SCI 256/ Week 1
April 29, 2013 1. Silent Spring is a book that Rachel Carson wrote in 1960 and was only the beginning of the environmental movement. During the same time there were many several major environmental events that were occurring. These environmental events include oil spills along southern California’s and Massachusetts coasts. Extinctions of many species were also taking place, for animals such as whales, song-birds, and elephants. James Lovelock was also an important individual in the 1960s. Lovelock came up with the Gia hypothesis. The Gia hypothesis proposes that the environment at the global level has been profoundly changed by life over the history of life on Earth and the changes tend to improve the chances for the continuation of life. Life of all shapes and sizes affects the environment at a global level, and the environment of our planet differs from a lifeless one.
2. The definition of exponential growth is when growth is takes place on a constant rate per period of time rather than a contestant amount. With the human population growth, it is easy to track the exponential growth as the book could with the Miller family in Chapter 1. These two parents reproduce to equal seven children. These seven children advance on to reproducing to equal 63 grandchildren. The book advances on to explaining how the 63 grandchildren reproduce to compile 341 great grandchildren and so on. The Miller family has the exponential growth easily shows how population explosion impacts the environment.
3. Data continues to show that developing countries incur higher population growth rates, and countries that are already developed have lower population growth rates. It is harder to predict the population increase in developing countries because of many factors including famine and war. The cost of food drastically increases and greatly impacts the lower income countries and can cause violence and deaths that occur
References: Russell, D.L. (2009). Literature for children: A short introduction (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon