ENVS 2000 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Environmental Science, Environmental Ethics, Scientific Method
7 Nov 2016
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Environmental science is concerned with: rapidly increasing human population, the use and abuse of resources, damage caused by pollution and disturbance, and, the endangerment and extinction of species and natural ecosystems , textbook, page 2. World views: anthropocentric vs. ecocentric, people see the world differently, anthropocentric. What can humans get out of the forest/rivers, etc. Western cultures tend to be more like this than other cultures. The world has value in itself because of the biological functioning. Humans are part of it, but not the center of it. Natural and anthropogenic: some animals put stress on the grass by eating/grazing, etc, some animals put stress on other animals. Predators, etc: how can the animals also deal with the stress that humans put on them, harvesting biomass, toxicity from pollution, ecosystem conversion. Number of people x resource units per person x impact per resource unit = environmental impact: important!, increasing any of these factors have a huge impact on the outcome.
