Portal:Environment

WikiProject Environment

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Welcome to the Environment Portal
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Introduction

Land management has preserved the natural characteristics of Hopetoun Falls, Australia while allowing ample access for visitors.

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.
Universal natural resources and physical phenomena that lack clear-cut boundaries, such as air, water and climate, as well as energy, radiation, electric charge and magnetism, not originating from civilized human actions.

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.

There are no 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 affected 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, we take an agricultural field, and consider the mineralogic composition and the structure of its soil, we will find that whereas the first is quite similar to that of an undisturbed forest soil, the structure is quite different. (Full article...)

Selected article -

Maximum number of school strikers per country:

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Fridays for Future (FFF), also known as the School Strike for Climate (Swedish: Skolstrejk för klimatet [ˈskûːlstrɛjk fœr klɪˈmɑ̌ːtɛt]), is an international movement of school students who skip Friday classes to participate in demonstrations to demand action from political leaders to prevent climate change and for the fossil fuel industry to transition to renewable energy. Publicity and widespread organising began after Swedish pupil Greta Thunberg staged a protest in August 2018 outside of the Swedish parliament, the Riksdag, holding a sign that read "Skolstrejk för klimatet" ("School strike for the climate").

A global strike on 15 March 2019 gathered more than one million strikers in 2,200 strikes organised in 125 countries. On 24 May 2019, in the second global strike, 1,600 protests across 150 countries drew hundreds of thousands of strikers. The May protests were timed to coincide with the 2019 European Parliament election. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

Did you know (auto-generated) -

... that the UN Human Rights Committee recognized a correlation between the right to life and protection of the environment in Portillo Cáceres v Paraguay?
... that a modern Polish fairy tale, written during the period of martial law in Poland in the 1980s, mixes the themes of real-world environmental protection and fantasy-like gnomes?
... that Katherine Sleeper Walden was a journalist, postmistress, innkeeper, community organizer, environmental activist, and conservationist who now has three mountains named after her?
... that environment minister Peng Chi-ming drafted Taiwan's first weather insurance policy?
... that Salar de Pajonales in Chile has been used as an analogue for environments on Mars?
... that Kirkus Reviews called Jenny Price's environmentalist book Stop Saving the Planet! a "fun introduction to a serious topic"?
... that environmental destruction can be a means of genocide?
... that Flathead Lake Biological Station can detect invasive aquatic species in real-time using eDNA technology?

Selected image -

Nanotechnology refers broadly to a field of applied science and technology whose unifying theme is the control of matter on the molecular level in scales smaller than 1 micrometre, normally 1 to 100 nanometers, and the fabrication of devices within that size range. Nanopollution is the result of waste generated by nanotechnology and has implications on the wider environment.

Current events

News

Selected biography -

Attenborough in 2015

Sir David Frederick Attenborough (/ˈætənbərə/; born 8 May 1926) is a British broadcaster, biologist, natural historian and writer. First becoming prominent as host of Zoo Quest in 1954, his filmography as a writer, presenter and narrator has spanned eight decades; it includes the nine nature documentary series forming The Life Collection, Natural World, Wildlife on One, the Planet Earth franchise, The Blue Planet and Blue Planet II. He is the only person to have won BAFTA Awards in black-and-white, colour, high-definition, 3D and 4K resolution. Over his life he has collected dozens of honorary degrees and awards, including three Emmy Awards for Outstanding Narration and one Emmy Award for Outstanding Daytime Personality - Non-Daily.

Attenborough was a senior manager at the BBC, having served as controller of BBC Two and director of programming for BBC Television in the 1960s and 1970s. While Attenborough's earlier work focused primarily on the wonders of the natural world, his later work has been more vocal in support of environmental causes. He has advocated for restoring planetary biodiversity, limiting population growth, switching to renewable energy, mitigating climate change, reducing meat consumption and setting aside more areas for natural preservation. On his broadcasting and passion for nature, NPR stated that Attenborough "roamed the globe and shared his discoveries and enthusiasms with his patented semi-whisper way of narrating". He is widely considered a national treasure in the UK, though he does not embrace the term. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies

Selected organization -

Headquarters in Arlington, Virginia (2022)

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a global environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, United States. As of 2021, it works via affiliates or branches in 79 countries and territories, as well as across every state in the US.

Founded in 1951, The Nature Conservancy has over one million members globally as of 2021 and has protected more than 119 million acres (48 million ha) of land in its history. As of 2014, it is the largest environmental non-profit organization by assets and revenue in the Americas. (Full article...)

List of selected organizations

General images -

The following are images from various environment-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1An Antarctic rock split apart to show endolithic lifeforms showing as a green layer a few millimeters thick (from Habitat)
Image 2A 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 3Roseate spoonbills, along with other wading birds, have decreased by 90% since the 1930s and 1940s. (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 4The leaves of an Alnus nepalensis tree provide a microhabitat for species like the leaf beetle Aulacophora indica. (from Habitat)
Image 5WWF terrestrial ecoregions (from Ecoregion)
Image 6Aerial view of stormwater treatment areas in the northern Everglades bordered by sugarcane fields on the right (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 7The 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 8Global 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 9Environmental science examines the effects of humans on nature, such as the Glen Canyon Dam in the United States (from Environmental science)
Image 10Few 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 11Flora of Baja California desert, Cataviña region, Mexico (from Ecosystem)
Image 12Acropora with brown band disease, Lizard Island (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 13Wetland habitat types in Borneo (from Habitat)
Image 14Twenty-five years after the devastating eruption at Mount St. Helens, United States, pioneer species have moved in. (from Habitat)
Image 15Crown-of-thorns starfish and eaten coral off the coast of Cooktown, Queensland (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 16Sea temperature and bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 17Desert scene in Egypt (from Habitat)
Image 18Dense mass of white crabs at a hydrothermal vent, with stalked barnacles on right (from Habitat)
Image 19The Ötztal Alps, a mountain range in the central Alps of Europe, are part of the Central Eastern Alps, and can both be termed as ecoregions. (from Ecoregion)
Image 20This coral reef in the Phoenix Islands Protected Area provides habitat for numerous marine species. (from Habitat)
Image 21The Earth's atmosphere (from Environmental science)
Image 22The Shen Neng 1 aground on the Great Barrier Reef, 5 April 2010 (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 23Current water drainage patterns in South Florida in 2005 (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 24A protest against the Adani Carmichael mine, 2016 (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 25Biodiversity 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 26The Amazon River in Brazil. (from Ecoregion)
Image 27Compartments 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 28A map of the Amazon rainforest, which is composed of multiple ecoregions. The yellow line encloses the ecoregions within the Amazon per the World Wide Fund for Nature. (from Ecoregion)
Image 29Natural water drainage patterns prior to development in South Florida, circa 1900 (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 30Spiny forest at Ifaty, Madagascar, featuring various Adansonia (baobab) species, Alluaudia procera (Madagascar ocotillo) and other vegetation (from Ecosystem)
Image 31Catchments along the Great Barrier Reef (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 32Planned water recovery and storage implementation using CERP strategies (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 33Biological nitrogen cycling (from Ecosystem)
Image 34View 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 35Sequence of a decomposing pig carcass over time (from Ecosystem)
Image 36A portion of the C-38 canal, finished in 1971, now backfilled to restore the Kissimmee River floodplain to a more natural state (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 37Trichodesmium bloom off the Great Barrier Reef (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 38Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World (Olson et al. 2001, BioScience) (from Ecoregion)
Image 39The High Peaks Wilderness Area in the 6,000,000-acre (2,400,000 ha) Adirondack Park is an example of a diverse ecosystem. (from Ecosystem)
Image 40Rainforest ecosystems are rich in biodiversity. This is the Gambia River in Senegal's Niokolo-Koba National Park. (from Ecosystem)
Image 41A 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 42Loch 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 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 44Blue Marble composite images generated by NASA in 2001 (left) and 2002 (right) (from Environmental science)
Image 45A conifer forest in the Swiss Alps (National Park). (from Ecoregion)
Image 46Structure 65B on the Kissimmee River is destroyed by the Corps of Engineers in 2000 to restore the natural flow of the river. (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 47Ibex in an alpine habitat (from Habitat)
Image 48
A freshwater lake in Gran Canaria, an island of the Canary Islands. Clear boundaries make lakes convenient to study using an ecosystem approach.
(from Ecosystem)
Image 49Proportion 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 50Cattails 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 51Rachel Carson published her groundbreaking monograph, Silent Spring, in 1962, bringing the study of environmental science to the forefront of society. (from Environmental science)
Image 52Rich rainforest habitat in Dominica (from Habitat)
Image 53Tropical Cyclone Larry over the Great Barrier Reef, 19 March 2006 (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 54Storage Silos on the Gladstone waterfront, an industrial area in the water catchment area (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 55A major coral bleaching event took place on this part of the Great Barrier Reef (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)

Selected quote -

More did you know -

...that tidal power is a form of hydropower that exploits the rise and fall in sea levels due to tides in order to generate electricity?

... that the recycling symbol is based on the Möbius strip?

... that the global ecological footprint is 1.8 global hectares (gha) per capita?

... that climate change scenarios, Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) were superseded by Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP)?

... that Summer Rayne Oakes has been called "the world's first eco-model" because she only models clothes made from organic or recycled materials?

Main topics

Natural environment

Things you can do

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Article requests : Article requests can be posted at: Natural sciences requests page, Create articles for red-links at Vertical kiln, Environmental behavior, Environmental perception, Environmental writing.
Copyedit : Ecosystem management
Expand : Environmentalist, Environment (biophysical), Environment minister, Environmental emergency, Habitat, Micro-sustainability, Built environment, Pohakuloa Training Area
Maintain : Environment pages needing attention, 2026 in the environment and environmental sciences, Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (delisted as GA)
NPOV : Glyphosate (see Talk:Glyphosate), Energy development, Hydraulic fracturing
Photo : Environmental chemistry
Stubs : Stub categories: Environment, Environmental organizations, International development, Renewable energy, Sustainability, Waste, Water supply, More...
Update : Ecosystem management, Renewable energy transition, List of highly toxic gases
Verify : Appropriate technology, Biosphere, Environmental economics, Environmental engineering, Environmental ethics, Environmental movement, Environmental science, Human overpopulation, Natural environment, Pollution, Sustainable agriculture
Other : * Articles needing expert attention: International development.
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