Portal:Environment

 Portal WikiProject Environment Talk page 

Welcome to the Environment Portal (image link)

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 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: Complete ecological units that function as natural systems without massive civilized human intervention, including all vegetation, microorganisms, soil, rocks, 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. 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...) 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 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: Complete ecological units that function as natural systems without massive civilized human intervention, including all vegetation, microorganisms, soil, rocks, 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. 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...) Selected article - The Hanford Site is a mostly decommissioned nuclear production complex on the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington, operated by the United States federal government. Established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project in the town of Hanford in south-central Washington, the site was home to the B Reactor, the first full-scale plutonium production reactor in the world. Plutonium manufactured at the site was used in the first nuclear bomb, tested at the Trinity site, and in Fat Man, the bomb detonated over Nagasaki, Japan. During the Cold War, the project was expanded to include nine nuclear reactors and five large plutonium processing complexes, which produced plutonium for most of the 60,000 weapons in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Many of the early safety procedures and waste disposal practices were inadequate, and government documents have since confirmed that Hanford's operations released significant amounts of radioactive materials into the air and the Columbia River, which threatened the health of residents and ecosystems. The weapons production reactors were decommissioned at the end of the Cold War, but the manufacturing process left behind 53 million U.S. gallons (204,000 m³) of high-level radioactive waste that remains at the site. This represents two-thirds of the nation's high-level radioactive waste by volume. Today, Hanford is the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States and is the focus of the nation's largest environmental cleanup. Did you know - Chemical structure of carbon dioxide ...that many countries that signed the Kyoto Protocol actually increased the greenhouse gas emissions, 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? ... that the recycling symbol is based on the Möbius strip? ... that methane has 25 times the impact of carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas? ... that the average United States citizen consumes 119pg (10−12 g) of dioxin per day? ... that Summer Rayne Oakes has been called "the world's first eco-model" because she only models clothes made from organic or recycled materials? Selected image - Deforestation in Tierras Bajas, Bolivia. Deforestation is the conversion of forested areas to non-forest land use such as arable land, pasture, urban use, logged area, or wasteland. Generally, the removal or destruction of significant areas of forest cover has resulted in a degraded environment with reduced biodiversity. Current events News April 21: European Union to reduce carbon emissions by 55% of 1990 levels by 2030 November 27: Wikinews interviews Craig Farquharson, Liberal Democrat candidate for 2020 Groom by-election November 26: Wikinews interviews Sandra Jephcott, Sustainable Australia candidate for 2020 Groom by-election December 12: Greta Thunberg named 2019 Time Person of the Year Selected biography - Attenborough in 2015 Sir David Frederick Attenborough (/ˈætənbərə/; born 8 May 1926) is a British broadcaster, biologist, natural historian, and writer. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural history documentary series forming the Life collection, a comprehensive survey of animal and plant life on Earth. 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. First becoming prominent as host of Zoo Quest in 1954, his filmography as writer, presenter and narrator has spanned eight decades; it includes Natural World, Wildlife on One, the Planet Earth franchise, The Blue Planet and its sequel. 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. (Full article...) List of selected biographies David Suzuki Rachel Carson John Muir Al Gore Marjory Stoneman Douglas Ernst Haeckel Nicholas Stern, Baron Stern of Brentford June Haimoff Jonathon Porritt Chico Mendes Arne Næss George Monbiot Gro Harlem Brundtland Paul R. Ehrlich Buckminster Fuller Donella Meadows Amory Lovins Elinor Ostrom Wangari Maathai James Bernard Harkin Lester R. Brown Gary Varner Clare Palmer Carol Browner Greta Thunberg Selected organization - Headquarters in Arlington, Virginia (2022) The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a global environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. 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 and has protected more than 119,000,000 acres (48,000,000 ha) of land in its history. it is the largest environmental non-profit organization by assets and revenue in the Americas. (Full article...) List of selected organizations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Greenpeace Brundtland Commission International Union for Conservation of Nature World Wide Fund for Nature The Wildlife Trusts Green Party of Canada Sierra Club General images The following are images from various environment-related articles on Wikipedia. Desert scene in Egypt (from Habitat) Biological nitrogen cycling (from Ecosystem) Environmental science examines the effects of humans on nature, such as the Glen Canyon Dam in the United States (from Environmental science) Flora of Baja California desert, Cataviña region, Mexico (from Ecosystem) Global 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) An Antarctic rock split apart to show endolithic lifeforms showing as a green layer a few millimeters thick (from Habitat) The Earth's atmosphere (from Environmental science) WWF terrestrial ecoregions (from Ecoregion) The Amazon River in Brazil. (from Ecoregion) The 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) Ibex in an alpine habitat (from Habitat) Sequence of a decomposing pig carcass over time (from Ecosystem) This coral reef in the Phoenix Islands Protected Area provides habitat for numerous marine species. (from Habitat) Biodiversity 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) A 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) Twenty-five years after the devastating eruption at Mount St. Helens, United States, pioneer species have moved in. (from Habitat) Loch 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) The leaves of an Alnus nepalensis tree provide a microhabitat for species like the leaf beetle Aulacophora indica. (from Habitat) Proportion 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) Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World (Olson et al. 2001, BioScience) (from Ecoregion) Blue Marble composite images generated by NASA in 2001 (left) and 2002 (right) (from Environmental science) A 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) 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) View 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) Spiny forest at Ifaty, Madagascar, featuring various Adansonia (baobab) species, Alluaudia procera (Madagascar ocotillo) and other vegetation (from Ecosystem) The 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) A conifer forest in the Swiss Alps (National Park). (from Ecoregion) Rich rainforest habitat in Dominica (from Habitat) A map of the Amazon rainforest ecoregions. The yellow line encloses the ecoregions per the World Wide Fund for Nature. (from Ecoregion) Wetland habitat types in Borneo (from Habitat) Dense mass of white crabs at a hydrothermal vent, with stalked barnacles on right (from Habitat) A map of the bioregions of Canada and the US. (from Ecoregion) Rainforest ecosystems are rich in biodiversity. This is the Gambia River in Senegal's Niokolo-Koba National Park. (from Ecosystem) Rachel Carson published her groundbreaking novel, Silent Spring, in 1962, bringing the study of environmental science to the forefront of society. (from Environmental science) Few 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) The 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) Selected quote - Main topics Natural environment Acid rain Biodiversity Climate change Conservation Deforestation Desertification Ecosystem Environmental economics Environmental law Environmental policy Environmental science Environmentalism Environmental technology Global warming Greenhouse gas Green Politics Lists (Books, Dates, Issues) Ozone depletion Recycling Renewable energy Soil retrogression and degradation Sustainable development Waste management Related articles Things you can do This list is transcluded from the tasks list page. To edit the list, click here Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Article requests : Article requests can be posted at: Natural sciences requests page, Create articles for red-links at Vertical kiln, Geoecology, Environmental behavior, Environmental perception, Environmental writing. Copyedit : Ecosystem management Expand : Environmentalist, Environment (biophysical), Environment minister, Environmental studies, Habitat, Micro-sustainability, Built environment, Southeast Asian haze Maintain : Environment pages needing attention, 2024 in the environment and environmental sciences NPOV : DDT (see Talk:DDT), 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. Add links for the Environment portal in related articles: {{Portal|Environment}} Related categories Environment Environmentalism Environmental awareness days Environmental economics Environmental history Environmental humanities Environmental indices Environmental law Environment-related lists Environmental mass media Environmental science Environmental social science Environmental songs Environmental technology Environment by country Human impact Human overpopulation Nature conservation Pollution Renewable energy Sustainability Waste management Related portals WikiProjects WikiProjects Agriculture • Climate change • Disaster management • Ecology • Energy • Energy development • Environment • Forestry • International development • Protected areas • Superfunds • Systems • Urban studies and planning • Water• Sanitation Associated Wikimedia The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject: Commons Free media repository Wikibooks Free textbooks and manuals Wikidata Free knowledge base Wikinews Free-content news Wikiquote Collection of quotations Wikisource Free-content library Wikiversity Free learning tools Wiktionary Dictionary and thesaurus

Discover Wikipedia using portals

• 

  List of all portals

• 

  The arts portal

• 

  Biography portal

• 

  Current events portal

• 

  Geography portal

• 

  History portal

• 

  Mathematics portal

• 

  Science portal

• 

  Society portal

• 

  Technology portal

• 

  Random portal

• 

  WikiProject Portals