The natural environment or natural world encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally, meaning in this case not artificial. The term is most often applied to Earth or some parts of Earth. This environment encompasses the interaction of all living species, climate, weather and natural resources that affect human survival and economic activity.
The concept of the natural environment can be distinguished as components:
In contrast to the natural environment is the built environment. Built environments are where humans have fundamentally transformed landscapes such as urban settings and agricultural land conversion, the natural environment is greatly changed into a simplified human environment. Even acts which seem less extreme, such as building a mud hut or a photovoltaic system in the desert, the modified environment becomes an artificial one. Though many animals build things to provide a better environment for themselves, they are not human, hence beaver dams, and the works of mound-building termites, are thought of as natural. (Full article...)
The natural environment or natural world encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally, meaning in this case not artificial. The term is most often applied to Earth or some parts of Earth. This environment encompasses the interaction of all living species, climate, weather and natural resources that affect human survival and economic activity.
The concept of the natural environment can be distinguished as components:
In contrast to the natural environment is the built environment. Built environments are where humans have fundamentally transformed landscapes such as urban settings and agricultural land conversion, the natural environment is greatly changed into a simplified human environment. Even acts which seem less extreme, such as building a mud hut or a photovoltaic system in the desert, the modified environment becomes an artificial one. Though many animals build things to provide a better environment for themselves, they are not human, hence beaver dams, and the works of mound-building termites, are thought of as natural.
People cannot find absolutely natural environments on Earth, and naturalness usually varies in a continuum, from 100% natural in one extreme to 0% natural in the other. The massive environmental changes of humanity in the Anthropocene have fundamentally effected all natural environments: including from climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution from plastic and other chemicals in the air and water. More precisely, we can consider the different aspects or components of an environment, and see that their degree of naturalness is not uniform. If, for instance, in an agricultural field, the mineralogic composition and the structure of its soil are similar to those of an undisturbed forest soil, but the structure is quite different. (Full article...)
The negative effects of pesticides are not just in the area of application. Runoff and pesticide drift can carry pesticides into distant aquatic environments or other fields, grazing areas, human settlements and undeveloped areas. Other problems emerge from poor production, transport, storage and disposal practices. Over time, repeat application of pesticides increases pest resistance, while its effects on other species can facilitate the pest's resurgence. Alternatives to heavy use of pesticides, such as integrated pest management, and sustainable agriculture techniques such as polyculture mitigate these consequences, without the harmful toxic chemical application. (Full article...)
... that environmental defenders on the front of the global environmental justice movement are being killed at a rate of about three per week?
... that Enriqueta Legorreta, who was the first Mexican woman to appear as Sieglinde in Wagner's Die Walküre, became an award-winning environmental activist?
... that critics objected to Dangers of the Mail in the 1930s for government support of lewdness and in the 2000s for creating a hostile work environment?
... that Carol Van Strum, an environmental activist who wrote the book A Bitter Fog, accumulated 20,000 documents across 40 years that revealed corporate and government cover-ups?
Coral bleaching refers to the loss of color of corals due to stress-induced expulsion of symbiotic unicellularalgae. It can be caused by sedimentation, change in pH, change in water temperature, or pathogen infections. When coral bleaching occurs, the productivity of the coral reefs are lost.
Varner started a research project in 2001 that looked at animals in Hare's two-level utilitarianism. The project's initial monograph, Personhood, Ethics, and Animal Cognition, was released by Oxford in 2012. In the book, Varner moved away from his biocentrism, instead endorsing a developed version of Hare's ethics. Varner draws a distinction between persons, near-persons and merely sentient beings; although all are morally considerable, the lives of persons are of the most significance, and the lives of merely sentient beings are of the least. The practical consequences of this view, though initial comments were offered in Personhood, Ethics, and Animal Cognition, was to be explored in Sustaining Animals, with which Varner at one time had a contract with Oxford. His third book was Defending Biodiversity: Environmental Science and Ethics, co-authored with Jonathan Newman and Stefan Linquist, and published with Cambridge University Press. It was published in 2017. (Full article...)
The origins of the department can be traced back to the Hunting Club of Iran, established in 1956. Later, it developed into an organization overseeing hunting and fishing activities in the country. In 1971, the organization changed its name to its current one, and notably has hosted the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance in the city of Ramsar on the same year. (Full article...)
The following are images from various environment-related articles on Wikipedia.
Image 1Biodiversity of a coral reef. Corals adapt and modify their environment by forming calcium carbonate skeletons. This provides growing conditions for future generations and forms a habitat for many other species. (from Environmental science)
Image 4Few creatures make the ice shelves of Antarctica their habitat, but water beneath the ice can provide habitat for multiple species. Animals such as penguins have adapted to live in very cold conditions. (from Habitat)
Image 6Loch Lomond in Scotland forms a relatively isolated ecosystem. The fish community of this lake has remained stable over a long period until a number of introductions in the 1970s restructured its food web. (from Ecosystem)
Image 11Global oceanic and terrestrial phototroph abundance, from September 1997 to August 2000. As an estimate of autotroph biomass, it is only a rough indicator of primary production potential and not an actual estimate of it. (from Ecosystem)
Image 12Sequence of a decomposing pig carcass over time (from Ecosystem)
Image 21A false color composite of the greater Boston area, created using remote sensing technology, reveals otherwise not visible characteristics about the land cover and the health of the surrounding ecosystems. (from Environmental science)
Image 22Compartments established by C&SF projects that separated the historic Everglades into Water Conservation Areas and the Everglades Agricultural Area. One-fourth of the original Everglades is preserved in Everglades National Park. (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 25Proportion of forest area by forest area density class and global ecological zone, 2015, from Food and Agriculture Organization publication The State of the World's Forests 2020. Forests, biodiversity and people – In brief (from Ecoregion)
Image 26A map of the bioregions of Canada and the US. (from Ecoregion)
Image 33A team of British researchers found a hole in the ozone layer forming over Antarctica, the discovery of which would later influence the Montreal Protocol in 1987. (from Environmental science)
Image 35Aerial view of stormwater treatment areas in the northern Everglades bordered by sugarcane fields on the right (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 42View of Earth, taken in 1972 by the Apollo 17 crew. Approximately 71% of Earth's surface (an area of some 361 million square kilometers) consists of ocean (from Ecoregion)
Image 43Climbing ferns overtake cypress trees in the Everglades. The ferns act as "fire ladders" that can destroy trees that would otherwise survive fires. (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 45Planned water recovery and storage implementation using CERP strategies (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 46Rachel Carson published her groundbreaking novel, Silent Spring, in 1962, bringing the study of environmental science to the forefront of society. (from Environmental science)
Image 51The Paris Agreement (formerly the Kyoto Protocol) is adopted in 2016. Nearly every country in the United Nations has signed the treaty, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (from Environmental science)
Image 52Cattails indicate the presence of phosphorus in the water. Cattails are an invasive species; they crowd out sawgrass and grow too thick to allow nesting for birds and alligators. (from Restoration of the Everglades)
There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things we could use.
_18.jpg)
.jpg)
.JPG)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
_peeking_from_a_leaf_hole_of_an_Alnus_nepalensis_tree_(cropped).jpg)
.jpg)
