Natural environment

Natural environments are any environment on Earth that includes nature, and is not primarily or solely human creation. It exists in contrast to the phrase, the built environment. The difficulty with the term natural environment and any definition is that all natural environments have been directly or indirectly influenced by humans at some period in time. Some level of human influence is thus allowable without the status of any particular landscape ceasing to be "natural".

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The term's meaning, however, usually is dependent more on context than a set definition. In fact, the informed view is that all natural environments are dependent on the people in and around them, and are a product of the internation between nature and humans. For this reason also, the term ecosystem has been used to describe an environment that contains nature, and includes people. It follows then that environmental problems are human or social problems. Some also consider it dangerously misleading to regard 'environment' as separate from 'people'.

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It is the common understanding of natural environment that underlies environmentalism—a broad political, social, and philosophical movement that advocates various actions and policies in the interest of protecting what nature remains in the natural environment, or restoring or expanding the role of nature in this environment.

Related Topics:
Environmentalism - Political - Social - Philosophical

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Goals usually expressed by environmentalists include reduction and clean up of man-made pollution, with future goals of zero pollution; reducing societal consumption of non-renewable fuels, development of alternative, green, low carbon or renewable energy sources; conservation and sustainable use of scarce resources such as water, land and air; protection of representative or unique or pristine ecosystems; preservation and expansion of threatened or endangered species or ecosystems from extinction; the establishment of nature reserve and biosphere reserves under various types of protection; and, most generally, the protection of biodiversity and ecosystems upon which all human and other life on earth depends.

Related Topics:
Environmentalists - Pollution - Non-renewable fuels - Renewable energy - Conservation - Sustainable use - Water - Ecosystem - Endangered species - Nature reserve

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More recently, there has been a strong concern about climatic changes caused by anthroprogenic releases of greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide, and their interactions with human uses and the natural environment. Efforts here have focused on the mitigition of greenhouse gases that are causing climatic changes (i.e., through the Climate Change Convention and the Kyoto Protocol), and ondeveloping adaptative strategies to assist species, ecosystems, humans, nations and regions in adjusting to these climatic changes.

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