EARTH121 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Socalled, Natural Capital, Cornucopian
12 May 2016
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Document Summary
Environment includes all of earth"s biotic components and abiotic components. The environment includes the complex webs of scienti c, ethical, political, economic and social relationships. Environmental science is the study of how the natural world works, how our environment affects us, and how we affect the environment. Renewable natural resources: replenishable over short periods of time. Resource management: strategic decision making and planning aimed at balancing the use of a resource with its protection and preservation. The premise is to balance the rate of withdrawal from the stock with the rate of renewal or regeneration. The stock is the harvestable portion of the resource. It can take up to 100 million years. Fossil fuels and minerals are mined rather than harvested. Therefore, mining industries bene t most by extracting as much of it and as fast as possible. Taking a broader view can avoid damaging the system and thereby help sustain the availability of the resource in the long term.
