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...)
China is the largest producer and consumer of coal and coal power in China is the largest in the world. The share of coal in the Chinese energy mix declined to 55% in 2021 according to the US Energy Information Agency.
The Chinese central government has clamped down on the pace of new construction of coal plants and shifted to renewable, nuclear and natural gas sources. At the same time, coal consumption reached new heights in China with carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired electricity production estimated to top 4.5 billion tonnes in 2022. Reuters noted in 2022, "China is set to delight and depress climate trackers in equal measure in 2022 by setting new global records in both clean power utilisation and coal-fired electricity emissions." Solar and wind generated electricity surged by over 30% and 25% respectively during the period from January to October 2022 compared to the same period in 2021. Despite central government attempts to clamp down on construction and shifting demand in the market to renewable, nuclear and natural gas sources, 43 coal power units were announced in the first half of 2021 according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air in August 2021. (Full article...)
Thunberg's climate activism began when she persuaded her parents to adopt lifestyle choices that reduced her family's carbon footprint. At age 15, Thunberg began skipping school on 20 August 2018, vowing to remain out of school until after the national Swedish election in an attempt to influence the outcome. She protested outside the Swedish parliament where she called for stronger action on climate change by holding up a Skolstrejk för klimatet (School Strike for Climate) sign and handing out informational flyers. After the election, Thunberg spoke in front of her supporters, telling them to use their phones to film her. She then said that she would be continuing school striking for the climate every Friday until Sweden was in compliance with the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Thunberg's youth and blunt speaking manner fueled her rise to the status of a global icon. (Full article...)
NASA Earth Observatory, 2009. Deforestation in Malaysian Borneo.REDD+ (or REDD-plus) is a framework to encourage developing countries to reduce emissions and enhance removals of greenhouse gases through a variety of forest management options, and to provide technical and financial support for these efforts. The acronym refers to "reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries". REDD+ is a voluntary climate change mitigation framework developed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). REDD originally referred to "reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries", which was the title of the original document on REDD. It was superseded by REDD+ in the Warsaw Framework on REDD-plus negotiations.Since 2000, various studies estimate that land use change, including deforestation and forest degradation, accounts for 12-29% of global greenhouse gas emissions. For this reason the inclusion of reducing emissions from land use change is considered essential to achieve the objectives of the UNFCCC. (Full article...)
Image 4Biodiversity 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 5Loch 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 6The 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 9A 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 10A map of the Amazon rainforest ecoregions. The yellow line encloses the ecoregions per the World Wide Fund for Nature. (from Ecoregion)
Image 12Rachel Carson published her groundbreaking novel, Silent Spring, in 1962, bringing the study of environmental science to the forefront of society. (from Environmental science)
Image 13Aerial view of stormwater treatment areas in the northern Everglades bordered by sugarcane fields on the right (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 17View 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 18Wetland habitat types in Borneo (from Habitat)
Image 21A map of the bioregions of Canada and the US. (from Ecoregion)
Image 22Cattails 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 30Proportion 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 37Compartments 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 44Global 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 47Sequence of a decomposing pig carcass over time (from Ecosystem)
Image 48Few 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 51Climbing 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 52Environmental science examines the effects of humans on nature, such as the Glen Canyon Dam in the United States (from Environmental science)
...that recycling aluminium saves 95% of the energy cost of processing new aluminium?
... that the idea of atmospheric gases trapping the Suns heat to produce the greenhouse effect was put forward by Joseph Fourier in the 1820’s?
... that the concept of reduce, re-use, and recycle as three equal options, but they are instead meant to be a hierarchy, in order of importance?
... that rivers have been classified by many criteria, including their topography, their biotic status and their relevance to white water rafting and canoeing activities?
