Question 1

When did the term Sustainability become more widely used?
A) 1970s
B) 1980s
C) 1990s
D) 2000s

Accepted Answer

C

Question 2

When did the Brundtland Commission (WCED) publish its report on Sustainable Development?
A) 1977
B) 1987
C) 1997
D) 2007

Accepted Answer

The Brundtland Commission, formally known as the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), published its report titled "Our Common Future" in 1987, introducing the concept of sustainable development.

Question 3

When was the Rio Earth Summit?
A) 1982
B) 1992
C) 2002
D) 2012

Accepted Answer

The Rio Earth Summit, officially known as the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), took place in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Question 4

Which was one of the first books to create awareness and help launch environmental movements?
A) Silent Spring
B) The Limits of Growth
C) The Crisis of Global Capitalism
D) Gaia

Accepted Answer

"Silent Spring," written by Rachel Carson and published in 1962, is widely credited with helping to launch the environmental movement by raising awareness of the dangers of pesticides to the environment and human health.

Question 5

Which concept did John Elkington coin in his book Cannibals with Forks (1997)?
A) Sustainable Development
B) Societal Triangle
C) Dynamic Complexity
D) Triple Bottom Line

Accepted Answer

John Elkington coined the concept of the Triple Bottom Line in his 1997 book "Cannibals with Forks," which emphasizes the importance of measuring business success not just by financial performance but also by its social and environmental impact.

Question 6

What is thermodynamics?
A) The study of closed systems
B) The dynamics of termites
C) The study of energy transformation
D) The study of matter

Accepted Answer

Thermodynamics is the branch of physics that deals with the relationships between heat and other forms of energy, focusing on energy transformation.

Question 7

Which of these does not constitute ecosystem services?
A) Supporting services
B) Regulating services
C) Cultural services
D) Geographical services

Accepted Answer

Geographical services are not considered a category of ecosystem services. Ecosystem services are typically categorized into supporting, regulating, provisioning, and cultural services, which contribute to human well-being by maintaining the health of ecosystems.

Question 8

What are externalities?
A) Unpaid benefits or uncompensated costs
B) External services
C) Outsourced goods
D) Marginal costs

Accepted Answer

Externalities refer to the unpaid benefits or uncompensated costs that affect someone who did not choose to incur that benefit or cost. They are often seen in environmental economics, where pollution from a factory might harm local residents (a negative externality) or where a beekeeper's bees pollinate nearby crops (a positive externality), benefiting the crop owners without direct compensation to the beekeeper.

Question 9

What is carrying capacity?
A) total amount of land, food, water and other resources that are used by a person or an entity
B) accounting tool that allows an estimation of resource consumption and waste absorption
C) number of organisms a geographic area can support
D) equilibrium of ecosystem services

Accepted Answer

Carrying capacity refers to the maximum number of individuals or organisms that a given environment can support without causing negative effects on the environment. It is often used in the context of population ecology to describe the limit to the population size of a species that an area can sustain.

Question 10

What is the difference between strong and weak sustainability?
A) Irreversibility
B) Substitutability of natural and human-made capital
C) Savings investment rule
D) Planetary boundaries

Accepted Answer

Strong sustainability emphasizes the limited substitutability between natural and human-made capital, arguing that certain natural resources cannot be replaced by human-made ones and thus should be preserved. Weak sustainability, on the other hand, assumes that natural and human-made capital are largely substitutable, and thus loss of natural capital can be compensated by increases in human-made capital.

Quiz 1: Introduction; and Theoretical Perspectives or Behind the Scenes of Economics and Science

When did the term Sustainability become more widely used?

When did the Brundtland Commission (WCED) publish its report on Sustainable Development?

When was the Rio Earth Summit?

Which was one of the first books to create awareness and help launch environmental movements?

Which concept did John Elkington coin in his book Cannibals with Forks (1997) ?

What is thermodynamics?

Which of these does not constitute ecosystem services?

What are externalities?

What is carrying capacity?

What is the difference between strong and weak sustainability?