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Y 6 B
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Understanding Our Environment

• Chapter 1

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Outline

• 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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Environmental Science

• Environment
• Circumstances and conditions that surround an
  organism or group of organisms.
• Social and cultural conditions that affect an
  individual or community.

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Environmental Science

• Environmental Science is the systematic study of
  our environment and our place in it.
• Highly Interdisciplinary
• Inclusive
• Holistic
• Mission-Oriented

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Environmental Science
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SCIENCE AS A WAY OF KNOWING

• Science rests on the assumptions the world is
  knowable through empirical study and logical
  analysis.
• Reduces tendency to rely on emotional reactions
  and unexamined assumptions.
• Searches for testable evidence.
• Explanations are considered provisional.
• Additional evidence may disprove current theories.

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What is Environmental Science

• For an increasing number of environmental issues
  the difficulty is not to identify remedies.
  Remedies are well understood the problem is to
  make these remedies socially, economically and
  politically acceptable.
• Barbara Ward Economist

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Criteria for Environmental Literacy

• Awareness and appreciation of natural and built
  environments.
• Knowledge of natural systems and ecological
  concepts.
• Understanding of current environmental issues.
• The ability to use analytical and problem-solving
  skills on environmental issues.

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Remember

• What is our proper place in nature?
• What ought we do and what can we do to protect
  the irreplacable habitat that produced us and
  supports us?

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Science As a Way of Knowing

• Scientists collaborate in a cumulative,
  self-correcting process.
• Many people often work on many different aspects
  of a problem.
• Creativity, insight, aesthetics and even luck
  play important roles in scientific research.

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Table 1.1
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Scientific Design

• Reproducibility
• Experiments must be designed and recorded such
  that they can be exactly reproduced by other
  researchers.
• Controlled Studies
• Comparisons are made between experimental and
  control populations.
• Every factor except the one being studied is held
  constant.

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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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Reasoning

• Deductive
• Starting with a general principle and deriving a
  testable predication about a specific case.
• Inductive
• Specific examples are examined to locate patterns
  and derive general explanations from collected
  observations.

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Hypotheses and Theories

• Hypothesis
• Conditional explanation that can be tested by
  further observation or experiment.
• Logically, a hypothesis based on inductive
  reasoning can be shown to be wrong, but can
  almost never be shown to be unquestionably true.
• Evidence is always provisional.
• Scientific Theory

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Scientific Theory

• When a large number of tests supports an
  explanation and a majority of experts in a given
  field have reached a general consensus that it is
  the best descrition or explanation available, we
  call it a scientific theory.

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Scientific Method
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Modeling and Natural Experiments

• In some areas, historic evidence can be examined
  for support or contradiction of an idea.
• Another method of investigation is using a model
  simulating the phenomenon under study.
• Models represents researchers assumptions about
  how a system works.
• Can produce contradictory results.

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Statistics and Probability

• Probability
• An attempt to measure and predict the likelihood
  of an event.
• Sample Size
• A critical experimental variable is the number of
  observations necessary in order to have a
  reliable representation of a population.

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Table 1.2
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Paradigms and Scientific Consensus

• Paradigms
• Overarching model of the world that guides our
  interpretations of events.
• Tend to guide the types of questions asked by
  investigators.
• Paradigm shifts occur when a majority of
  scientists agree the older general explanations
  no longer fit the observations.

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Approaches to Knowledge and Thinking

• Analytical Thinking
• How can I break this problem into parts ?
• Creative Thinking
• How can I approach this differently ?
• Logical Thinking
• How can deductive reasoning help ?
• Critical Thinking
• What am I trying to do ?
• Reflective Thinking
• What does it all mean ?

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Fig. 1.9
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Table 1.3
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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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Fig. 1.20
And may we continue to be worthy of consuming a
Disproportionate share of this planets
resources.
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History of Conservation and Environmentalism

• Four Distinct Stages
• Pragmatic Resource Conservation
• Moral and Aesthetic Nature Preservation
• Modern Environmentalism
• Global Environmental Citizenship

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Pragmatic Resource ConservationUtilitarian
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 Pinchots utilitarian policies.
• Biocentric Preservation
• Emphasizes the fundamental right of all organisms
  to pursue their own interests.
• Why ought man to value himself as more than an
  infinitely small unit of the one great unit of
  creation?

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BUT

• And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be
  fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth,
  and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of
  the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over
  every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
• Genesis Chapter 1 Verse 28

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Modern Environmentalism

• Rachel Carson, Silent Spring.
• 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.
• Major Chemical Companies Bah Humbug too many
  hormones. Sexist? Better Living through
  Chemistry.

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Global Concerns

• Increased travel and communication enables people
  to know about daily events in places unknown in
  previous generations.
• Common environment shared on a global scale.
• Global Environmentalism

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CURRENT ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS

• Causes of Environmental Degradation
• More than 6 billion people now occupy the earth,
  and we add about 85 million more each year.
• Most growth will be in poorer countries where
  present populations already strain resources and
  services.

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World Population
Fig. 1.1, p. 2
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Population Milestones
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Human Dimensions of Environmental Science

• A small fraction of the worlds population live
  in increasing luxury, while a more than 1.3
  billion people live in acute poverty.
• Seventy percent are women and children.
• Often meet short-term survival needs at the cost
  of long-term sustainability.
• Cycle of poverty, illness and limited
  opportunities become cyclic.

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Rich and Poor Countries

• About 20 of the worlds population lives in the
  twenty richest countries.
• Average per capita income above 25,000.
• Other 80 live in middle or low-income countries.
• Ten poorest countries each have average per
  capita income of less than 200.00.
• Richest 200 people in the world have have a
  combined wealth of 1 trillion.
• More than total owned by poorest half of the
  world population (3 billion).

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Table 1.4
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Ecological Footprint
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Table 1.5
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Sustainability

• Sustainable Development
• Meeting the needs of the present without
  compromising the ability of future generations to
  meet their own needs.

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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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• Help maintain the Earths capacity for self
  repair and adaptation.
• Do not use potentially renewable resources faster
  than they are replenished.
• Do not waste resources.
• Do not release pollutants faster than the Earths
  natural processes can dilute or recycle them.
• Emphasize pollution reduction and waste reduction.

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• Slow the rate of population growth.
• Have the market price of all goods and services
  include ALL of their harmful environmental costs.
• Reduce poverty.