EVSC 100 (Surrey), Spring 2013

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Midterm 1 Guidelines The midterm will take place during lecture hours (2:30 pm – 4:30 pm) in Room SUR 2740 on Friday, February 8th. You shall have two hours to write the midterm. The exam is closed book. You are allowed to bring your normal supply of stationary including a pen, non-programmable calculator etc. No other electronic aids, cell phones, iPod’s and other electronic gadgets are allowed. You must also bring your SFU or a government issued ID to the exam. Answer all question in pen. If you choose to write in pencil you cannot question the marking. Below is a list of five potential midterm questions. Three out of these five questions will appear on the midterm. Write complete sentences in answering the questions and cite anything you use that is not included in the lecture notes or lecture readings in APA format. There is no need to cite material from the lecture notes or readings. Include graphs and figures wherever asked and wherever you think necessary and make sure that they are properly captioned and the axis’ are properly labeled. The answer booklet has 10 pages so plan to answer all three questions within this limit. Ensure that your answers are legible. Illegible answers shall not be marked. Questions 1. The current carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is approximately 394 ppm (co2now.org). As the Keeling curve shows (Keeling et al., 1995), there has been a steady increase in the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations since the 1950’s. Critics argue that this trend is likely to persist with some models predicting CO2 concentrations as high as 1000 ppm by 2100 (IPCC, 2001). Using this information and the current status quo answer the following questions: a. Describe the role that CO2 plays in the atmosphere and why increasing CO2 levels are of a concern. b. List some of the factors that led to the increase in CO2 concentrations over the last century and are responsible for its projected increase. c. Mention some of the strategies that could be employed to reduce CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. 2. The carrying capacity of a certain landscape is 1500 elks. A building company is planning to construct a residential community around this landscape and have hired you as an environmental consultant to predict the possible effects of the construction on the elk community. The current size of the elk population is 1400 elks. The area of the elk habitat is 100 hectares. Post construction, this area will be reduced to 75 hectares. You can assume that the construction will reduce the quality of the grazing resources. Use your basic knowledge of population ecology and the logistic growth model to answer the following questions:

EVSC 100 (Surrey), Spring 2013

a. Describe the logistic growth model. Provide a graph and the equation for logistic growth and describe all the factors in the equation. b. Predict the possible results of the construction on the elk population. In particular predict the effect on the elk carrying capacity of the landscape after construction. You can graph your prediction if you choose. c. Based on your predictions, make a recommendation to the construction company for or against their proposal and defend your recommendation. 3. Thomas Malthus (1978) proposed a logistic model to describe human population growth and predicted that humans will eventually run out of resources and the human population will implode. However, data suggests that the human population is still rapidly increasing. In light of this, answer the following questions: a. Logistic growth model is not adequate in describing human population growth, at least not the current trend. Describe the growth model that does define the recent trend in human population. Graph the model and provide and describe the equation for this growth model. b. List some of the factors that have contributed to the rapid increase in human populations and the geographic regions where this growth is most pronounced. c. Earth’s carrying capacity for humans has been estimated at around 15 billion humans. The current human population is about 7 billion. Using this information, make a case for either allowing the population to continue on its current path or coming up with solutions to check this rapid growth. 4. The graph presented below appears in “Global patterns in human consumption of net primary production” by Imhoff et al. (2004). A link to the paper is available on the class website. You can also download it using your SFU library access from http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v429/n6994/abs/nature02619.html. Refer to the graph and answer the questions that follow:

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EVSC 100 (Surrey), Spring 2013

a. Describe the information presented on the map. Define all necessary criteria. b. List some of the factors responsible for the colouring scheme of the map. c. Describe the significance of the information presented on the map. You can use information from the lecture notes as well as the article itself. 5. Refer to the lecture notes and the following two articles to answer the questions that follow – Bosch, T. (2013, January 7). Seeing the light on GMO’s. National Post. Retrieved from http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/01/08/torie-bosch-seeing-the-light-ongmos/ McHughen, A. (2013,, January 24). Who’s afraid of GMO’s? National Post. Retrieved from http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/01/25/alan-mchughen-whos-afraid-ofgmos/ a. Define environmental science and its most salient attributes. b. List the important differences between environmentalism and environmental science. You can use the two articles to back your claims.

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