Environmental Science Worksheet

University of Phoenix Material

Environmental Science Worksheet

Answer the following questions in at least 100 words. The answers are found in Ch. 1–4 of the text.

1. Provide a brief summary of the history of the environmental movement?

2. Explain the main point concerning exponential growth and whether it is good or bad. Compare exponential growth to a logistic growth curve and explain how these might apply to human population growth. What promotes exponential growth? What constrains population growth?

3. Compare predictions for human population growth in developed countries versus developing countries. Why is it difficult to predict the growth of Earth’s human population?

4. Explain how principles of system theory apply to the Earth as a living system.

-----------------------

Before 1960 not too many people had heard about the world ecology and the term environment didn’t mean the important issue to them. Then Rachel Carson published the book called landmark book, Silent Spring (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1960, 1962). At about the same time some environmental events occurred, such as oil spills along the costs of southern California and Massachusetts and highly publicized threats of extinction to many species. The environment became a popular issue.

At first relatively few people recognized its importance. The early days of environmentalism were about confrontation between those labeled environmentalist (those who believed economic and social development meant the destruction of the environment and ultimately the end of civilization, the extinction of many species, and perhaps the extinction of human beings) and anti-environmentalist (those who believed that social and economic health and progress were necessary—whatever the environmental effects—if people and civilization were to prosper).

Today, the situation has changed. Public opinion show that people around the world rank the environment among the most important social and...