TOPIC 1
INTRODUCTION
TO
ENVIRONMENTAL
SCIENCE
What is environmental science?
- A branch of science that seek to understand the ways that we affect our environment
Environment
• The conditions and circumstances that surround organisms
• The social and cultural conditions that affect an individual or community
Science
• Latin word scientia – to know or to discern
• Technically science refers to body of knowledge derived from observation,
measurement, study and experimentation to the process of accumulating
knowledge
Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physical and
biological sciences, (including Ecology, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Soil Science, Geology,
Atmospheric Science and Geography) to the study of the environment, and the solution of
environmental problems.
Environmental science is an
interdisciplinary study of connections
between the earth’s life support system
and human activities.
Major Fields of Study Related to Environmental Science
Subfields
Biology: study of living things Ecology: study of how organisms interact with one another and with their nonliving
(organisms) environment
Botany: study of plants
Zoology: study of animals
Chemistry: study of chemicals and Biochemistry: study of the chemistry of living things
their interactions
Earth science: study of the planet as a Climatology: study of the earth’s atmosphere and climate
whole and its nonliving systems Geology: study of the earth’s origin, history, surface, and interior processes
Hydrology: study of the earth’s water resources
Paleontology: study of fossils and ancient life
Social sciences: studies of human Anthropology: study of human cultures
society Demography: study of the characteristics of human populations
Geography: study of the relationships between human populations and the earth’s surface
features
Economics: study of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services
Political Science: study of the principles, processes, and structure of government and
political institutions
Humanities: study of the aspects of History: study of information and ideas about humanity’s past
the human condition not covered by the Ethics: study of moral values and concepts concerning right and wrong human behavior and
physical and social sciences responsibilities
Philosophy: study of knowledge and wisdom about the nature of reality, values, and
human conduct
Natural Capital
Natural capital =
natural resources + natural services
Imagine you win $1 million
Invest and earn 10% interest per year = $100,000/year
without withdraw
If spend $200,000/year + interest = $0 in the seventh
year.
• Same lesson applies to earth’s natural capital
• Living sustainably means living off natural income, the renewable resources while providing
the human population with adequate and equitable access to this natural income for the
foreseeable future.
• Human activities are degrading or overusing about 62% of the earth’s natural services
Economic Gap between Rich and Poor Countries
Economic growth → Gross domestic product (GDP): the annual market value of all
goods and services produced by all foreign and domestic organization, operating within a
country.
Economic changes/person → Per capita GDP: the GDP divided by the total
population at midyear.
Purchasing power parity (PPP) → exchange rates between currencies are in
equilibrium when their purchasing power is the same in each of two countries.
PPP + per capita GDP = amount of goods and services that a country’s average citizen
could buy
classifies as economically developed or developing countries
1. What is natural capital?
World map of countries by GDP per capita (nominal) for 2022
SWD FIN
ICE NRW
USA RUS
GER
CAN
FR MONG
USA SP
CHN
MEX IN
BRZ
SA AU
ARG
NZ
Total in the list = 192
Higher than CHINA????
3. Give 2 examples of high income countries.
4. Malaysia is categorized as ________________income country.
Renewable Resources
• Owned by no one and available for use by anyone at little or
no charge
• Examples: clean air, underground water supplies, and the
open ocean and its fish
• Many renewable resources have been degraded which name
as tragedy of the commons by Garrett Hardin (1968), a
biologist
• “If I do not use this resource, someone else will. The little bit
that I use or pollute is not enough to matter, and anyway, it’s
a renewable resource.”
Non-Renewable Resources
• Exist in a fixed quantity, or stock, in the earth’s crust
• In millions to billions of years, geological processes can renew such resources
• These resources can be depleted much faster than they are formed
• Examples: energy resources (such as coal and oil)
metallic mineral resources (such as copper and aluminum)
nonmetallic mineral resources (such as salt and sand).
Solution to natural capital degradation
As an individual
Reduce by purchasing in bulk and buying items with less
packaging
Reuse is using a resource over and over in the same
form
Recycling involves collecting waste materials and
processing them into new materials.
As a community
Use shared resources below their sustainable yields To convert open-access resources to private
ownership
For example, governments to establish laws and
regulations limiting the annual harvests of various If you own something, you are more likely to
types of ocean fish protect your investment
Consumption of natural resources
The top photo shows a family of five subsistence farmers
with all their possessions. They live in the village of
Shingkhey, Bhutan, in the Himalaya Mountains, which are
sandwiched between China and India in South Asia.
The bottom photo shows a typical U.S. family of four
living in Pearland, Texas, with their possessions .
Ecological Footprints
Definition: Amount of biologically productive land and water needed to supply the people
in a particular area with resources and to absorb and recycle the wastes and pollution
produced by such resource use
The per capita ecological footprint is the average ecological footprint of an individual in
a given area.
After the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, the United States has the world’s second largest per
capita ecological footprint. In 2003, its per capita ecological footprint was about 4.5 times
the average global footprint per person, 12 times the average per capita footprint in the
world’s low-income countries.
In 2003, global ecological footprint was about 25% higher than the earth’s ecological capacity (bottom)
and is projected to be twice the planet’s ecological capacity by 2050.
gha = global hectares
4. In your own word, define ecological footprint.
Environmental Problems
1. Population growth
• Each week, about 1.6 million people are
added to the world’s population
• Approximately 6.7 to 9.3 billion added
between 2008 and 2050
The concern issues:
1. High per capita resource consumption
rates in developed countries
2. An increasing extent in rapidly
developing countries such as China and
India
3. Magnify the environmental impact,
ecological footprint, of each person
Miller & Spoolman, 2009
2. Unsustainable resource use
• Food, Soil and Fisheries
• Water Resources
• Nonrenewable Minerals
• Renewable and Nonrenewable
Energy
3. Poverty
• Poverty occurs when people are
unable to meet their basic needs for
adequate food, water, shelter, health,
and education.
• Desperate for short-term survival,
some of these people deplete and
degrade forests, soil, grasslands,
fisheries, and wildlife.
4. Excluding environmental costs from market prices
• When companies use resources to create goods and services, they are not required to pay the
environmental costs of such resource use.
• For example:
a. Fishing companies pay the costs of catching fish but do not pay for the depletion of fish
stocks;
b. Timber companies pay for clear-cutting forests but not for the resulting environmental
degradation and loss of wildlife habitat.
• As a result, the prices of goods and services do not include their harmful environmental costs.
• Consumers are not aware of harmful effects on the earth’s life-support systems and on their
own health.
5. Manage nature without knowledge
5. List out TWO causes of environmental problems.
Science and Scientific Method: Keys to understand environmental issues
We rely on environment for:
TOPIC 2 TOPIC 3
BASIC UNITS OF ECOSYSTEM HABITAT AND BIODIVERSITY
TOPIC 5
TOPIC 4
Fossil Fuels and the Environment FRESHWATER & OCEANS
We need to manage environment by learning the following:
TOPIC 6 BIOGEOCHEMICAL CYCLES
TOPIC 7 THE ATMOSPHERE, CLIMATE & GLOBAL WARMING
TOPIC 8 ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH & POLLUTION
TOPIC 9 MATERIALS AND WASTE MANAGEMENT
TOPIC 10 Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
Topic 11 Toward a Sustainable Future
