PWS 180 Midterm 1 Review PDF

-​ Know about the difference between liberals and conservatives and their views -​ Anthropocentrism is the ethical standpoint that humans are the center of everything and they matter the most; very important in the 19th C when science was emerging; not as accepted today because it is e...

-​ Know about the difference between liberals and conservatives and their views -​ Anthropocentrism is the ethical standpoint that humans are the center of everything and they matter the most; very important in the 19th C when science was emerging; not as accepted today because it is egotistical -​ Physiocentrism: nature is at the center -​ Theocentrism: religion is at the center -​ To combine anthro- and theocentrism, we get stewardship especially in our church -​ Hint hint, remember the word generations -​ Ages (millions) -​ Epochs (tens of millions of years) -​ Remember the order of geological units, both ways (forward and backward) -​ On test: how is the balance of earth's energy budget right? How are these things balanced and are they sustainable? -​ On test: predictions are conservative they don't estimate the effects accurately most of the time because its more severe than we think -​ On test: as climate warms the air and water, what happens to the water holding capacity of the atmosphere and the water solubility of greenhouse gases -​ Warmer air holds more moisture and gases dissolve less in warmer air -​ Things to know: -​ Common scientific method uses both a hypothetico and deductive framework -​ Be able to differentiate between a hypothesis and prediction ***on test -​ Scientific modelling typically conducted through experiments -​ How do republicans and democrats differ in their trust of media ***on test -​ Agenda is their goal in sharing this information (who is there intended audience, what do they want you to know) -​ Nature knows best - the environment will always reset itself and knows its intended paths to take -​ There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch - every action that you take has an intended consequence -​ Everything must go somewhere - pollution, energy, etc -​ Everything is connected to everything else - everything that is changed changes other things -​ Approx 15 million people die prematurely due to environmental pollution, this is very bad ***on test -​ Environmental justice affects everyone ***on test -​ Factors that can affect environmental justice in society are pretty much anything you can think of -​ Anthropocentrism - human centered, humans matter more than everyone -​ Physiocentrism - nature centered -​ Theocentrism - religion centred -​ ***on test = remember the word “generations” and its connection to stewardship and environmental ethics -​ Geological units are measured by hallmark events as in eruptions, geological events or extinctions of life forms (ex. Dinosaur extinction) -​ Ages = millions of years -​ Epochs = tens of millions of years -​ Periods = tens to hundreds of millions of years -​ Eras = hundreds of millions to billions of years -​ Eons = more than half of a billion of years -​ ***on test remember the order of these units, both ways -​ Energy balance of the earth is the equilibrium between the energy the earth acquires from outside sources like sun and chemical energy, and the energy it radiates out to space again -​ Insolation = incoming solar radiation; affected by earth tilt, rotation, and orbit; it will absorb or reflect based on those things -​ Albedo = reflexivity of any surfaces on the earth (ex. Ice, snow, clouds reflect light and so it isn’t able to absorb as much heat ) ; more ice and snow = cooler overall temperatures ; artificial materials life asphalt = higher overall temps because they absorb more heat -​ Insulation = heat retention ability of the surfaces like atmosphere, land, and oceans → atmosphere is important because if its thicker it absorbs more heat (as in greenhouse gases make the air more thick meaning it insulates the earth) -​ Increased CO2 and increased warming have a direct relationship; if one increases the other does too → constant loop: increased CO2 leads to increased warming which leads to more CO2 -​ ***On test: how is the balance of earth’s energy now and is it sustainable? -​ Predictions are often conservative (they don’t estimate the effects accurately most of the time because its often more severe than we think) -​ ***on test: as climate warms the air and water, what happens to the holding capacity of the atmosphere and the water solubility of greenhouse gases? -​ Water holding capacity increases, solubility decreases -​ Warmer air holds more moisture and gases dissolve less in warmer air, so as oceans and lakes warm they release more carbon to atmosphere which is bad -​ Stabilising feedback ex: new plant growth, slows climate warming -​ Destabilising feedback = ice melting because it exposes ocean or land to absorb more heat and it would speed it up -​ One of the best examples of stabilising feedback is rock erosion and weathering -​ Huge specific heat = takes a lot to warm water up and a lot to cool it down → also means it is a huge stabilising temperature force for the earth -​ Definition of milankovitch cycle: long-term variations in the earth’s orbital parameters ***on test -​ What 2 layers are heated from below? –? The ones that start warm then go cold = troposphere (heated from interior of the earth) and mesosphere (heated from the top) -​ Stability = refers to air temperature and altitude -​ Which 2 layers are the most stable? → stratosphere and thermosphere (look for line with positive slope for relationship between air temp increasing with elevation) -​ The earth's energy balance is not very stable right now because of our high rates of climate change (energy is coming in and being trapped by greenhouse gases) -​ Earth's energy balance → we absorb more energy than we release (input is more than output) + we are not in equilibrium but we are close -​ 3,500 years ago, there were more species on Earth than individual humans (there were around 8 million people). -​ Humans have plowed, burned or built 77% of earth’s ice free land and 80% of ocean’s continental shelves -​ Humans and domestic animals account for 96% of all beings on earth -​ Human agriculture, resource extraction and construction move 10 to 100 times more sediment, rock, and soil as all natural processes combined -​ Humans produce 35 billion tons of CO2 every year -​ Combined effects of habitat loss, invasive species and direct human disturbance have increased the extinction rate 1000 times -​ Humans drive 2000 to 10000 species to extinction every year -​ Truth seeking is humans distinguishing attribute -​ Tools for discovering truth: empiricism (the world is discoverable by observing it) and rationalism (thinking about things using logic and reason) -​ What are plants made of? → Water -​ Eliminative induction: a rational procedure to establish causation -​ Empirical falsifiability distinguishes science from non-science -​ The purpose of searching scientific literature is to increase the truth content of your worldview -​ Two ways of searching and reading: defense mode or discovery mode -​ Confusion is an opportunity, not a threat -​ Types of articles and journals: -​ Review articles = good starting place -​ Perspective, opinion, and commentary = good place for identifying questions -​ Original research = good place to figure out how -​ Don't forget to look where its published! (top tier journals=IF 3-15, strong disciplinary journals=IF 1-4, niche journals=IF 1-4, garbage journals=no IF) -​ Information literacy is the set of integrated abilities and dispositions encompassing the understanding of how information systems function, the reflective discovery of information, and the use of information in sharing and creating new knowledge so as to participate wisely in a variety of settings -​ Misinformation: false or inaccurate information–getting the facts wrong -​ Disinformation: false information that is deliberately intended to mislead–intentionally misstating the facts -​ Fake news: information, especially biased or misleading in nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view -​ Fake news is: coverage of events that didn’t happen, misrepresentation of real events, portraying advertising as reporting, distorted, decontextualized or dubious information -​ Fake news is NOT: difference of opinion, false statements made about someone being interviewed, explicit or implicit bias -​ Conservatives are more likely to share fake news than liberals, but unclear if this is an inherent difference or symptom of current ideology of fake news stories -​ Those over 65 are 7 times more likely to share fake news than the youngest group -​ Trust in media has declined, but not evenly -​ Not all science is created equal -​ Conspiracy theory: an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy (generally by powerful sinister groups, often political in motivation) when other explanations are more probable -​ Central concepts for information literacy: authority is constructed and contextual, information has value, research as inquiry, information creation as a process, scholarship as conversation, searching as strategic exploration -​ When is it most important to check your bias? → when you agree with the info (confirmation bias) and when you’re getting positive feedback -​ Bias vs agenda: -​ Bias: uneven representation of information -​ Agenda: the purpose for sharing the information -​ A moving standard of truth: -​ Strength of conclusion should be proportional to strength of evidence -​ If a proposal has permanent, large or dangerous consequences, weigh the relative risk of a false positive and false negative -​ Certainty increases over time -​ Opportunity to influence the outcome decreases over time -​ Using policy to fight mis- and disinformation: implement media regulation to decrease, enhance media literacy, rehabilitate traditional media -​ Creation → origin, context, agenda, suitability -​ Use → process, need, audience -​ Average Utahn loses 1.1 to 3.5 years off life-expectancy -​ 75% of Utahns lose a year or more of life -​ 23% lose at least 5 years of life -​ Air pollution from steel mill in Utah: increase in all-cause hospital emissions (89% increase for children, 47% increase for adults), 3-fold increase in respiratory related admissions -​ Longitudinal studies, spatial comparison studies and exposure studies are all robust estimates of the health and economic consequences of pollution -​ Pollution affects every system in the human body at each stage of development -​ 1 million species are threatened with extinction -​ 80% decrease in biomass of wild animals globally -​ 2000 to 10000 species driven to extinction every year by humans -​ While direct harvesting (hunting) was dominant in the past, today, biodiversity loss is driven by habitat loss. We have altered 77% of the land and 87% of the ocean. This leaves very little space for populations to survive and adapt as they face natural and human disturbances. -​ Habitat loss is the dominant driver of extinctions -​ Agriculture (mainly meat and dairy) is the most important cause of habitat loss and nutrient pollution -​ Many contributors to habitat loss, but the largest by far is the livestock husbandry -​ Compounded with habitat loss, invasive species are often the factor that pushes a species over the edge -​ Two of the most damaging and common invasive species in north america are cats and horses -​ Human domination of earth's great cycles: carbon cycle (10%), net primary productivity (50%), water cycle (50%), nitrogen cycle (100%), phosphorus cycle (500%) -​ Human nutrients are everywhere on earth -​ ⅔ of freshwater and marine ecosystems now experience eutrophication which causes massive die offs of aquatic organisms -​ Eutrophication poisons humans and harms the economy (3% global GDP) -​ Ecosystem services: benefits that humans receive freely from the environment -​ Monetary value of ecosystem services estimated at $145 trillion -​ What causes these crises (pollution, loss of life on earth, nutrients, climate change): -​ Dirty energy, habitat loss, invasive species, overconsumption, ignorance, denial and despondency) -​ 35% higher pollution burden for those living in poverty -​ Countries with less religious affiliation consume more and emit more greenhouse gases -​ Just 6% say that their religious beliefs have had the biggest influence on what they think about environmental regulation -​ Weather is the temperature and moisture conditions experienced at once place in space and time -​ Climate is the temperature and moisture conditions averaged across some amount of time (usually 30 years or more) -​ The Earth has an extremely unlikely combination of attributes that have kept the climate within a range suitable for life as we know it for more than a  billion years (Earth mean annual temperature= 14C, Venus = 462C, Mars = -63C) -​ 1,370 Watts m^-2 (disk in space) or 342 Watts m^-2 (troposphere) -​ Like any planet rotating and revolving around a star, the Earth receives more energy at the equator, creating a lateral energy imbalance. This imbalance is one of the most important factors that powers wind and ocean currents. -​ During the pleistocene, climate followed a sawtooth pattern of glacial and interglacial periods caused by orbital changes (milankovitch cycles) -​ The climate has been uncommonly stable during the holocene, allowing human civilization to flourish -​ When two or three of the milankovitch cycles align, it changes the energy balance of the Earth slightly. Depending on what is going on internally, this can trigger the onset or end of a cold or warm period globally. -​ Who moves the most carbon? 1. Primary production and respiration, 2. Humans, 3. Rock weathering and carbonate precipitation -​ Primary productivity removes CO2 from the air or water -​ Most primary producers (autotrophs) use light energy to make glucose from carbon dioxide and water -​ Primary production is done by autotrophs, mainly plants and algae -​ Net ecosystem carbon balance: overall uptake or release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere depends on the sum of all inputs and releases -​ Permafrost collapse is accelerating carbon release -​ Climate change solutions have feedbacks too -​ 15% of allowable methane emissions could be eaten up by reduced sulfur deposition and CO2 fertilization -​ Uncoupled (exogenous) climate drivers: solar constant, meteors, orbit, tectonics, volcanism, evolution of new life -​ Ecosystem feedbacks: -​ Stabilizing: blackbody radiation, clouds, rock weathering, carbonate dissolution/precipitation, primary productivity -​ Dependent: net ecosystem carbon balance, biogenic aerosis, extreme perturbation of most stabilising and destabilising feedbacks -​ Destabilizing: ice and snow albedo, water-holding capacity of atmosphere, solubility of CO2 in the ocean, decomposition -​