Maisy Fallon
Lombe Mundende
Afflueza—unsustainable addiction to over consumption and
materialism exhibited in the lifestyles of affluent consumers in the US
and other developed countries
Common property—resource that people normally are free to use
Developed countries—countries that are highly industrialized and
have a high per capita GDP
Developing countries—countries that have low to moderate
industrialization and low to moderate per capita GDP
Ecological footprints—amount of biologically productive land and
water needed to supply a population with the renewable resources it
uses and to absorb or dispose of the wastes from such recourses
Ecology—biological science that studies the relationship between
living organisms and their environment
Economic development—improvement of human living standards
by economic growth
Economic growth—increase in the capacity to provide people with
goods and services
Environment—all external conditions and factors, living and
nonliving, that affect any living organism or other specified systems
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
Environmental ethics—Human beliefs about what is right or wrong with how we treat
the environment
Environmental science—interdisciplinary study that uses information from physical
and social science to understand how the earth works, learn how humans interact with
the earth and develop solutions to environmental problems
Environmentalism—Social movement dedicated to protecting the earth’s lifesupporting systems for us and other species
Environmentally sustainable economic development—development that
encourages forms of economic growth that meet the basic needs of the current
generation of humans and other species without preventing future generations of
humans and other species from meeting their basic needs and discourages
environmentally harmful and unsustainable forms of economic growth
Environmentally sustainable society—society that meets the current and future
basic needs of its people for basic resources in a just and equitable manner without
compromising the ability of future generations of humans and other species from
meeting their basic needs
Environmental wisdom worldview—we are part of and totally
dependent on nature and nature exists for all species, not just us, and we
should encourage earth-sustaining forms of economic growth and
development and discourage earth-degrading forms.
Exponential growth—growth in which some quantity, such as population
size or economic output, increases at a constant rate per unit of time
Free access resources—resources people are normally free to use
Frontier environmental worldview—view by European colonists settling
North America in the 1600s that the continent had vast resources and was
a wilderness to be conquered by settlers clearing and planting land
Globalization—broad process of global social, economic, and
environmental change that leads to an increasingly integrated world
Gross domestic product (GDP)—annual market value of all goods and
Natural capital—natural resources and natural services that keep us and
other species alive and support our economies
Non-point sources—large or dispersed land areas such as crop fields,
streets, and lawns that discharge pollutants into the environment over a
large area
Nonrenewable resources—resources that exist in a fixed amount in the
earth’s crust and has the potential for renewal by geological, physical and
chemical processes that take place over hundreds of millions to billions of
years
Per Capita GDP—annual gross domestic product of a country divided by its
total population at mid year
Per capita ecological footprint—amount of biologically productive land
and water needed to supply each person or population with renewable
resources they use and to absorb or dispose of the wastes from such
Perpetual resource—essentially inexhaustible resources on a human time
scale because it is renewed continuously
Planetary management worldview—we are separate from nature, nature
exists mainly to meet our needs and increasing wants, and we can use our
ingenuity and technology to manage the earth’s life-supporting systems,
mostly for our benefits
Point sources—single identifiable source that discharges pollutants into the
environment
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 activity of humans or other living organisms
Pollution cleanup (output pollution control)—device or process that
removes or reduces the level of a pollutant after it has been produced or has
entered the environment
Pollution prevention (input pollution control)—device or process that
prevents a potential pollutant from forming or entering the environment or
Poverty—inability to meet basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter
Recycling –collecting and reprocessing a resource so that it can be made
into a new product
Renewable resource—resource that can be replenished rapidly through
natural processes as long as it is not used up faster than it is replaced
Resource—Anything obtained from the environment to meet human needs
and wants
Reuse—using a product over and over again in the same form
Social capital—positive force created when people with different views and
values find common ground and work together to build understanding,
trust, and informed shared visions of what their communities, states,
nations, and the world could and should be
Solar capital—solar energy that warms the planet and supports
Sound science—concepts and ideas that are widely accepted by experts in
a particular field of the natural or social sciences
Stewardship worldview—We can manage the earth for our benefit but we
have an ethical responsibility to be caring and responsible managers of the
earth
Sustainability—ability of earth’s various systems, including human
cultural systems and economies, to survive and adapt to changing
environmental conditions indefinitely
Sustainable yield—highest rate at which a potentially renewable resource
can be used indefinitely without reducing its available supply
Tragedy of the commons—depletion or degradation of a potentially
renewable resource to which people have free and unmanaged access
Lombe Mundende
Maisy Fallon
What is the major theme of this
book??
 Sustainability or Durability which is the ability of
earth’s various system, including human cultural
systems and economies, to survive and adapt to
changing environmental conditions idefinitely.
What keeps us alive? What is an
environmentally sustainable society??
 Our lives and economies depend on energy from the
sun and the earth’s natural resources and natural
services(natural capital) that nature provides for us at
no cost.
 An Environmentally Sustainable Society meets the
current needs of it’s people for food, clean water, clean
air, shelter and other basic resources without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their needs.
How fast is the human population
growing??
 Currently the world’s population is growing
exponentially at a rate of about 1.2% per year. This rate
added about 78million people(6.5billion X
.012=78million) to the world’s population in 2005, an
average increase of 214,100 people per day, or 8900
per hour.
What is the difference between economic growth,
economic development, and environmentally
sustainable economic development??
 Economic growth is an increase in the capacity of a
country to provide people with goods and services,
which is usually measured by the percentage change in
a country’s gross domestic product(GDP): the annual
market value of all goods and services produced by all
firms and organizations, foreign and domestic,
operating with in a country.
What is the difference between economic growth,
economic development, and environmentally
sustainable economic development??
 Economic Development is the improvement of human
living standards by economic growth. The UN(United
Nations) classifies the world’s countries as
economically developed or developing based primarily
on their degree of industrialization and their per capita
GDP.
What is the difference between economic growth,
economic development, and environmentally
sustainable economic development??
 Environmentally Sustainable Economic
Development is the goal to use political and economic
systems to encourage environmentally beneficial and
more sustainable forms of economic development and
discourage environmentally harmful and
unsustainable forms of economic growth.
What are the earth’s main types of resources??
How can they be depleted or degraded??
 Perpetual Resources- Resources that are renewed
continuously
 Renewable Resources- Resources that can be
replenished fairly rapidly (hours to several decades)
through natural processes as long as it is not used up
faster than it is replaced
 Nonrenewable Resources- Resources that can be
environmentally depleted to the point where it costs to
much to obtain what is left. The sources can be
degraded economically when the cost of extracting and
using what is left exceeds its economic value.
What are the principal types of pollution
and what can we do about pollution??
 Point Sources- single identifiable sources (ex: smoke
stack of coal burning power or industrial plant.)
 Nonpoint Sources- larger, dispersed and often difficult to
identify. (ex: pesticides sprayed into the air or blown by
the wind into the atmosphere.)
 We can reduce or eliminate the production of
pollutants after they have been produced(pollution
prevention or input pollution control) or clean up or
dilute pollutants after they have been produced
(pollution cleanup or output pollution control).
What are the basic causes of
today’s environmental problems?
 The major causes of environmental problems are
population growth, wasteful resource use, poverty,
poor environmental accounting and environmental
ignorance.
What are the harmful environmental
effects of poverty and affluence??
Poverty- People living in poverty are mainly
homeless and their daily lives are focused or getting
enough food, water and fuel for cooking and heating to
survive. Desperate for land to grow enough food, many
of the world’s poor people deplete and degrade forests,
soil, grass lands and wild life for short term survival.
They do not have the luxury of worrying about long
term environmental quality or sustainability.
What are the harmful environmental
effects of poverty and affluence??
Affluence-allows the affluent to clean up the
immediate environment of their homes, cities and
countries by transferring some of their wastes and
pollution to more distant locations. Affluence also
allows them to obtain the resources they need from
almost anywhere in the world without seeing the
harmful environmental impacts of their high
consumption life styles. In other words, many affluent
countries are living beyond their ecological means by
running up eventually unsustainable global ecological
debts.
What three major human cultural changes
have taken place since humans arrived??
 The Agricultural Revolution- began 10,000-12,000 years
ago allowed people to settle in villages and raise crops and
domesticated animals
 The Industrial-Medical Revolution- began 275 years ago,
led to a shift from rural villages and animal powered
agriculture to an urban society using fossil fuels for
manufacturing material items, agriculture and
transportation.
 The Information-Globalization Revolution- began
50years ago. It’s based on using new technologies for
gaining rapid access to much more information on a global
scale.
What are four Scientific principle’s of sustainability
and how can they help us build more
environmentally sustainable and just societies??
 Reliance on solar energy- the sun warms the planet
and supports photosynthesis used by plants to provide
food for us and other animals.
 Biodiversity- a great variety of genes, species,
ecosystems, and ecological processes have provided
many ways to adapt to changing environmental
conditions throughout 3.7billion year history of life on
earth.
What are four Scientific principle’s of sustainability
and how can they help us build more
environmentally sustainable and just societies??
 Population Control- competition for limited resources
among species places a limit on how much any one
population can grow. If a population grows beyond
those limits, its size decrease from changes in birth
rates and death rates.
 Nutrient Recycling- Natural processes recycle all
chemicals or nutrients that plants and animals need to
stay alive. In this recycling process, the wastes or dead
bodies of all organisms become food or resources for
other organisms.
What are four Scientific principle’s of sustainability
and how can they help us build more environmentally
sustainable and just societies??
 Using the four scientific principles to guide our life
styles and our economy could result in an
environmental revolution.