APES 2009 RKV Chapter 1, Environmental Problems… Review Exercise

Living in the Environment: Principles, Connections, and Solutions, 15th Ed

1. Define the boldfaced terms in this chapter. Refer to the glossary for chapter 1

2. What is exponential growth? Give two examples of exponential growth

3. Distinguish among environment, ecology, environmental science, and environmentalism.

4. Looking at Figure 1-4 (p. 9), choose two natural resources and name two natural services that are
provided by each of them.

5. What is an environmentally sustainable society? Distinguish between living on the earth's natural
capital and living on the renewable biological income provided by this capital. How is this related
to the sustainability of (a) the earth's life-support system and (b) your lifestyle?

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6. How rapidly is the world's population growing? How many people does this growth add each
year?

7. Distinguish between economic growth, gross domestic product, and economic development. 8.
Distinguish between developed countries and developing countries, and give three characteristics
of each category.

8. What are perpetual resources and renewable resources? Give an example of each.

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9. What are sustainable yield and environmental degradation? Give five examples of environmental
degradation.

10. Define common-property resources and name three such resources. What is the tragedy of the
commons? Give three examples of this tragedy on a global scale. List two ways to deal with the
tragedy of the commons.

11. What is the ecological footprint per person? Which three human activities have the greatest
environmental impact?
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12. The total ecological footprint of the U. S. (with about one-fourth as many people as India) is about
how many times the size of India's total ecological footprint?

13. What is a nonrenewable resource? What does it mean to say that a resource is economically
depleted? When this happens, what are our options?

14. Distinguish between reuse and recycling, and give an example of each. What is pollution?
Distinguish between point sources and nonpoint sources of pollution. List three types of harm
caused by pollution.

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15. Distinguish between pollution prevention (input pollution control) and pollution cleanup (output
pollution control). Name three problems with relying primarily on pollution cleanup. Why is pollution
prevention better than pollution control?

16. List three problems which, according to environmental scientists, are caused by relying more on
pollution clean-up than on pollution prevention.

17. According to environmental scientists, what are five basic causes of the environmental problems
we face?

18.
1. List four ways in which poverty is related to the premature deaths of poor people. Why does it
make sense for a poor family to have a large number of children?

What is "affluenza" and what are its harmful environmental effects? How can affluence help
improve environmental quality?

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19. Describe a simple model of relationships between population size, resource consumption per
person, technology, and overall environmental impact. How do these factors differ in developed
and developing countries?

20. What was a major conclusion of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment reported in 2005?

21. What is an environmental worldview? Distinguish between the planetary management,

stewardship, and environmental wisdom worldviews. Which one comes closest to your own
environmental worldview?

22. State the four scientific principles of sustainability

23. Describe how the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee has built social capital in order to solve its
environmental problems. What were three beneficial results of this process for the city?

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