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 convention's main objective is explained in Article 2. It is the "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic [i.e., human-caused] interference with the climate system". The treaty calls for continuing scientific research into the climate. This research supports meetings and negotiations to lead to agreements. The aim is to allow ecosystems to adapt to climate change. At the same time it aims to ensure there are no threats to food production from climate change or measures to address it. And it aims to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner. (Full article...)
... 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?
The passenger pigeon was a species of pigeon that was once the most common bird in North America. It is estimated that there were as many as five billion passenger pigeons in the United States at the time Europeans colonized North America. They lived in enormous flocks, and during migration, one could see flocks of them a mile (1.6 km) wide and 300 miles (500 km) long, taking several days to pass and probably containing two billion birds. The species had not been common in the Pre-Columbian period, until the devastation of the American Indian population by European diseases.
Over the 19th century, the species went from being one of the most abundant birds in the world to extinction. At the time, passenger pigeons had one of the largest groups or flocks of any animal, second to only the desert locust.
Some decimation in numbers occurred as a result of loss of habitat, when the Europeans started settling further inland. However, the primary factor emerged when pigeon meat was commercialized as a cheap food for slaves and the poor in the 19th century, resulting in hunting on a massive scale. There was a slow decline in their numbers between about 1800 and 1870, followed by a catastrophic decline between 1870 and 1890, at the end of which they were rare and beyond the point of recovery. 'Martha', thought to be the world's last passenger pigeon, died on September 1, 1914 in Cincinnati.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is a Swiss-based international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the World Wildlife Fund, which remains its official name in Canada and the United States. WWF is the world's largest conservation organization, with over five million supporters worldwide, working in more than 100 countries and supporting around 3,000 conservation and environmental projects. They have invested over $1 billion in more than 12,000 conservation initiatives since 1995. WWF is a foundation with 65% of funding from individuals and bequests, 17% from government sources (such as the World Bank, DFID, and USAID) and 8% from corporations in 2020.
WWF aims to "stop the degradation of the planet's natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature." The Living Planet Report has been published every two years by WWF since 1998; it is based on a Living Planet Index and ecological footprint calculation. In addition, WWF has launched several notable worldwide campaigns, including Earth Hour and Debt-for-nature swap, and its current work is organized around these six areas: food, climate, freshwater, wildlife, forests, and oceans. (Full article...)
Image 11A 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 12A map of the bioregions of Canada and the US. (from Ecoregion)
Image 13Global 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 19Loch 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 20Dense mass of white crabs at a hydrothermal vent, with stalked barnacles on right (from Habitat)
Image 21Proportion 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 23Cattails 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 31Rachel Carson published her groundbreaking novel, Silent Spring, in 1962, bringing the study of environmental science to the forefront of society. (from Environmental science)
Image 32A 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 38Few 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 39View 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 44Climbing 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 45The 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 46Aerial view of stormwater treatment areas in the northern Everglades bordered by sugarcane fields on the right (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 48Biodiversity 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 54Compartments 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)
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