Chapter 1 & 2 Vocabulary

1. Biocentric Preservation: philosophy that emphasizes the fundamental right of

living organisms to exist and to pursue their own goods
2. Ecological Footprint: measure that computes the demands placed on nature by
individuals and nations
3. Environment: circumstances or conditions that surround an organism or group of
organisms
4. Environmentalism: active participation in attempts to solve environmental
pollution and resource problems.
5. Environmental Science: systematic study of our environment and our proper
place in it.
6. Extreme Poverty: living on less than $1 per day
7. Global Environmentalism: A concern for, and action to help solve, global
environmental problems.
8. Sustainable Development: A real increase in well-being and standard of life for
the average person that can be maintained over the long-term without degrading
the environment or compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
own needs.
9. Utilitarian Conservation: A philosophy that resources should be used for the
greatest good for the greatest number for the longest time.

1. Anthropocentric: The belief that humans hold a special place in nature; being
centered primarily on humans and human affairs.
2. Biocentrism: The belief that all creatures have rights and values; being centered
on nature rather than humans.
3. Blind experiment: those in which those carrying out the experiment don’t know
until after data has been gathered and analyzed which was the experimental
treatment and which was the control.
4. Controlled study: those in which comparisons are made between experimental
an control populations that are identical in every possible factor except the one
variable being studied.
5. Deductive reasoning: Deriving testable predictions about specific cases from
general principles.
6. Disturbances: destructive events
7. Dependent variable: response variable, or the one affected by the independent
variable
8. Double-blind experiment: neither the subject nor the researcher knows who is in
the treatment group or control group
9. Emergent properties: characteristics of a whole, functioning system that are
quantitatively or qualitatively greater than the sum of the system’s parts.
10. Environmental justice: recognition that access to a clean, healthy environment is
a fundamental right of all human beings.
11. Environmental racism: Decisions that restrict certain people or groups of people
to polluted or degraded environments on the basis of race
12. Equilibrium: factors that would settle at the point where both are stabilized in the
same state.
13. Ethics: branch of philosophy concerned with what actions are right and wrong
14. Hypothesis: A provisional explanation that can be tested scientifically.
15. Inductive reasoning: Inferring general principles from specific examples.
16. Independent variable: explanatory variable that stands as independent
17. Inherent value: Ethical values or rights that exist as an intrinsic or essential
characteristic of a particular thing or class of things simply by the fact of their
existence.
18. Instrumental value: Value or worth of objects that satisfy the needs and wants of
moral agents. Objects that can be used as a means to some desirable end.
19. LULUs: Locally Unwanted Land Uses such as toxic waste dumps, incinerators,
smelters, airports, freeways, and other sources of environmental, economic, or
social degradation.
20. Manipulative experiment: experiments in which conditions can be deliberately
altered
21. Model: simple representation of something
22. Moral extensionism: Expansion of our understanding of inherent value or rights
to persons, organisms, or things that might not be considered worthy of value or
rights under some ethical philosophies.
23. Natural experiment: involves observation of events that have already happened
24. Negative feedback loop: feedback causing a system to be unbalanced
25. Open systems: systems that take inputs from elsewhere
26. Positive feedback loop: feedback that has a system in stable or enhancing
conditions
27. Paradigm shift: occurs when a majority of scientists accept that the old
explanation no long explains new observations very well
28. Preservationist: people who argue that some parts of nature should be preserved
for its own sake.
29. Replication: repeating studies or tests
30. Reproducibility: consistently trying the same result to confirm if it is the only
one
31. Resilience: The ability of a community or ecosystem to recover from
disturbances.
32. Science: process for producing knowledge methodically and logically
33. Scientific theory: An explanation supported by many tests and accepted by a
general consensus of scientists.
34. Significant number: level of detail you actually knew
35. Stewardship: taking care of the resources we are given
36. Scientific consensus: general agreement among informed scholars
37. Systems: networks of interactions among many interdependent factors
38. Toxic colonialism: Shipping toxic wastes to a weaker or poorer nation.
39. Utilitarian: someone who believes that the value of a thing depends on its utility