Earth is objectively speaking, the best planet, what is the importance of environment?
We’ve got oceans filled with things that look like this, and this, and also
this, towering forests full of things that literally eat light and air, clouds,
rainbows, clouds that look like rainbows, adorable sloths, funky looking
caterpillars, and a universe of invisible tiny things that can do everything
from make food to power the cycle of nitrogen on this here hunk of rock.
This beautiful, weird, corner of the universe has everything
a person could need - and that’s because of the environment.
What is the
importance of environment?
Well, it’s everything. And we humans depend on it for our
literal existence. So don’t you think you should learn a little more about it?
In this series of lessons on environmental science Miriam and I are going to
explore all the ways humans interact with and rely on the environment.
Welcome to
the Essentials of Environmental Science!
Environmental science is an interdisciplinary scientific
approach to studying the Earth’s natural systems, human impacts on those
systems, and potential solutions to environmental problems. People who work in
the field of environmental science draw on aspects of biology, chemistry,
economics, politics, human geography, urban planning, the list goes on, in
their study of the natural world importance of environment in human life.
The scope of environmental science has steadily broadened
over the last 100 years: starting from anthopocentrism - a human-centered
worldview which has its roots in the European societies from which most modern
scientific practices descend. Then into biocentrism - which ascribes value to
human and non-human life, and finally into ecocentrism - which values the
well-being of entire ecosystems including all the living and nonliving
elements.
These three
terms: anthropocentrism, biocentrism, and ecocentrism, describe standards of
environmental ethics.
Depending on a culture’s - or a scientist’s - worldview, the
environmental ethic will influence what questions are asked and what value we
put on the answers. Today’s environmental problems, from water pollution to
endangered species to climate change, require us to look for answers through
the broadest lens: the ecocentric ethic. Humans have had a huge impact on our natural
world, especially since the Industrial Revolution.
One 2011 article put it this way: “for better or for worse,
the earth system now functions in ways unpredictable without understanding how
human systems function and how they interact with and control earth system
processes.” To truly understand environmental systems and human impact, it is
important to not simply study an organism, like an endangered species, or a
pollution source, like an oil spill, in isolation.
Instead, we should try to understand natural or human-caused
disruptions to the environment from an ecocentric approach–looking at the
bigger systems at play. If you learn one thing from watching our series on
environmental science, make it this: We humans benefit from the environment, but
we are also part of it.
That means our actions can and do affect Earth systems, so a
lot of environmental science focuses on how to protect, preserve, and restore
the systems human activity degrades. One way scientists do this is by
constructing models to represent natural systems and all of their
interconnected factors. Models are powerful scientific tools with the ability
to both explain and what is the
importance of environment.
A model could be code on a computer that recreates the
physical processes of the earth’s climate, but it can also be a chart or
graphic that represents the carbon cycle. Here’s a model of the planet’s
hydrologic cycle. Environmental science helps us to understand how all the
living and nonliving components are interrelated. Rain falls, runs into surface
waters or down into the groundwater. Or, the water can be taken up by plants
for photosynthesis.
This model represents all these actions with squiggly lines
and rain drops. However, like any scientific model, it’s not perfect. It cannot
possibly represent everything going on at any one time. The only thing that can
do that is the earth itself. But even though we can’t run global-scale
experiments, a model does allow us to predict what would happen if something in
the system changed. For example, importance of environment in human life, this
model would predict that there will be less evapotranspiration from the trees
into the atmosphere.
We could then expect to measure less water vapor in the
atmosphere around that location. So, models help us to understand, one, a system,
two, how natural and human disturbances occur, and three how, where, or when to
measure those changes. It is through this process that environmental science
can analyze and address environmental problems.
Now - I know I just said that you don’t want to look at a
single organism exclusively, but it is probably easier to start thinking about
how biotic, or living, and abiotic, or non-living, components fit into a
system, by beginning with one example. Let’s use a single white-tailed deer, a
member of the species Odocoileus virginianus to define some terms and look at
how an ecosystem works.
Biologists define species in a number of ways, but one
common definition of species is a group of organisms that can successfully
reproduce with each other. A group of individuals of that species of deer
living in a particular area is called a population.
But this population of deer isn’t alone in an empty void.
They’re hanging out, at the same time and the same place, with lots of other
populations – like pine trees, fungi, squirrels, or bats. Together, an
ecological community is a group of populations living in one area at a
particular time, interacting with one another.
If you add in all the abiotic components, like the air,
rocks, water, and even something like the temperature, then you’ve got an
ecosystem. When studying a single species, like a white-tailed deer or an
African elephant, nothing works in isolation; therefore, we can’t study
anything in isolation, so researchers need to consider all the abiotic and biotic
components of that species and its ecosystem together. Think about it:
Organisms in a tropical rainforest have adapted to different conditions than
those in a savannah, or a tundra, a desert, or in temperate grasslands.
We call these different broad regions of the planet, defined
by their patterns of rainfall and temperature, biomes. Latitude - the distance
north or south from the equator - can be a useful tool in determining where
certain biomes exist. It is no surprise that the hot, humid conditions all
along the equator created tropical rainforest biomes around the world.
At higher latitudes, the cooler parts of the world, you’re
more likely to find biomes like tundra or the boreal forest. This graph,
created by ecologist Robert Whittaker, represents the different major
terrestrial biomes. The y-axis is average precipitation and the x-axis is
average temperature. Whittaker’s graph works because terrestrial biomes are
mainly defined by their temperature and precipitation patterns, however, this
doesn’t tell us much about the wide variety of aquatic ecosystems that exist in
oceans, rivers, lakes, swamps, coral reefs, and marshes.
Aquatic ecosystems are defined by things like salinity,
water flow, and depth. This all kind of feels like a bunch of definitions, but
they are important to understand, because everything from prehistoric to modern
life as we know it was constructed in and around these natural systems. We
humans benefit immensely from all aspects of the natural world. We depend on
earth’s systems for clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and fertile
soil in which to grow crops.
We also place aesthetic and cultural value onto our natural
resources through poetry, songs, and paintings dedicated to and inspired by
nature. All together, this practically endless list of benefits that the
natural world provides are called ecosystem services. Here’s an example to get
your head around ecosystem services: the oceans are full of fish, what is the importance of environment.
But, that isn’t the only service the ocean provides, it
absorbs lots of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, helping to regulate the
entire planet’s climate. And a huge portion of the oxygen we breathe comes from
photosynthetic marine plankton. The ocean also serves as a highway system for
transporting goods from country to country on cargo ships, and we even harness
the energy of waves and tides to generate electricity. Biodiversity, in all its
forms, is an area that especially demands protection importance of environment in human life.
There are
three main types of biodiversity
- Genetic diversity within a population,
- Species richness - species diversity within an
ecosystem,
- Ecosystem diversity in an area.
A population with large genetic diversity has greater
potential to adapt to environmental changes. High species richness makes an
ecosystem more stable, and better able to recover from disturbances. And an
area with a rich diversity of habitats and ecosystems can support a more robust
and stable community of organisms. So biodiversity overall helps an ecosystem
be more resistant and resilient in the face of environmental changes, whether
they’re natural hazards or human impacts.
An ecosystem with high biodiversity is like a giant,
well-spun spider’s web: lots and lots of interconnected points. If the web has
a little rip in one area, it can probably still function, because it is
supported and held together by hundreds of other strands woven together.
But if the web is only made of two or three strands, then
the same small rip could collapse the entire web. Within that ecosystem web,
species constantly interact with each other and those relationships have shaped
those species evolution. And some of the most important evolutionary
relationships are predator/prey relationships: Who’s eating who.
Food webs and trophic pyramids are both scientific models
which represent how predators and their prey interact within an ecosystem, but
they emphasize different things. The arrows in a food web map the flow of
energy and nutrients within the system, which in general goes from plants, to
primary consumers, to secondary consumers. On the other hand, the pyramid helps
to quantify how energy moves between different trophic levels – from producers
all the way up to apex predators – and emphasizes why there are proportionally
fewer species as you move up the pyramid.
In other words, why there’s always more mice than eagles,
and why it takes so much grass to make a cow. Another important ecosystem
relationship is competition. Limited resources, like food or nesting sites, can
cause competition. This can be within species - intraspecific competition - or
between different species - interspecific competition.
Elephants and giraffes may experience interspecific
competition for water in an arid climate. Two trees of the same species can
experience intraspecific competition for sunlight needed for photosynthesis.
These competitive pressures for limited resources are strong driving forces for
natural selection, and individuals with the adaptations to get more resources
tend to survive better. A final major way in which different species interact
is symbiosis.
Generally symbiosis is broken into three categories: one,
parasitism in which one species benefits and the other is harmed, like a
tapeworm in a dog’s intestine. Two, mutualism. In a mutualistic relationship
both species benefit, like bees pollinating flowers. And three, commensalism,
where one species benefits and the other isn’t necessarily affected.
Whales don’t really care about the barnacles on their skin,
but the barnacles rely on the whales for a lot. All these types of
interactions–predator/prey, competition, symbiosis–influence how a population
grows. Here’s a model representing the growth of a population of squirrels in a
city park. If we look at how that population changes over time, we see that it
experiences lots of growth early on, when a pair of squirrels first discover
this amazing new park, but then eventually the population reaches its carrying
capacity. Carrying capacity, which is normally written as an uppercase K, is
the maximum number of organisms (of one species) that an area can sustain. In
our city park here, the carrying capacity is about 65 squirrels, but if we head
underground, the carrying capacity for earthworms is probably in the millions.
Food, space, and the threat of predation help to define a population’s carrying
capacity. And because squirrels and earthworms require different resources -
that’s why they have such different carrying capacities.
On the flipside from population growth or upper limits, when
the numbers of a particular species are low enough that it might become
extinct, we consider that species endangered. Some qualities make certain
species more at risk than others of becoming endangered or extinct. Like size:
large organisms with big home ranges and habitat needs like elephants or
grizzly bears are at greater risk; or specialization: super specialized
organisms with specific dietary needs or habitat requirements like pandas and
koalas are also at greater risk.
And reproduction rates: organisms who reproduce slowly and
require many years of parental care, like blue whales or a mountain gorilla,
they’re at greater risk too. Contrast those species with something like a…
cockroach, which reproduces early and prolifically and are more generalists
than specialists when it comes to diet and habitat. Being able to quickly
reproduce is an evolutionary advantage that maximizes the chance that a random
genetic mutation will help an individual survive a disturbance. An African
Elephant, with its much slower reproduction rate and specialized habitat, does
not have that evolutionary capacity for change on a rapid scale.
So some species need more protection than others - how do we
do that? In the United States, we have the Endangered Species Act, which
protects not only the species, but also its habitat. This is crucial because
without its habitat, that species cannot exist in nature. Hopefully, by now
I’ve done my job and showed why it is so important to protect species, habitats,
and biodiversity.
What are we
protecting biodiversity from?
The main anthropogenic, or human, threats to biodiversity
can be summarized by the acronym HIPPCO: Habitat Destruction, Invasive Species,
Population Growth, Pollution, Climate Change, and Overexploitation. Starting
with Habitat loss: Simply put, if an organism loses its habitat, it cannot
survive. Related to habitat loss is the concept of habitat fragmentation.
Let’s say that this snake requires this much area for its
habitat. But then people show up and build a road here, a few houses there, a
mall over here. There’s still some patches of our snake friend’s natural
habitat, but they’re separated from each other. This separation reduces the
ability of individual organisms to reach each other and will reduce the genetic
diversity of the population.
When considering habitat loss and fragmentation, we also
need to think about scale. Human land use affects different organisms in
different ways. Consider the differences in home ranges between a small anole
lizard - maybe no more than 100 square meters - and a grizzly bear, which
requires up to 1600 square kilometers of territory.
Next:
Invasive species
That are not native to an area but end up there nonetheless
-often because of people - are another huge threat to biodiversity. Burmese
Pythons in the Everglades, lionfish in coral reefs (both of which are a result
of humans releasing their pets), or even kudzu vines in the southeastern US, an
imported plant “pet” that escaped gardens, are all invasive species.
Because they usually don’t have natural predators in their
new environments, populations of invasive species can explode and outcompete
native species. The presence of lionfish can reduce the number of smaller fish
on a coral reef by almost 80%. On to Pollution, which is both a visible and
invisible threat to biodiversity.
You can see an oil spill actively harming wildlife and
damaging habitats. But a lot of pollution isn’t quite as obvious: like, sulfur
or lead in the air or pharmaceuticals or other toxins in the water. One of the
greatest sources of pollution right now is the use of fossil fuels; when
burned, oil, gas, and coal release tons of air pollutants AND dangerous
greenhouse gases that lead to climate change.
Climate change is the focus of this entire channel - and
it’ll get its own episode in this series. But, I want to point out right now
that global warming and climate change are affecting more than human lives.
Rising temperatures, more acidic oceans, and the many other impacts of climate
are also affecting wildlife biodiversity in a big way.
Coral reefs are bleaching at an increasing rate as warmer
ocean temperatures cause tiny coral animals to expel the symbiotic algae that
provide them with a majority of their food. And after a bleaching event - if
the algae don’t come back, the coral will die. Finally, using living natural
resources at a faster rate than they can reproduce is overexploitation.
Catching fish quicker than they can make baby fish collapses
fisheries - and the related fishing industry that relies on them. Killing
elephants for their ivory will decimate a population quicker than it can
repopulate. When environmental science can identify overexploitation, laws,
policies, and international treaties can come in to help regulate our
consumption of these resources and protect biodiversity. So as you can see
environmental science is a large and diverse field of study that encompasses
many different scientific disciplines at various scales from the microscopic to
the macroscopic.
Which is
pretty fitting, because the environment itself is this thing that is everywhere?
And while one of the main lessons you should take from these
videos is that humans are not separate from these natural systems, what is the importance of environment:
one, we rely on ecosystems and the numerous types of services they provide in
order to support our own populations and civilizations. And two, as the species
with the most influence, and as far as we know the most intelligence on Earth,
we are also in a unique position to study and preserve these ecosystems for the
benefit of all species.
