| Glossary | Ch01 Ch02 Ch03 Ch04 Ch05 Ch06 Ch07 Ch08 Ch09 Ch10 Ch11 Ch12 Ch13 Ch14 |
| Chapter 1 | |
| agricultural revolution | Gradual shift from small, mobile hunting and gathering bands to settled agricultural communities in which people survived by learning how to breed and raise wild animals and to cultivate wild plants near where they lived. It began 10,000-12,000 years ago. Compare environmental revolution, hunter-gatherers, industrial revolution, information and globalization revolution. |
| anthropocentric | Human-centered. Compare biocentric. |
| biocentric | Life centered. Compare anthropocentric. |
| biodegradable pollutant | Material that can be broken down into simpler substances (elements and compounds) by bacteria or other decomposers. Paper and most organic wastes such as animal manure are biodegradable but can take decades to biodegrade in modern landfills. Compare degradable pollutant, nondegradable pollutant, slowly degradable pollutant. |
| common-property resource | Resource that people normally are free to use; each user can deplete or degrade the available supply. Most are renewable and owned by no one. Examples are clean air, fish in parts of the ocean not under the control of a coastal country, migratory birds, gases of the lower atmosphere, and the ozone content of the upper atmosphere (stratosphere). See tragedy of the commons. |
| concentration | Amount of a chemical in a particular volume or weight of air, water, soil, or other medium. |
| conservation | Sensible and careful use of natural resources by humans. People with this view are called conservationists. |
| conservation biologist | Biologist who investigates human impacts on the diversity of life found on the earth (biodiversity) and develops practical plans for preserving such biodiversity. Compare conservationist, ecologist, environmentalist, environmental scientist, preservationist, restorationist. |
| conservation biology | Multidisciplinary science created to deal with the crisis of maintaining the genes, species, communities, and ecosystems that make up earth's biological diversity. Its goals are to investigate human impacts on biodiversity and to develop practical approaches to preserving biodiversity. |
| conservationist | Person concerned with using natural areas and wildlife in ways that sustain them for current and future generations of humans and other forms of life. Compare conservation biologist, ecologist, environmentalist, environmental scientist, preservationist, restorationist. |
| deductive reasoning | Using logic to arrive at a specific conclusion based on a generalization or premise. It goes from the general to the specific. Compare inductive reasoning. |
| degradable pollutant | Potentially polluting chemical that is broken down completely or reduced to acceptable levels by natural physical, chemical, and biological processes. Compare biodegradable pollutant, nondegradable pollutant, slowly degradable pollutant. |
| depletion time | Time it takes to use a certain fraction, usually 80%, of the known or estimated supply of a nonrenewable resource at an assumed rate of use. Finding and extracting the remaining 20% usually costs more than it is worth. |
| developed country | Country that is highly industrialized and has a high per capita GNP. Compare developing country. |
| developing country | Country that has low to moderate industrialization and low to moderate per capita GNP. Most are located in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Compare developed country. |
| earth capital | See natural resources. |
| earth resources | See natural resources. |
| ecological footprint | Measure of the ecological impact of the (1) consumption of food, wood products, and other resources, (2) use of buildings, roads, garbage dumps, and other things that consume land space, and (3) destruction of the forests needed to absorb the CO2 produced by burning fossil fuels. |
| ecologist | Biological scientist who studies relationships between living organisms and their environment. Compare conservation biologist, conservationist, environmentalist, environmental scientist, preservationist, restorationist. |
| ecology | Study of the interactions of living organisms with one another and with their nonliving environment of matter and energy; study of the structure and functions of nature. |
| economic depletion | Exhaustion of 80% of the estimated supply of a nonrenewable resource. Finding, extracting, and processing the remaining 20% usually costs more than it is worth; may also apply to the depletion of a renewable resource, such as a fish or tree species. |
| economic development | Improvement of living standards by economic growth. Compare economic growth, environmentally sustainable economic development. |
| economic growth | Increase in the capacity to provide people with goods and services produced by an economy; an increase in real GNP. Compare economic development, environmentally sustainable economic development, sustainable economic development. |
| environment | All external conditions and factors, living and nonliving (chemicals and energy), that affect an organism or other specified system during its lifetime. |
| 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). See also sustainable yield. |
| environmental movement | Efforts by citizens (mostly at the grassroots level) to demand that political leaders enact laws and develop policies to (1) curtail pollution, (2) clean up polluted environments, and (3) protect pristine areas and species from environmental degradation. |
| environmental science | Study of how we and other species interact with one another and with the nonliving environment (matter and energy). It is a physical and social science that integrates knowledge from a wide range of disciplines, including physics, chemistry, biology (especially ecology), geology, geography, resource technology and engineering, resource conservation and management, demography (the study of population dynamics), economics, politics, sociology, psychology, and ethics. |
| environmental scientist | Scientist who uses information from the physical sciences and social sciences to (1) understand how the earth works, (2) learn how humans interact with the earth, and (3) develop solutions to environmental problems. Compare conservation biologist, conservationist, ecologist, preservationist, restorationist. |
| environmentalist | Person concerned about the impact of people on environmental quality who believes that some human actions are degrading parts of the earth's life-support systems for humans and many other forms of life. Compare conservation biologist, conservationist, ecologist, environmental scientist, preservationist, restorationist. |
| environmentally sustainable economic development | Development that (1) encourages environmentally sustainable forms of economic growth that meet the basic needs of the current generations of humans and other species without preventing future generations of humans and other species from meeting their basic needs and (2) discourages environmentally harmful and unsustainable forms of economic growth. It is the economic component of an environmentally sustainable society. Compare economic development, economic growth. |
| environmentally sustainable society | Society that satisfies the basic needs of its people without depleting or degrading its natural resources and thereby preventing current and future generations of humans and other species from meeting their basic needs. |
| EPA | U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; responsible for managing federal efforts to control air and water pollution, radiation and pesticide hazards, environmental research, hazardous waste, and solid waste disposal. |
| exhaustible resource | See nonrenewable resource. |
| exponential growth | Growth in which some quantity, such as population size or economic output, increases by a fixed percentage of the whole in a given time period; when the increase in quantity over time is plotted, this type of growth yields a curve shaped like the letter J. Compare linear growth. |
| free-access resource | See common-property resource. |
| globalization | Broad process of global social, economic, and environmental change that leads to an increasingly similar and integrated world. See information and globalization revolution. |
| GDP (gross domestic product ) | Total market value in current dollars of all goods and services produced within a country , usually during a year. Compare gross national product, gross world product. |
| GNI (gross national income) | Total market value in current dollars of all goods and services produced within and outside a country during a year plus net income earned abroad by a country's citizens. Formerly called gross national product. |
| gross national income in purchasing power parity (GNI PPP) | Market value of the GNI in terms of the goods and services it would buy in the United States. This is a better way to compare the standards of living among countries. |
| gross world product (GWP) | Market value in current dollars of all goods and services produced in the world each year. Compare gross domestic product, gross national income. |
| hazardous waste | Any solid, liquid, or containerized gas that (1) can catch fire easily, (2) is corrosive to skin tissue or metals, (3) is unstable and can explode or release toxic fumes, or (4) has harmful concentrations of one or more toxic materials that can leach out. See also toxic waste. |
| inductive reasoning | Using observations and facts to arrive at generalizations or hypotheses. It goes from the specific to the general and is widely used in science. Compare deductive reasoning. |
| industrial revolution | Use of new sources of energy from fossil fuels and later from nuclear fuels, and use of new technologies, to grow food and manufacture products. Compare agricultural revolution, environmental revolution, hunter-gatherers, information and globalization revolution. |
| information and globalization revolution | Use of new technologies such as the telephone, radio, television, computers, the Internet, automated databases, and remote sensing satellites to enable people to have increasingly rapid access to much more information on a global scale. Compare agricultural revolution, environmental revolution, hunter-gatherers, industrial revolution. |
| input pollution control | See pollution prevention. |
| less developed country (LDC) | See developing country. |
| more developed country (MDC) | See developed country. |
| natural capital | See natural resources. |
| natural resources | The earth's natural materials and processes that sustain other species and us. Compare financial resources, human resources, manufactured resources. |
| nondegradable pollutant | Material that is not broken down by natural processes. Examples are the toxic elements lead and mercury. Compare biodegradable pollutant, degradable pollutant, slowly degradable pollutant. |
| nonpersistent pollutant | See degradable pollutant. |
| nonpoint source | Large or dispersed land areas such as cropfields, streets, and lawns that discharge pollutants into the environment over a large area. Compare point source. |
| nonrenewable resource | 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. Examples are copper, aluminum, coal, and oil. We classify these resources as exhaustible because we are extracting and using them at a much faster rate than they were formed. Compare renewable resource. |
| output pollution control | See pollution cleanup. |
| per capita GNI | Annual gross national income (GNI) of a country divided by its total population. See gross national income. |
| per capita GNI in purchasing power parity (per capita GNI PPP) | The GNI PPP divided by the total population at midyear. This is a better way to compare people's economic welfare among countries. |
| per capita GNP | See per capita GNI. |
| perpetual resource | Essentially inexhaustible resource on a human time scale. Solar energy is an example. See renewable resource. Compare nonrenewable resource, renewable resource. |
| persistence | How long a pollutant stays in the air, water, soil, or body. See also inertia. |
| point source | Single identifiable source that discharges pollutants into the environment. Examples are the (1) smokestack of a power plant or an industrial plant, (2) drainpipe of a meatpacking plant, (3) chimney of a house, or (4) exhaust pipe of an automobile. Compare nonpoint source. |
| pollutant | Particular chemical or form of energy that can adversely affect the health, survival, or activities of humans or other living organisms. See pollution. |
| pollution | Undesirable change in the physical, chemical, or biological characteristics of air, water, soil, or food that can adversely affect the health, survival, or activities of humans or other living organisms. |
| pollution cleanup | Device or process that removes or reduces the level of a pollutant after it has been produced or has entered the environment. Examples are automobile emission control devices and sewage treatment plants. Compare pollution prevention. |
| pollution prevention | Device or process that (1) prevents a potential pollutant from forming or entering the environment or (2) sharply reduces the amount entering the environment. Compare pollution cleanup. |
| preservationist | Person concerned primarily with setting aside or protecting undisturbed natural areas from harmful human activities. Compare conservation biologist, conservationist, ecologist, environmentalist, environmental scientist, restorationist. |
| recycling | Collecting and reprocessing a resource so it can be made into new products. An example is collecting aluminum cans, melting them down, and using the aluminum to make new cans or other aluminum products. Compare reuse. |
| renewable resource | Resource that can be replenished rapidly (hours to several decades) through natural processes. Examples are trees in forests, grasses in grasslands, wild animals, fresh surface water in lakes and streams, most groundwater, fresh air, and fertile soil. If such a resource is used faster than it is replenished, it can be depleted and converted into a nonrenewable resource. See also environmental degradation. Compare nonrenewable resource and perpetual resource. |
| reserve-to-production ratio | Number of years reserves of a particular nonrenewable mineral will last at current annual production rates. See reserves. |
| reserves | Resources that have been identified and from which a usable mineral can be extracted profitably at present prices with current mining technology. See identified resources, undiscovered resources. |
| resource | Anything obtained from the living and nonliving environment to meet human needs and wants. The term can also be applied to other species. |
| reuse | Using a product over and over again in the same form. An example is collecting, washing, and refilling glass beverage bottles. Compare recycling. |
| slowly degradable pollutant | Material that is slowly broken down into simpler chemicals or reduced to acceptable levels by natural physical, chemical, and biological processes. Compare biodegradable pollutant, degradable pollutant, nondegradable pollutant. |
| solar capital | Solar energy from the sun reaching the earth. Compare natural resources. |
| solar energy | Direct radiant energy from the sun and a number of indirect forms of energy produced by the direct input. Principal indirect forms of solar energy include wind, falling and flowing water (hydropower), and biomass (solar energy converted into chemical energy stored in the chemical bonds of organic compounds in trees and other plants). |
| spoils | Unwanted rock and other waste materials produced when a material is removed from the earth's surface or subsurface by mining, dredging, quarrying, and excavation. |
| sustainability | Ability of a system to survive for some specified (finite) time. |
| sustainable yield (sustained 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. See also environmental degradation. |
| 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. See common-property resource. |