Chapter 1 Reflection Questions

1. What does the term "Environmental Sustainability" mean to you? How can you realistically live a more sustainable lifestyle than at present?

Environmental Sustainability is used to describe “the ability of the human race to meet the current needs of natural resources without jeopardizing the ability of future generations to meet corresponding needs.” (p. 19) 

As a community, we need to manage natural resources indefinitely without taking an excess of what we actually need, or it will cause the natural process that maintains life to be unbalanced. This means we need to become more aware of our surroundings and realize that the Earth is not infinite; it’s fragile, and we need to give back to it by planting, borrowing energy from the sun, and reusing materials from objects we would usually throw away.

2. Describe the two main categories of resources and the environmental issues facing both.

Earth contains two main resource categories, nonrenewable and renewable. “Nonrenewable resources are only present in limited supplies and are depleted by use, while renewable resources are replenished fairly rapidly, and can be used regularly as long as they are not over-exploited too much.” (Pg. 5) 

The trouble with nonrenewable resources, which should seem obvious, is that they do not return easily, and take up to as much as millions of years to grow back to their original state. Since there has been more and more population growth, we are consuming more and more of these, to the point of their regeneration being jeopardized. It’s even starting to get to the point that renewable resources are suffering for this, too, as larger farms create a large scale quick extraction of resources that were meant for years and years of use.

3. What is the overall goal of environmental science?

The goal of Environmental Science at its core is to help those who take it learn more about the physical and biological systems that occur in the world around them and what they can do to stop it from being abused. In the process of learning, we focus more on how systems as a whole work on this planet, systems that consist of many interacting parts that function together as a unit. 

“These smaller systems are linked and interact with one another in the overall climate system.” (Pg. 11) Using perspective, we can get a better image of what each system looks like in its own way instead of focusing on single, individual components.

(Raven, Peter H., Linda R. Berg, and David M. Hassenzahl. Environment: 8th. Somerset: John Wiley, 2012. Print.)