Question: People, Science and the Environment level 2(About 125 words each question, thank you)
Pick 8 to answer. Summary in your own words and your own thoughts.
Environmental Health, Pollution, and Toxicology
1. What is biomagnification, and why is it important in toxicology?
2. Some environmentalists argue that there is no such thing as a threshold for pollution effects. What do they mean? How would you determine whether it was true for a specific chemical and a specific species?
3, Do you think as valid the hypothesis that some crime is caused in part by environmental pollution? Why? Why not? How might the hypothesis be further tested? What are the social ramifications of the tests?
Water Pollution and Treatment
4. Do you think outbreaks of waterborne diseases will be more common or less common in the future? Why? Where are outbreaks most likely to occur?
5. What is the twofold effect of sediment pollution?
6. In the summer, you buy a house with a septic system that appears to function properly. In the winter, effluent discharges at the surface. What could be the environmental cause of the problem? How could the problem be alleviated?
7. Do you think our water supply is vulnerable to terrorist attacks? Why? Why not? How could potential threats be minimized?
8. Would you be willing to use treated wastewater in your home for personal consumption, as they are doing in Orange County, California? Why? Why not?
9. How would you design a system to capture runoff where you live before it enters a storm drain?
The Atmosphere and climate change
10. How would you summarize the potential biological effects of global warming?
11. How would you refute or defend the statement that the best adjustment to global warming is to do little or nothing and learn to live with change?
Air pollution
12. Should Carbon dioxide be regulated along with other major air pollutants?
13. What do you think about the concept of sick building syndrome? If you were working for a large corporation and a number of employees said they were getting sick and listed a series of symptoms and problems, how would you react? What could you do?