Portal:Environment

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The Environment Portal

The natural environmentcomprises all naturally-occurring surroundings and conditions in which living things grow and interact on Earth. These include complete landscapeunits that function as natural systemswithout major humanintervention, as well as plants, animals, rocks, and natural phenomenaoccurring within their boundaries. They also include non-local or universal natural resourcesthat lack clear-cut boundaries, such as air, waterand climate.

As human populations grow and evolve, their activity modifies the natural environment at a rapidly increasing rate, producing what is referred to as the built environment. The potential of the natural environment to sustain these anthropogenic changes while continuing to function as an ecosystem is an issue of major, worldwide concern. Key environmental areas of interest include climate change, water supply and waste water, air pollution, waste management and hazardous waste, and land use issues such as deforestation, desertification, and urban sprawl.

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100,000-year problem is a discrepancy between the climate response (as measured by proxies for the temperature and extent of glaciations) and the forcing from the amount of incoming solar radiation, or insolation, which has little power on a 100,000 year (100 ka) timescale.

Due to variations in the Earth's orbit, the amount of insolation varies with periods of around 21,000, 40,000, 100,000 and 400,000 years. This is recognised as a key factor in the initiation and termination of ice ages.

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Did you know...

...that recycling aluminium saves 95% of the energy cost of processing new aluminium?

...that the incandescent light bulb has an energy efficiency of only 5%, and the rest of the energy is used to generate heat rather than light?

... that Minamata disease was caused by mercury poisoning due to pollution drained into Minamata Bay in Japan?

... that the average United States citizen consumes 119pg (10−12 g) of dioxin per day?

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Jonathon Espie Porritt, CBE, (born 6 July 1950) is a British environmentalist and writer. Porritt appears frequently in the media, writing in magazines, newspapers and books, and appearing on radio and television regularly. In the 1970s, Porritt was the driving force behind the Ecology Party. As chairman of the UK Ecology Party (now the Green Party) from 1978 to 1984, he presided over changes that made the party much more prominent in elections. Under his stewardship, membership grew from a few hundred to around 3,000. In 1984 his first book, Seeing Green, was published. In this year he also gave up teaching to become Director of Friends of the Earth in Britain, a post he held until 1990.

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Wikinews Environment portal

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Credit: United States military

The detonation of nuclear weapons leads to the release of radioactive material into the environment. This radioactive material affects human health and the natural environment.

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There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things we could use. — Mother Teresa

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