Environmental Policy and Law Flashcards
6 cards from real Environmental Science practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 6 Environmental Policy and Law flashcards as text
The Montreal Protocol (1987) was designed to address:
Answer: Depletion of stratospheric ozone caused by chlorofluorocarbons and other halocarbons
The Montreal Protocol phased out the production and use of ozone-depleting substances (CFCs, HCFCs, halons), allowing the ozone layer to begin recovering.
CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) operates primarily by:
Answer: Regulating and restricting international trade in specimens of endangered plants and animals
CITES classifies species into three appendices based on threat level and regulates (or bans) international trade in listed species and their products.
The polluter pays principle in environmental economics holds that:
Answer: Those who produce pollution should bear the costs of managing it and its effects on society
The polluter pays principle (PPP) requires that the costs of pollution prevention and remediation be borne by those responsible for the pollution, internalizing the externality.
U.S. EPA's Superfund program (CERCLA) was established to:
Answer: Clean up the nation's most hazardous abandoned waste sites and assign cleanup costs to responsible parties
CERCLA (1980) created the Superfund to finance cleanup of contaminated sites and empowered EPA to hold potentially responsible parties (PRPs) liable for cleanup costs.
An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is most accurately described as:
Answer: A systematic process to evaluate the environmental consequences of a proposed project or policy before a decision is made
EIA is a decision-support tool that identifies, predicts, and evaluates the potential environmental effects of a proposed development, informing decision-makers and the public.
The tragedy of the commons, as described by Garrett Hardin (1968), refers to:
Answer: The overexploitation of shared resources when individuals act in their own self-interest without regulation
Each rational user of a commons (fishery, atmosphere, pasture) gains full benefit from exploitation but shares costs among all users, leading to overuse and depletion.