Environmental Science

Hydrocarbons are a non-renewable resource.

Smog is fog + smoke. 

A natural phenomenon that becomes harmful due to pollution is greenhouse effect. 

Excessive use of pesticides pollutes the lithosphere. Lithosphere is the solid crust from the centre of the earth to the outer surface. It gets polluted due to the dumping of pesticides and herbicides. 

Abiotic factors describe factors like moisture, oxygen, carbon dioxide, light, and minerals that are needed by a plant for survival. Abiotic factors are non-living chemical and physical factors in the environment, which affect ecosystems. It explains such factors needed for the plant survival. 

Biodegradable waste material can be made harmless by the action of certain bacteria on them. 

The Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB, or MaB) of UNESCO was established in 1971 to promote interdisciplinary approaches to management, research and education in ecosystem conservation and sustainable use of natural resources.

A thin layer of oil on water is called oil slick. Oil slicks float on oceans and seas, covering them with a thick film of crude or refined petroleum oil. When freight ships carrying thousands of tons of fuel crash, malfunction, or encounter harsh weather, they spill enormous amounts of oil into the water. 

CFCs are entirely anthropogenic in origin. CFCs are phased out via the Montreal Protocol due to their part in ozone depletion. However, the atmospheric impacts of CFCs are not limited to its role as an active ozone reducer. This anthropogenic compound is also a greenhouse gas, with a much higher potential to enhance the greenhouse effect than CO₂.  

Above the ozone layer, a layer of ions is present, which does not reflect ultraviolet rays, X-rays or infrared rays. While both oxygen and ozone together absorb 95 to 99.9% of the Sun's ultraviolet radiation, only ozone effectively absorbs the most energetic ultraviolet light, known as UV-C and UV-B.  

The feature of organisms to adopt to survive well in a specific environment is called adaptation. The special characteristics that enable plants and animals to be successful in a particular environment are called adaptations.  

Population Explosion is the root cause behind the extinction of biodiversity. Options 1, 3 and 4 represent only the symptoms through which population explosion destroys biodiversity. As the world's population grows unsustainably, so do its unyielding demands for water, land, trees and fossil fuels — all of which come at a steep price for already endangered plants and animals.

The Red List for endangered species is published by IUCN. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data List), founded in 1963, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is the world's main authority on the conservation status of species.  

<span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Arial;mso-fareast-font-family:"Times" new="" roman";background:white;mso-ansi-language:en-us;mso-fareast-language:en-us;mso-bidi-language:ar-sa="">Zn <span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Arial;mso-fareast-font-family:"Times" new="" roman";mso-ansi-language:en-us;mso-fareast-language:en-us;mso-bidi-language:ar-sa;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold="">is a micronutrient. <span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Arial;mso-fareast-font-family:"Times" new="" roman";background:white;mso-ansi-language:en-us;mso-fareast-language:en-us;mso-bidi-language:ar-sa="">Micronutrients such as boron (B), chlorine (Cl), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), molybdenum (Mo) and zinc (Zn) are essential for plant growth. If the micronutrient supply is insufficient, plants may develop deficiency symptoms and yields may be reduced. 

Primary reason for targeting 'biodiversity hotspots' for conservation is the number of species threatened far exceeds our capacity to protect them and we can, therefore, only concentrate on areas of highest species diversity. The biodiversity hotspots hold especially high numbers of endemic species, yet their combined area of remaining habitat covers only 2.3 percent of the Earth's land surface. Each hotspot faces extreme threats and has already lost at least 70 percent of its original natural vegetation. Over 50 percent of the world's plant species and 42 percent of all terrestrial vertebrate species are endemic to the 34 biodiversity hotspots. 

Ultraviolet rays are used to clean water in modern filters.

Radioactive substances can pollute Earth to dangerous levels of toxicity if not handled properly.

The atmospheric layer of ozone normally absorbs more than 99% proportion of UV radiation from the sun.

Van Mahotsav is a week-long festival of tree planting that is organised every year in the month of July all across India and lakhs of trees are planted. It is one of the best ways of preventing Earth from global warming. 

Most of the terrestrial hotspots are found at the Tropics. A variety of approaches has been utilised to identify areas of high species richness and endemism. The<span style="font-size:" 13.3333px;="" line-height:="" 15.3333px;=""> term 'hotspots' was coined by Norman Myers (1988) to indicate areas of high conservation value that are facing significant threats to conservation. In general, species diversity per unit area tends to increase with decreasing latitude, with highest diversity found in the Tropics.