Chapter 1 Key Terms
Anthropocene
• Definition: current geological epoch which describes
the dramatic and profound changes that the earth is
undergoing.
Koyoto Protocol
• Definition: legally binding emission limits for
industrial countries negotiated in 1997.
Economic Development
• Definition: institutional changes made to promote
economic betterment. It is the social organizational
changes made to promote growth in an economy.
• Example From Textbook: More suddenly and dramatically
than experts had expected, China and other developing
countries are entering the energy-intensive stages of
economic development, and their factories, buildings, power
plants, and cars are consuming vast amounts of fossil fuels.
Deforestation
• Definition: the process of destroying a forest and
replacing it with something else, especially by an
agricultural system
• Example From Textbook: Tropical deforestation—
estimated at 13 million hectares per year—is adding 6.5
billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere annually.
Renewable Resource
• Definition: a natural resource that can be
replenished naturally with the passage of time, such
as trees
• Example From Textbook: The missing ingredient is
political will, and that is a renewable resource.
Stability
• Definition: resistance to change or performance.
Capacity to return to its original position after being
displaced.
• There are 2 kinds of economic stability:
• Stable - Economy that is fairly constant to an output growth
and has low inflation
• Unstable - an economy that has large, frequent recessions. It
has a pronounced business cycle with very high inflation and
has frequent financial crisis.
Equity
• Definition:
1. fairness: actions, treatment of others or a general
condition characterized by justice, fairness, and
impartiality.
2. justice tempered by ethics
3. fair claim
4. modification of common law
5. part of value paid
Innovation
• Definitions:
1. origination: the act or process of inventing or introducing
something new
2. A new idea or method; a new invention or way of doing
something.
Emissions
• Definition: Something that is emitted, especially the
exhaust from a car; The act of sending or throwing
out; the act of sending forth or putting into
circulation; issue; as, the emission of light from the
sun; the emission of heat from a fire; the issuing of
bank notes