Environmental Science An Introduction

What is environmental science? Environmental Science provides an integrated, quantitative, and interdisciplinary approach to the study of environmental systems. Scientists focus on the environmental impacts humans place on the environment,as well as what recourse(s) may arise due to the strain human impact puts on an environmental system (i.e. Climate Change)

Earth as a System: Earth just like your body has ways of regulating itself to keep consistent. Earth changes to fix any problems that occurs within it. This is to maintain itself at a neutral state or to “stay at equilibrium.” Positive feedback- things that affect the environment in an amplification sense. (i.e. more greenhouse gas into atmosphere, in turns melts more ice, which leads to an increased absorption of solar radiation leading to further increased global temperatures.) Negative feedback- opposite of positive feedback, this though in a diminishing sense. (i.e. due to increased temps, more land ice melts in Greenland which mixes with ocean water off of Greenland and warms the water as well as decreases its salinity in effect making it less dense, which leads to “shutting off” the Gulf stream and cooling the northern hemisphere.”

Ecology: Ecosystems are simply a system of the living world or an ecological system. Every ecosystem includes all the communities that make up an area. In environmental science we are studying ecology which studies the relationship between organisms and their environment. For our case, we will study the human relationship with the environment. Humans can have both a positive and negative impact on the environment. The negative impact is what is most seen in the world due to its easiness.

Factors impacting ecology: Many factors impact how humans impact the environment. Social, Political, Business, Educational, Monetarily, and other factors that affect humans usually determine how humans are going to impact the environment. There are also ethical reasons that can play into the minds of people making choices, especially in the political realm. Ethics of ecology People who make choices when using the environment have to determine what is best for both the environment but also for humans. Because of this there could be negative impacts to both the environmental system and human system.

Assignment For this assignment, research the “ethics of ecology” and write a one page summary of what it is, who it effects, and an example of the following: 1.A brief summary of a project that is a positive for the human population and why is good for the humans and bad for the environment. 2.A brief summary of a project that is positive for the environmental system but not so much for the human system.

Environmental Science with ethics in mind: Now that we have learned about the ethics of ecology and environmental science, when ever presented with am issue, refer back to the ethics part. What is the better solution? For humans/society OR environment? This is the debate for many climate change topics such as carbon based energy or plastic bottle usage. The problem begins when human’s basic needs become an issue of concern, and as more people enter our planet, that becomes more of a reality.

Human Population Due to the ethics of ecology, humans usually are thought of first when impacting the environment. We need resources and materials to live our lives the way we want to. Unfortunately those materials eventually run out. Our population exceeded 7 billion people not too long ago. The earth cannot support many more than this and we are nearing it at an exponential rate of speed. There is a whole field of study related to population science. They study everything about humans population including, the history of populations, growth rates, demographics, relationships between populations and anything that could affect the environment or population in the future.