effects
● Rices of goods and services do not include harmful environmental problems
○ Government subsidies
● We are increasingly isolated from nature
● People have different views about environmental problems and their solutions
People, plant and profit: the triple bottom line
● Sustainability can be evaluated considering the economic, social and environmental
dimensions
Chapter 1: Lesson 2: Ecosystems
Objectives:
● An ecosystem is the combination of a community of organisms and its physical and
chemical environment, functioning as an integrated ecological unit
Ecosystem function and integrity
● Biotic factors ( or biota factors ) and abiotic factors
● Ecosystem integrity: a web of interactions that regulate ecosystem functions
● Energy and matter must flow in and out of the system
○ Water cycles
○ Carbon cycles
○ Etc.
● Ecosystems have a variety of scales
Ecosystem services:
● Ecosystems provide humans with many resources and processes that are essential to
human well being
○ Provisioning services:
■ Food
■ Water
, ■ Air
○ Regulating services:
■ Climate
■ Food control
■ Absorption of pollutants
○ Cultural services:
■ Spiritual benefits
■ Recreational benefits
○ Supporting services:
■ Pollination
■ Nutrient cycles
■ Soil formation
○ Humans can modify to increase services
■ Changing grasslands to cornfields
Chapter 1: Lesson 3: Principles of Ecosystem Function
Objectives:
● Matter and energy are neither created nor destroyed
● Ecosystems are always open to gains and losses of matter and energy
● Ecosystem process are self - regulated by interactions among their living and nonliving
components
● Ecosystem change is inevitable and essential
Ecosystem functions:
● Conservation of matter and energy
○ Energy and matter can neither be created or destroyed
○ Cellular respiration and photosynthesis
● Ecosystems are open
● Ecosystem stability
○ Dynamic homeostasis
○ Negative feedback loops
○ Positive feedback loops
● Ecosystem change
Chapter 1: Lesson 4: Acting Sus
Objectives:
● Do we have a responsibility to future generations?
Managing resources:
● Resources
● Nonrenewable resources
● Renewable resources
● Sustainable yield
Sustainable ecosystem management:
● Ecosystem boundaries
○ Cannot be arbitrary - state lines
○ Must be functional
● Maintaining balance and integration
, ○ Management must incorporate the complexity of the system
● Embracing change
○ Must not ignore change or interfere with the capacity to change
○ Avoid changing the tempo of natural change
Chapter 1: Lesson 5: Uncertainty, Science, and Systems Thinking
Objectives:
● Sources of uncertainty: ignorance and complexity
Reducing uncertainty with science:
● Scientific thinking: systematic questioning
● Hypothesis: testable explanations
○ Falsifiable: could be proven wrong
● Replication and peer review
● After consensus: still can be proven wrong
○ New technology
○ Interpretation
Systems thinking:
● Recognizes the connections of parts in a system
● It is more important to know how a system works
● Individual parts are important, system functions more so
Chapter 1: Lesson 6: Sustainability Science:
Objectives:
● Sustainability science aims to understand the interactions between ecological systems
and social systems, with a particular focus on long term changes in global systems such
as climate economy and the world economy
Ecosystem - Social System and Research needs
● Ecosystem: social system connections
○ Long term trends
● Ecosystem: social system stability
○ Thresholds of change
○ Human incentives
○ Monitoring our progress
○ Integrating learning and action
CChapter 2 Notes: Environmental Ethics, Economics, and Policy
Chapter 2: Lesson 1: Changing views of humans and nature
Objectives:
● Human attitudes toward the environment are shaped by a variety of factors, including:
○ Mode of living
○ Cultural history
○ Religious beliefs
○ Political beliefs
○ Knowledge
Pre - industrial views:
, ● Animism: living and nonliving objects have soul and spirit; common religious feature for
indigenous people
● Domestication of plants and animals: humans alter ecosystems
The enlightenment and industrial revolution:
● New technology
● New scientific understanding
○ Evolution
○ Botany and zoology understanding environmental connections
● New ideas
○ Transcendentalism: seeking the connections with nature
○ Birth of modern environmental movement
Living in the modern world conservation versus preservation:
● Preservationist view: parks and public land should preserve wild nature in pristine state
● Conservationist view: should be used and managed sustainably to provide the greatest
benefit to the greatest number of people
● Modern era: environmental trends, debates, and warnings dominate the media; also
entwined in global politics; beginning to understand dependence on ecosystems
Chapter 2: Lesson 2: Environmental ethics
Objectives:
● Studies the moral relationship of humans to the environment and its nonhuman contents
Doing the right thing:
● Virtue ethics: right if motivated by virtues, including:
○ Kindness
○ Loyalty
○ Justice
● Consequence - based ethics: importance of outcome; utilitarianism is the greatest good
for most people
○ Benefit versus harm
● Duty - based ethics: based on a set of rules and laws
○ Lying is always wrong
Who or what matters:
● Environmental ethics differ
○ Intrinsic value: people, organisms, or objects are valued
○ Instrumental value: things valued as a means to something else
○ Anthropocentric ethics: intrinsic value - humans only; instrumental value -
everything else that helps humans
○ Biocentric ethics: intrinsic value - all living things
○ Ecocentric ethics: intrinsic value - communities and ecosystems; deep ecology
movement
Chapter 2: Lesson 3: The environment and the market place
Objectives:
● An economic system is made up of the institutions and the interactions a society that
influence:
○ The production
Chapter 1 Notes: Environment, Sustainability, and Science
Chapter 1: Lesson 1
Objectives:
● The fundamental insight of environmental science is that we are part of the natural world
and we are dependent on a healthy, functioning planet
The environment and you:
● Environment: physical, chemical, and biological factors; includes biotic factors and
abiotic factors
● Environmental science: the studies of all aspects of the environment
● Ecology: the study of organisms in relations to the environment
Environmental Problems:
● Human population is growing at a rapid rate
○ 200,000 or more people per day are born
○ There is about 84 million people per year that are born
○ Exponential growth
● Affluence has harmful and beneficial effects
● Poverty has harmful environmental and health effects
● Rices of goods and services do not include harmful environmental problems
○ Government subsidies
● We are increasingly isolated from nature
● People have different views about environmental problems and their solutions
People, plant and profit: the triple bottom line
● Sustainability can be evaluated considering the economic, social and environmental
dimensions
Chapter 1: Lesson 2: Ecosystems
Objectives:
● An ecosystem is the combination of a community of organisms and its physical and
chemical environment, functioning as an integrated ecological unit
Ecosystem function and integrity
● Biotic factors ( or biota factors ) and abiotic factors
● Ecosystem integrity: a web of interactions that regulate ecosystem functions
● Energy and matter must flow in and out of the system
○ Water cycles
○ Carbon cycles
○ Etc.
● Ecosystems have a variety of scales
Ecosystem services:
● Ecosystems provide humans with many resources and processes that are essential to
human well being
○ Provisioning services:
■ Food
■ Water
, ■ Air
○ Regulating services:
■ Climate
■ Food control
■ Absorption of pollutants
○ Cultural services:
■ Spiritual benefits
■ Recreational benefits
○ Supporting services:
■ Pollination
■ Nutrient cycles
■ Soil formation
○ Humans can modify to increase services
■ Changing grasslands to cornfields
Chapter 1: Lesson 3: Principles of Ecosystem Function
Objectives:
● Matter and energy are neither created nor destroyed
● Ecosystems are always open to gains and losses of matter and energy
● Ecosystem process are self - regulated by interactions among their living and nonliving
components
● Ecosystem change is inevitable and essential
Ecosystem functions:
● Conservation of matter and energy
○ Energy and matter can neither be created or destroyed
○ Cellular respiration and photosynthesis
● Ecosystems are open
● Ecosystem stability
○ Dynamic homeostasis
○ Negative feedback loops
○ Positive feedback loops
● Ecosystem change
Chapter 1: Lesson 4: Acting Sus
Objectives:
● Do we have a responsibility to future generations?
Managing resources:
● Resources
● Nonrenewable resources
● Renewable resources
● Sustainable yield
Sustainable ecosystem management:
● Ecosystem boundaries
○ Cannot be arbitrary - state lines
○ Must be functional
● Maintaining balance and integration
, ○ Management must incorporate the complexity of the system
● Embracing change
○ Must not ignore change or interfere with the capacity to change
○ Avoid changing the tempo of natural change
Chapter 1: Lesson 5: Uncertainty, Science, and Systems Thinking
Objectives:
● Sources of uncertainty: ignorance and complexity
Reducing uncertainty with science:
● Scientific thinking: systematic questioning
● Hypothesis: testable explanations
○ Falsifiable: could be proven wrong
● Replication and peer review
● After consensus: still can be proven wrong
○ New technology
○ Interpretation
Systems thinking:
● Recognizes the connections of parts in a system
● It is more important to know how a system works
● Individual parts are important, system functions more so
Chapter 1: Lesson 6: Sustainability Science:
Objectives:
● Sustainability science aims to understand the interactions between ecological systems
and social systems, with a particular focus on long term changes in global systems such
as climate economy and the world economy
Ecosystem - Social System and Research needs
● Ecosystem: social system connections
○ Long term trends
● Ecosystem: social system stability
○ Thresholds of change
○ Human incentives
○ Monitoring our progress
○ Integrating learning and action
CChapter 2 Notes: Environmental Ethics, Economics, and Policy
Chapter 2: Lesson 1: Changing views of humans and nature
Objectives:
● Human attitudes toward the environment are shaped by a variety of factors, including:
○ Mode of living
○ Cultural history
○ Religious beliefs
○ Political beliefs
○ Knowledge
Pre - industrial views:
, ● Animism: living and nonliving objects have soul and spirit; common religious feature for
indigenous people
● Domestication of plants and animals: humans alter ecosystems
The enlightenment and industrial revolution:
● New technology
● New scientific understanding
○ Evolution
○ Botany and zoology understanding environmental connections
● New ideas
○ Transcendentalism: seeking the connections with nature
○ Birth of modern environmental movement
Living in the modern world conservation versus preservation:
● Preservationist view: parks and public land should preserve wild nature in pristine state
● Conservationist view: should be used and managed sustainably to provide the greatest
benefit to the greatest number of people
● Modern era: environmental trends, debates, and warnings dominate the media; also
entwined in global politics; beginning to understand dependence on ecosystems
Chapter 2: Lesson 2: Environmental ethics
Objectives:
● Studies the moral relationship of humans to the environment and its nonhuman contents
Doing the right thing:
● Virtue ethics: right if motivated by virtues, including:
○ Kindness
○ Loyalty
○ Justice
● Consequence - based ethics: importance of outcome; utilitarianism is the greatest good
for most people
○ Benefit versus harm
● Duty - based ethics: based on a set of rules and laws
○ Lying is always wrong
Who or what matters:
● Environmental ethics differ
○ Intrinsic value: people, organisms, or objects are valued
○ Instrumental value: things valued as a means to something else
○ Anthropocentric ethics: intrinsic value - humans only; instrumental value -
everything else that helps humans
○ Biocentric ethics: intrinsic value - all living things
○ Ecocentric ethics: intrinsic value - communities and ecosystems; deep ecology
movement
Chapter 2: Lesson 3: The environment and the market place
Objectives:
● An economic system is made up of the institutions and the interactions a society that
influence:
○ The production
