Talk:Natural environment

Definition

I'm having a problem with this definition. I'm unsure if the statements are just unclear, or I am fuzzy. Nature and natural contrast with man-made, man-influenced, and unnatural. Of course an urban park like New York's Central Park (as an example) contains much that is natural, but I would hesitate to define it as a "natural environment" despite its clear value in many respects. Is this not the "common" sense, or am I way off base and looking at it instead from a scientist's perspective? Is a corn field a "natural environment? It has great value and is all nature.- Marshman 00:46, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

And right off the top there is clearly a problem in terms:

"In politics and other non-technical contexts, nature or (the) (natural) environment often refers to that part of the natural world"

which links to Nature. It is saying "nature" is that part of "nature" that has value ??? - Marshman 01:04, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The more I read the definition, the more I came to see it as just POV with a very narrow bias. Indeed, the logical extension of the argument was almost the opposite of what most would think the term means (expecially the bit about requiring "value"). The last paragraph seems sensible, the others did not; so I deleted them and replaced them with what I believe is the "common sense" of natural environment. Comments invited. - Marshman 02:02, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

MediaWiki bug?

For some reason, the pipelink from "environment" in the first sentence is being displayed not as a link but in bold. I can't work out why. Could it be a bug? Agentsoo 17:21, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Plain English

This whole page needs a "plain English" rewrite. Andy Mabbett 18:50, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

I think there is a "Simple Englsh" Wikipedia for that. If you are really having trouble understanding this article you can of course improve it, but it seems pretty senior HS/college level to me - Marshman 04:35, 10 August 2005 (UTC) Sorry, but I find placement of such a "tag" more to do with POV than anything real. This article attempts to define the term "natural environment", but certainly could go other places. If you have a better definition, add it to the text. The article that was here previously was pure BS. - Marshman 04:46, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I find your response abusive. I suggested "plain English", not "Simple English", and suggest you read up on the two, which are different. Andy Mabbett 07:56, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Relax folks, it was a simple misunderstanding. If this article can be rewritten to use more everyday terms without losing technical accuracy then by all means do so. Inevitably some topics will use the appropriate technical terms, and you can always read up on them elsewhere, but if they aren't necessary then it would be better to make the article available to a wider audience. Go edit! Agentsoo 09:15, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes it was a bit abusive. Sorry about that. But I really object to tags such as you added. What is wrong with you doing some editing to improve the article? Adding a stupid "Plain English" tag is the same as saying "I cannot understand this article, someone explain it to me". Of course it could use some editing, and I did attempt to Plain English it for you, but I'm suspicious of how people interpret Plain English - I agree with what I read at Plain English but cannot help but think most proponents really want "no big words". Anyway, I abandon all interest in this article. I have no desire to get sucked into a conflict with difficult people - Marshman 17:12, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Andy's point, above, that the article can use some plain english editing. However, I don't find the "cleanup" tag appropriate, so I've removed it. Marshman's concerns seem to have been reflected in the lead, so I think it is becoming a much better article and, with more editing, should be a fine article. Sunray 04:19, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Collaboration of the Week Nomination (August, 2005)

This article was nominated for a COTW in August, 2005. The discussion is here - Wikipedia:Collaborations_of_the_Week/Natural_environment. Jtneill - Talk 01:22, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Article Improvement Drive for Wilderness

A closely related article, Wilderness is currently nominated on the AID. You may wish to vote and discuss.

Poor article

84.13.247.151 wrote "this page is really ribbish im sorry but it does not state the defitintion of the natural environment in its easiest form.".

Thank you for your comment. please in future put comments of this nature on the talk page (i.e. here) not on the main article.--NHSavage 15:19, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Definition revisited

The definition of nature does not exclude humans. SO why should humans not be included as a part of the natural environment? I'm not convinced that this article satisfies the NPOV criteria. Sholto Maud 02:01, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

There are so many more topics that this article could face, like climate change

This article should be telling people more about the environment and raising awareness. Why does it not talk about the Kyoto agreement in more detail? Or the fact that the USA is not willing to cut carbon emissions? In other words this article should be more in tune with the current day. When people talk about the environment they don't talk about a definition of the word environment, no they talk about the melting glaciers, the Greenhouse gases, the fact that the world could be facing a climate change. There are so many current issues this article is not facing. It is a good article but it could be a great article and then Wiki could be proud of the fact that it increased awareness for the environment. Who agrees?87.113.89.18 11:56, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Please create more "Wildlife of ....." articles for all countries.

.... and kindly contribute to these new articles when you get time, and request others too.

See Wildlife of India for reference.

Thanks

Atulsnischal 18:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Invitation for Wikipedia:WikiProject Protected areas of India & Conservation

If you are interested in Environment, Wildlife, Conservation and Nature etc. please join in to contribute, even starting off with making new stub class articles will be a great contribution.

Sincerely

Atulsnischal 16:36, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

We need senior administrators or people who are long in Wikipedia to help us with the templates and for other further helps. Details can be seen in its talk page. IT's urgent. We want this wkiproject to be added to the exsisting WP:IND banner. Amartyabag ^TALK2ME 05:02, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Introduction

This is a badly written introduction. In addition to utilizing some borderling caveman english, it is far from NPOV. Consider the following piece on the idea of the natural environment being free of human interference:

...this is incorrect because the natural environment comprises all living things

including human beings. The only distinction is an irrational prejudice on the basis

of species alone, which non-human animal rights supporters call speciesism - that is,

differentiating humans from other animals purely on the grounds that they are human.

I think it is most certainly widely considered reasonable to consider the natural environment to be any place growing "naturally" and relatively free from human influence. Consider that the opposite of natural is artificial, which wiktionary defines firstly as Man-made; of artifice. Also, using the word "irrational" to describe someone else's viewpoint is rude and usually POV. I might also note that talking about "non-human animal rights supporters" is humorous. I know what this person was trying to say, but everyone understands the meaning of "animal right's supporter" by itself, and the distinction is unnescessary. Tell me what you think. --Vlmastra 18:38, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Two Different Meanings for the Term

I regret that such an important concept received such a poor article (I myself don't have any knowledge to improve it). It seems that the expression "natural environment" has two different meanings in the article:

1. In the opening paragraph, "the natural environment" (with definite article) is described as all natural things on earth.
2. in the Terminology section, "a natural enivronment" (with indefinite article) is described as any region or landscape with little human intervention.

These two meanings are quite different from one another. Do they really exist in parallel? If someone could improve the article and make things clearer, that would be great. Gidip 20:12, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

natural environment vs. human environment

There is no such thing as "natural environment". There is, however an environment for each species. There is a rat's envoirment, and it can easily be defined as all that surrounds rats. Just the same, there is the human environment: it is all that surrounds humans. It's pretty clear to me. As to the boundary between natural and artificial: it doesn't exist either. All is natural. 86.127.186.205 (talk) 12:44, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

"Natural" has the implicit meaning of that which is not modified by human activity. Therefore there can be a continuum from natural at one end to artificial at the other and as you mention there is no real boundary. On this continuum "all is natural" only occurs at one end and there is different degrees to how natural something is along the rest of the continuum. -- Alan Liefting-talk- 20:47, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

All is modified by human activity, just as all is modified by rat's activity. It's all interconnected. The natural vs. artificial dichotomy is not only imaginary but also quite harmful. 89.123.37.241 (talk) 08:12, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Free market environmentalism

Would anyone be interested in collaborating on the FME article? I think it would be good to get it to FA status in time to get it posted to the Main Page as TFA on April 22, 2008 (Earth Day). I know the basic principles of FME but will have to do some more research to become the mini-expert on the subject needed to bring it to FA status. If you want to learn more, a good starting point is http://www.perc.org/ . I just got done writing another FA almost singlehandedly and it was a rather arduous experience; I decided it's probably much more fun to have a co-author(s) to bounce ideas off of, share the gruntwork with, etc. If I hear nothing, I may delay it till Earth Day 2009; we'll see. Sarsaparilla (talk) 14:39, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

nature

nature. i want to learn about nature —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.89.99.122 (talk) 20:06, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikiproject Earth

Hello i have recently proposed the Wikiproject Earth. This Wikiproject`s scope includes this article. This wikiproject will overview the continents, oceans, atsmophere and global warming Please Voice your opinion by clicking anywhere on this comment except for my name. --Iwilleditu^{Talk :)Contributions} —Preceding comment was added at 15:42, 30 March 2008 (UTC) Y... no se me ocurre nada más!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.253.244.66 (talk) 18:38, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Difference between Biosphere and environment?

I am not an expert in ecology. However I find the descriptions of environment and biosphere very simar in that it includes all living organisms and non-living things. the life section does not make it clear where biosphere and life stant in context of the environment and provide a cut and paste from respective articles. Please Clarify this... BR/RG —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.100.252.243 (talk) 20:04, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

The biosphere has a fixed boundary - that which contains all life on Earth. Environment is something that is defined by the context in which it is used since the spatial parameters or other characteristics vary. Natural environment is all the parts of the environment that have not had any alteration due to human activity. This becomes a bit of a subjective definition since the complete planet has now had some change due to our activity. However, different areas have had a lesser degree of impact than others. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 22:46, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Fixed Link

Fixed an open reference and a header. La Alquimista 15:57, 4 January 2009 (UTC) soni umi maro —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.110.14.1 (talk) 18:09, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Too many images

I feel that the article has too many images. Anyone agree? -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 06:44, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Keep It All Clean

You know how everyone is always saying to help the enviroment? Well, I think that it's all rubbish if you don't take it a step at a time. First, we should clean up, recycle less paper for air pollution and recycle more things like aluminum. Then go through parks and see if there's any trash, and get that cleaned up. Then, we can try to clean up the oceans, and stop what started it all. Us. Not U.S., us. All of us, little by little, started it all. So pick up after yourself, just like you would in your own home, but pick it up so other people can have a home. You're not doing it for you, but for all of us. Everyone, every animal. Plant trees, make gardens, take pictures, whatever it takes to make people notice. Get your whole neighborhood to turn their lights off at a certain time every night. Make a backyard garden with a birdfeeder and plants that attract butterflies. Do things to help, not destroy. Think about this. Take my message to heart, you'll know there.24.10.151.21 (talk) 21:20, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Merge nature and natural environment

(Similarities came up at [1]) The content and coverage seem very similar - I can't see any reason to have two articles. No suggestion as to what is the best title.87.102.43.94 (talk) 15:51, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Don't merge nature and natural environment articles

96.41.164.58 (talk) 07:56, 9 June 2010 (UTC) The term "Nature" includes outer space, other planets, the solar system, other solar systems, the universe, physics etc. The term "Natural environment" is generally used to describe the environment of the planet Earth.