Environmental Science and Ecology

• Environmental science is the interdisciplinary study of the environment.
• The study addresses environmental issues and problems on local and global scales.
• It examines humanity's relationship with the earth's living and nonliving components.
• Individual citizens have become major sources of pollution.
• The interactions between humans, other organisms, and their surroundings is studied.
• How these interactions impact the surroundings is also considered.
• Repercussions on humans and other organisms result form these activities.

Environmental Science and Ecology

• Environmental science is the conditions around which affects people and other organisms.
• Ecology is a branch of biological science
• This deals with relationships between living things and the non-living components of the environment.
• Ecology plays an important role in environmental science, focusing on the ecosystem.
• Occupying an important hierarchy is the ecosystem, more complex than a community.
• Organisms interacting with one another and with the nonliving matter and energy within a defined area is important.
• An example is a forest ecosystem of plants, animals, and microorganisms.
• These components interact with each other as well as the physical and chemical components of the air, water, and soil, and the energy of the sun.

Environmental Principles

• The study deals with interactions and relationships in nature, with humans' influences in its processes.
• This includes relationships, culture, politics, economics, and social life.
• Environmental problems are rooted within society's structures.
• These problems are solved by considering socioeconomic and political aspects.
• Environmental principles guide society to establish a harmonious relationship with nature.
• Everything is connected to everything else.
• Interdependence and Interconnectedness requires a knowledge of social, physical, and biological knowledge.
• Natural and human resources are intimately linked.
• The misuse of one will affect the other, as seen in food chains and food webs.
• The type and distribution of soil, and chemical characteristics of the water affects the distribution of organisms.
• Everything in nature changes.
• Everything in nature has to go somewhere.
• Changes with adverse impacts have to be avoided, prevented, mitigated, or controlled for sustainability.
• Energy flows through nature; it is neither created nor destroyed. Instead, it changes from one form to another.
• Materials in the wrong place/time become waste and pollute the environment instead of being a resource.
• The Earth is a closed system and its self-cleaning capacity is limited.
• The environment has carrying capacity.
• A resource has a maximum number of users without creating adverse environmental impacts.
• Causing an imbalance in the system results from saddling an ecosystem with more individuals than it can accommodate.
• All forms of life are important, offering diversity and stability.
• Ecosystems are places where organisms thrive.
• The environment becomes more resilient and stable given more diversity among life forms and ecosystems.
• Ensuring biodiversity in the genetic, species and ecosystem levels is invaluable with protected areas, nature reserves, and wildlife conservation areas.
• Nature knows best, so maintain balance of nature and stewardship.
• Nature has its own laws and processes to maintain itself.
• Undesirable consequences result from going against what nature prescribes.
• Human activities should be consistent with the natural laws and processes as they are part of nature.
• Nature has its own value, regardless of what humans think.
• Humans are morally responsible for their decisions regarding the environment.
• Resources are finite, thus Earth is finite.
• Most resources are nonrenewable and vulnerable to depletion and degradation unless used wisely
• Maximum benefits for the present and future ensure the use of resources.

Environmental Ethics

• Ethics involves discerning fundamentally what is right and wrong, transcending cultural and religious boundaries.
• Most cultures have a reverence for life.
• Morals reflect a society's mindset about ethical issues at a distinct time period.
• Most cultures share the view that killing a person is unethical.
• Resolving environmental issues requires a consideration of ethics and morals.
• It would be unethical to allow some people, particularly the poor to starve during the quarantine period while others have more than enough during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
• A pervasive social problem among those in the higher social classes is indifference.
• They don't feel morally obligated to share what they have with others.
• Ethics and morals are not always on the same plane of thought.
• It is often difficult to define what is right and what is wrong because of this ambiguity,
• The stand humans take on such issues often depends on their position.
• The government does not look upon mining as negatively as indigenous people who are displaced do.
• Many business leaders view the behavior of hard-core environmentalists as immoral, restricting growth and causing unemployment.
• Environmental ethics examines the moral basis of environmental responsibility.
• The end goal is focused on the moral foundation of environmental responsibility and how far this responsibility extends.
• Ethical principles include anthropocentric.
• Environmental responsibility is derived from human interest alone.
• This assumes that human beings are the only beings significant to have a direct moral standing.
• There is a duty toward the environment in the pursuit of human interests.
• Environmental duties are derived from both the immediate benefit that the present and future generations will receive.
• Biocentric views widely embrace that all forms of life have an inherent right to exist.
• Trying to decide which species deserve protection from death or early extinction due to human activities is an ethical dilemma
• It is difficult to be ethically consistent.
• Some give species a hierarchy of values, others say that rights of certain species are denied where the rights of humans begin.
• Ecocentrism maintains that the environment deserves direct moral consideration.
• It is not merely derived from human and animal interests.
• The environment, is considered morally at par with humans, has direct rights, deserves a direct duty to be protected and has inherent worth.
• Environmental ethics consider one's actions towards the environment as a matter of right and wrong, rather than one of self-interest
• Each of these ethical positions has its own code of conduct against which ecological morality may be measured.
• Development ethic is based on individualism or egocentrism.
• It assumes that the human race is, and should be the master of nature and that the earth and its resources exist for our benefit and pleasure.
• Humankind should continuously effect change and that resources utilized represent "progress and prosperity".
• Preservation ethic considers nature special in itself.
• Nature has intrinsic value or inherent worth beyond human appropriation.
• Preservationists have diverse reasons for wanting to preserve nature.
• Some hold an almost religious belief regarding nature.
• They have a reverence for life and respect the right of all creatures to live, no matter what the social and economic costs.
• ""If it can be done, it should be done" is the motivating factor that drives our actions and energy when engaged in creative work."
• Conservation ethic is a scientific preservationist view leaning on the concept of sustainable development.
• It recognizes the desire for decent living standards, but must work towards a balance of resource use and of resource availability.
• This should strike a balance between total development and absolute preservation.
• Uncontrolled growth is unsustainable and prone to fail.
• Garret Hardin first describes the Tragedy of the Commons (1968).
• Users of a shared common resource reasons that, "If I do not use this resource, someone else will" if the number of users is small.
• The collective effect of many users exploiting a shared resource can eventually degrade and exhaust it irreversibly and consequently everyone suffers in the end.
• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a five-tier model of human needs that is a fundamental theory in psychology proposed by Abraham Maslow in 1943.
• This can explain why poverty is a major contributing factor to many environmental problems today.
• Poverty and environmental degradation are intertwined in a vicious cycle - the circumstances poor people are in force them to engage in practices that negatively impact the environment.
• Needs lower down in the hierarchy must be satisfied first before one can attend to needs higher up.
• Majority of the poor linger at the bottom of the pyramid, making environmental protection the least of their concerns.
• Only those who have reached the top can engage in such altruistic endeavors.
• Precautionary Principle is also known as precautionary approach.
• It originated sometime in the early 1970s from the German principle 'Vorsorge', which means foresight.
• It is based on the belief that the society should exert efforts to avoid environmental damage by careful forward planning.
• It is often used to challenge the link between anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHG) and climate change
• The proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof.

Environmental Justice and Governance

• Environmental Justice means that "no group of people, including racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic groups should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences."
• This results from industrial, municipal, and commercial operations or the execution of national and local policies.
• The equal protection against environmental hazards of all individuals is known as environmental equity.
• It accounts for groups or communities regardless of race, ethnicity, or economic status.
• Fairness and impartiality in laws is design to protect the health of human beings.
• This is applied to the productivity of ecological systems on which all human activity depends.
• A relevent principle in the application of environmental justice is the polluter-pays principle.
• This states that if anyone intentionally spoils the water of another...let him not only pay for damages, but purify the stream or cistern which contains the water."
• Relevant application of justice stems from The Dialogues of Plato".
• Intergenerational equity is deeply rooted in various cultural and religious traditions, built upon the use of equity.
• Wrote about by Greek philosopher Aristotle.
• Serves as the guiding principle in international law for formulating standards in allocating and sharing resources.
• It also distributes the burdens of caring for the resources and the environment in which they are found.
• This principle became the foundation for the concept of sustainable development, during the 1987 UN World Commission on Environment and Development.
• The state shall protect and advance the right of the people to a balanced and healthful ecology in accord with the rhythm and harmony of nature." - Article II Section 16 of the 1987 Constitution
• Writ of Mandamus led to the massive cleanup of Manila Bay.
• It is a court order enforced to deal swiftly with environmental threats affecting life, health, or property covering two or more municipalities or provinces.

Ecology Concepts

• Ecology deals with how organisms interact with one another and with the nonliving surroundings.
• It studies how organisms adapt to their environment and how their surroundings are utilized and altered by their presence and activities.
• A constant flow of energy and matter is needed by the living things to ensure their survival.
• If the flow of energy and matter ceases, it deprives the organism of its means to survive and ultimately dies.
• "No man is an island; no one person can survive on their own without help from others." - Poem by John Donne
• Every species was created to interact with each other and the survival of an organism depends on other organisms in some way.
• An ecosystem is a community of organisms interacting with other organisms while at the same time interacting with the nonliving environment.
• This interaction results in a self-sustaining system which uses energy and cycled materials.
• There is an endless variety to the factors that make up an environment.
• It is logical to subdivide the concept of environment into abiotic or nonliving factors and biotic or living factors due to this complexity.
• Environment is everything that affects an organism during its lifetime.

Abiotic (non-living) factors

• Comprises several interrelated categories,
• This involves the interactions of nonliving matter and energy.
• All organisms require a source of energy in order to survive.
• The amount of living matter that can exist in an area is determined by the amount of energy from plants, algae, and bacteria.
• All forms of life require carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and molecules such as water to maintain and sustain themselves.
• Organisms continuously obtain these materials from their environment.
• The habitat represents the physical structure and geographic location of the space that an organism inhabits.
• Climate - An important abiotic aspect of their environment is that it reflects the prevailing weather patterns in an area over a certain time.
• An ecological process involves solar energy interacting with matter that makes up the earth.
• Climatic condition is determined by a variety of factors, which includes (amount of solar radiation, proximity to the equator, prevailing wind patterns, closeness to water).
• Daily seasonal changes - Products influenced by the intensity and duration of sunlight in an area.
• Wind is the effect of temperature differences in an area.
• Solar radiation - A major contributing factor in generating ocean currents, the evaporation of water, and its subsequent precipitation.
• Precipitation is manifested in several forms, depending on the climate: rain, snow, hail or fog.
• Soil quality is influenced by seasonal precipitation patterns, prevailing weather patterns, local topography, and region geology.
• These interact to produce sandy, dry and infertile to fertile and moist soils with fine particles.

Ecological levels of organization

• Biosphere ecosphere, and is the summation of all ecosystems worldwide.
• The community of organisms and populations interacting with one another and with the abiotic factor making up their environment.

Biotic Factors

• All forms of life within an environment the organism interacts with.
• These are broken into categories

Autotrophs(producers)

• these are organisms that Capture energy such as sunlight and use it, along with nutrients to produce organic compounds

Heterotrophs (Consumers)

• The need a source of organic nutrients and consume tissues from other organisms

• Heterotrophs include:

  • Herbivores (green plants)
  • Carnivores (animal flesh)
  • Omnivores (plants and animals)

• Decomposers are non-photosynthetic bacteria and fungi that extract energy from dead energy, including animal wastes and make nutrients available Parasite are Bacteria, viruses and other parasitic organisms that cause disease

• Predation: is an Organisms kills and eats another organism The interaction predator benefited as it harms the prey.

• Competition: is organisms doing every possible means to obtain the same limited resources

Types of competition

• The Intraspecific competition occurs among members of the same species.
• The interspecific competition occurs between organisms of different species:
• In the Competitive exclusion principle: states that No two species can occupy the same ecological niche in the same place at the same time The survivor species with the larger number of successful individuals evolves from the interaction adapts to its environment better than its less successful rival.

Symbiotic Relationships

• Symbiosis is a close, harmonious, physical relationship between two different species having stabilized itself through a long period of interaction.
• Symbiosis occurs when two species in physical contact.
• Three types of symbiotic relationships: a. Parasitism - A relationship, where the parasite lives in or on another organism from which it derives sustenance, they Inflicts harm to the host, not instant death.

The relationship can evolve into commensalism if the host remains unaffected by their parasites indefinitely b. Commensalism- Benefits one while the other is unaffected The parasites evolve to do as little harm to their hosts hosts survive longer and overcome the parasite interaction as the parasite survives for longer. c. Mutualism - Where both species benefit from the interaction and it is often Obligatory. Some relationships allow them to exist separately, engage in a mutualistic relationship become more successful

• Ambiguous Relationships are those that are not easy to categorize (mosquito or ticks): often are called temporary parasites or blood predators.
• Ecosystem Roles have a few categories:

Producers

• Are a type of organism that use sources of energy, and make complex organic molecules.

Consumers

• use organic matter wich they have consumed in order to provide energy and the organic molecules

An ecosystem is a stable, self regulating unit that is not static but dynamic . the self regulating conditions. The state is referred to as homeostais. The energy is stored mainly in the form of chemical bonds in and is transferred to consumers when the producers are eaten. Each part of this flow is called the Trophic level. With it happening:

• Producers transfer to Herbivores
• Then to Cannivores
• Followed by the omnivores
• Finally to Parasites

The is influenced and or determined the intensity and duration of Sunlight. These states that that ever energy is transfer some is transfer is of a none use from making the transfer not being able to achieve the task needed. In all: energy at trophic level is 1 percent of the energy in the first trophic level.

• The next results in a passage of energy from one level tot the other: know as a food chain.

  • 1. Plant to insets
  • 2. Insects to spider
  • 3. spiders frog is eaten
  • 4. Frog is eaten bird

Material Cycle and Change

• Many chains rely on a constant supply of organic material or food such as detritus
• The atmosphere, lithosphere and Hydrosphere.

1. Photosynthesis Conversion of carbon dioxide into carbohydrates
2. Respiration Release of carbon dioxide into atmosphere
3. Decomposition Breakdown of carbohydrates into carbon and some other compound byproducts
4. Fixation Fixation of nitrogen has (N2) gas Either through light lighting or bacteria in plants
5. Assimilation Absorption of ammonium ions from the soils via their root hairs to synthesize protein

6. Cycles

Realease of ammonia from organic nitrogen (remains of organisms. excreta)

• Conversion of ammonia into nitrogen. Nitrification

7. reduction of nitrites into nitrogen gas

The phosphorus cycle

1. Geological uplifting
2. Weathering of rocks
3. Assimilation
4. Sedimentation

• Sulfur atoms are a very imp part that is in amino acids

These include

1. Volcanic eruption
2. Weathering of rocks
3. Decomposition
4. Sedimentation

• Water cycles are where the most organism are: 70 to 90 percent

The water and surface area have

1. Condensation
2. Precipitation
3. Evaporation
4. infiltration

The anthropologic impacts influence these causes which causes them transfer rates which become a big problems such as ( Eutrophication. An increase of phosphorus, and plant nutrients in aquatic ecosystems Eutrophic waters: may have fewer animals Cultural: Fertilizer sewage causes it

The cause will influence a loss of available levels of oxygen is oxygen. This influences Anoxia which causes for fish to kill

• Harmful algae blooms produce neurotoxins that effects marine life. Tides: are rapid multiplications.
• Rain is when chemical and acid components causes damage which destroys species and materials

5. Ecosystem Changes associated with the Nutrient Cycles

• Ecosystem

6. Ecosystem
7. Urbanization
8. Population

• The big 3 that control regulation:

1. Abundance Law of Tolerance

• Is regulated by climate. Population Dynamics:

Changes Population Dynamics

• Limiting Factors

  1. Resources dependent
  2. Independent Factors
     • bad weather The world's population continues to increase, but growth rates vary greatly across regions. Nine countries will make up more than half of the projected population growth between now and 2050. Rapid population growth presents challenges for sustainable development. In some countries, growth of the working age population is creating opportunities for economic growth. The population continues to growth 5 1 population can control growth and consumption

• The report is the main of 4 growth

16.2: how the ecosystem the conservatiin

Three terms

1 deg systems bad 4 1 the same and good 5 what the systems do They: supply air and maintain 3 the link to human

16.0 Conservation And Restoration

• It's a member of global and civil societies
• In all its important to preserve them

Ecosystem Management

Has a member that it manages

The red List makes species stay healthy and make the resource needed to survive

• The main goal is bio diversity the list also gives use threats

The 2

1 trade is agreed to be good and agreed that help preserve trade of plant and animals 2 by all and used to help with survival Most animals and nature itself And the main of that is: maintain and preserve