Enhancing forest data transparency for climate action
Environment
1.
2. The biophysical environment is the biotic and abiotic surrounding of
an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors
that have an influence in their survival, development and evolution.
The biophysical environment can vary in scale from microscopic to
global in extent. It can also be subdivided according to its
attributes. Examples include the marine environment, the
atmospheric environment and the terrestrial environment. The
number of biophysical environments is countless, given that each
living organism has its own environment.
3. There are three types of environment:
1. Natural Environment
2. Social Environment
3. Physical Environment
4. The natural environment encompasses all living and non-
living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region
thereof. It is an environment that 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 by components:
• Complete ecological units that function as natural
systems without massive civilized human intervention,
including all vegetation, microorganisms, soil, rocks,
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
activity.
5. The physical environment refers to the physical
components of the area in which youngsters grow, work,
and play. The physical environment can be virtually
anything concrete that children may encounter in their
lives. Though physical in nature, the environment can
influence young people's mental and emotional health as
well as physical well-being. This is distinct from the
emotional, cultural, or learning environments in which
children find themselves.
6. The social environment, social context, sociocultural
context or milieu refers to the immediate physical
and social setting in which people live or in which
something happens or develops. It includes the
culture that the individual was educated or lives in,
and the people and institutions with whom they
interact. The interaction may be in person or through
communication media, even anonymous or one-way,
and may not imply equality of social status.
Therefore, the social environment is a broader
concept than that of social class or social circle.
7.
8. Climate change is first and
foremost an issue because
people can’t even agree on
whether or not it’s an issue
in the first place. Before we
even get into the solutions,
we all need to come to the
realization that yes, climate
change is real and yes, it is
affecting us in ways that we can see and feel. If you
still believe that the freakish weather and heat
waves we’ve been experiencing have nothing to do
with climate change, you might want to ask your
neighbour what he or she thinks because the
majority of Americans now say they believe global
warming is causing these incidents.
9. Deforestation, clearance or clearing is the removal of a
forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter
converted to a non-forest use. Examples of
deforestation include conversion of forestland to
farms, ranches, or urban use. Tropical rainforests is
where the most concentrated deforestation occurs.
About 30% of Earth's land surface is covered by
forests. In temperate mesic climates, natural
regeneration of forest stands often will not occur in the
absence of disturbance, whether natural or
anthropogenic. Furthermore, biodiversity after
regeneration harvest often mimics that found after
natural disturbance, including biodiversity loss after
naturally occurring rainforest destruction.
10. Pollution is the introduction of contaminants
into the natural environment that cause
adverse change. Pollution can take the form of
chemical substances or energy, such as noise,
heat or light. Pollutants, the components of
pollution, can be either foreign
substances/energies or naturally occurring
contaminants. Pollution is often classed as
point source or nonpoint source pollution.
11. Each species has a role in our planet, and when
one dies out, it can have catastrophic effects on
the rest of us. We don’t want to get all “Butterfly
Effect” on you but even a population dwindling
can cause major problems for the human race.
For example, with their role of pollination, the
decline of the bee population has a direct effect
on both the environment and food production.
Currently, many other animals are in danger of
becoming extinct, either from being forced out of
their habitats by man or by climate change.
12. Climate change (are you seeing a trend here?)
also contributes to another dangerous problem –
melting polar ice-caps, which in turn causes
rising sea levels. According to the NRCD, average
temperatures in the Arctic region are rising twice
as fast they are elsewhere and the ice is melting
and rupturing. NASA satellite images reveal that
the area of our permanent ice cover is shrinking
at a rate of 9% every decade. At that rate, the
Arctic could be totally ice-free in the summer
season by the end of the century.
13. Along the coasts of heavily populated
communities, scientists have found more and
more dead zones – areas where depleted oxygen
levels cannot support marine life. 146 dead
zones were found in the world’s oceans, caused
by high levels of chemicals in the waters. North
America’s Gulf Coast has a high concentration of
dead zones, which causes fish to become unable
to reproduce. You might think that if you live on
land, you won’t be affected by oceanic dead
zones but if you eat seafood, seaweed, or care
about air quality, you won’t want to ignore this
issue.
14. 7. Ozone layer depletion
Ozone depletion describes two distinct but
related phenomena observed since the late
1970s: a steady decline of about 4% in the total
amount of ozone in Earth's stratosphere (the
ozone layer), and a much larger springtime
decrease in stratospheric ozone around Earth's
polar regions. The latter phenomenon is referred
to as the ozone hole. In addition to these well-
known stratospheric phenomena, there are also
springtime polar tropospheric ozone depletion
events.