Environment
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"The most alarming of all man's assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials. This pollution is for the most part irrecoverable; the chain of evil it initiates not only in the world that must support life but in living tissues is for the most part irreversible. In this now universal contamination of the environment, chemicals are the sinister and little-recognized partners of radiation in changing the very nature of the world— the very nature of its life."-- Silent Spring (1962) by Rachel Carson |
The 49th plate from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur of 1904, showing various sea anemones classified as Actiniae.
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Environment refers to a complex of surrounding circumstances, conditions, or influences in which a thing is situated or is developed. Environment is the external forces affecting living things, while nature is the inner force.
It may also refer to:
- Natural environment, all living and non-living things that occur naturally on Earth.
- Built environment, manmade surroundings that provide the setting for human activity, ranging from the large-scale civic surroundings to the personal places.
- Environmentalism, a concern with the preservation of the natural environment.
- Social environment, the culture that an individual lives in, and the people and institutions with whom they interact.
Etymology
From Middle English, from Old French enviruner, environner (“to surround”), from environ (“around”), from en (“in”) + viron (“a turn”), from virer (“to turn, veer”).
