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Chapter One Understanding our Environment
Principles of Environmental Science - Inquiry and
Applications 2nd ed. 2004 by William and Mary Ann
Cunningham
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Chapter One Readings
Required Reading Cunningham Cunningham,
Chapter One Understanding Our Environment
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Chapter One Objectives

• define the term environment and identify some
  important environmental concerns that we face
  today
• explain the scientific method and why it refutes
  or supports theories, but never proves them
  beyond any doubt
• apply the scientific method to problem solving
• explain how statistics can help evaluate the
  accuracy and significance of results
• summarize four stages in the history of
  conservation
• distinguish among analytical, creative, logical,
  critical, and reflective thinking
• summarize some major environmental dilemmas and
  issues that shape our current environmental
  agenda
• discuss the implications of sustainability and
  sustainable development

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Chapter One Key Terms McGraw-Hill Course Glossary

• mean
• modern environmentalism
• paradigms
• parsimony
• probability
• reflective thinking
• reproducibility
• sample
• scientific theory
• significant numbers
• statistics
• sustainability
• sustainable development
• utilitarian conservation

• analytical thinking
• biocentric preservation
• blind experiments
• controlled studies
• creative thinking
• critical thinking
• deductive reasoning
• double-blind design
• environment
• environmental science
• global environmentalism
• hypothesis
• inductive reasoning
• logical thinking

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Chapter 1 - Topics

• Understanding Our Environment
• Science as a Way of Knowing
• Investigating our Environment
• Thinking About Thinking
• A Brief History of Conservation
  Environmentalism
• Current Environmental Conditions
• Human Dimensions of environmental science

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The Planet Earth
Part 1 Understanding Our Environment

• Unique in the universe (?)
• Mild, relatively constant temperatures
• Biogeochemical cycles
• Millions of species
• Diverse, self-sustaining communities

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Environmental Science

• Environment is the circumstances and conditions
  that surround an organism or a group of
  organisms.
• Environmental science is the systematic study of
  our environment and our place in it.
• Ecology is the study of an organism or organisms,
  the impact of the environment on them, and their
  impact on the environment.

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Part 2 Science as a Way of Knowing

• Modern science has its roots in antiquity
• Greek philosophers
• Arabic mathematicians and astronomers
• Chinese naturalists

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Scientific Investigation

• Deductive vs. inductive reasoning
• Hypothesis - a conditional explanation that can
  be verified or falsified
• Scientific theory - an explanation that is
  supported by an overwhelming body of data and
  experience

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Models and Natural Experiments

• Models
• Simulate real environmental systems
• Can be physical or mathematical
• Provide heuristic information (suggestions of how
  things MIGHT be) and
• Are influenced by researchers' assumptions.
• Natural Experiments
• Gathering of historic evidence and
• Conducted by scientists who can't test their
  hypotheses directly.

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Open Minds are Learning Minds

• In some ways, children are the ultimate
  practical scientistsno pre-conceived bias in
  their investigations.
• However, Society uses numbers, called
  statistics to let you evaluate and compare
  things. Information known by one person isnt
  useful to Society.

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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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Statistics and Probability

• Quantitative data
• Precise and easily compared and
• Good benchmarks for measuring change.
• Probability
• Measure of how likely something is and
• High degree of scientific certainty 95
  probability.
• Statistics
• Important tool in both planning and evaluating
  scientific studies and
• Sample size, number of replications important.

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Paradigms and Scientific Consensus

• Paradigms
• Overarching models of the world that guide our
  interpretation of events
• Examples tectonic plate movement, Einstein's
  theory of relativity
• Paradigm shift
• Occurs when a majority of scientists accept that
  the old explanation no longer explains new
  observations very well
• Paradigm shifts are sometimes contentious and
  political.

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Part 3 Thinking About Thinking
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Table 1.3 Steps in Critical Thinking
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Applying 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
  and
• Recognize and understand conceptual frameworks.

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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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Part 4. 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 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

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Modern Environmentalism

• Rachel Carsons Silent Spring (1962) started
• the modern environmental movement.
• 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.

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Global Concerns

• Increased travel and communication enables
• people to know about daily events in places
• unknown in previous generations.
• Global environmentalism is the recognition
• that we share one environment that is common to
• all humans.

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Part 5 Current Environmental Conditions

• Half the world's wetlands were lost in the last
  100 years.
• Land conversion and logging have shrunk the
  world's forests by as much as 50.
• Nearly three-quarters of the world's major marine
  fish stocks are over-fished or are being
  harvested beyond a sustainable rate.
• Soil degradation has affected two-thirds of the
  world's agricultural lands in the last 50 years.

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Major Causes of Environmental Degradation
(1) Population Growth

• More than 6 billion people now occupy the earth,
  and we are adding about 85 million more each
  year.
• In the next decade, most population growth will
  be in the poorer countries - countries where
  present populations already strain resources and
  services

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Major Causes of Environmental Degradation
(contd)
(2) Resource Extraction and Use

• burning of fossil fuels
• destruction of tropical rainforests and other
  biologically rich landscapes
• production of toxic wastes

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Major Causes of Environmental Degradation
(contd) Acid Deposition
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Part 6 Human Dimensions of Environmental Science

• More than 1.3 billion people live in acute
  poverty, with an income of less than 1 (US) per
  day. These people generally lack access to an
  adequate diet, decent housing, basic sanitation,
  clean water, education, medical care, and other
  essentials.
• Four out of five people in the world live in what
  would be considered poverty in industrialized
  countries.
• The world's poorest people are often forced to
  meet short-term survival needs at the cost of
  long-term sustainability.

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The American Lifestyle

• To get an average American through the day takes
• about 1,000 pounds of raw materials, including
• 40 pounds of fossil fuels
• 22 pounds of wood and paper
• 119 gallons of water.
• Every year, Americans throw away some 160 million
  
• tons of garbage, including
• 50 million tons of paper
• 67 billion cans and bottles
• 18 billion disposable diapers.

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If everyone in the world tried to live at
consumption levels approaching ours, the results
would be disastrous.
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Sustainability
Sustainability
Sustainable development progress in human
well-being that we can extend or prolong over
many generations, rather than just a few years.
How can the nations of the world produce the
goods and services needed to improve life for
everyone without overtaxing the environmental
systems and natural resources on which we all
depend?
To be truly enduring, the benefits of sustainable
development must be available to all humans, not
just to the members of a privileged group.
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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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Test Your Understanding

• Review of lesson objectives After mastering the
  material in this lesson, you
• should be able to
• define the term environment and identify some
  important environmental concerns that we face
  today
• explain the scientific method and why it refutes
  or supports theories, but never proves them
  beyond any doubt
• apply the scientific method to problem solving
• explain how statistics can help evaluate the
  accuracy and significance of results
• summarize four stages in the history of
  conservation
• distinguish among analytical, creative, logical,
  critical, and reflective thinking
• summarize some major environmental dilemmas and
  issues that shape our current environmental
  agenda
• discuss the implications of sustainability and
  sustainable development

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