The natural environment or natural world encompasses all biotic and abiotic 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:
Complete ecological units that function as natural systems without massive civilized human intervention, including all vegetation, microorganisms, soil, rocks, plateaus, mountains, the atmosphere and natural phenomena that occur within their boundaries and their nature.
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 biotic and abiotic 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:
Complete ecological units that function as natural systems without massive civilized human intervention, including all vegetation, microorganisms, soil, rocks, plateaus, mountains, the atmosphere and natural phenomena that occur within their boundaries and their nature.
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,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: 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 book presents an in-depth analysis and refutation of climate-change denial, going over several arguments point-by-point and disproving them with peer-reviewed evidence from the scientific consensus for climate change. The authors assert that those denying climate change engage in tactics including cherry picking data purported to support their specific viewpoints, and attacking the integrity of climate scientists. Washington and Cook use social-science theory to examine the phenomenon of climate-change denial in the wider public, and call this phenomenon a form of pathology. (Full article...)
... 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 Enriqueta Medellín, a Mexican surgeon, has an ecological center and environmental prize named after her in the state of Aguascalientes?
An oil spill is the unintentional release of liquidpetroleumhydrocarbon into the environment as a result of human activity. The term often refers to marine oil spills, where oil is released into the ocean or coastal waters. Oil can refer to many different materials, including crude oil, refined petroleum products (such as gasoline or diesel fuel) or by-products, ships' bunkers, oily refuse or oil mixed in waste. Spills take months or even years to clean up.
Robert Sterling Yard (February 1, 1861 – May 17, 1945) was an American writer, journalist, and wilderness activist. Born in Haverstraw, New York, Yard graduated from Princeton University and spent the first twenty years of his career in the editing and publishing business. In 1915, he was recruited by his friend Stephen Mather to help publicize the need for an independent national park agency. Their numerous publications were part of a movement that resulted in legislative support for a National Park Service (NPS) in 1916. Yard served as head of the National Parks Educational Committee for several years after its conception, but tension within the NPS led him to concentrate on non-government initiatives. He became executive secretary of the National Parks Association in 1919.
Yard worked to promote the national parks as well as educate Americans about their use. Creating high standards based on aesthetic ideals for park selection, he also opposed commercialism and industrialization of what he called "America's masterpieces". These standards subsequently caused discord with his peers. After helping to establish a relationship between the NPA and the United States Forest Service, Yard later became involved in the protection of wilderness areas. In 1935, he became one of the eight founding members of The Wilderness Society and acted as its first president from 1937 until his death eight years later. Yard is now considered an important figure in the modern wilderness movement. (Full article...)
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA; Scottish Gaelic: Buidheann Dìon Àrainneachd na h-Alba) is Scotland's environmental regulator and national flood forecasting, flood warning and strategic flood risk management authority. Its main role is to protect and improve Scotland's environment. SEPA does this by helping business and industry to understand their environmental responsibilities, enabling customers to comply with legislation and good practice and to realise the economic benefits of good environmental practice. One of the ways SEPA does this is through the NetRegs environmental guidance service. It protects communities by regulating activities that can cause harmful pollution and by monitoring the quality of Scotland's air, land and water. The regulations it implements also cover the storage, transport and disposal of radioactive materials.
Image 3Aerial view of stormwater treatment areas in the northern Everglades bordered by sugarcane fields on the right (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 8Compartments 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 14Biodiversity 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 15View 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 28Loch 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 30Dense mass of white crabs at a hydrothermal vent, with stalked barnacles on right (from Habitat)
Image 31Planned water recovery and storage implementation using CERP strategies (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 32Proportion 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 33A 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 34The 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 36Climbing 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 39Rachel Carson published her groundbreaking novel, Silent Spring, in 1962, bringing the study of environmental science to the forefront of society. (from Environmental science)
Image 40Cattails 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)
Image 45Few 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 49Wetland habitat types in Borneo (from Habitat)
Image 50A 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 54Global 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)
...that many countries that signed the Kyoto Protocol actually increased the greenhouse gasemissions, contrary to the treaty? And for that, the 15 January 2011, a representative of the country had to stick their head in a hole of sand in Cancun, Mexico?
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