1. Environmental Science An Introduction

2. What Is Environmental Science?
Environmental Science is the study of how humans interact with their environment
Our environment is everything that surrounds us, both natural and man-made. Environment is everything that affects an organism during its lifetime.

3. Man & His Environment
Society at the dawn of the 21st century has many conveniences.
Only 100 years ago no one owned a car, or computer or even a television. The world population of humans was about 1,500,000,000. In 1900, houses were still heated with coal or wood, there was no electricity and clothes were washed by hand in a large tub.
Even then, man was having an impact on his environment, though much less dramatic than what was to come.

4. Early Environmentalists
President Theodore Roosevelt and naturalist John Muir were two of the first environmental activists.
T. Roosevelt established the National Park System and the system of wildlife refuges found across the country.
However much of the preservation system was based upon utilitarian conservation-the preserving of resources so they can provide homes and jobs for people.

5. Early Environmentalists
John Muir was a geologist, author and founder of the Sierra Club. Muir argued that nature deserved to exist for its own sake, regardless of its usefulness to us.
His view was called altruistic preservation-emphasizing the fundamental right of other organisms to exist and to purse their own interests.

6. Natural Resources
Muir and Roosevelt both saw the need to preserve natural resources
Natural resources may be renewable such as solar energy and trees
Natural resources may be non-renewable such as oil, natural gas or metals
We must always be careful not to deplete renewable resources faster than they can be replaced, and to recycle and conserve nonrenewable resources.

7. ENVIRONMENTAL INTERRELATIONSHIPS
Throughout the semester, it is important to bear in mind that the world population has exceeded 6 billion and is growing exponentially. Efforts to feed and shelter the growing number of humans on the planet is rapidly consuming the resources of the natural world.
We now live on a human dominated planet.
Fossil fuel burning adds 6.97 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere annually
40% to 50% of land area has been cleared or drastically altered.
98% of U.S. rivers have been dammed

8. Scale of Environmental Problems
Environmental problems are typically categorized by the affected population.
Global problems, like global warming and the hole in the ozone layer affect the entire world population.
It is important to note that even though the entire planet’s population is affected, the problems are caused by people living in the world’s richest countries.

9. The countries which have more wealth also use more of the Earth’s resources. We also produce more of the substances which may damage the Earth

10. Scale of Environmental Problem
Some of the problems we face are huge. The destruction of the world’s forests, the hole in the Earth’s ozone layer and global warming are all very big problems. The sooner they are addressed, the most effective change we can have on them.

11. Species Extinction
Many inhabitants of our planet have been driven to extinction to make way for a growing human population. According to the IUCN Red List, currently facing extinction are
12% of bird species
23% of mammals
32% of amphibians
27% of freshwater fishes
25% of conifers
52% of cycads

12. In Houston
unchecked urban sprawl consumes wetlands, prairie, and woodlands as well as inner city neighborhoods.
Scenes from the Katy Prairie

13. Harris County Endangered, Threatened, and Rare Species
FISHES
American eel
Creek chubsucker
Smalltooth sawfish
MAMMALS
Louisiana black bear
Plains spotted skunk
Rafinesque's big-eared bat
Red wolf
Southeastern myotis bat
MOLLUSKS
Little spectaclecase
Louisiana pigtoe
Pistolgrip
Rock pocketbook
Sandbank pocketbook
Texas pigtoe
Wabash pigtoe
REPTILES
Alligator snapping turtle
Green sea turtle
Kemp's Ridley sea turtle
Leatherback sea turtle
Loggerhead sea turtle
Smooth green snake
Texas horned lizard
Timber/Canebrake
Rattlesnake
PLANTS
Coastal gay-feather
Giant sharpstem umbrellasedge
Houston daisy
Texas meadow-rue
Texas prairie dawn
Texas windmill-grass
Threeflower broomweed
AMPHIBIANS
Houston toad
BIRDS
American Peregrine Falcon
Arctic Peregrine Falcon
Bald Eagle
Black Rail
Brown Pelican
Henslow's Sparrow
Mountain Plover
Peregrine Falcon
Red-cockaded Woodpecker
Snowy Plover
Southeastern Snowy Plover
White-faced Ibis
White-tailed Hawk
Whooping Crane
Wood Stork

14. Future of the Katy Prairie?
Black Horse Ranch Subdivision

15. These are among the many issues we will address this semester.
On many days, our children cannot play outside because the air is not safe to breathe (Images courtesy NASA).
These are among the many issues we will address this semester.