Environmental Encyclopedia

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Environmental Encyclopedia 3

Environment

Of course, to raise gasoline taxes immediately to these

levels is utterly impractical, as the effects on the economy

would be catastrophic. It would devastate the economics of

rural and western states. Inflation across the country would

soar and job losses would skyrocket. Supporters of increasing

energy taxes agree that the increases must be gradual and

predictable, so people can adjust. Many believe they should

take place over a 15 year period, after which energy prices

in the United States would be roughly equivalent to those

in other industrial nations.

Many economists emphasize that the positive effects

of higher energy taxes will be felt only if there are no increases

in government spending. It is, they believe, ultimately a

question of how Americans want to be taxed. Do they want

wages, profits, and savings to be taxed, as they are now, or

their use of energy? In the former case, the government is

taxing a desirable activity which should be encouraged for

the sake of job creation and economic expansion. In the

latter case, it is taxing undesirable activity which should be

discouraged for the sake of protecting the

environment

and

preserving national security. See also Energy policy; Environ-

mental economics

[Alfred A. Marcus]

ESOURCES

OOKS

Marcus, A. A. Controversial Issues in Energy Policy. Phoenix, AZ: Sage

Press, 1992.

Enhydra lutris

see

Sea otter

Eniwetok Atoll

see

Bikini atoll

Enteric bacteria

Enteric bacteria are defined as bacteria which reside in the

intestines of animals. Members of the Enterobacteriaceae

family, enteric bacteria are important because some of them

symbiotically aid the digestion of their hosts, while other

pathogenic

species

cause disease or death in their host orga-

nism. The pathogenic members of this family include species

from the genera Escherichia, Salmonella, Shigella, Klebsiella,

and Yersinia. All of these pathogens are closely associated

with fecal contamination of foods and water. In North

America, the reported incidence of salmonellosis outweighs

the occurrence of all of the other reportable diseases by other

enteric bacteria combined.

467

Most infections from enteric pathogens require large

numbers of organisms to be ingested by immunocompetent

adults, with the exception of Shigella. Symptoms include

gastrointestinal distress and diarrhea. The enteric bacteria

related to

Escherichia coli

are known as the

coliform

bacte-

ria. Coliform bacteria are used as indicators of pathogenic

enteric bacteria in drinking and recreational waters. See also

Sewage treatment

Entrainment

see

Air pollution

Environment

When people say “I am concerned about the environment,”

what do they mean? What does the use of the definite article

mean in such a statement? Is there such a thing as “the”

environment?

Environment is derived from the French words environ

or environner, meaning “around,” which in turn originated

from the Old French virer and viron (together with the

prefix en), which mean “a circle, around, the country around,

or circuit.” Etymologists frequently conclude that, in English

usage at least, environment is the total of the things or

circumstances around an organism—including humans—

though environs is limited to the “surrounding neighborhood

of a specific place, the neighborhood or vicinity.”

Even a brief etymological encounter with the word

environment provokes two persuasive suggestions for possi-

ble structuring of a contemporary definition. First, the word

environment is identified with a totality, the everything that

encompasses each and all of us, and this association is estab-

lished enough to be not lightly dismissed. The very notion

of “environment,” as Anatol Rapoport indicated, suggest the

partitioning of a “portion of the world into regions, an inside

and an outside.” The environment is the outside. Second, the

word’s origin in the phrase “to environ” indicates a process

derivative, one that alludes to some sort of action or interac-

tion, at the very least inferring that the encompassing is

active, in some sense reciprocal, that the environment, what-

ever its

nature

, is not simply an inert phenomenon to be

impacted without response or without affecting the organism

in return. Environment must be a relative word, because it

always refers to something “environed” or enclosed.

Ecology

as a discipline is focused on studying the

interactions between an organism of some kind and its envi-

ronment. So ecologists must be concerned with what H. L.

Mason and J. H. Langenheim described as a “key concept

in the structure of ecological knowledge,” but a concept with

which ecologists continue to have problems of confusion

Environmental Encyclopedia 3

Environment

between ideas and reality—the concept of environment. Ma-

son and Langenheim’s article “Language Analysis and the

Concept Environment” continues to be the definitive state-

ment on the use of the word environment in experimental

ecology.

The results of Mason and Langenheim’s analysis were

essentially four-fold: 1) they limited environmental phenom-

ena “in the universal sense” to only those phenomena that

have an operational relation with any organism: other phe-

nomena present that do not enter a reaction system are

excluded, or dismissed as not “environmental phenomena";

2) they restricted the word environment itself to mean “the

class composed of the sum of those phenomena that enter

a reaction system of the organism or otherwise directly im-

pinge upon it” so that physical exchange or impingement

becomes the clue to a new and limited definition; 3) they

specifically note that their definition does not allude to the

larger meaning implicit in the etymology of the word; and

4) they designate their limited concept as operational environ-

ment but state that when the word environment is used with

qualification, then it still refers to the operational construct,

establishing that “’environment’ per se is synonymous with

’operational environment’.”

This definition does allow a prescribed and limited

conception of environment and might work for experimental

ecology but is much too limited for general usage. Environ-

mental phenomena of relevance to the aforementioned con-

cern for “the” environment must incorporate a multitude of

things other than those that physically impinge on each

human being. And it is much more interactive and overlap-

ping than a restricted definition would have people believe.

To better understand contemporary human interrelation-

ships with the world around them, environment must be an

incorporative, holistic term and concept.

Thinking about the environment in the comprehensive

sense—with the implication that everything is the environ-

ment with each entity connected to each of a multitude of

others—makes environment what David Currie in a book

of case studies and material on

pollution

described “as not

a modest concept.” But, such scope and complexity, difficult

as they are to resolve, intensify rather than eliminate the

very real need for a kind of transcendence. The assumption

seems valid that human consciousness regarding environ-

ment needs to be raised, not restricted. Humans need in-

creasingly to comprehend and care about what happens in

far away places and to people they do not know but that do

affect them, that do impact even their localized environ-

ments, that do impinge on their individual well-being. And

they need to incorporate the reciprocal idea that their actions

impact people and environments outside the immediate in

place and time: in the world today, environmental impacts

468

transcend the local. Thus it is necessary that human aware-

ness of those impacts also be transcendent.

It is uncertain that confining the definition of environ-

ment to operationally narrow physical impingement could

advance this goal. One suspects instead that it would signifi-

cantly retard it, a retardation that contemporary human soci-

eties can ill afford. Internalization of a larger environment,

including an understanding of common usages of the word,

might on the other hand aid people in caring about, and

assuming responsibility for, what happens to that environ-

ment and to the organisms in it.

An operational definition can help people find the

mechanisms to deal with problems immediate and local, but

can, if they are not careful, limit them to an unacceptable

mechanistic and unfeeling approach to problems in the envi-

ronment-at-large.

Acceptance of either end of the spectrum—a limited

operational definition or an incorporative holistic defini-

tion—as the only definition creates more confusion than

clarification. Both are needed. Outside the laboratory, how-

ever, in study of the interactional, interdependent world of

contemporary humankind, the holistic definition must have

a place. A sense of the comprehensive “out there,” of the

totality of world and people as a functionally significant,

interacting unit should be seeping into the consciousness of

every person.

Carefully chosen qualifiers can help deal with the com-

plexity: “natural” or “built” or “perceptual” all specify aspects

of human surroundings more descriptive and less incorpora-

tive than “environment” used alone, without adjectives.

Other noun can also pick up some of the meanings of envi-

ronment, though none are direct synonyms:

habitat

, milieu,

mis en scence, ecumene all designate specified and limited

aspects of the human environment, but none except “envi-

ronment” are incorporative of the whole complexity of hu-

man surroundings.

An understanding of environment must not be limited

to an abstract concept that relates to daily life only in terms

of whether to recycle cans or walk to work. The environment

is the base for all life, the source of all goods. Poor people in

underdeveloped nations know this; their day-to-day survival

depends on what happens in their local environments.

Whether it rains or does not, whether commercial seiners

move into local fishing grounds or leave them alone, and

whether local forest products are lost to the cause of world

timber production affect these people more directly. What

they, like so many other humans around the world, may not

also recognize, is that “environment” now extends far beyond

the bounds of the local: environment is the intimate enclo-

sure of the individual or a local human population and the

global domain of the human

species

Environmental Encyclopedia 3

Environment Canada

The Brundtland report

Our Common Future

recog-

nized this with a healthy, modern definition: “The environ-

ment does not exist as a sphere separate from human actions,

ambitions, and needs, and attempts to defend it in isolation

from human concerns have given the word ’environment’ a

connotation of naivety in some political circles.” The report

goes on to note that “the ’environment’ is where we all

live...and ’development’ is what we all do in attempting to

improve our lot within that abode. The two are inseparable.”

Each human being lives in a different environment

than any other human because every single one screens their

surroundings through their own individual experience and

perceptions. Yet all human beings live in the same environ-

ment, an external reality that all share, draw sustenance from,

and excrete into. So understanding environment becomes a

dialectic, a resolution and synthesis of individual characteris-

tics and shared conditions. Solving environmental problems

depends on the intelligence exhibited in that resolution.

[Gerald L. Young Ph.D.]

ESOURCES

OOKS

Bates, M. The Human Environment. Berkeley: University of California,

School of Forestry, 1962.

Dubos, R. “Environment.” Dictionary of the HistoryIn of Ideas, edited by

P. P. Wiener. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973.

ERIODICALS

Mason, H. L., and J. H. Langenheim. “Language Analysis and the Concept

Environment.” Ecology 38 (April 1957): 325-340.

Patten, B. C. “Systems Approach to the Concept of Environment.” Ohio

Journal of Science 78 (July 1978): 206-222.

Young, G. L. “Environment: Term and Concept in the Social Sciences.”

Social Science Information 25 (March 1986): 83-124.

Environment Canada

Environment Canada is the agency with overall responsibil-

ity for the development and implementation of policies re-

lated to environmental protection, monitoring, and research

within the government of Canada. Parts of this mandate

are shared with other federal agencies, including those re-

sponsible for agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and

nonrenew-

able resources

such as minerals. Environment Canada also

works with the environment-related agencies of Canada’s

10 provincial and two territorial governments through such

groups as the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Envi-

ronment.

The head of Environment Canada is a minister of the

federal cabinet, who is “responsible for policies and actions

to preserve and enhance the quality of the environment for

469

the benefit of present and

future generations

of Cana-

dians.”

In 1990, following a lengthy and extensive consultation

process organized by Environment Canada, the Government

of Canada released its Canada’s Green Plan for a Healthy

Environment, which details the broader goals, as well as

many specific objectives, to be pursued towards achieving a

state of ecologically sustainable economic development in

Canada. The first and most general of the national objectives

under the Green Plan is to “secure for current and future

generations a safe and healthy environment, and a sound

and prosperous economy.”

The Green Plan is intended to set a broad environmen-

tal framework for all government activities and objectives,

including the development of policies. The government of

Canada has specifically committed to working toward the

following priority objectives: (1) clean air, water, and land;

(2)

sustainable development

of renewable resources; (3)

protection of special places and

species

; (4) preserving the

integrity of northern Canada; (5) global environmental secu-

rity; (6) environmentally responsible decision making at all

levels of society; and (7) minimizing the effects of environ-

mental emergencies. Environment Canada will play the lead

role in implementing the vision of the Green Plan and in

coordinating the activities of the various agencies of the

government of Canada.

In order to be able to integrate the dual challenges of

a new environmental agenda (set by the expectations of

Canadians in general and the federal government in particu-

lar) and the need to continue to deliver traditional programs,

Environment Canada is moving from a three-program to

a one-program administrative structure. Under that single

program, six activities are coordinated: (1) the Atmospheric

Environment Service activity, through which information is

provided and research conducted on weather,

climate

, oce-

anic conditions, and

air quality

; (2) the Conservation and

Protection Service activity, which focuses on special species

and places, global environmental integrity, the integrity of

Canadian ecosystems, environmental emergencies, and eco-

logical and economic interdependence; (3) the

Canadian

Parks Service

activity, concentrating on the ecological and

cultural integrity of special places, as well as on environmen-

tal and cultural citizenship; (4) the Corporate Environmental

Affairs activity, dealing with environmentally responsible

decision making and ecosystem-science leadership; (5) the

State of the Environment Reporting activity, through which

credible and comprehensive environmental information,

linked with socio-economic considerations, is provided to

Canadians; and (6) the Administration activity, covering

corporate management and services. See also Environment;

Future generations

[Bill Freedman Ph.D.]

Environmental Encyclopedia 3

Environmental accounting

ESOURCES

OOKS

Canada’s Green Plan for a Healthy Environment. Ottawa: Government of

Canada, 1990.

Environment Canada. Annual Report, 1988-1990. Ottawa: Government of

Canada, 1990.

Environmental accounting

A system of national or business accounting where such

environmental assets as air, water, and land are not consid-

ered to be free and abundant resources but instead are consid-

ered to be scarce economic assets. Any environmental dam-

age caused by the production process must be treated as an

economic expense and entered on the balance sheet accord-

ingly. It is important to include in this framework the full

environmental cost occurring over the full life cycle of a

product, including not only the environmental costs incurred

in the production process, but also the environmental costs

resulting from use,

recycling

and disposal of products. This

is also known as the cradle-to-grave approach. See also Eco-

logical economics

Environmental aesthetics

In his journal,

Henry David Thoreau

asked in 1859 “In

what book is this world and its beauty described? Who has

plotted the steps toward the discovery of beauty?” Almost

a 100 years later, in his book The Sand County Almanac,

ecologist

Aldo Leopold

addressed Thoreau’s question by

advocating what he called a “conservation esthetic” as the

door to appreciating the richness of the natural world, and

a resulting

conservation

ethic.

Leopold suggested that increased ecological awareness

would more finely tune people’s perception of the world

around them. The word aesthetics is, after all, derived from

the Greek word aisthesis, literally “perception by the senses.”

Leopold claimed that perception, “like all real treasures of

the mind, can be split into infinitely small fractions without

losing its quality,” a necessity if we are to revive our apprecia-

tion of the richness and diversity of the world that surrounds

us. Instead, he thought that most recreationists are like

“motorized ants who swarm the continents before learning to

see [their] own back yard,” so that recreational development

becomes “a job not of building roads into lovely country,

but of building receptivity into the still unlovely human

mind.”

Despite the fact that Thoreau and Leopold are both

widely read by environmentalists and others, aesthetics has

remained largely the domain of philosophy, and environ-

mental aesthetics until recently a neglected domain in gen-

470

eral. In philosophy, aesthetics has developed quite narrowly

as an esoteric subdiscipline focused on theories of the arts,

but a philosophy exclusive of

nature

and

environment

.An

environmental philosophy has emerged in recent years, but

this has developed mainly from the ethics tradition in philos-

ophy and has, for some reason, neglected the aesthetic tradi-

tion (though Sepa

nmaa, and some other philosophers, have

tried to encourage an environmental aesthetics at the inter-

section of traditions: on the environment as an aesthetic

object and on environmental aesthetics as the philosophy

of environmental criticism). While extensive literature has

emerged on

environmental ethics

, the gap left by philoso-

phy for environmental aesthetics has been filled by writers in

a number of disciplines, notably psychology and geography,

especially through empirical research on perception. Yi Fu

Tuan’s pioneering works (e.g., Topophilia, in 1974) broad-

ened the study of aesthetics, transcended his own discipline

of geography, and continue to shape the debate today about

the content and concepts appropriate to an environmental

aesthetic.

In classical aesthetics, sight and hearing are considered

the primary senses since they are most immediately involved

in the contemplation and appreciation of art and music.

Arguably, the other three senses--touch, smell, and taste--

must also be brought to bear for a true sensing of all the

arts. Certainly, all five of the basic senses are central to an

environmental aesthetic, an aesthetic sense, as Berleant

notes, of all “the continuities that join integrated human

persons with their natural and cultural condition.” To achieve

this, Berleant suggests, requires what he calls “an integrated

sensorium,” a “recognition of synaesthesia,” i.e., a “fusion of

the sense modalities.” He claims that “perception is not

passive but an active, reciprocal engagement with environ-

ment"; environmental aesthetics is what Berleant calls “an

aesthetics of engagement.”

Aesthetic engagement with environment involves not

only the five senses, but the individual, behavioral and per-

sonal history of each person, as well as the cultural context

and continuity in which that person has developed. An envi-

ronmental aesthetic is “always contextual, mediated by the

[long and complex] variety of conditions and influences that

shape all [human] experience.” An environmental aesthetic

is also contingent on place. A

sense of place

, or a developed,

knowledgeable understanding of the place in which one lives,

is central to a well-developed environmental aesthetic. This

can lead to greater engagement with place, and more involve-

ment with local planning and land-use decisions, among

other issues.

An understanding of environmental aesthetics cannot

be attained without some notion of how the word and concept

’environment’ itself is defined. Before recent publications on

environmental aesthetics, most writers on the subject focused

Environmental Encyclopedia 3

Environmental chemistry

on the beauty of nature, for example as experienced in the

national parks of the United States. As a more formal environ-

mental aesthetics has emerged, the definition of environment

(and environmental beauty) has enlarged. Sepa

nmaa, for ex-

ample, defines “environmental aesthetics [as] the aesthetics

of the real world” and includes in this “all of the observer’s

external world: the natural environment, the cultural environ-

ment, and the constructed environment.”

Berleant also claims that “the idea of an aesthetic envi-

ronment is a new concept that enlarges the meaning of

environment.” But he considers environment not only as

everything “out there,” but as “everything that there is; it is

all-inclusive, a total, integrated, continuous process.” This

conception is hard to grasp but “nonetheless soberly realistic,

for it recognizes that ultimately everything affects everything

else, that humans along with all other things inhabit a single

intraconnected realm.” Berleant’s conception of environment

“does not differentiate between the human and the natural

and...interprets everything as part of a single, continuous

whole.” He advocates “the largest idea of environment

[which] is the natural process as people live it, however they

live it. Environment is nature experienced, nature lived.”

An environmental aesthetic then, depends on education in

human ecology

, on more complete understanding of how

people connect with other people, and of how they interact

with a wide range of environments, local to global.

Better understanding is both a result of, and a cause

of, more engagement with place and surroundings. The re-

sulting connections and commitment have ramifications for

the design and planning of the built environment, and for

exploiting and managing the natural environment. Aesthet-

ics, in this ecological, integrated sense, can contribute to

cost-benefit decisions about how we use the environments

in which we live, including city and regional planning, and

in design at all levels, from individual artifact to our grasp

of the global realities of the contemporary world.

Berleant argues that environmental perception be-

comes an aesthetic only through a complete understanding

of the totality. Though that is not possible for any one

person, an appreciation of the richness and diversity of the

earth’s natural and human domain is necessary to achieve

such an aesthetic. An environmental aesthetic then is neces-

sarily complex, but it can also provide simple commandments

for everyday life: as Thoreau suggested, “to affect the quality

of the day, that is the highest of arts.”

[Gerald L. Young Ph.D.]

ESOURCES

OOKS

Berleant, A. The Aesthetics of Environment. Philadelphia, PA: Temple Uni-

versity Press, 1992.

471

Nasar, J. L., ed. Environmental Aesthetics: Theory, Research, and Applications.

New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Environmental auditing

The environmental auditing movement gained momentum

in the early 1980s as companies beset by new liabilities

associated with Superfund and old

hazardous waste

sites

wanted to insure that their operations were adhering to

federal and local policies and company procedures. Most

audits were initiated to avoid legal conflicts, and many com-

panies brought in outside consultants to do the audits. The

audits served many useful functions, including increasing

management and employee awareness of environmental is-

sues and initiating data collection and central monitoring

of matters previously not watched as carefully. In many

companies environmental auditing played a useful role in

organizing information about the

environment

. It paved

the way for the

pollution

prevention movement which had

a great impact on company environmental management in

the late 1980s when some companies started to view all of

their pollution problems comprehensively and not in isola-

tion from one another.

Environmental chemistry

Environmental chemistry refers to the occurrence, move-

ments, and transformations of

chemicals

in the

environ-

ment

. Environmental chemistry deals with naturally oc-

curring chemicals such as metals, other elements, organic

chemicals, and biochemicals that are the products of biologi-

cal

metabolism

. Environmental chemistry also deals with

synthetic chemicals that have been manufactured by humans

and dispersed into the environment, such as pesticides,

poly-

chlorinated biphenyls

(PCBs), dioxins,

furans

, and many

others.

The occurrence of chemicals refers to their presence

and quantities in various compartments of the environment

and ecosystems. For example, in a terrestrial

ecosystem

such

as a forest, the most important compartments to consider are

the mineral

soil

, water and air present in spaces within the

soil, the above-ground

atmosphere

, dead

biomass

within

the soil and lying on the ground as logs and other organic

debris, and living organisms, the most abundant of which

are trees. Each of these components of the forest ecosystem

contains a wide variety of chemicals in some concentration,

and in some amount. Chemicals move between all of these

compartments, as fluxes that represent elements of

nutrient

and mineral cycles.

The movements of chemicals within and among com-

partments often involve a complex of transformations among

Environmental Encyclopedia 3

Environmental chemistry

potential molecular states. There may also be changes in

physical states, such as evaporation of liquids, or crystalliza-

tion of dissolved substances. The transformations of chemi-

cals among molecular states can be illustrated by reference to

the environmental cycling of sulfur. Sulfur (S) is commonly

emitted to the atmosphere as the gases

sulfur dioxide

(SO

)

hydrogen

sulfide (H

S), which are transformed by pho-

tochemical reactions into the negatively-charged

ion

, sulfate

(SO

-2

). The sulfate may eventually be deposited with pre-

cipitation to a terrestrial ecosystem, where it may be absorbed

along with soil water by tree roots, and later used to synthe-

size biochemicals such as proteins and amino acids. Eventu-

ally, the plant may die and its biomass deposited to the soil

surface as litter.

Microorganisms

can then metabolize the

organic matter as a source of energy and nutrients, eventually

releasing simple inorganic compounds of sulfur such as sul-

fate or hydrogen sulfide into the environment. Alternatively,

the plant biomass may be harvested by humans and used

as a fuel, with the organic sulfur being oxidized during

combustion

and emitted to the atmosphere as sulfur diox-

ide. Organic and mineral forms of sulfur also occur in

fossil

fuels

such as

petroleum

and

coal

, and the combustion of

those materials also results in an

emission

of sulfur dioxide

to the atmosphere.

Contamination and pollution

Contamination and

pollution

both refer to the pres-

ence of chemicals in the environment, but it is useful to

distinguish between these two conditions. Contamination

refers to the presence of one or more chemicals in concentra-

tions higher than normally occurs in the ambient environ-

ment, but not high enough to cause biological or ecological

damages. In contrast, pollution occurs when chemicals occur

in the environment in concentrations high enough to cause

damages to organisms. Pollution results in toxicity and eco-

logical changes, but contamination does not cause those

damages.

Chemicals that are commonly involved in pollution

include the gases sulfur dioxide and

ozone

, diverse kinds

of pesticides, elements such as

arsenic

copper

mercury

nickel

, and selenium, and some naturally occurring bio-

chemicals. In addition, large concentrations of nutrients such

as phosphate and nitrate can cause eutrophication, a type of

pollution associated with excessive

ecological productivity

Although any of these chemicals can cause pollution in

certain situations, they most commonly occur in concentra-

tions too small to cause toxicity or other ecological damages.

Modern analytical chemistry has become extremely

sophisticated, and this allows trace contamination of poten-

tially toxic chemicals to be measured at levels that are much

smaller than what is required to cause demonstrable physio-

logical or ecological damages.

472

Environmental chemistry of the Aamosphere

Nitrogen

gas (N

) comprises about 79% of the mass

of Earth’s atmosphere, while 20% is oxygen (O

), 0.9% argon

(Ar), 0.035%

carbon dioxide

(CO

), and the remainder

composed of a variety of trace gases. The atmosphere also

contains variable concentrations of water vapor, which can

range from 0.01% in frigid arctic air to 5% in humid tropi-

cal air.

The atmosphere also can contain high concentrations

of gases, vapors, or particulates that are potentially harmful

to people, other animals, or vegetation, or that cause damages

to buildings, art, or other materials. The most important

gaseous air pollutants (listed alphabetically) are ammonia

(NH

carbon monoxide

(CO), fluoride (F, usually oc-

curring HF), nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide (NO and

, together known as oxides of nitrogen, or NO

), ozone

peroxyacetyl nitrate

(PAN), and sulfur dioxide

(SO

Vapors of elemental mercury and

hydrocarbons

can

also be air pollutants. Particulates with tiny diameters (less

than 1␮m) can also be important, including dusts containing

such toxic elements as arsenic, copper,

lead

, nickel, and

vanadium, organic aerosols that are emitted as

smoke

during

combustions (including

toxins

known as

polycyclic aro-

matic hydrocarbons

), and non-reactive minerals such as

silicates.

Some so-called “trace toxics” also occur in the atmo-

sphere in extremely small concentrations. The trace toxics

include persistent organochlorine chemicals such as the pes-

ticides DDT and dieldrin, polychlorinated biphenyls

(PCBs), and the

dioxin

, TCDD. Other, less persistent pes-

ticides may also be air pollutants close to places where they

are used.

Environmental chemistry of water

Earth’s surface waters vary enormously in their concen-

trations of dissolved and suspended chemicals. Other than

the water, the chemistry of oceanic water is dominated by

sodium chloride (NaCl), which has a typical concentration

of about 3.5% or 35 g/l. Also important are sulfate (2.7 g/

l), magnesium (1.3 g/l), and potassium and calcium (both

0.4 g/l). Some saline lakes can have much larger concentra-

tions of dissolved ions, such as Great Salt Lake in Utah,

which contains more than 20% salts.

Fresh waters are much more dilute in ions, although

the concentrations are variable among waterbodies. The

most important cations in typical fresh waters are calcium

(Ca

), magnesium (Mg

), sodium (Na

), ammonium

(NH

), and hydrogen ion (H

; this is only present in acidic

waters, otherwise hydroxy ion or OH

occurs). The most

important anions are bicarbonate (HCO

) sulfate (SO

chloride (Cl

), and nitrate (NO

). Some fresh waters have

high concentrations of dissolved organic compounds, known

Environmental Encyclopedia 3

Environmental chemistry

as humic substances, which can stain the water a tea-like

color. Typical concentrations of major ions in fresh water

are: calcium 15 mg/l, sulfate 11 mg/l, chloride 7 mg/l, silica

7 mg/l, sodium 6 mg/l, magnesium 4 mg/l, and potassium

3 mg/l.

The water of clean precipitation is considerably more

dilute than that of surface waters such as lakes. For example,

precipitation at a remote place in Nova Scotia contained 1.6

mg/l of sulfate, 1.3 mg/l chloride, 0.8 mg/l sodium, 0.7 mg/

l nitrate, 0.13 mg/l calcium, 0.08 mg/l ammonium, 0.08

mg/l magnesium, and 0.08 mg/l potassium. Because that

site is about 31 mi (50 km) from the Atlantic Ocean, its

precipitation is influenced by sodium and chloride originat-

ing with sea spray. In comparison, a more central location

in North America had a sodium concentration of 0.09 mg/

l and chloride 0.15 mg/l.

Pollution of surface waters is most often associated

with the dumping of human or industrial sewage, nutrient

inputs from agriculture,

acidification

caused by acidic pre-

cipitation or by acid-mine

drainage

, and industrial inputs

of toxic chemicals. Eutrophication is caused when nutrient

inputs cause large increases in aquatic productivity, especially

in fresh waters and shallow marine waters into which sewage

is dumped or that receive

runoff

containing agricultural

fertilizers. In general, marine ecosystems become eutrophic

when they are fertilized with nitrate, and freshwater systems

with phosphate. Only 35–100 ␮g/l or more of phosphate is

enough to significantly increase the productivity of most

shallow lakes, compared with the background concentration

of about 10 ␮g/l or less.

Freshwater ecosystems can become acidified by receiv-

ing drainage from bogs, by the deposition of acidifying sub-

stances from the atmosphere (such as acidic rain), and by

acid-mine drainage. Atmospheric depositions have caused a

widespread acidification of surface waters in eastern North

America, Scandinavia, and other places. Surface waters acidi-

fied by atmospheric depositions commonly develop pHs of

about 4.5–5.5. Tens of thousands of lake and running-water

ecosystems have been damaged in this way. Acidification

has many biological consequences, including toxicity caused

to many

species

of plants and animals, including fish.

Some industries emit metals to the environment, and

these may pollute fresh and marine waters. For instance,

lakes near large smelters at

Sudbury, Ontario

, have been

polluted by sulfuric

acid

, copper, nickel, and other metals,

which in some cases occur in concentrations large enough

to cause toxicity to aquatic plants and animals.

Mercury contamination of fish is also a significant

problem in many aquatic environments. This phenomenon

is significant in almost all large fish and

sharks

, which

accumulate mercury progressively during their lives and com-

monly have residues in their flesh that exceed 0.5 ppm (this

473

is the criterion set by the World Health Organization for

the maximum concentration of mercury in fish intended for

human consumption). It is likely, however, that the oceanic

mercury is natural in origin, and not associated with human

activities. Many fresh-water fish also develop high concen-

trations of mercury in their flesh, also commonly exceeding

the 0.5 ppm criterion. This phenomenon has been demon-

strated in many remote lakes. The source of mercury may

be mostly natural, or it may originate with industrial sources

whose emissions are transported over a long distance in the

atmosphere before they are deposited to the surface. Severe

mercury pollution has also occurred near certain factories,

such as chlor-alkali plants and pulp mills. The most famous

example occurred at Minamata, Japan, where industrial dis-

charges led to the pollution of marine organisms, and then

resulted in the

poisoning

of fish-eating animals and people.

Environmental chemistry of soil and rocks

The most abundant elements in typical soils and rocks

are oxygen (47%), silicon (28%),

aluminum

(8%), and iron

(3–4%). Virtually all of the other stable elements are also

present in soil and rocks, and all of these can occur in a

great variety of molecular forms and minerals. Under certain

circumstances, some of these chemicals can occur in relatively

high concentrations, sometimes causing ecological damages.

This can occur naturally, as in the case of soils influ-

enced by so-called serpentine minerals, which can contain

hundreds to thousands of ppm of nickel. In addition, indus-

trial emissions of metals from smelters have caused severe

pollution. Soils near Sudbury, for example, can contain nickel

and copper concentrations up to 5,000 ppm each. Even

urban environments can be severely contaminated by certain

metals. Soils collected near urban factories for

recycling

old

automobile

batteries can contain lead in concentrations in

the percent range, while the edges of roads can contain

thousands of ppm of lead emitted through the use of leaded

gasoline

Trace toxics

Some chemicals occur in minute concentrations in

water and other components of the environment, yet still

manage to cause significant damages. These chemicals are

sometimes referred to as trace toxics. The best examples are

the numerous compounds known as halogenated hydrocar-

bons, particularly

chlorinated hydrocarbons

such as the

insecticides DDT, DDD, and dieldrin, the dielectric fluids

PCBs, and the chlorinated dioxin, TCDD. These chemicals

are not easily degraded by either

ultraviolet radiation

by metabolic reactions, so they are persistent in the environ-

ment. In addition, chlorinated hydrocarbons are virtually

insoluble in water, but are highly soluble in lipids such as

fats and oils. Because most lipids in ecosystems occur within

the bodies of organisms, chlorinated hydrocarbons have a

marked tendency to bioaccumulate (i.e., to occur preferen-

Environmental Encyclopedia 3

Environmental Defense

tially in organisms rather than in the non-living environ-

ment). This, coupled with the persistence of these chemicals,

results in their strong tendency to food-chain/web accumu-

late or biomagnify (i.e., to occur in their largest concentra-

tions in top predators).

Fish-eating birds are examples of top predators that

have been poisoned by exposure to chlorinated hydrocarbons

in the environment. Some examples of species that have

been affected by this type of ecotoxicity include the

pere-

grine falcon

(Falco peregrinus),

bald eagle

(Haliaeetus leuco-

cephalus), osprey (Pandion haliaetus),

brown pelican

(Peleca-

nus occidentalis),

double-crested cormorant

(Phalacrocorax

auritus), and western grebe (Aechmophorus occidentalis). Con-

centrations of chlorinated hydrocarbons in the water of

aquatic habitats of these birds is generally less than 1 ␮g/l

(part per billion, or ppb), and less than 1 ng/l (part per

trillion, or ppt) in the case of TCDD. However, some of

the chlorinated hydrocarbons can biomagnify to tens to hun-

dreds of mg/kg (ppm) in the fatty tissues of fish-eating birds.

This can cause severe toxicity, characterized by reproductive

failures, and even the deaths of adult birds, both of which

can cause populations to collapse.

Other trace toxics also cause ecological damages. For

example, although it is only moderately persistent in aquatic

environments, the insecticide carbofuran can accumulate in

acidic standing water in recently treated fields. If geese,

ducks, or other birds or mammals utilize those temporary

aquatic habitats, they can be killed by the carbofuran resi-

dues. Large numbers of

wildlife

have been killed this way

in North America.

Petroleum

Water pollution

can also result from the occurrence

of hydrocarbons in large concentrations, especially after spills

of crude oil or its refined products. Oil pollution can result

from accidental spills of petroleum from wrecked tankers,

offshore drilling platforms, broken pipelines, and from spills

during warfare, as occurred during the Gulf War of 1991.

Other important sources of oil pollution include operational

discharges from tankers disposing oily bilge waters, and

chronic releases from oil refineries and

urban runoff

The concentration of natural hydrocarbons in seawater

is about 1 ppb, mostly due to releases from

phytoplankton

and bacteria. Beneath a slick of petroleum spilled at sea,

however, the concentration of dissolved hydrocarbons can

exceed several ppm, enough to cause toxicity to some organ-

isms. There are also finely suspended droplets of petroleum

in water beneath slicks, as a result of wave action on the

floating oil. The slick and the sub-surface emulsion of oil-

in-water are highly damaging to organisms that become

coated with these substances.

[Bill Freedman Ph.D.]

474

ESOURCES

OOKS

Freedman, B. Environmental Ecology, 2nd ed. San Diego: Academic

Press, 1995.

Hemond, H.F., and E.J. Fechner. Chemical Fate and Transport in the

Environment. San Diego: Academic Press, 1994.

Manahan, S. Environmental Chemistry, 6th ed. Boca Raton, FL: Lewis

Publishers, 1994.

Environmental Defense

Environmental Defense is a

public interest group

founded

in 1967 and concerned primarily with the protection of the

environment

and the concomitant improvement of public

health. Originally called Environmental Defense Fund, the

name was shortened to end confusion related to the use of

the word fund. In the beginning a group of Long Island

scientists organized to oppose local spraying of the

pesticide

DDT, and Environmental Defense is still staffed by scien-

tists as well as lawyers and economists. Over time the group

has expanded its interests to include

air quality

, energy,

solid waste

water resources

, agriculture,

wildlife

, habi-

tats, and international environmental issues. Environmental

Defense presently has a membership of approximately

300,000, an annual budget of $39.1 million, and a staff of

200 working out of eight regional offices.

Environmental Defense seeks to protect the environ-

ment by initiating legal action in environment-related mat-

ters and also by conducting public service and educational

campaigns. It publishes a newsletter detailing the organiza-

tion’s activities, as well as occasional books, reports, and

monographs. Environmental Defense also conducts and en-

courages research relevant to environmental issues and pro-

motes administrative, legislative, and corporate actions and

policies in defense of the environment.

Environmental Defense’s strategies and orientation

have changed somewhat over the years from the early days

when the group’s motto was “Sue the bastards!” At about

the time that Frederic D. Krupp became its executive director

in 1984, Environmental Defense began to view environmen-

tal problems more in view of economic needs. As Krupp

put it, the practical effectiveness of the environmental move-

ment in the future would depend on its realization that

behind environmental problems “there are nearly always le-

gitimate social needs–and that long-term solutions lie in

finding alternative ways to meet those underlying needs.”

With this in mind, Krupp proposed a “third stage

of environmentalism” which combined direct opposition to

environmentally harmful practices with proposals for realis-

tic, economically-viable alternatives. This strategy was first

applied successfully to large-scale power production in Cali-

fornia, where utilities were planning a massive expansion of

Environmental Encyclopedia 3

Environmental degradation

generating capacity. Environmental Defense demonstrated

that this expansion was largely unnecessary (thereby saving

the utilities and their customers a considerable amount of

money while also protecting the environment) by showing

that the use of existing and well-established technology could

greatly reduce the need for new capacity without affecting

the utility’s customers. Environmental Defense also showed

that it was economically effective to buy power generated

from

renewable energy

resources, including

wind

energy

The Environmental Defense worked with the Mc-

Donalds Corporation in 1991 on a task force to reduce the

fast food giant’s estimated two million lb-per-day (907,184

kg) effusion of waste. One of the most widely publicized

results of these efforts was that McDonald’s was convinced

to stop packaging its hamburgers in

polystyrene

containers.

Combined with other strategies, McDonald’s estimates that

the task force’s recommendations will eventually reduce its

waste flow by 75%. More recently in 2000, the Environmen-

tal Defense joined with eight companies to reduce the

amount of

greenhouse gases

in the environment. In 2001,

the Action Network (which has 750,000 members) and For

My World projects were set up to inform the public on

environmental and health issues. Scorecard.org rates area

pollutants based on the most recent findings by the

Environ-

mental Protection Agency

(EPA).

Environmental Defense continues to search for ways

to harness economic forces in ways that destroy incentives

to degrade the environment. This approach has made Envi-

ronmental Defense one of the most respected and heeded

environmental groups among United States corporations.

Environmental Defense virtually ghost-wrote the Bush Sr.

Administration’s

Acid Rain

Bill, which makes considerable

use of market-oriented strategies such as the issuing of trada-

ble emissions permits. These permits allow for a set amount

pollution

per firm based on ceilings set for entire indus-

tries. Companies can buy, sell, and trade these permits,

thus providing them with a profit motive to reduce harmful

emissions.

[Lawrence J. Biskowski]

ESOURCES

RGANIZATIONS

Environmental Defense, 257 Park Avenue South, New York, NY USA

10010 (212) 505-2100, Fax: (212) 505-2375, Email: webmaster@

environmentaldefense.org, <http://www.environmentaldefense.org>

Environmental Defense Fund

see

Environmental Defense

475

Environmental degradation

Degradation is the act or process of reducing something in

value or worth. Environmental degradation, therefore, is the

de-valuing of and damage to the

environment

by natural

anthropogenic

causes. The loss of

biodiversity

habitat

destruction, depletion of energy or mineral sources, and ex-

haustion of

groundwater

aquifers are all examples of envi-

ronmental degradation.

Presently there are four major areas of global concern

due to environmental degradation: marine environment,

ozone

layer,

smog

and

air pollution

, and the vanishing

rain forest

Pollution

, at some level, is found throughout

the world’s oceans, which cover two-thirds of the planet’s

surface. Marine debris, farm

runoff

, industrial waste, sew-

age, dredge material, stormwater runoff, and

atmospheric

deposition

all contribute to

marine pollution

. The level

of degradation varies from region to region, but its effects are

seen in such remote places as

Antarctica

and the Bering Sea.

Issues of

waste management

and disposal have had

a large degrading impact on these areas. There are major

national and international efforts to control pollution from

shipping (including

oil spills

and general pollution due to

ship ballast) and direct ocean or

estuary

discharges. Clean

up has been started in some areas with some initial success.

Another major problem facing the world is the deple-

tion of the ozone layer, which is linked to the use of a group

chemicals

called

chlorofluorocarbons

(CFCs). These

chemicals are widely used by industry as refrigerants and in

polystyrene

products. Once released into the air they rise

to the

stratosphere

and eat away at the ozone layer. This

layer is important because it protects us from harmful

ultra-

violet radiation

, which is the chief cause of skin

cancer

Smog in urban areas and

air quality

in general have

become crucial issues in the last few decades.

Acid rain

which occurs when

sulfur dioxide

and

nitrogen

oxide—

as emissions from

power plants

and industries—change in

the

atmosphere

to form harmful compounds that fall to

earth in rain, fog, and snow.

Acid

rain damages lakes and

streams as well as buildings and monuments. Air

visibility

is curtailed and the health of humans as well as plants and

trees can be affected.

Automobile emissions

nitrogen oxides

carbon

monoxide

, and volatile organic compounds—although

much reduced in the United States—also contribute to smog

and acid rain.

Carbon

monoxide continues to be a problem

in cities such as Los Angeles where there is heavy

automo-

bile

congestion.

The vanishing rain forest is also of major global con-

cern. The degradation of the rain forest—with its extensive

logging

deforestation

, and massive destruction of habi-

tat—has threatened the survival of many

species

of plants

Environmental Encyclopedia 3

Environmental design

and animals as well as disrupting

climate

and weather pat-

terns locally and globally. Although tropical rain forests cover

only about five to seven percent of the world’s land surface,

they contain about one-half to two-thirds of all species of

plants and animals, some which have never been studied for

their medicinal or food properties.

The problem of environmental degradation has been

addressed by various environmental organizations through-

out the world. Environmentalists are no longer solely con-

cerned with the local region and efforts to stop or at least

slow down environmental degradation has taken on a global

significance.

[James L. Anderson]

ESOURCES

OOKS

The Global Ecology Handbook: What You Can Do About the Environmental

Crisis. Boston: Beacon Press, 1990.

Our Common Future. World Commission on Environmental Development.

New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Preserving Our Future Today. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1991.

Silver, C. S., and R. S. Defries. One Earth, One Future: Our Changing

Global Environment. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1990.

Triedjell, S. T. “Soil and Vegetative Systems.” In Contemporary Problems

in Geography. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.

Environmental design

Environmental design is a new approach in planning con-

sumer products and industrial processes that are ecologically

intelligent, sustainable, and healthy for both humans and

our

environment

. Based on the work of innovative thinkers

such as architect Bill McDonough, chemist Michael Braung-

art, physicist Amory Lovins, Swedish physician Dr. Karl-

Henrik Robert, and business executive Paul Hawken, this

movement is an effort to rethink our whole industrial econ-

omy. During the first Industrial Revolution 200 years ago,

raw materials such as lumber, minerals, and clean water

seemed inexhaustible, while

nature

was regarded as a hostile

force to be tamed and civilized. We use materials to make

the things we wanted, then discard them when they no

longer are useful. “Dilution is the solution to pollution,”

suggests that if we just spread our wastes out in the environ-

ment widely enough, no one will notice.

This approach has given us an abundance of material

things, but also has produced massive

pollution

and

envi-

ronmental degradation

. It also is incredibly wasteful. On

average, for every truckload of products delivered in the

United States, 32 truckloads of waste are produced along

the way. The

automobile

is a typical example. Industrial

ecologist, Amory Lovins, calculates that for every 100 gallons

476

(380 l) of

gasoline

burned in your car engine, only 1% (0

gal or 3.8 l) actually moves the passengers inside. All the

rest is used to move the vehicles itself. The wastes pro-

duced—carbon dioxide,

nitrogen oxides

, unburned hydro-

carbon,

rubber

dust, heat—are spread through the environ-

ment where they pollute air, water, and

soil

. And when the

vehicle wears out after only a few years of service, thousands

of pounds of metal, rubber, plastic, and glass become part

of our rapidly growing waste steam.

This isn’t the way things work in nature, environmen-

tal designers point out. In living systems, almost nothing is

discarded or unused. The wastes from one organism become

the food of another. Industrial processes, to be sustainable

over the long term, should be designed on similar principles,

designers argue. Rather than following current linear pat-

terns in which we try to maximize the throughput of materi-

als and minimize labor, products and processes should be

designed to be energy efficient and use renewable materials.

They should create products that are durable and reusable

or easily dismantled for repair and remanufacture, and are

non-polluting throughout their entire life cycle. We should

base our economy on renewable

solar energy

rather than

fossil fuels

. Rather than measure our economic progress by

how much material we use, we should evaluate productivity

by how many people are gainfully and meaningfully em-

ployed. We should judge how well we’re doing by how many

factories have no smokestacks or dangerous effluents. We

ought to produce nothing that will require constant vigilance

from

future generations

Inspired by how ecological systems work, Bill McDo-

nough proposes three simple principles for designing pro-

cesses and products:

Waste equals food. This principle encourages elimination

of the concept of waste in industrial design. Every process

should be designed so that the products themselves, as well

as leftover

chemicals

, materials, and effluents, can become

“food” for other processes.

Rely on current solar income. This principle has two bene-

fits: First, it diminishes, and may eventually eliminate, our

reliance on hydrocarbon fuels. Second, it means designing

systems that sip energy rather than gulping it down.

Respect diversity. Evaluate every design for its impact on

plant, animal, and human life. What effects do products

and processes have on identity, independence, and integrity

of humans and natural systems? Every project should re-

spect the regional, cultural, and material uniqueness of its

particular place.

According to McDonough, our first question about a

product is whether it is really needed. Could we obtain the

same satisfaction, comfort, or utility in another way that

would have less environmental and social impacts? Can the

things we design be restorative and regenerative: that is,