Environmental Science Notes Essay Example for Free

Environmental Science Notes Essay1. Green revolution intro of scientifically bred or selected varieties of g fall that can greatly increase crop yields. 2. Things that cause seasons on earth earth tilted on axis, sun distri yetion 3. immense scale hydroelectric projects around the world 3 gorges dam, dams going on in india 4. Age distribution diagrams ZPG=looks like a building that doesnt shift, layabout same as top. Slow proceeds=base a bit longer than top but not quite a pyramid. Rapid growth=WIDE base, narrow top, like a pyramid 5. Waste wet treatment process get urine, drain out sludge, have sludge area, peeing goes through process to get more sludge out, water gets aerated, water gets filtered with Cl to dispatch bacteria. 6. Human sodium light speedate on earth 6.8 billion. US pop 300 million. Most populated countries china, india, US 7. Soil horizons O,A,B,C. O is organic material and leaf litter and such. A is top soil and humus. B is boot material. C is bedro ck, solid rock8. Rule of 70 70/percent=time it will take to double population 9. Replacement level profusion reproducing enough babies to replace yourself(in developed countries, its 2.1, but in developing, its 2.5 because of infant mortality) 10. Waste created by nuclear causality plants radioactive waste in solid liquid or gas state 11. Biggest threats to biodiversity HIPPO, habitat loss, invasive species, population growth, pollution, and overexploitation 12. Integrated pest management people come in and solve your pest problem without victimisation harmful chemicals or pesticides.Situations are situation specific and take a longer time to solve. 13. Aquaculture trapping look for in a coast, or netted fenced area of water to use for produce and food or commercial use 14. Demographic transition precedent preindustrial, transitional, industrial, postindustrial. Pre- high birth and death place. Trans- high birth rates and low death rates. Ind- lower birth rates, and same death rates. Post- birth and death rates equal 15. Photosynthesis carbonic acid gas+H2OO2+C6H12O6. Needs solar efficiency 16. Half life radioactive decay of how long it takes for half of material to decay 17. Tragedy of the car park when a renewable available to e veryone resource is depleted 18. Population growth rate equation (births-deaths)/1019. Genetic engineering getting genes from one existence and putting them in other organisms to get desired trait 20. 1st and 2nd law of thermodynamics 1st states that energy is neither created nor destroyed. 2nd states that as energy is changed and moves up trophic levels, it decreases 21. Where is coal located around world US in mountainous areas, Russia, china, and Australia 22. Denitrification ammonium to N gas. Assimilation when plants and animals turn nitrates into amino acids and proteins. Ammonification nitrates to ammonium. Nitrification N gas to nitrates and nitrites. Nitrogen fixation Nitrogen to nitrogen gas that is ready to go to nitrites23. Montreal protocol when they noticed that ozone was disappearing, they banned chlorofluorocarbons in industries and anything else in 1987 24. Antarctic conformity of 1961 countries could only use Antarctica for peaceful matters 25. Pop growth curves irruptive- overshootdieback. Cyclic predator and preys pop patterns change together. Logistic exponential to carrying capacity wherefore moves around the carrying patterns a little. 26. Carrying capacity biotic potential + environmental underground, what population the environment can withstandWhat I kind of know1. Cons of mining removes 90% of nonfuel mineral and rock recourses, 60% of coal used in US destroys forests, contaminates streams and groundwater, leaves highly erodible hills of rubble, susceptible to chemical weathering, slow vegetation regrowth, change and buries streams below, toxic wastewater, produces demeanor pollution 2. Ways to centre soil erosion terracing (growing food on slopes), no till farming, wind breaks of trees, strip cropping, contour farming 3. Cause of fluctuation of carbonic acid gas levels during a year amount of trees, photosynthetic activity, tan fossil fuels, drinking glass, power generation and transport 4. Surface mining to remove mineral deposits found f wayly close to the earths surface, removing soil, subsoil and other strata. 5. Types of irrigation drip-delivers small amts of water onto crop roots (best). Flood-delivers more water than needed for a crop to grow. Centro pivotal- nebulizer attachments water crops6. Consequences of global temperature increase melting ice and snow, less sunlight reflected back into space, rising sea levels, changing ocean currents, more acidic seas, change in precipitation and weather extremes, and disrupting ecosystems, more radioactivity 7. Pros and cons of dams pros-cheap electricity, get downs downstream flooding, provide year round water for irrigation. Cons displace people, disrupt aquatic systems, and prevent weight to swim upstream and get caught in it and die 8. Ozone form function filter out most of suns harmful ultraviolet radiation 9. Cause of stratospheric ozone loss chlorofluorocarbons use, ODCs, halons, hydrobromofluorocarbons, methyl bromide, HCl, carbochluorides, methyl chloroform, n-propyl bromide, hexachlorobutadicine.10. Ways to reduce atmospheric CO2 cut fossil fuel use, shift from coal to natural gas, better energy efficiency, shift to renewable energy resources, transfer energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies to developing contries, reduce deforestation, use sustainable agriculture and forestry, reduce poverty, slow population growth 11. Season when ozone hole is most noticeable October, Antarctic spring (winter) 12. DDT, mercury pesticides that are toxic to humans and are very persistent and a lot of the time they go to the wrong species and they disrupt the ecosystem. They are broad spectrum pesticides.13. P roll P circulates through water, earths crust, and liv ing things, it is the most limiting because it does not become gaseous. C cycle C circulated through earths send off, water, soil, and living things and it depends on photosynthesis and respiration. N cycle bacteria dishs recycle N through the earths air, water, soil and living organisms (N fixationnitrificationassimilationammonificationdenitrificationN fixation). Water cycle evaporation, condensation, precipitation, percolation 14. Importance of genetic diversity resistance to mass extinctions, monocultures, and inbreeding 15. Biomes, locations, reasons for why they are located in certain areas1. Gasification agricultural wastes, including wood wastes any of various processes by which coal is turned into low, medium or high BTU gases 2. Cogeneration production of 2 useful forms of energy, such as high temp heat or steam and electricity, from the same fuel source 3. heathenish eutrophication human activities that greatly accelerate the input of plant nutrients to a lake (mostly N O3 and phosphate). 4. Sand low porosity and high permeability. Clay low permeability and high porosity. porousness is the volume of pore space. Silt has low to average porosity and average permeability. Permeability is the ability of water to flow through the soil5. Incinerating trash burning trash, boiling water to make steam for heating water of space for producing electricity. Cons expensive to build, costs more than short distance hauling to landfills, difficult to lay because of citizen opposition, some air pollution, older poorly managed facilities can release large amts of air pollution, output approach that encourages waste production, competes with recycling for burnable materials like newspaper. Pros reduces trash volumes, less need for landfills, low water pollution, concentrates precarious substances into ash for burial or use as landfill cover, sale of energy reduces cost, modern controls reduce air pollution, some facilities recover and sell metals.6. Sun angle, few er daylight hours, tropospheric length has not enough solar radiation to reach the surface, high Albeao and less water vapor causes polar areas to get really cold. 7. Integrated waste management variety of strategies for waste reduction and management to deal with our produced solid wasted reduce, reuse and recycle 8. Layers of atmosphere troposphere is closest to earths surface and contains 90% of mass of entire atmosphere. Stratosphere has the ozone layer that absorbs UV rays from sun and protects life on earth. Mesosphere is the coldest layer of the atmosphere. The mesopause is the boundary between mesosphere and thermosphere. Thermosphere is the last layer of atmosphere and it is warmer than mesosphere and has a little O2 and has a layer of ionized gases9. Waste created by coal power plants heat to troposphere, CO2 and air pollution 10. Pros and cons of coal power pros- ample supply, high net energy, low cost, well developed mining and combustion technology, air pollution can b e reduced with improved technologies. Cons severe land disturbance, air pollution, water pollution, high land use, severe threats to human health, high CO2 emissions, radioactive particles and toxi mercury into air 11. Pros and cons of nuclear power pros- large fuel supply, low envir. Impact, emits 1/6 as much CO2 as coal, damp land use and disruption and water pollution, and Low risk of accidents. Cons- expensive, low net energy yield, catastrophic accidents, no solution for radioactive waste storage, terrorist attacks, weapons 12. initiation of radon some soil and rock13. Tropospheric ozone air pollutant, bad ozone because it can damage living tissue and break down certain materials 14. Acid rain caused by coal burning power plants, ore smelters and industrial plants that use tall smokestacks to emit SO2 and NO2 into troposphere. Consequences 2-14 day persistence, ruins sensitive soil, worsens respiratory disease, attacks metallic and stone, decreases atmospheric visibility, kil ls fish, depletes soil of snappy plant nutrients and harms crops and plants. Solutions improving energy efficiency, reduce coal use, increase natural gas use and renewable energy resourcs, burn low sulfur coal, remove SO2 and NO2 from smokestack gases, remove NO2 from motor vehicular exhaust, tax emissions of SO2, add lime to neutralize acidified lakes and add phosphate fertilizer to neutralize acidified lakes. pH of rain 5.6 or less. Problem in eastern US.15. Greenhouse gases and their sources water vapor, CO2, CH4, NO2, O3. Sources are burning fossil fuels, electricity production, transportation, industry, commercial and residential, agriculture, land use and forestry. 16. LD-50 median lethal pane of a toxin, radiation or pathogen is dose required to kill the members of a tested pop after specified test duration 17. Radon Rn-222 is a natural occurring gas that is colorless and odorless and radioactive found in some soil and rock, seeps into homes and buildings and can cause lun g cancer. Lichen can indicate it 18. Clean water act attempt to control efforts of pollution of countrys surface waters. Standards for allowed levels of key water pollutants and requires polluters to get permits limiting how much of various pollutants can disgrace into aquatic systems 19. Clean air act causes lakes to be acidic. Made to prevent smog and prevent more air pollution disasters, air pollutant regulations for key pollutants20. How carbon is removed from the atmosphere remove from smokestack and vehicle emissions, store by planting trees, sequester deep underground, sequester in soil by using no till conservation and taking cropland out of production, sequester CO2 deep in ocean, repair leaky gas pipelines and facilities, use animal feeds that reduce methane emissions by belching cows. 21. UN conference of the human environment expanding understanding of envir. Issues, gathering and evaluation envir. Data, develop and monitor international envir. Treaties, provide grants and loans for sustainable econ. Devel. And reducing poverty, help more than 1nations develop envir. Laws and institutions 22. Reclamation of disturbed lands process of creating new land from ocean, riverbeds or lake. Stabilized against the hazards of water and wind erosion 23. RCRA resource conservation and recovery act regulates hazardous waste produced in the US passed in 1976 amended in 1984. Goal to prevent unsafe and illegal disposal of hazardous wastes on the land.24. Uranium-235 isotope of uranium making up about .72% of the natural uranium sustains fission chain reaction 25. Biomagnifications increase in concentration of DDT, PCBs, and other easily degradable far soluble chemicals in organisms at successively higher trophic levels of a food chain or web. 26. Efficiency of an incandescent lightbulb (5%), photosynthesis (1%), coal power (33%) 27. Fecal coliform bacteria various strains of E. Coli to detect the presence of infectious agents in water 28. Consequences of SO2, l ead, O3 in troposphere, and particulates SO2- breathing problems, visibility reduction and aggravation of asthma, damages crops, trees, soils, and lake aquatic life, corrodes metals and damages paint, paper, and leather and stone on buildings.O3- coughing, breathing problems, reduces resistance to colds and pneumonia, irritates eyes, odorize, and throat, aggravates asthma, bronchitis, emphysema and heart disease and damages plants, rubber in tires, fabrics and paints. Particulates- irritate the nose and throat, damage lungs, aggravate asthma and bronchitis, shortens life. Lead- mutations, reproductive problems, cancer, nervous system damage, mental retardation and digestive and other health problems, reduce visibility and corrode metals and dishonor clothes and paints. 29. CERCLA requires parties responsible for creating a hazardous waste site to be responsible for its cleanup30. NAFTA goal to pass away barriers to trade and investment between US, Canada and Mexico to eliminate t ariffs on more than of Mexicos exports to the US. Try to pressure countries to improve envir. Protection mechanism 31. Electrostatic precipitators to remove particulates, after they are in smokestack gas, it gives them a negative charge, they are attracted to a positively charged precipitator wall and fall off the wall into a collector, they maintain and remove 99% of particulate, but use a lot of electricity and do not remove hazardous ultrafine particles and produce a toxic dust that must be accustomed of safely. 32. Alternatives to chlorine in waste water treatment microfiltration, ultrafiltration, ion exchange