Environment
Environment
ENVIRONMENT
What is Environment?
The purpose of this essay is to familiarize you with the relationship between man and his environment. After reading it you will be able to understand the meaning of Environment and man’s place in the environment. You will also be able to see the complexities of, man-environment inter-change and the impact that has been made on the environment since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
Environment may be broadly understood to mean our surroundings. It can be divided into non-living and living components. The Environment provides resources which support life on the earth and which also help in the growth of a relationship of interchange between living organisms and the environment in which they live. It is important to realise that humans enjoy a unique position in nature due to their exceptional ability to influence and mould the environment. In the recent past the term nature has been used as parallel to word environment. It has been generally believed that nature is what man has not made. In our discussion environment and nature have been used as synonym, which incorporate most of the visible manifestation of geography. Raymond Williams defines nature as ‘the material world itself, taken as including or not including human beings.’
Tracing the history of the term he suggests that ‘nature’ has meant the
‘countryside’, the unspoiled places’, plants and creatures other than man.’
(Keywords, London, 1988. p. 219-223).
Similarly, there are several vantage points from where environment has been studied and most of us follow a complex combination of these methods. There are ecologists who are primarily biological scientists and focus on relationships between environment and the living being in general. Another set of scientists, generally termed as environmental scientists, try to examine the functioning of the earth and the nature of human interactions with it. Declining bio-diversity has
ENVIRONMENT
What is Environment?
The purpose of this essay is to familiarize you with the relationship between man and his environment. After reading it you will be able to understand the meaning of Environment and man’s place in the environment. You will also be able to see the complexities of, man-environment inter-change and the impact that has been made on the environment since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
Environment may be broadly understood to mean our surroundings. It can be divided into non-living and living components. The Environment provides resources which support life on the earth and which also help in the growth of a relationship of interchange between living organisms and the environment in which they live. It is important to realise that humans enjoy a unique position in nature due to their exceptional ability to influence and mould the environment. In the recent past the term nature has been used as parallel to word environment. It has been generally believed that nature is what man has not made. In our discussion environment and nature have been used as synonym, which incorporate most of the visible manifestation of geography. Raymond Williams defines nature as ‘the material world itself, taken as including or not including human beings.’
Tracing the history of the term he suggests that ‘nature’ has meant the
‘countryside’, the unspoiled places’, plants and creatures other than man.’
(Keywords, London, 1988. p. 219-223).
Similarly, there are several vantage points from where environment has been studied and most of us follow a complex combination of these methods. There are ecologists who are primarily biological scientists and focus on relationships between environment and the living being in general. Another set of scientists, generally termed as environmental scientists, try to examine the functioning of the earth and the nature of human interactions with it. Declining bio-diversity has