CHAPTER 1
UNDERSTANDING OUR
ENVIRONMENT
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.
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Chapter One Readings & Objectives
Required Reading
Cunningham & Cunningham, Chapter One: Understanding Our
Environment
After finishing Chapter One you should be able to:
• define the term environment and Environmental Science and identify some
important environmental concerns that we face today;
• explain the scientific method and how to apply it to problem solving;
• explain how statistics and probability can be used in Environmental Science;
• understand how analytical, creative, critical, logical and reflective thinking differ;
•summarize some major environmental dilemmas and issues that shape our current
environmental agenda; and,
• discuss the implications of sustainability and sustainable development.
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Chapter One Key Terms
 analytical thinking
 biocentric preservation
 blind experiments
 controlled studies
 creative thinking
 critical thinking
 deductive reasoning
 double-blind design
 environment
 environmental science
 global environmentalism
 hypothesis
 inductive reasoning
 logical thinking
mean
 modern environmentalism
 paradigms
 parsimony
 probability
 reflective thinking
 reproducibility
 sample
 scientific theory
 significant numbers
 statistics
 sustainability
 sustainable development
 utilitarian conservation
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Chapter 1 Topics
• Understanding Our Environment (Dredging the
Hudson)
• Science as a Way of Knowing
• Investigating our Environment
• Thinking About Thinking
• A Brief History of Conservation &
Environmentalism
• Current Environmental Conditions
• Human Dimensions of environmental science 4
PART 1: UNDERSTANDING OUR
ENVIRONMENT
The
Planet Earth
• Unique in the universe (?)
• Mild, relatively constant
temperatures
• Biogeochemical cycles
• Millions of species
• Diverse, self-sustaining
communities
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Environmental Science
Environment is the
circumstances and
conditions that surround an
organism or a group of
organisms.
Environmental science is
the systematic study of our
environment and our place
in it.
Ecology is the study of an
organism or organisms, the
impact of the environment
on them, and their impact
on the environment.
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Part 2: Science as a Way of Knowing
• Modern science has its
roots in antiquity
• Greek philosophers
• Arabic mathematicians
and astronomers
• Chinese naturalists
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Quotes to think about regarding Ecology:
The reasonable man adapts himself to the
world; the unreasonable one persists in trying
to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore all progress depends on the
unreasonable man.
[George Bernard Shaw]
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Quotes to think about regarding Technology:
The only two things that are infinite in size are
the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not
completely sure about the universe.
[Albert Einstein]
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Scientific
Investigation
• Deductive vs.
inductive reasoning
• Hypothesis - a
conditional
explanation that can
be verified or falsified
• Scientific theory an explanation that is
supported by an
overwhelming body of
data and experience
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Models and Natural Experiments
Models
• Simulate real environmental systems;
• Can be physical or mathematical;
• Provide heuristic information (suggestions of how
things MIGHT be); and
• Are influenced by researchers' assumptions.
Natural Experiments
• Gathering of historic evidence; and
• Conducted by scientists who can't test their
hypotheses directly.
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Open Minds are Learning Minds
• In some ways, children are the
“ultimate” practical
scientists…no pre-conceived
bias in their investigations.
• However, Society uses
numbers, called “statistics” to let
you evaluate and compare
things. Information known by
only one person isn’t useful to
Society, and communication is
essential. This is one reason
why scientists are rewarded so
much for publishing in scientific
journals. “Publish or Perish” is a
real threat in academia.
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Scientific Design
• Blind Experiment
– Conducted so investigators do not know
which is the control and which is the
experimental group, until after data have
been gathered and analyzed.
• Double-Blind
– Neither the subject nor the investigators
know which participants are receiving an
experimental treatment.
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Statistics and Probability
Quantitative data
• Precise and easily compared; and
• Good benchmarks for measuring change.
Probability
• Measure of how likely something is; and
• High degree of scientific certainty: 95% probability.
Statistics
• Important tool in both planning and evaluating
scientific studies; and
• Sample size, number of replications important.
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Paradigms and Scientific
Consensus
Paradigms
• Overarching models of the world that guide our
interpretation of events
• Examples: tectonic plate movement, Einstein's theory of
relativity
Paradigm shift
• Occurs when a majority of scientists accept that the old
explanation no longer explains new observations very
well
• Paradigm shifts are sometimes contentious and
political.
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Part 3: Thinking About Thinking
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Table 1.3 Steps in Critical
Thinking
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Applying Critical Thinking
• Identify and evaluate premises and
conclusions in an argument;
• Acknowledge and clarify uncertainties,
vagueness, equivocation, and contradictions;
• Distinguish between facts and values;
• Recognize and assess assumptions;
• Distinguish source reliability or unreliability;
and
• Recognize and understand conceptual
frameworks.
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Steps in Critical Thinking
• Identify and evaluate premises and conclusions
in an argument.
• Acknowledge and clarify uncertainties,
vagueness, equivocation, and contradictions.
• Distinguish between facts and values.
• Recognize and assess assumptions.
• Distinguish source reliability or unreliability.
• Recognize and understand conceptual
frameworks.
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Part 4.
History of
Conservation and
Environmentalism
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Our Conservation and Environmentalism
History has four Distinct Stages:
– Pragmatic Resource Conservation
– Moral and Aesthetic Nature Preservation
– Modern Environmentalism
– Global Environmental Citizenship
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Pragmatic Resource
Conservation
President Theodore Roosevelt and his chief
conservation advisor, Gifford Pinchot,
believed in utilitarian conservation.
– Forests should be saved so they can be
used to provide homes and jobs.
– Should be used for “the greatest good for
the greatest number, for the longest time.”
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Moral and Aesthetic Nature
Preservation
John Muir, first president of the Sierra Club,
opposed Pinchot’s utilitarian policies.
– Biocentric Preservation
– emphasizes the fundamental right of all
organisms to pursue their own interests
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Modern Environmentalism
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) started
the modern environmental movement.
– awakened the public to threats of pollution
and toxic chemicals to humans as well as
other species
– modern environmentalism extends
concerns to include both natural resources
and environmental pollution.
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Global Concerns
Increased travel and communication enables
people to know about daily events in places
unknown in previous generations.
Global environmentalism is the recognition
that we share one environment that is common to
all humans.
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Part 5: Current
Environmental Conditions
• Half the world's wetlands were lost in the last 100
years.
• Land conversion and logging have shrunk the world's
forests by as much as 50%.
• Nearly three-quarters of the world's major marine fish
stocks are over-fished or are being harvested beyond
a sustainable rate.
• Soil degradation has affected two-thirds of the world's
agricultural lands in the last 50 years.
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Major Causes of Environmental
Degradation
(1) Population Growth
• Almost 6.5 billion people now occupy the earth, and
we are adding about 85 million more each year.
• In the next decade, most population growth will be in
the poorer countries - countries where present
populations already strain resources and services
http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html
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Major Causes of Environmental
Degradation (cont’d)
(2) Resource Extraction and Use
• burning of fossil fuels
• destruction of tropical
rainforests and other
biologically rich
landscapes
• production of toxic wastes
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Major Causes of Environmental
Degradation (cont’d): Acid Deposition
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Part 6: Human Dimensions of
Environmental Science
• More than 1.3 billion people live in acute poverty,
with an income of less than $1 (US) per day. These
people generally lack access to an adequate diet,
decent housing, basic sanitation, clean water,
education, medical care, and other essentials.
• Four out of five people in the world live in what would
be considered poverty in industrialized countries.
• The world's poorest people are often forced to meet
short-term survival needs at the cost of long-term
sustainability.
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The American Lifestyle
To get an average American through the day takes
about 1,000 pounds of raw materials, including
• 40 pounds of fossil fuels
• 22 pounds of wood and paper
• 119 gallons of water.
Every year, Americans throw away some 160 million
tons of garbage, including
• 50 million tons of paper
• 67 billion cans and bottles
• 18 billion disposable diapers.
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…and may we continue to be worthy of consuming a disproportionate share of this planet’s resources
Sustainability
Sustainable development:
progress in human well-being that we can extend or prolong
over many generations, rather than just a few years.
How can the nations of the world produce the goods and
services needed to improve life for everyone without
overtaxing the environmental systems and natural
resources on which we all depend?
To be truly enduring, the benefits of sustainable
development must be available to all humans, not just to the
members of a privileged group.
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Indigenous Peoples
Indigenous peoples are generally
among the least powerful, most
neglected groups.
– In many countries, traditional
caste systems, discriminatory
laws, economics, or prejudices
repress indigenous peoples.
– In many places, indigenous
people in traditional homelands
guard undisturbed habitats and
rare species.
– Recognizing native land rights
may safeguard ecological
processes.
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Summary:
• Environmental Science
• Science As a Way of Knowing
– Scientific Design
– Reasoning
– Scientific Theory
• Approaches to Thinking
• History of Environmentalism
• Human Dimensions
– Rich and Poor Countries
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Test Your Understanding
Review of lesson objectives: After mastering the material in this lesson, you
should be able to
•
define the term “environment” and identify some important environmental
concerns that we face today
•
explain the scientific method and why it refutes or supports theories, but never
proves them beyond any doubt
•
apply the scientific method to problem solving
•
explain how statistics can help evaluate the accuracy and significance of results
•
summarize four stages in the history of conservation
•
distinguish among analytical, creative, logical, critical, and reflective thinking
•
summarize some major environmental dilemmas and issues that shape our
current environmental agenda
•
discuss the implications of sustainability and sustainable development
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