Unit 1 Vocabulary

All external conditions, factors, matter and energy living and nonliving, that affect any living organisms or those specified systems.

• Ecosystem

• Biosphere

• Biocapacity

• Environment

A country that is highly industrialized and has a high per capita GDP.

• less-developed country

• more-developed country

• natural captial

• natural resources

Inability of people to meet their basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter.

• Environmental Degradation

• per capita

• poverty

• Less-developed country

Interdisciplinary study that uses information and ideas from the physical sciences with those from social sciences to learn how nature works, how we interact with the environment, and how we help to deal with environmental problems.

• Environmental Worldview

• Environmental Ethics

• Environmental Science

• Carbon Footprint

One or more communities of different species interacting with one another and with the chemical and physical factors making up their nonliving environment.

• Ecology

• Ecosystem

• Biosphere

• Environment

Amount of biologically productive land and water neede dto supply a population with the renewable resources it uses and to absorb or dispose of the pollution and wastes from such resource use.

• Biosphere

• Ecology

• Ecological Footprint

• Ecosystems

Human beliefs about what is right or wrong with how we treat the environment.

• Ecosystem Services

• Environmental Ethics

• Environmentalism

• Environmental Science

Variety of different species, genetic variability among individuals with each species, variety of ecosystems and functions such as energy flow and matter cycling needed for survival of species in a biological community.

• Biocapacity

• Biodiversity

• Biosphere

• Ecology

Ability of the earth's various systems, including human cultural systems and economies, to survive and adapt to changing environmental conditions indefinitely.

• Environmental Science

• Environmental Worldview

• Sustainability

• Biocapacity

Highest rate at which a potentially renewable resource can be used indefinitely without reducing available supply

• Sustainability Yield

• Natural Capital

• Inexhaustible resource

• Renewable resource