Man and the environment. evolutionary approach

We all know that humanity has already caused irreparable harm to the environment. The post-industrial era has led to pollution, a reduction in the biodiversity of animals and plants, the industrialization of forest areas and climate change. Of course, plants, factories, production and even agriculture are largely responsible for what is happening to the environment today. However, people hardly think about the fact that the usual things that surround us every day can also become detrimental to our planet. These are everyday items that can become a deadly weapon against the environment.

Accumulators and batteries are in the house of every person, because today it is simply impossible to imagine your life without a huge number of gadgets and electronic devices. However, sooner or later the day comes when the battery runs out. Statistically, only about 15% percent of the billions of alkaline batteries are recycled after use. According to scientists from the US Environmental Protection Agency, batteries account for more than 50% of toxic emissions from all household waste. At the same time, batteries account for 0.25% of all emissions. Used batteries contain mercury, cadmium, magnesium, lead, tin, nickel, zinc. When discarded, batteries corrode (their metal coating is destroyed), and heavy metals enter the soil and groundwater. From groundwater, these metals can get into rivers and lakes. Just one AA battery pollutes 400 liters of water and 20 square meters of soil with harmful components. Harmful substances accumulate in the human and animal body, affecting the work of almost all organs, blocking the work of enzymes and causing malignant tumors.

Discarded plastic bags do not decompose, meaning they can, in fact, remain in nature for an average of about 500 years! Around the world, people use about 4 trillion bags every year: this number kills millions of birds and countless schools of fish. Every year, more than a hundred thousand whales, seals, and turtles die from plastic bags in Newfoundland alone. For these reasons, in a number of countries the use of plastic bags as household packaging is limited or prohibited, and on August 23, the ECA Movement holds an annual action - “A Day Without Plastic Bags”.

Since the 1950s, global plastic production has doubled every eleven years, and about 300,000 tons of plastic waste end up in the seas and oceans every year. There, large fragments gradually break up into small bright pieces, which are often eaten by marine life and birds, mistaking plastic for food. But if in 1960 only 5% of the examined birds had plastic fragments in their stomachs, then in 2010 this figure reached 80%. Birds often mistake floating bottles, lighters and other objects for fish, and not only swallow them themselves, but also bring them as food to their chicks. That's just plastic consists of toxic components and absorbs harmful substances from the environment. In addition, such fragments do not always pass through the gastrointestinal tract and accumulate in the body, causing intestinal blockage. Often so much plastic accumulates in the stomach that there is no room for food, and the bird dies of starvation.

The gases used to put patients to sleep before surgery accumulate in the Earth's atmosphere, where they contribute to climate change. The results of recent analyzes of air samples showed the presence of anesthetics even in Antarctica. Over the past decades, concentrations of desflurane, isoflurane and sevoflurane have been on the rise around the world. Like carbon dioxide, anesthetic gases allow the atmosphere to store more solar energy. However, unlike carbon dioxide, medical gases have proved to be much more powerful than greenhouse gases in this case: one kilogram of desflurane, for example, is equivalent to 2,500 kilograms of carbon dioxide.

It is estimated that out of the 6 trillion cigarettes smoked worldwide each year, more than 4.5 trillion are thrown onto the ground by smokers. So nicotine, toxins, carcinogens and pesticides, which pose a great danger to animals and people, get into the soil, and then into the water. American scientists note that the toxicity of tobacco smoke is four times higher than the harmful effects of car exhaust gases. In their opinion, cigarettes cause no less harm to the planet than cement and asphalt plants.

Paper

Paper is biodegradable, but, as you know, each sheet is cut down trees and destroyed forests, as well as energy costs and environmental emissions during its production. Of course, wood is a renewable resource, but not all countries and companies follow its renewal, trying to use what they have to the maximum. Now many manufacturers offer paper from recycled materials, but this is also not a completely harmless solution. When the paper is processed, all of it is mixed into a pulp. This slurry is washed, cleaned and then pressed into sheets of paper. During this process, all waste such as paper fiber, inks, cleaning chemicals and paints are filtered out and sent to one huge pile - paper sludge. This sludge is then either incinerated or sent to a landfill, where it releases dozens of toxic chemicals and heavy metals that subsequently enter the groundwater.

Do not forget that harm to nature is caused not only by harmful production emissions, mountains of garbage, pollution of rivers and seas, deforestation, destruction of animals and plants, but also by our weekend trips to barbecue or mushroom picking. Naturally, the harm to the environment caused by the bonfire we have lit is incommensurable with what the chemical plant or the landfill for household waste “gives” nature, but it is still noticeable.

Have you ever noticed how a mother, walking with a child in the park, suddenly with an exclamation of “fu, how disgusting!” something diligently presses with a foot? The child is receptive and quickly learns that a butterfly fluttering in a clearing is cute and beautiful, and what crawls underfoot is disgusting and not worthy of life. The lesson learned in childhood will remain for life: "I myself determine what and who are worthy to live and grow on this earth."

Recently, nature has increasingly let us know that it is offended by our stupid activities: either snow will fall where it has never been seen - in Africa or southern Asia, then rains will flood Europe, then drought will leave vast regions without harvest.

Recently, more and more people are beginning to understand that we must learn to live in harmony with nature, to obey the laws of ecology - the science of our common home.

The term "ecology" was proposed in 1866 by the German scientist Ernst Haeckel, who defined it as the science of the relationship of all living things to the environment. In Greek, "oikos" is a dwelling, house, residence, and "logos" is a word, teaching.

We will not delve into the scientific jungle, the essence of ecology can be formulated in one short phrase: "Man, do no harm." But, unfortunately, we harm a lot and subtly, causing irreparable harm to nature. We are already used to the fact that every summer television shows a lot of fires that destroy thousands of hectares of forests. And most of the fires are the work of man.

An unextinguished cigarette butt or coal, a bottle of transparent glass, thrown on dry grass (magnifying glass effect) in dry windy weather, can turn a calm green forest into a fiery hell in a few minutes, in which a lot of living things will perish.

Scientists have calculated that 1 hectare of forest absorbs at least 5 tons of carbon dioxide per year, releasing 10 tons of oxygen during the same time. For example: in one hour, a hectare of forest will absorb all the carbon dioxide released during the breathing of 200 people.

Convincing numbers, right? And there are many such examples.

Do not forget that in city parks and squares there are perhaps not much fewer living creatures than in a wild forest, but they are much more vulnerable and completely dependent on human whims. Our ancestors long ago formulated the basic principles of human behavior in relation to nature. Let's go and follow them.

Try not to keep wild animals at home. Turning them into home in most cases will not work. Most often, your inept "care" is disastrous for them. If you decide to help a wild animal, consider whether you can do it without harming it.

In no case should you bring grown chicks or young animals from the forest. In the vast majority of cases, they are not abandoned by their parents, the parents are simply busy looking for food.

You should not approach animal burrows and bird nests if there are young growth in them, which usually gives itself out by squeaking.

If your dog is poorly educated, in spring and early summer, do not let him off the leash in the park, forest, wasteland, where there may be bird nests or young wild animals. Try not to create unnecessary noise during this period, which scares away birds and animals. Cubs that do not have time to run away after adults may get lost and die.

Take care of the smallest inhabitants of the forest. Don't break webs, just bypass them. Do not destroy anthills and do not step on ant trails.

Unnecessarily, do not turn over stones, snags, old logs, do not break mossy stumps. Under them and in them lives a large number of living beings. If you want to make sure of this, sit down for a while on the sidelines. The anxiety caused by your steps will subside, and lizards will crawl out on the stumps, centipedes will rush about their business, bugs will appear, birds will fuss, a mouse will crawl out of the mink - the forest will begin to live its usual life.

For nature, all living beings are important and necessary, all have their own niche and complex relationships with others. There are no “vile and nasty” among them, so there is no need to put pressure on anyone, to step on anyone. Scary-looking hairy caterpillar tomorrow will turn into a beautiful butterfly and will pollinate flowers.

Try not to disturb the forest soil unnecessarily. Do not forget that a passing car compacts it with its wheels, leading to the death of many living beings. Exhaust gases do not bring benefits to the forest either. It is advisable to walk through the forest along existing paths, without laying new ones unnecessarily. If you go off-road, try not to break or trample the plants.

There is no need to pluck the plants just to admire them. To do this, it is enough to lean towards the flower, which in its natural environment will always look better than in your hands. If there is a need to pluck the plants - for example, when collecting medicinal herbs, do not arrange "total weeding", pluck them a little in different places, trying not to harm other plants.

When collecting mushrooms, berries, nuts, try not to cause unnecessary harm to nature. Do not destroy everything around to get to the coveted mushroom or berry brush. Do not pick all the berries and nuts to the last - besides you, there are still many who have views on them. Do not forget that in nature all plants are needed, this applies to fly agaric, and to pale grebes, and to various tinder fungi.

By the way, collecting our favorite birch sap is by no means harmless to trees. It is difficult to refuse this delicacy, but do not overdo it, and be sure to cover the wounds on birch trees, best of all with garden pitch, you can also use ordinary plasticine.

It is clear that the harm that a particular tourist, hunter or mushroom picker can cause to nature is usually small, but if possible, one should try to minimize it to the limit. Nature generously shares its gifts with us, but also expects careful attitude and care. Don't forget the words of Antoine de Saint-Exupery:

"We are all... on the same planet - we are all crew of the same ship."

When the last tree is cut down, when the last river is poisoned, when the last bird is caught, only then will you understand that money cannot be eaten.
Prophecy of the Cree Indians

• Man appeared on a unique planet, where there was plenty of clean water and clean air - everything that is so necessary for life. Centuries passed, and it seemed to people that it would always be so, that the gifts of nature were inexhaustible. But lately we have noticed more and more that the air has become completely different from what it was before - it becomes difficult for them to breathe. And what have our water sources turned into - rivers and lakes? They became shallow, overgrown with mud and became so dirty that even “purified” water has to be drunk with caution ...

How do we enter the 21st century? What awaits us?

The environmental prognosis, based on facts, is extremely disappointing. Scientists believe that humanity has reached such a level of technical development, at. in which his unbridled economic activity is capable of irreversibly changing the natural environment on Earth, as a result of which an ecological apocalypse will come, that is, the death of all life on our still blue and green planet.

Formally, in Russia, and in other countries as well, measures are being taken to protect the natural environment, international symposiums are being held, and agreements between countries are being signed. So, for example, in 1972, agreements were signed between the USSR and the USA on cooperation in the field of environmental protection. But there are no visible improvements. On the contrary, the severity of the environmental problem is increasing every year: the content of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases, while the amount of free oxygen decreases; Tropical forests are being destroyed before our eyes, rare species of animals and plants are disappearing, fertile lands are dwindling, and supplies of clean fresh water are declining. In a word, nature degenerates. And if nature deteriorates, people begin to be overcome by diseases ...

One of the most important components of the natural environment is the atmosphere. According to researchers, industrial enterprises and thermal power plants annually emit many billions of tons (!) of harmful chemical compounds, ash and dust into the earth's atmosphere. In highly industrialized countries, pollution emissions roughly double every 12 years. Over 40% of all pollution comes from road transport.

Atmospheric pollution has no boundaries. Today, within the troposphere, the air is already polluted throughout the Earth. In comparison with 1965, pollution has increased by about three times. According to geochemists, more than 300 billion tons of carbon dioxide enter the atmosphere every year from the burning of oil, coal, gas and wood! With an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide, the thermal balance of the planet changes: the Earth absorbs more infrared (thermal) radiation, the outflow of heat into space decreases and the average temperature of the surface air layer rises. Therefore, "thermal" pollution causes climate change on a planetary scale.

Some warming, which is currently observed, causes the melting of ice in Antarctica and Greenland, which inevitably leads to an increase in the level of the World Ocean. In the future, this process may become irreversible, and then the rise in ocean level by 5-6 m (due to increased melting of continental glaciations) will pose a serious threat to the population living in low-lying coastal regions of the Earth.

In cities, pollution is usually 5-10 times higher than in rural areas. This is facilitated by industrial and domestic waste dumps that form around cities. Such dumps have become a real disaster for the environment and people. They are a source of pollution not only of the atmosphere, but also of soil, and water basins, and even groundwater.

Recently, the danger has come even from rural areas and due to the widespread use in agriculture of the so-called pesticide he - highly toxic chemicals that are used to control pests of crops. Air currents and waterways, these substances are distributed throughout the Earth. Suffice it to say that even in the stomachs of chinstrap penguins, DDT has been found.

No less serious danger to humanity is the pollution of water sources. It is not only about the purity of our rivers, lakes and reservoirs, but also about the purity of salty sea water. For some reason, it is considered in the order of things to release spent fuel oil directly overboard. Every year, its waste from all ships amounts to tens of thousands of tons (this is in addition to 10 million tons of oil flowing into the oceans as a result of oil tanker accidents). One can imagine what this leads to if every ton of fuel oil or oil spreads on the water surface as a thin film over an area of ​​12 km2, and the ocean is the main supplier of oxygen! On satellite images taken from orbital stations, it can be seen that many thousands of square kilometers of the coastal waters of the World Ocean and the seas are covered with a dark oil film ...

The famous French aquanaut Jacques Yves Cousteau (1910-1997) was concerned about the results of his studies of the deep sea: due to the constant pollution of the oceans, there was a real threat of the complete destruction of many of its inhabitants. In the last 50 years alone, more than a thousand species of marine fauna have disappeared.

If pollutants are present in the atmosphere, iodine and soil, they inevitably accumulate in plants and animals. Man consumes plant and animal food. Consequently, through food, many harmful substances, such as lead and mercury, enter the human body.

At present, it is very difficult to find a place on Earth that has not been exposed to human influence. But, changing natural conditions, a person often does not take into account how this will affect his own health. In an effort to obtain momentary economic benefits, people do not at all think about the irreparable harm they cause not only to themselves, but also to future generations.

Thus, thoughtless human economic activity leads to negative changes in the entire environment and, ultimately, to the complete devastation of nature. In turn, the polluted environment - dying nature - causes mass diseases of people with chronic bronchitis, lung cancer, disorders of the nervous and cardiovascular systems.

All living beings on Earth have always been exposed to ionizing radiation, the source of which is natural radioactive isotopes. They create the natural radioactive background of the planet, to which man has adapted quite well.

But in 1945, in connection with the first tests of nuclear weapons, radioactive substances created by people themselves appeared in the atmosphere. And together with air and water, a person began to swallow them. Radioactive isotopes of strontium and uranium turned out to be especially dangerous for a living organism. Over the years, they accumulate in human bone tissue, which becomes a source of ionizing radiation that causes leukemia - a serious incurable disease.

Now around the world, about 500 nuclear power units are operating at nuclear power plants. And if catastrophes like Chernobyl on April 26, 1986 are repeated, then the possibility of contamination of the entire Earth with the most dangerous strontium-90 is not ruled out ...

As you can see, the problem of nature protection has acquired planetary significance in our days. To deal with the impending threat, the people of the entire Earth must look at their planet as one. Therefore, to successfully solve the global environmental problem, space sensing is indispensable. For the timely detection of sources of pollution, their localization and neutralization, special patrol observations of the Earth from space are needed. Such observations are already being made.

Space methods for operational monitoring of the state of the natural environment are very effective. And only thanks to this, the further development of space research should be recognized as an unconditionally necessary thing. But for a complete solution of the environmental problem, it will be necessary to conduct an offensive along the “all front”.

First of all, it is necessary to take urgent measures to reduce environmental pollution. A promising way is the establishment of a waste-free technological process at industrial enterprises. But even if we create a waste-free land-based industry, it still will not bring the desired result: pollution of the planet will continue to some extent. There is only one way out: to relocate all our industrial production to space.

Some supporters of the environmental movement, the so-called "greens", believe that space technology has a detrimental effect on the natural environment: it pollutes the earth's atmosphere with harmful combustion products of rocket fuel and destroys the ozone layer. Of course, to some extent this happens. But a complete rejection of further space research will not save the nature of our planet from destruction. The most favorable development strategy should proceed from a reasonable combination of contradictory requirements: on the one hand, to preserve the earthly nature, on the other hand, to ensure not only the survival of man, but also his further progress.

The Russian scientist-philosopher Arkady Dmitrievich Ursul put forward a hypothesis about the division and future of social production into terrestrial and cosmic. The first should be predominantly agricultural, the second - industrial. If it is not possible to completely create closed technological cycles, then it is important to develop such an option so that space production waste does not litter the near space - near-Earth space, does not affect the Earth's atmosphere and its nature.

At present, our planet is undergoing an intensive accumulation of radioactive waste, which is formed at nuclear power plants. These wastes pose a deadly threat to humans and the earth's biosphere. Burying containers of radioactive isotopes in deep exhausted mines and on the ocean floor are not the best options. All this for the time being. The trouble can come at any time and it will be worse than Chernobyl!

The solution has long been suggested: the place of nuclear energy is space! In the meantime, it continues to operate on Earth, you should think better: where to put radioactive waste? There are projects for space disposal of this very hazardous waste. For example, removal with the help of rockets outside the solar system - into interstellar space. But from an ecological point of view, the option of burning radioactive waste in the plasma envelope of the Sun is considered the best.

The removal of industrial production from the Earth and the creation of orbital industrial complexes in space is a task that humanity should begin to solve in the second half of the 21st century. Only from the standpoint of space exploration is it possible to solve the ecological catastrophe that has come upon us and save the nature of the Earth. There is no other way.

“All wealth begins from the earth, and the earth loves care,” says a Russian folk proverb. The wise meaning of these words is clear to everyone: a person must fatherly protect and protect nature - our priceless wealth, the source of all our earthly blessings.

Incredible Facts

It's lunchtime, but there's no food at home, so you get behind the wheel and drive to the nearest grocery store.

You walk among the stalls in the hope of buying something. In the end, you choose a chicken and a ready-made salad and return home to enjoy your meal.

Consider how a seemingly harmless trip to the store has affected the environment.

First, driving a car contributed to carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. The electricity in the store is nothing but the result of burning coal, the mining of which has devastated the Appalachian ecosystem.

The salad ingredients were farm-grown and treated with pesticides, which then ended up in water streams, poisoning fish and aquatic plants (which help keep the air clean).

The chicken was raised on a remote poultry farm, where animal waste releases large amounts of toxic methane into the atmosphere. When delivering goods to the store, many modes of transport were involved, each of which caused its own harm to the environment.

Even the smallest human actions initiate changes in the environment. How we heat our homes, power our electrical appliances, what we do with our trash, and where our food comes from all have a huge impact on the environment.

Considering the problem at the public level, it can be noted that human behavior has significantly affected the environment. The temperature of the earth has increased by one degree F since 1975, the amount of polar ice has decreased by 9 percent in just one decade.

We have caused enormous damage to the planet, much more than you can imagine. Construction, irrigation, mining significantly spoils the natural landscape and disrupts important ecological processes. Aggressive fishing and hunting can deplete species stocks, and human migration can introduce alien species into established food chains. Greed leads to catastrophic accidents, and laziness leads to destructive practices.

10. Public projects

Sometimes public works projects don't really work for the benefit of the public. Designed to generate clean energy, for example, dam projects in China have devastated everything around them, flooding cities and environmental waste sites, greatly increasing the risk of natural disasters.

In 2007, China completed 20 years of construction on the world's largest hydroelectric dam, the Three Gorges Dam. During the implementation of this project, more than 1.2 million people were forced to leave their usual habitats, as 13 large cities, 140 ordinary cities and 1,350 villages were flooded. Hundreds of factories, mines, dumps and industrial centers were also flooded, plus the main reservoirs were heavily polluted. The project has changed the ecosystem of the Yangtze River, turning the once-mighty river into a stagnant basin, thereby destroying the local flora and fauna to a greater extent.

Redirected rivers also greatly increase the risk of landslides along banks that are home to hundreds of thousands of people. Nearly half a million people along the river are projected to be relocated by 2020 as landslides are imminent and the ecosystem continues to deplete.

Scientists have recently linked dam building to earthquakes. The Three Gorges Reservoir was built on top of two major fault lines, with hundreds of small shocks occurring since its discovery. Scientists have suggested that the catastrophic 2008 earthquake in China's Sichuan province, which killed 8,000 people, was also caused by the accumulation of water in the area of ​​the dam, located less than half a mile from the center of the start of the tremors. The phenomenon of dams causing earthquakes is due to water pressure building up under the reservoir, which in turn increases pressure in rocks and acts as a softener for fault lines that are already under stress.

9. Overfishing

"There are a lot of fish in the sea" is no longer a completely reliable statement. Humanity's appetite for seafood has devastated our oceans to the point where experts fear the ability of many species to repopulate on their own.

According to the World Wildlife Federation, the global fish catch exceeds the allowable rate by 2.5 times. More than half of the world's fish stocks and species are already depleted, and one quarter of the species is over-depleted. Ninety percent of large fish species - tuna, swordfish, cod, halibut, flounder, marlin - have lost their natural habitat. According to forecasts, if the situation does not change, then by 2048 the stocks of these fish will disappear.

It is worth noting that the main culprit of what is happening are advances in fishing technology. Most commercial fishing boats today are equipped with fishfinder sonar. Once they find the right spot, the fishermen release huge nets, the size of three football fields, that can sweep up all the fish in a matter of minutes. Thus, with this approach, fish populations can be reduced by 80 percent in 10-15 years.

8. Invasive Species

Man throughout the era of the founding of the world was himself a distributor of invasive species. Even though it may seem to you that your favorite pet or plant feels much better in a new place, in fact, the natural balance is disturbed. Invasive flora and fauna have been proven to be the most destructive thing humanity has done to the environment.

In the United States, 400 out of 958 species are listed in the Red List because they are considered to be at risk due to competition with invasive alien species.

Invasive species problems mostly affect invertebrates. For example, in the first half of the 20th century, an Asian fungus destroyed more than 180 million acres of American chestnut trees. As a result, more than 10 species dependent on chestnuts have become extinct.

7. Coal mining

The biggest danger posed by coal mining is climate change, but it also threatens local ecosystems.

Market realities pose a serious threat to coal mining, especially in the United States. Coal is a cheap source of energy - one megawatt of energy produced with coal costs $20-30, as opposed to one megawatt produced with natural gas - $45-60. Moreover, one quarter of the world's coal reserves are located in the United States.

Two of the most destructive forms of the coal mining industry are the extraction of coal from the tops of mountains and the use of gas. In the first case, the miners can "cut down" more than 305 meters of a mountain peak in order to get to the coal deposit. Extraction with the help of gas occurs when coal is closer to the surface of the mountain. In this case, all the "inhabitants" of the mountain (trees and any other creatures living in them) are exterminated to extract valuable minerals.

Each practice of this kind creates a large amount of waste in its path. Extensive damaged and old forest areas are being dumped into nearby valleys. In the United States alone, it is estimated that more than 121,405 hectares of hardwood forests have been destroyed by coal mining in West Virginia. By 2012, it is said that 5,180 square kilometers of Appalachian forest will cease to exist.

The question of what to do with this kind of "waste" is still open. Usually, mining companies simply dump unwanted trees, dead wild animals, etc. in nearby valleys, which in turn not only destroys natural ecosystems, but also affects the drying up of large rivers. Industrial waste from mines finds shelter in riverbeds.

6. Human disasters

Although most of the ways in which man harms the environment develop over a period of years, some events may occur in an instant, but this instant will have far-reaching consequences.

In 1989, the oil spill in Prince Williams Bay, Alaska, had the most serious consequences. Then there was a spill of about 11 million gallons of crude oil, as a result of this accident, more than 25,000 seabirds, 2,800 sea otters, 300 seals, 250 eagles, about 22 killer whales, as well as billions of salmon and herring, died. At least two species, the Pacific herring and the murre dove, did not recover from the disaster.

It is still too early to assess the damage to wildlife from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but the scale of the disaster is unlike anything seen before in American history. Over the course of several days, more than 9.5 million liters of oil were seeping into the bay daily, the largest spill in American history. By most estimates, wildlife damage is still lower than the 1989 spill due to lower species densities. However, despite this, there is no doubt that the damage from the spill will persist for many years to come.

5. Cars

America has long been considered the land of cars, so it's no surprise that one-fifth of all US greenhouse gas emissions come from cars. There are 232 million cars on the roads of this country, very few of which are powered by electricity, and the average car consumes about 2271 liters of gasoline annually.

One car emits about 12,000 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in the form of exhaust gases. In order to purify the air of these impurities, 240 trees will be needed. In America, cars emit about the same amount of carbon dioxide as coal-burning factories.

The combustion process that takes place in a car engine produces fine particles of nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons and sulfur dioxide. In large quantities, these chemicals can harm the human respiratory system, causing coughing and choking. Cars also generate carbon monoxide, a poisonous gas produced by burning fossil fuels that blocks the transport of oxygen to the brain, heart, and other vital organs.

At the same time, the extraction of oil, which is necessary to create fuel and oil for the movement of the car, in turn, also has a serious impact on the environment. Land drilling is crowding out native species, while offshore drilling and subsequent transportation has created an unthinkable amount of problems over the years, as more than 40 million gallons of oil have been spilled worldwide since 1978.

4. Unsustainable agriculture

In all the ways that humanity harms the environment, there is one common trend: we are not able to plan for the future. But nowhere is this more evident than in our method of growing our own food.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, real farming practices are responsible for 70 percent of the pollution in the country's rivers and streams. Chemical runoff, contaminated soil, animal waste, all end up in waterways, of which more than 173,000 miles are already in disrepair. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides increase nitrogen levels and decrease oxygen levels in water.

Pesticides used to protect crops from being eaten by predators threaten the survival of some bird and insect species. For example, the number of bee colonies on US farmland fell from 4.4 million in 1985 to less than 2 million in 1997. When exposed to pesticides, the immune system of bees weakens, making them more vulnerable to the enemy.

Large-scale industrial agriculture also contributes to the process of global warming. The vast majority of meat products in the world are produced on industrial farms. On any farm, tens of thousands of cattle are concentrated in small areas in order to save space. Among other things, the destruction of untreated animal waste releases harmful gases, including methane, which, in turn, has a significant impact on the global warming process.

3. Deforestation

There were times when most of the earth on the planet was covered with forests. Today, forests are disappearing before our eyes. According to the United Nations, 32 million acres of forests are lost every year, including 14,800 acres of virgin forests, that is, land that is not occupied or affected by human activity. Seventy percent of the planet's animals and plants live in forests, and, accordingly, having lost their home, they themselves will face the threat of extinction as a species.

The problem is particularly acute in tropical forests with a humid climate. Such forests cover 7 percent of the land area and provide a home for about half of all species on the planet. At the current rate of deforestation, scientists estimate that the rainforest will be wiped off the face of the earth in about 100 years.

Deforestation also contributes to global warming. Trees absorb greenhouse gases, so fewer trees means more greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere. They also help perpetuate the water cycle by returning water vapor to the atmosphere. Without trees, forests will quickly turn into barren deserts, leading to even more severe fluctuations in global temperatures. When forests burn, trees release carbon into the atmosphere, which also contributes to the problem of global warming. Scientists have calculated that the trees of the Amazon forest have processed the amount of greenhouse gases equivalent to 10 years of human activity.

Poverty is one of the main causes of deforestation. Most rainforests are in third world countries, and politicians there regularly stimulate the economic development of weak regions. Thus, lumberjacks and farmers are slowly but surely doing their job. In most cases, deforestation occurs due to the need to create a farm site. The farmer usually burns trees and vegetation in order to obtain ash, which can then be used as fertilizer. This process is called slash-and-burn agriculture. Among other things, the risk of soil erosion and flooding increases as, over the years, the nutrients from the soil evaporate, and the land is often unable to support the planted crops for which the trees were cut down.

2. Global warming

The average surface temperature of the Earth has increased by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 130 years. Ice caps are melting at an alarming rate - since 1979 more than 20 percent of the world's ice has disappeared. Sea levels are rising, causing flooding, and having a significant impact on catastrophic natural disasters occurring worldwide with increasing frequency.

Global warming is caused by the greenhouse effect, in which some gases channel the heat received from the sun back into the atmosphere. Since 1990, annual greenhouse gas emissions have increased by about 6 billion tons worldwide, or 20 percent.

The gas most responsible for global warming is carbon dioxide, which accounts for 82 percent of all US greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon dioxide is produced by burning fossil fuels, mainly by driving cars and by feeding factories and factories with coal. Five years ago, global atmospheric concentrations of gases were already 35 percent higher than before the industrial revolution.

Global warming can lead to the development of natural disasters, large-scale food and water shortages, and devastating effects on wildlife. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, sea levels could rise by 17.8 - 58.4 cm by the end of the century. And since most of the world's population lives in coastal areas, this is a very big danger for both people and ecosystems .

1. Overpopulation

"Overpopulation is 'the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about,'" says Dr John Guillebaud, professor of family planning and reproductive health at University College London. reduce the population, nature will do it for us through violence, epidemics and famine," he adds.

Over the past 40 years, the world's population has grown from 3 billion to 6.7 billion. 75 million people (equivalent to the population of Germany) are added annually, or more than 200,000 daily. According to forecasts, by 2050 the world population will exceed 9 billion people.

More people means more waste, more demand for food, more production of consumer goods, more need for electricity, cars, and so on. In other words, all the factors that contribute to global warming will only get worse.

Increasing demand for food will force farmers and fishermen to do more damage to already fragile ecosystems. The forests will be removed almost entirely as cities continue to expand and new areas for farmland will be needed. The list of endangered species is getting longer. In rapidly developing countries such as India and China, increased energy consumption is expected to increase carbon emissions. In short, the more people, the more problems.

It is impossible to imagine a healthy humanity without a clean and flourishing living environment.
The psychology of health and long life is, first of all, the education in early childhood in a child of a sense of respect and love for nature.
Nature is not only forests and lakes, it is ALL living things, the whole Cosmos. This is what surrounds a person, this is the primary environment, without which his full, unburdened existence, physical and spiritual health are simply unthinkable. The idea of ​​separating a person from Nature, proclaiming him “the crown of creation and transferring the world of Living Nature and all its riches to his control and undivided use is a violation of the “Initial Balance”. A person is a part of nature. When he ceases to feel himself to be this part, harmony is violated, which leads to disaster.
The destruction of nature always entails consequences, one of which is the irreversible spiritual loss of modern man, cut off from the roots of the people.
It is very difficult to educate, instill love and respect for Nature, creating a huge environmental problem. The senseless mass destruction of animals, trees, water bodies is a threat to earthly prosperity, a harbinger of the death of the living world.
A person needs to think again and understand that without nature, not only healthy offspring, but the very life of mankind is impossible! Change in Nature will lead a person to mutations. Each of us should feel responsible for everything that happens around, for the land that belongs to everyone - who was before us and who will come after us.
The psychology of health and longevity begins with the feeling of being a part of this unique beauty-Nature, with love for insects, dogs and cats ... And this love should be based on such concepts as duty, rumple, conscience.

How to do it?

How much people consider themselves lovers of nature and try to spend a significant part of their free time away from the bustle of the city! After a vacation or a weekend, having breathed fresh air, having a good swim and gaining strength, we return home with new impressions. Love for nature ennobles a person, makes him kinder and cleaner, if only this is true love.

What is our love? Is it mutual? How do we feel about what we love?

Love for the nature of the child

The little man, developing, learns the world. Initially, the potential of love for all living things lives in children. And if a baby, growing up, begins to destroy nature, animals, then adults are to blame, first of all, because the upbringing of love for nature begins already from infancy, and it is very important to instill a sense of responsibility for all life on earth in time.

Learning to love the small

It is important that the child understands that even the smallest creature is worthy of life. Let the education of love for nature begin with insects. One-year-olds actively explore the world, and their attention is attracted by bright butterflies, bugs, ants. The child wants to feel everything, to test for strength. He still does not understand the fragility of the creatures around him, so you need to teach him to take care of even a bug.

Cats and dogs are best friends

Very often, pets become favorites of kids. They perfectly bring up young explorers of the big world. Games with cats or dogs teach the child to take care of animals, to empathize. It is not uncommon to see small children talking to "little brothers". After all, for them, such communication is more useful and better than any toys. And you can't replace it with anything.

Do not feel fear that something is wrong with your child when he tries to pick up the kitten by the tail or poke a finger in the dog's eye. This is not because the baby is cruel. It's just that children get to know the world this way, they need to touch everything, conduct a small experiment. The child does not yet understand that animals experience pain in the same way as people. And your task is to explain it. Explain that animals are fragile and can be hurt or harmed. Do not leave the baby alone with the animal, always control the process of communication so that you can always correct the actions of the child. Your joint pastime is another contribution to the education of love for nature.

Instill love for plants along with animals. Let the baby help take care of indoor flowers. This is also part of nature, which teaches love and spiritual beauty. Let the baby water "his" flower. Let him plant a sprout or seed and watch "his" plant gradually grow. After all, the upbringing of love for nature is laid in the little things, which a little later will give you a kind, caring little man who loves the world around him.

Love for nature adults

For example, consider a couple of situations that almost every one of us has repeatedly observed. Here is a company of young people with large backpacks and bundles gathered, as they often say now, to “hang out” in nature. They took with them a powerful music center and so many strong drinks that would be enough for a company of soldiers. How they will “rest” and what they will bring to their environment is not difficult to guess. Here, somewhere on the banks of a river or lake, they pitched tents, lit a fire. "Well, what's wrong with that?" - you ask. So far, it seems to be nothing, though ... For some reason, the bonfire is complicated not in a clearing, but right in the middle of bushes and trees. The fact that the smoke and heat from the fire will be harmful to plants is not even worth talking about - even, what good, they will laugh at.

And the music? Why not listen to the splashing of water, the sound of trees, the chirping of birds? Isn't that why we finally leave the city? No, the rumbling music filled everything around, and not only the eardrums of young people (who think they are resting) are suffering - nature is suffering. Most of us just for the sake of saying that nature is alive. But it really is! All nature is inhabited by living, conscious entities, which we, having moved away from it for many millennia, have forgotten how to see and hear. Well, we don't even know about their existence. For us, they are only “literature”, images that come from myths and legends, and this is at best. For such entities, such a roar is a real torment, they suffer, and this affects flowers and trees, animals and birds.

And not only the noise suffers nature. It's no secret that most people smoke. Smoking poisons the human body, and for the "essential" living in the forests, where, due to the relative distance from civilization, everything is much cleaner than in the city, this muck is especially painful. Is this love?! And what “gratitude” is sent to us for our notorious lack of conscience by the faithful servants of the Creator and the Lord, who care for nature, can be seen with the naked eye. Dried rivers and lakes, ruined trees, endangered species of animals and much more over the past decades have almost unrecognizably changed even the visible world of the planet, there is nothing to say about the subtle world. What kind of “reciprocity” is there! We don't deserve it!

... And two days flew by in such a frenzy, it's time to return. Around there were broken and withered from the smoke bushes and mountains of garbage. We should take the garbage with us and throw it in a special container, but this never occurs to anyone. For what? After all, they are not going to come back here anymore, there are enough other places, Russia is big. Let others take care of themselves. Sad, if not tragic...

Another example. The men go fishing. But not with fishing rods and spinning rods, but with nets and lines. They catch fish in bags, throw away the change, without thinking about anything - neither about the fact that they pollute the subtle world with their aspirations and deeds, nor about the fact that they seriously violate the ecology of the visible gross material world. And if they are engaged in such "fishing" during spawning, when the process of reproduction is going on? Moreover, for the sake of one caviar (!) gutting and throwing away the most valuable fish, which could not fulfill one of its most important natural tasks - to bring offspring! What kind of love for nature is here, it rather smacks of hatred.

And after all, almost none of us thinks about the fact that we will have to answer for our deeds to the fullest extent - we managed, they say, to circumvent the earthly law, and all right. There is no need to talk about responsibility before God, in whom many do not believe. But even the responsibility to our children, in which each of us “oh, how we believe!”, We ignore, leaving behind chaos, dirt and destruction. It's an unsightly picture, but that's how it really is. True love for nature, no doubt, would help every person to change for the better.

Nowadays, the problems of protecting the natural environment and ensuring environmental safety have become very important. People have seen from their own experience that, unfortunately, no human intervention in nature goes unnoticed, very often rash acts of people have extremely unpleasant consequences. The opinion, widespread in the twentieth century, that man is the conqueror of nature, turned out to be erroneous.

Man is just one of the children of mother nature, and, as it turned out, far from her most intelligent child, because no other creatures destroy the world in which they live. In order to somehow make amends for past mistakes and prevent such mistakes in the future, today humanity pays a lot of attention to such issues as protecting nature, economical consumption of natural resources, caring for animals and plants ...

Once upon a time, people thought lightly that such seemingly insignificant phenomena as the extermination of some kind of insects, deforestation somewhere far away in the taiga, or pollution of a small river, are unlikely to have any serious consequences. However, as practice has shown, even these "little things" can become fatal, because everything in the world is interconnected, so that even the disappearance of the tiniest link in the chain inevitably leads to a violation of the general balance. As a result, we have what we have - global warming, ozone holes, hundreds of species of animals and plants that are on the verge of extinction ...

The people themselves are also suffering, who today are faced with many problems that were unknown to them before - an increase in the number of various diseases among the population, the birth of a large number of babies with certain pathologies, and much more. Today, health care has become one of the main priorities of human society, since the deterioration of the environmental situation has dealt a serious blow to people's health. Excessive human activity and an irresponsible attitude towards nature have turned against us, therefore, if we want to save natural resources for our descendants, who will live many hundreds of years after us, we must now take active measures to protect the environment.

What to do?

We must start small - with the struggle for the cleanliness of our settlement, because ecology is the key to our common prosperous future. When you go to nature to relax, you should take large garbage bags with you and clean up and after you the area where you are relaxing or going to relax (and preferably not only behind you). It is worth setting an example for people, conducting active campaigning everywhere (leaflets, posters, newspapers, explanations), holding mass subbotniks, teaching people to take care of the natural environment, fighting those who stubbornly do not want to change their boorish and consumerist attitude towards Nature (attracting to liability).

Everything returns to normal, everything that we have prepared for ourselves, according to the great Law of Interaction, which is sometimes called the "Law of Sowing and Harvest." It does not matter that we do not know about the existence of the universal and most perfect Laws of the Universe, our ignorance does not relieve us of responsibility. So isn't it better for each of us, before it's too late, to try to look at ourselves from the outside and start doing something right now?

Let's still love, appreciate and respect Mother Nature, because this is ours, in which we live! Let's not mindlessly throw garbage anywhere and everywhere (even travel tickets or a piece of paper from ice cream)! Think! Do it! Teach yourself and others about order and cleanliness! Purely not where they clean, but where they don't litter...

Nature is like a miracle

Can't be understood or understood. That puts on a cold fur coat,
That melts the asphalt into dust.

Rain in the heat is uncontrollably desirable,
Rapid streams ripple.
Soul impulses pacifies
And cleanses thoughts from filth.

People are in a hurry to know all the facets
Mother's native nature.
But they understand that something controls us -
Ignorance does not let through and stands as a wall.

Dreams go to infinity.
The footprints are tangled in the shadows.
Nature reveals eternity
For those who are pure in their thoughts. , http://puzkarapuz.ru/content/289 .