Sustainability, Inexhaustible and Renewable Resources, and Nonrenewable Resources

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habitats. Peer review is in which scientists openly publish details of methods and models they used, the results of their experiments, and the reasoning behind their hypotheses for other scientists working in the same field to evaluate.

8.Energy is neither created nor destroyed when converting from one form to another and when energy is transferred it is lower quality. Energy is the capacity to do work or transfer heat. Kinetic energy is moving energy and potential energy is stored energy. Examples are wind and potential energy is gasoline. Heat is a form of kinetic energy, the total kinetic energy of all moving atoms, ions, or molecules within a given substance. When two objects at different temperatures contact one another, heat flows from the warmer object to the cooler object. Electromagnetic radiation is energy that travels in the form of a wave as a result of changes in electrical and magnetic fields. Forms of ER are gamma rays. Renewable energy is energy gained from resources that are replenished by natural processes in a relatively short time. Stored from resources that can be depleted and are not replenished by natural processes within a human time scale. Fossil fuels are ancient deposits of organic matter formed over millions of years as layers of the decaying remains of ancient plants and animals were exposed to intense heat and pressure.Examples are oil, coal, and natural gas. Fossil fuels are nonrenewable. Energy quality is a measure of an energy source capacity to do useful work. High quality energy is concentrated and has a high capacity to do useful work. Examples are high heat, nuclear fission, concentrated sunlight. Low quality energy is dispersed and has a little capacity to do useful work. An example is heat dispersed. The first law of thermodynamics says that when converting energy, energy is neither created nor destroyed. The second law of thermodynamics states that when energy is changed from one form to another it is a weaker form of it. We can never recycle or reuse high quality energy because when converted we end up with a lower form of it .

9. A system s a set of components that function and interact in some regular way. Inputs from the environment, flows or throughputs of matter and energy within the system at certain rates, and outputs to the environment. Scientists use models to learn how systems work. Some of our most powerful and useful technologies are mathematical. Most systems are affected by feedback, any process that increases or decreases a change to a system. A feedback loop occurs when an output of matter, energy, or information is fed back into the system. A positive feedback loop causes a system to change further in the same direction. Lowering water and stepping on plants causing more plants to die. A negative feedback causes a system to change in the opposite direction. A thermostat on a set temperature then turning on a furnace. A synergistic interaction or synergy occurs when two or more processes interact so that the combined effect is greater than the sum of their separate effects. Time delays can also allow an environmental problem to build slowly until it reaches a threshold level, or tipping point, causing a fundamental shift in the behavior of a system

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2. Ecological economists and most sustainability experts regard human economic systems as subsystems of biosphere.Economics is a social science that deals with the production distribution and consumption of goods and services. Eco system is a social institution through which goods and services are produced, distributed, and consumed to satisfy people’s needs and wants. Subsidies are payments meant to benefit industries. Natural capital is nature’s natural resources and human capital is man made resources and manufactured resources are tools and machinery.

3. Inability of markets to prevent the degradation of open access resources, such as clean air, the open ocean, and the earth’s overall life support system. Economic growth is an increase in the capacity of a nation, state, city, or a company to provide goods and services to people. High throughput economy attempts to boost economic growth by increasing the flow of matter and energy resources through the economic system to produce more goods.Economic development serves to improve human well being while environmentally sustainable economic development is to use use political and economic systems to encourage environmentally beneficial and more sustainable forms of economic improvement.Neoclassical economists see natural resources as a part of the economic system and assume that economic growth potential is essentially unlimited. Ecological economists see economic systems as a component of nature’s economy and would have higher optimum levels of pollution control and lower optimum levels of resource use than would neoclassical economists.

4.Economists have developed several ways to estimate the present and future values of a resource or ecosystem service, and optimum levels of pollution control and resource use. Comparing the likely costs and benefits of an environmental action is useful, but it involves many uncertainties. They estimate nonuse values of natural resources, existence value which is a monetary value placed on a resource such as an old growth and the discount rate which is an estimate of a resources future economic value. It protects some forms of natural capital for use by future generations. Discount rate is an estimate of a resource’s future economic value compared to its present value. It’s based on the idea that today’s value of a resource may be higher that its value in the future.

5. We can use resources more sustainably by including the harmful environmental and health costs of producing goods and services in their market prices by subsidizing environmentally beneficial goods and services; and by taxing pollution and waste instead of wages and profits.Direct is what we pay for product, indirect price is the cost and harm that comes with it. An example is buying a car that is going to transport you but it is spilling fumes that are bad.full cost pricing is that harmful external costs should be included in the market prices of goods.This helps with a free market economy. People would have to charge more for them,some would go out of business, it’s difficult to estimate many environmental and health costs,many environmentally harmful businesses have used their political and economic power to obtain harmful government subsidies.

7.It discourages pollution and resource waste, help include many of the harmful environmental and health costs of production and consuption in market prices. Taxes could be levied on a per unit basis on the amount of pollution and hazardous waste produced by a farm, business, or industry, and on the use of fossil fuels,