Unit 1 Case studies o Mangrove trees Maiti Viestak is a poor farmer in Thailand who just wants to find a way

ay to feed his family. He found out that the easiest way to do so was by farming shrimps, however, he was not told about any of the environmental side effects such action can cause, which led him to assume that it is a good business for him, and that he should keep going. o Mono Lake The city of Los Angeles decided to use the Lakes water as a water supply for the city. This became a very important and controversial issue concerning the fact that the lake was going to be too salty for any organisms to live soon enough due to the salts from the ground. The state of California had to go through scientific experiments which then ended up deciding that the people were right and that LA should stop doing so. Less fresh water into the lake caused the salt concentration to increase. o Amboseli Park Because of the swamps and lakes around the Amboseli National Reserve, the ground water becomes very salty, a little too salty for big trees to live, however, it is not salty enough to affect smaller bushes and grasses, which cause the mountains landscape to change over the years from lots of trees to just a grassy area. The rainfall brought the salt from the ground up, killing most of the saltintolerable trees o Lake Washington The purified wastewater pumped into the lake had large amounts of Phosphorous. When too much water was pumped into the lake, it caused algae and other photosynthetic organisms to appear in the area. As a result, they had to redirect the wastewater. Ch.1 o Gaia Hypothesis life manipulates the environment for the maintenance of life o Precautionary Principle we should not wait for scientific proof to act o Justifications Placing values on the environment Utilitarian justification good for the individual Ecological justification the ecosystem is needed for the survival of some species of interest to us Aesthetic justification appreciation of beauty Moral justification belief that things have the right to exist Ch.2 o California Condor and how they fixed the problem Took all of them in zoos and bred them, eventually releasing some back into the wild This defied the scientific method. Ch.3 o Different types of feedback and their effects o Environmental unity you cant change one thing and keep everything else the same o Uniformitarianism the present is the key to the past o Average Residence Time (ART)

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ART = S/F S size of the reservoir F Flow rate Ecosystem definition and examples An ecosystem is a community of organisms and its local nonliving environment in which matter cycles and energy flows. An example of an artificial ecosystem would be a jar where there is enough plans to recycle CO2 into the air, and enough organisms to use the O2 and turn it back into CO2. Those organisms must also survive, so they need food and water. Ecosystems natural services Pollutants are usually trapped on leaves and converted into harmless compounds by forests Waste water from industries and houses are converted into drinkable water by passage through soil. Why are global problems hard to deal with Lag Time, Exponential Growth, Irreversible Consequences. Annual Growth Rates US 0.6% World 1.2% Age structure Upside down pyramid future population decrease Pyramid future population increase Replacement-level fertility 2 babies per mother Elements recycling elements with gaseous phase are faster. Those without are usually the limiting factor Plate tectonics (pg. 83) Divergent plates move away from each other Convergent plates plates collide Transform faults one plates slides past another Nitrogen Cycle Nitrogen fixation by bacteria, lightning, and factories transforms N2 to NO3or NH3 Denitrification changes organic nitrogen back to inorganic N2 Phosphorous cycle Phosphorous does not have a gas phase and therefore the cycle is a lot slower We get phosphorous from bird poop.

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