Environmental Vocabulary

2. an organic compound containing only carbon and hydrogen and often occurring in petroleum, natural gas, and coal
3. removal of trees from an area without adequate replanting, often using clear cutting which results in loss of topsoil and water pollution
6. compound used in refrigerants and making plastics which can deplete the ozone
8. rise in global temperature which is due to increases in CO2 from deforestation and burning of fossil fuels
10. processin which heavy atomic nuclei split into smaller, lighter nuclei
11. biological material derived from living organisms
14. natural resource such as fresh air and most groundwater that can be used indefinitely without causing reduction in available supply
15. involves global management of Earth's natural resources to ensure that current and future energy needs will be met without harming the environment
16. maximum population a species can support
17. any living component that affects another organism
19. the complex of a community of organisms and its environment functioning as an ecological unit

1. a nonliving condition or thing, as climate or habitat, that influences or affects an ecosystem and the organisms in it
4. a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems
5. resource that exists in Earth's crust in a fixed amount and can be replaced only by geological, physical, or chemical processes that take hundreds of millions of years
7. factor that limits the growth, abundance, or distribution of the population of an ecosystem
8. natural heating of Earth's surface by atmospheric gases. CO2, O3, CFC's, NO2
9. diversity of an ecosystem which is determined by the variety of species of plants and animals
12. percentage of population living in areas with greater than 2,500 (10,000)
13. energy produced from Earth's own internal steam and hot water
18. nonrenewable energy resource formed over geologic time from the compression and partial decomposition of organisms that lived millions of years ago