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The biosphere (from Ancient Greek βίος (bíos) 'life' and σφαῖρα (sphaîra) 'sphere'), also called the ecosphere (from Ancient Greek οἶκος (oîkos) 'settlement, house' and σφαῖρα (sphaîra) 'sphere'), is the worldwide sum of all ecosystems.
Biosphere 2, with upgraded solar panels in foreground, sits on a sprawling 40-acre (16-hectare) science campus that is open to the public. The Biosphere 2 project was launched in 1984 by businessman and billionaire philanthropist Ed Bass and systems ecologist John P. Allen, with Bass providing US$150 million in funding until 1991. [7]
The Biosphere, also known as the Montreal Biosphere (French: Biosphère de Montréal), is a museum dedicated to the environment in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is housed in the former United States pavilion constructed for Expo 67 located within the grounds of Parc Jean-Drapeau on Saint Helen's Island .
J.B. Lamarck defined the term biosphere. When modern biologists mention the biosphere they usually mean the best part of the Earth's crust, which is the lithosphere and hydrosphere, and of the lower parts of the Earth's lower parts, which is the troposphere. All these together and the living organisms make up the biosphere.
The major parts of the biosphere are connected by the flow of chemical elements and compounds in biogeochemical cycles. In many of these cycles, the biota plays an important role. Matter from the Earth's interior is released by volcanoes. The atmosphere exchanges some compounds and elements rapidly with the biota and oceans.
World leaders are meeting in Paris this month in what amounts to a last-ditch effort to avert the worst ravages of climate change. Climatologists now say that the best case scenario — assuming immediate and dramatic emissions curbs — is that planetary surface temperatures will increase by at least 2 degrees Celsius in the coming decades.
Earth's biosphere produces many useful biological products for humans, including food, wood, pharmaceuticals, oxygen, and the recycling of organic waste. The land-based ecosystem depends upon topsoil and fresh water, and the oceanic ecosystem depends on dissolved nutrients washed down from the land. [ 269 ]
The more that consumer capitalism contaminates the biosphere, the greater the demand it creates for products that promise to purify or absolve society. But there's no pure state people can ever ...