The reasons behind the environmental crisis. Main trends of the modern environmental crisis

The lecture covers the following issues:

7. Natural causes of environmental crises: regional crises and global crises.

8. Humanity is one of the causes of regional and global environmental crises.

9. Features of ecological systems of the monsoon climate in the south of the Far East.

10. The ecological role of steppe and forest fires in accelerating the biological cycle.

11. Rhythmic climate changes and ecosystem dynamics.

12. Anthropogenic ecosystems and their ecological imperfections.

13. Ecological resource of the south of the Far East: principles of its rational use.

14. Energy and material inefficiency of modern civilization in comparison with the biosphere using the example of the south of the Far East.

15. Some principles of optimal organization of production and technological circulation of matter.

16. Can humanity avoid environmental disaster?

The lecture was given on March 29, 2012 at the "Professor's Readings" at the Institute of Technology and Business in Nakhodka for teachers of schools and universities in the city and region. Judging by the reaction of those listening, the information contained in it was not useless to them. I think it will not be useless to teachers, students and students of other villages and cities of Russia.

Ecology has now become a worldview science; numerous articles and monographs, textbooks and teaching aids are devoted to the issues of Human survival on the planet and maintaining balance in the biosphere. As an academic discipline, ecology is studied in almost all university faculties (Petrov, 1998; Kolesnikov, 2003; Nikolaikin et al., 2003; Khotuntsev, 2002; Shilov, 2003; etc.) However, there are still many problems that have not been solved by modern ecology . And the number of publications on ecology does not make up for the lack of ideas and theoretical concepts.

The causes of environmental crises are sudden changes in climate, atmospheric and soil composition, destruction of plant communities and animal populations, increased radiation and other factors that sharply throw ecosystems out of balance. In a state of equilibrium, all components of an ecosystem are in a state of fluid equilibrium with each other. If deviations occur in one component of the ecosystem, then other components change in such a way that this component returns to its normal state. Self-regulation in an ecosystem occurs due to direct and feedback connections. Each ecosystem has limits for changing parameters within which it can still return to its equilibrium state. But when the change exceeds these limits, the system collapses or goes into a new equilibrium state, in which the rate of each component will be different. For example, if you selectively remove 10-15% of trees from a forest stand, then the forest ecosystem will recover in a few years, and new trees will grow in place of the felled trees, renewed from seeds preserved in the soil. But if you cut down all the trees, uproot the stumps and plow the land, the forest ecosystem will not recover. It can arise here again if the field stops plowing, and the seeds of those types of trees, shrubs and grasses, spores of mosses, mosses and ferns that previously grew here fall into this place. But this will take a lot of time.

I have already written that conditions on Earth do not remain unchanged, and these changes occur cyclically and acyclically. The circulation of the atmosphere and the structure of sea and ocean currents change, blocks of the earth's crust move apart or shift, some seas and oceans disappear and others appear in other places. If we could see a map of the globe that existed 500 million years ago, we would not recognize that this is our planet, the outline of the seas and land has changed so much since then.

Problems of our time

The environmental crisis represents a special level of interaction between the environment and society, in which differences between politics and ecology are exacerbated to the limit. The reason for this is usually an increased satisfaction of the interests of society and ignoring the problems of using the environment, as well as its timely protection and conservation. In other words, this is a critical state of living and inanimate nature, which is caused by the increased activity of mankind. The modern environmental crisis has spread to all countries that support scientific and technological progress. The active development of mechanical engineering, energy, chemical and food industries inevitably influenced the processes existing in the biosphere. As a result of intensive consumption of energy and material resources, population growth has increased significantly, which only aggravated the situation - pollution of the biosphere, destruction of existing ecosystems, changes in the structure of land cover, as well as changes in climatic conditions.

From the depths of time to the present day

The first ecological crisis occurred back in the days of primitive man, when the human population exterminated almost all large mammals. Due to the acute shortage of food resources, people were forced to engage in gathering, farming and animal husbandry. However, this is precisely what marked the beginning of the confrontation between man and nature. Over time, primitive society moved further and further away from the usual and natural cycle of nature, which was based on the interchangeability of components and the wastelessness of various processes. Thus, humanity and nature became so disconnected that the individual’s return to the natural environment became practically impossible. In the second half of the twentieth century, society faced another global environmental crisis.

Causes

Since man is an important component of the ecosystem in which he lives, social and natural relations can also be considered a single whole, which is modified under the influence of production activities. Environmental disaster is becoming a global concept that affects every individual. Let us list the main facts that may indicate an approaching environmental crisis:

Ways to solve the problem

Modern ecologists have identified several areas that can be used to stop the environmental crisis or minimize its consequences.

1. Widespread introduction of low-waste and waste-free production, improvement of existing technological processes.
2. Administrative and legal impact on the planet's population to increase the effectiveness of environmental discipline.
3. Economic protection of the biosphere.
4. Educating the population and developing environmental education.

The search for the causes of environmental degradation and the solution of environmental problems, which have arisen, although not recently, began quite late in the history of human society. However, as life shows, the study of ecological balance reduces the possibility of its restoration and investment of capital brings greater profits. They did not appear as economic problems until they threatened the very way of organizing the production process, an organization that is based on and cannot be carried out without increasing exploitation of two sources of wealth: the land and the worker.

Moreover, the answers given to the question of why environmental disturbances occur are often varied and incomplete, and some of them are class-based and cannot be considered scientific at all. For example, the central problem, due to which the specific difficulties of the natural environment are only symptoms, is that humanity is systematically reducing the capabilities of the natural environment, destroying what it has. However, this answer is not complete, because... does not reveal the socio-economic relations in which production is carried out, the features of technologies leading to environmental violations, because degradation of the natural environment arises not only as a consequence of the “development” of nature with the development of productive forces, but also when these productive forces are used in production within certain social-ecological relations. Production, from the very beginning guided only by profit, showed its destructive attitude towards the natural environment.

Today, ecological imbalance comes in many forms. It can be said that there is a consensus that the main forms are: irrational exploitation of non-renewable natural resources (sources of raw materials and energy), accompanied by the danger of quickly being depleted; pollution of the biosphere with harmful waste; a large concentration of economic facilities and urbanization, the impoverishment of natural landscapes and a reduction in free areas for recreation and treatment. The main reasons for these forms of expression of environmental crisis are rapid economic growth and accelerated industrialization leading to urbanization.

Rapid economic growth, based on the development of productive forces, ensures their further development, improvement of working conditions, reduction of poverty and increase in social wealth, increase in the cultural and material wealth of society and increase in average life expectancy.

But at the same time, the consequence of accelerated economic growth is the degradation of nature, i.e. disturbance of ecological balance. With the acceleration of economic development, the economic development of nature is accelerating, the use of natural materials and all resources is intensifying. With the exponential growth of production, all production resources grow, the use of capital increases, the waste of raw materials and energy and solids and wastes, which increasingly pollute the environment so that the pollution of nature occurs along an exponential curve.

The consequences of urbanized economic growth for the natural environment are multifaceted; first of all, the more intensive use of natural resources, primarily irreplaceable ones, puts us in danger of their complete depletion. At the same time, with the increasing exploitation of natural resources, the amount of waste introduced into nature increases. The enormous waste of raw materials and energy that accompanies industrial development directs modern technology to the rapid search for natural resources. And the production of secondary products increases the mass and number of new substances that do not exist in nature and that do not have natural assimilators, thus, more and more materials appear in the ecosphere that are not inherent to it and which it cannot process or use in its life processes. We can freely agree that the specificity of the modern environmental situation stems both from the increasing human impact on nature and from qualitative changes caused by the quantitative growth of productive forces in the world. Both the first and second points are based on modern scientific and technological progress, the dominant production technology, which are mainly created by developed capitalist countries. The development of engineering and technology is primarily focused on the unilateral exploitation of natural sources, and not on their renewal and expanded reproduction; this leads to the accelerated development of rare non-renewable resources. New technology, in turn, introduces changes into the natural environment that are not evolutionarily adapted to the prevailing conditions in it, whether we are talking about new processes and reactions, or mass production in a short time. These relatively rapid changes differ from the rhythm of natural processes, where mutations occur over fairly long periods of time. This discrepancy between the evolutionary course of natural macroprocesses and changes as a result of human activity in individual components of the natural system creates significant disturbances in the natural environment and is one of the factors of the present environmental crisis in the world.

The degradation of the natural environment and the resulting environmental disturbances are not the product of technological development alone and are an expression of temporary and random disturbances. On the contrary, the degradation of the natural environment is an indicator of the deepest industrial civilization and a super-intensive mode of production. Since the industrial system of capitalism greatly increases the possibilities of production and power over the natural, it also contains the seeds of a systematic dispersion of human and natural forces. Economic expansion of production potential, where the only rational thing is that it brings profit (power, money and opportunities), is achieved at the cost of dispersing natural sources and ambient... Production based on three pillars: profit, opportunity, prestige - on artificial stimulation of needs, artificial wear and tear and accelerated replacement of production products becomes one of the main causes of disruption to nature. Therefore, the protection of the natural environment from degradation, or rather the protection of the natural environment, and improvement in modern society cannot occur in inhumane relations based on the blind pursuit of profit.

In an economy that aims to maximize profits, there is a combination of factors: natural sources (air, water, minerals, which were until now free and for which there was no substitute); means of production, representing real estate capital (which wears out and needs to be replaced with more powerful and efficient ones), and labor force (which also needs to be reproduced). The struggle to achieve a goal has a decisive impact not only on the way in which these factors are combined, but also on the relative importance that is attached to each of these factors. If, in the combination of these factors, the enterprise is only interested in producing the maximum commodity value at the minimum cost expressed in money (monetary), then it strives to ensure the greatest functioning of rare and expensive machines, and as for the physical and mental health of workers, they can be changed frequently , and it's inexpensive. The company also strives to reduce its costs and does this mainly due to environmental balance, because the destruction of ecological balance does not burden them. The logic of an enterprise is to produce something that can be sold at a high price, even if valuable (useful) things can be produced at lower costs.

Over the last century, human economic activity has led to very serious pollution of our planet with various production wastes. Air, water and soil in areas of large industrial enterprises often contain toxic substances, the concentration of which exceeds the maximum permissible norm. Since the causes of significant excess of MPCs are quite often observed, there is an increase in diseases associated with environmental pollution. Over the past decade, the media and experts, followed by the population, have begun to use the term environmental crisis (EC). An ecological crisis is an irreversible critical state of the surrounding nature, threatening human existence and reflecting a discrepancy in the development of productive forces and relationships.

When asked how dangerous the current environmental situation is, even scientists answer differently. Their view can be divided into three fundamentally different positions:

• 1. The current situation in the world is represented by a global environmental crisis, which could soon lead to disaster (N.N. Moiseev, V.A. Zubakov, N.F. Reimers, B. Commoner, A. Peccei and others). Its supporters believe that the crisis that we are just entering has an analogue in the distant past. Most consider the Late Paleolithic crisis to be such, which allows the Neolithic revolution to receive, for a certain prototype, the desired way out of the global environmental crisis.
• 2. The world has already entered a global environmental catastrophe (based on the research of V.G. Gorshkov and developed by K.Ya. Kondratyev, K.S. Losev, V.P. Kaznacheev, etc.). In their opinion: “Now we are all living in a period of developing global environmental catastrophe caused by the economic activities of mankind, which in a matter of decades has upset the balance maintained by the biosphere for billions of years...”
• 3. At the moment there is no global environmental crisis, there are only local causes of pollution (A.O. Brinken, S.B. Lavrov, Yu.P. Seliverstov).

The formation and development of human society was accompanied by regional and local environmental crises of anthropogenic origin. It can be assumed that on the path of humanity ahead of scientific and technological progress, intrusively, like a shadow, they are accompanied by negative aspects, the sharp aggravation of which leads to an environmental crisis. But earlier there were regional and local crises, since the very influence of man on the environment was predominantly regional and local in nature, and has never been as important as in the modern era. The current environmental situation is fraught with global ecological collapse, since modern man is destroying the mechanisms of the integral functioning of the biosphere on a planetary scale. Crisis points, both in the problematic and in the spatial sense, are becoming more and more numerous, and they turn out to be closely interconnected, forming a kind of network that is becoming more and more frequent. It is this situation that allows us to consider the presence of a global environmental crisis and the threat of an environmental catastrophe.

First of all, it is necessary to separate the definitions of “global environmental crisis” and “local environmental crisis”. A local crisis manifests itself in a local rise in the level of pollution - thermal, noise, chemical, electromagnetic - due to one or more closely located sources. Typically, a local crisis can be less or more easily overcome by administrative or economic boundaries, for example, by improving the technological process at the polluting enterprise or by repurposing or closing it.

The most serious danger is posed by the global environmental crisis. It is the result of all the total economic activities of our civilization and is revealed in changes in the characteristics of the natural environment on a planetary scale and, therefore, is dangerous for the entire population of the Earth. Dealing with a global crisis is much more difficult than a local one, and this task will be considered solved only if the pollution produced by humanity is minimized to the limit that the nature of the Earth will be able to cope with on its own.

Professor at Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosova G.V. Lisichkin, in his article “The Ecological Crisis and Ways to Overcome It,” said that currently the global environmental crisis includes four significant components: the greenhouse effect, acid rain, pollution of the planet with super ecotoxicants and ozone holes.

Acid rain is precipitation whose acidity is lower than 5.5. This acidification of precipitation occurs as a result of nitrogen and sulfur oxides entering the atmosphere. Sources of pollution are mainly associated with the combustion processes of oil, coal and natural gas, which contain organosulfur compounds. Nitric oxide, a precursor of nitric acid, enters the atmosphere mainly as part of flue gases from thermal power plants and exhaust from internal combustion engines. Acid precipitation has a detrimental effect on the biosphere, works of art, and technical structures. It was found that under the influence of acidic snow and rain (atmospheric precipitation), the hydrogen index of thousands of lakes in Europe and North America has greatly decreased in recent years, and this has led to a sharp deterioration in their fauna and the disappearance of many species of organisms. Acid precipitation also causes forest degradation: in Northern Europe, approximately 50% of trees were severely affected by it. As acidity decreases, soil erosion sharply worsens and the mobility of toxic metals increases.

The greenhouse effect is characterized by heating of the inner layers of the atmosphere due to the absorption of “greenhouse gases”. This effect significantly leads to climate change, which is fraught with unpredictable consequences. For example, to the rise of the level of the World Ocean, the flooding of low-lying land areas due to the melting of Antarctic and Arctic ice. The main sources of “additional” carbon dioxide that cause the greenhouse effect are car engines, the furnace of thermal power plants, forest fires, that is, sources directly related to human technological activity.

The next component of the global environmental crisis is the contamination of the Earth's surface with super ecotoxicants, which include polychlorinated biphenyls, chlorodioxins, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, some heavy metals (lead, mercury and cadmium) and long-lived radionuclides. All these sources of pollution enter the environment as a result of accidents in factories with chemical technological processes, incomplete combustion of fuel in internal combustion automobile engines, ineffective wastewater treatment, accidents in nuclear reactors, and even the disposal of polymer products in garden plots in fires. Super-ecotoxicants affect the human body, leading to numerous chronic diseases, allergies, increasing mortality, and disrupting the genetic apparatus of humans and animals.

As you know, the ozone layer absorbs biologically active ultraviolet radiation from the Sun, which is dangerous for all living creatures on earth. Observing the ozone concentration in the ozone layer, which was carried out only over the past few decades, its significant local decrease is recorded (up to 50% of the initial one). Such places are called "ozone holes", mainly found over Antarctica. At present, their quantitative accounting is impossible, so there is no single explanation for the reasons for the formation and tightening of ozone holes. However, the media and educational literature are actively disseminating the freon theory of ozone layer destruction. Its essence lies in the fact that freons (chlorofluorocarbons) are widely used as refrigerants, plastic foaming agents, gas carriers in aerosol cans, and fire extinguishing agents. Having carried out its working function, most of the freons enter the upper part of the atmosphere, where, under the influence of light, they are destroyed to form free chlorine atoms.

In this way, one chlorine atom can destroy at least 10 thousand ozone molecules. It should be noted that ideas about the role of freons in the destruction of the ozone screen of our planet are only a hypothesis. With its help, it is difficult to explain the reasons for the periodic decrease in ozone concentration over Antarctica, while in Europe and the USA at least 90% of freons enter the atmosphere.

There is another hypothesis for the formation of ozone holes, based on the interaction of ozone with methane and hydrogen flows entering the troposphere through cracks in the earth’s crust, especially since the geographic coordinates of ozone holes are close to the coordinates of crack zones in the earth’s crust. If this is actually the case, then the variation in ozone concentration must be attributed to natural factors. This assumption does not mean the likelihood of comprehensive and uncontrolled use of freons in technology and everyday life, since any artificially synthesized substance, only in large quantities, can pose an environmental threat.

The main ten parameters (indices) of the global environmental crisis, which V.A. Zubakov are:

Technogenesis indices

Biosocial indices

• 1. Nature-conquering ideology;
• 2. The natural is replaced by the artificial and waste is formed;
• 3. Demographic explosion - due to exponential population growth;
• 4. Geochemical pollution of the environment - soil, air, water;
• 5. Exponential growth of socio-economic differentiation;
• 6. Radiotoxication;
• 7. Metallization;
• 8. Chemotoxication;
• 9. Large-scale increase in military conflicts;
• 10. Noise pollution of the biosphere.

Professor G.V. Lisichkin identified four main causes of environmental pollution:

• 1. Economic reasons. The very high cost of treatment facilities and other means of environmental protection, which sometimes reaches a third of capital investments, often forces administrators and business executives to save on the environment by building new production facilities. The costs of a market economy associated with the pursuit of profit, and a planned economy, burdened with ideological dogmas, undoubtedly lead to the emergence of an environmental crisis.
• 2. Scientific and technical reasons. It is important to understand that the main part of the flow of pollution that enters the atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere of the Earth is determined not by the desire to gain maximum profit, but by objectively significant scientific and technical difficulties. It should be understood that only a small part of the chemical processes used in industry occur with quantitative yield and 100% selectivity. In most cases, along with the target product, a range of by-products is created, for complete utilization, which requires an infinitely huge amount of capital investment. In practice, therefore, a certain acceptable level of pollution is established, which ensures a reasonable level of costs.
• 3. Low level of knowledge. Today, people who make responsible technical decisions and do not master the basics of natural science are socially dangerous to humanity. Many of the disasters that have already occurred and, possibly, future ones are associated with the illiteracy of technical performers and managers. For example, a disaster in the product pipeline, which pumps a wide fraction of light hydrocarbons from northern fields, which in case of leakage can form a gas-air explosive mixture. environmental crisis greenhouse acid
• 4. Low level of culture and morality. It is absolutely likely that in order to protect nature, it is necessary that every person involved in industrial or agricultural production, with household chemicals, be not only environmentally literate, but also aware of their responsibility for actions that cause significant harm to nature. Unfortunately, one can often observe how a driver puts his car in the river for washing, how a barge sailor pours a bucket of diesel fuel overboard, how workers in motor transport enterprises burn old tires, how rural machine operators look indifferently at a pile of torn fertilizer bags lying among fields.

1.Introduction……………………………………………………………..page 3

2.What is an environmental crisis…………………...page 4

3. Threat of environmental crisis…………………………………….pages 4-6

4. Causes of the environmental crisis………………..pp.6-9

5. Atmospheric pollution…………………………………………..p.11-15

6.Water pollution…………………………………………………….pages 15-17

7. Animal protection…………………………………………………….pages 17-19

8. Vegetation protection……………………………………………pages 19-20

9. Conclusion……………………………………………………………pp.20-21.

Introduction.

Man is a part of nature and, as a biological species, his activities have influenced nature for a long time, but no more than many other organisms. The development of society occurs in the process of constant interaction with nature. The transformative influence of man on nature is inevitable. The changes introduced by its economic and other activities into nature intensify as the productive forces develop and the mass of substances involved in economic circulation increases. Particularly large changes in nature were made by man under capitalism with its high industrial technology and private ownership of the means of production. The development of industry required the involvement of a wide variety of new natural resources into economic circulation. In addition to expanding the scale of use of land, forests, and wildlife, intensive exploitation of mineral resources, water resources, etc. began. The exploitation of nature, increasing in its pace and scale, led to its rapid depletion. In addition to the depletion of natural resources, the development of industry has created a new problem - the problem of environmental pollution. The atmospheric air, water bodies, and soil were heavily polluted, mainly by industrial waste and vehicle exhaust gases. These pollution not only had an extremely negative impact on soil fertility, vegetation and wildlife, but also began to pose a significant danger to human health. The human impact on nature has reached its greatest strength in recent times, during a period of high growth rates of all types of material production and scientific and technological progress. For a long time, man looked at nature as an inexhaustible source of the material goods he needed. But, faced with the negative results of his impact on nature, he gradually came to the conviction of the need for more reasonable use and protection of it.

In my essay I will discuss the environmental problem as a whole and ways to solve it.

What is an environmental crisis?

An ecological crisis, a disruption of relationships within an ecosystem, or irreversible phenomena in the biosphere caused by anthropogenic activities and threatening the existence of humans as a species. According to the degree of threat to natural human life and the development of society, an unfavorable environmental situation, an environmental disaster and an environmental catastrophe are distinguished. The influence of society on nature has now reached large proportions. This influence affects not only individual natural resources, but also, as we have seen, on the course of the most important, global processes of the biosphere, the violation of which can lead to very dangerous consequences for life on the planet. It is this situation that has caused the recent emergence and spread in developed countries of such a concept as an “ecological crisis.” The origins of the “ecological crisis” lie in the irrational use of natural resources. For example, in the USA, according to some estimates, from 1929 to 1963, from 47 to 56% of the gross national product was produced without taking into account the actual needs of society. Consequently, about half of the natural resources developed by the United States during this period were spent without taking into account real social needs. The development of natural resources in the interests of competing owners, an exorbitant increase in military spending, and a focus on unlimited consumption inevitably lead to the chaotic consumption of natural resources and ultimately result in severe hardships for society.

Threat of environmental crisis.

The growth in the scale of human economic activity and the rapid development of the scientific and technological revolution have increased the negative impact of humans on nature and led to a disruption of the ecological balance on the planet. In the sphere of material production, the consumption of natural resources has increased. In the 40 years after the Second World War, as many mineral raw materials were used as in the entire previous history of mankind. But the reserves of coal, oil, gas, copper, iron and other natural resources important to people are non-renewable and, as scientists have calculated, will be exhausted in a few decades.

Even forest resources, which seem to be constantly renewed, are in fact rapidly declining. Global deforestation is 18 times greater than forest growth. More than 11 million hectares of forest are destroyed every year, and in three decades the area of ​​destroyed forests will be approximately equal to the size of India. A significant part of the territory where forests previously grew is being converted into low-quality agricultural land that cannot feed the people living in this territory. The main reason for the reduction in forest area on our planet is direct deforestation for industrial timber and fuel production, taking into account the steady growth of population in developing countries, land clearing for farmland and pastures, environmental pollution with various toxicants, etc.

Tropical rainforests are being cut down especially intensively, and the rate of their destruction is increasing every year. If in the mid-80s of the 20th century 11.3 million hectares were destroyed annually, then in the 90s - already 16.8 million hectares. Currently, the tropical rainforests of Latin America have been reduced to 37% of the original area, in Asia - by 42%, in Africa - by 52%. The largest areas of primary forests remain in Brazil, Zaire, Indonesia, Colombia, and boreal forests in Russia and Canada. The fewest primary forests remain in China and Australia, and in Western Europe (with the exception of the Scandinavian countries) there are practically none left. Deforestation leads to negative environmental consequences: the albedo of the earth's surface changes, the balance of carbon and oxygen in the atmosphere is disrupted, soil erosion increases, the hydrological regime of rivers is disrupted, etc. Pollution of the World Ocean is no less dangerous. The world's oceans are constantly being polluted, mainly due to the expansion of oil production in marine fields. Huge oil spills are detrimental to ocean life. Millions of tons of phosphorus, lead, and radioactive waste are also dumped into the ocean. For every square kilometer of ocean space there are now 17 tons of various harmful waste from land. And a dead ocean, scientists believe, is a dead planet. Fresh water has become the most vulnerable part of nature. Sewage, pesticides, fertilizers, disinfectants, mercury, arsenic, lead, zinc find their way into rivers and lakes in huge quantities. In the CIS republics, untreated wastewater containing millions of tons of harmful substances is annually discharged into rivers, lakes, reservoirs and seas. The situation is no better in other countries of the world. The Danube, Volga, Mississippi, and Great American Lakes are heavily polluted. According to experts, in some areas of the Earth, 80% of all diseases are caused by poor-quality water, which people are forced to consume. It is known that a person can live without food for five weeks, without water for five days, without air for five minutes. Meanwhile, air pollution has long exceeded permissible limits. The dust content and carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere of a number of large cities have increased tenfold compared to the beginning of the 20th century. 115 million passenger cars in the United States absorb twice as much oxygen as is created in this country by all natural sources. The total emission of harmful substances into the atmosphere (industry, energy, transport, etc.) in the United States is about 150 million. ton per year, in the CIS countries more than 100 million tons. In 102 cities of the CIS with a population of more than 50 thousand people, the concentration of substances harmful to health in the air exceeds medical standards by 10 times, and in some - even more. Acid rain, containing sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, which appears during the operation of power plants in Germany and the UK, falls in the Scandinavian countries and causes death to lakes and forests. The territory of the CIS receives 9 times more harmful substances from acid rain from the West than is transported in the opposite direction. The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on April 26, 1986 showed the environmental threat posed by accidents at nuclear power plants, which exist in 26 countries around the world. Household garbage has become a serious problem: solid waste, plastic bags, synthetic detergents, etc. Around cities, clean air filled with the aroma of plants is disappearing, rivers are turning into sewers. Piles of cans, broken glass and other garbage, landfills along the roads, littering of the territory, mutilated nature - this is the result of the long dominance of the industrial world.

Causes of the environmental crisis.

Currently, many contradictions, conflicts, and problems outgrow local boundaries and acquire a global character.

The main reasons for the crisis:

1. Changes in the Earth's climate as a result of natural geological processes, enhanced by the greenhouse effect caused by changes in the optical properties of the atmosphere by emissions into it mainly of CO, CO2 and other gases.

2. Reducing the power of the stratospheric ozone screen with the formation of so-called “ozone holes,” which reduce the protective capabilities of the atmosphere against the entry of hard short-wave ultraviolet radiation, dangerous for living organisms, to the Earth’s surface.

3. Chemical pollution of the atmosphere with substances that contribute to the formation of acid precipitation, photochemical smog and other compounds dangerous to objects of the biosphere, including humans.

4. Ocean pollution and changes in the properties of ocean waters due to petroleum products, their saturation with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which in turn is polluted by motor transport and thermal power generation, burial of highly toxic chemical and radioactive substances in ocean waters, the entry of pollution with river runoff, disturbances in the water balance of coastal areas due to with river regulation;

5. Depletion and pollution of land waters.

6. Radioactive contamination of the environment.

7. Soil pollution due to contaminated precipitation, the use of pesticides and mineral fertilizers.

8. Changes in the geochemistry of landscapes due to the redistribution of elements between the bowels and surface of the Earth.

9. Continuing accumulation of all kinds of solid waste on the Earth's surface.

10. Disturbance of global and regional ecological balance.

11. Increasing desertification of the planet.

12. Reducing the area of ​​tropical forests and northern taiga - the main sources of maintaining the oxygen balance of the planet.

13. Absolute overpopulation of the Earth and relative demographic overdensification of individual regions, extreme differentiation of poverty and wealth.

14. Deterioration of the living environment in overpopulated cities.

15. Exhaustion of many mineral deposits.

16. Increasing social instability, as a consequence of the increasing differentiation of the rich and poor parts of the population of many countries, the increasing level of armament of their population, and criminalization.

17. Decrease in the immune status and health status of the population of many countries of the world, repeated repetition of epidemics that are increasingly widespread and severe in their consequences. One of the main global problems is environmental conservation. Its beginning lies in the distant past. About 10,000 years ago, the Neolithic agricultural culture arose. The expansion of the area of ​​cultivated land, the cutting of trees for economic purposes, the spread of slash-and-burn agriculture - all this led to the replacement of the natural landscape with a cultural one, increasing human influence on the environment. Rapid population growth began - a demographic explosion - a sharp increase in population associated with an improvement in socio-economic or general historical living conditions. The Earth's population is growing exponentially: if from 8000 BC. before the start of the new chronology, the population increased from 5 million people to 130 million, that is, by 125 million people in 8 thousand years, then from 1930 to 1960, that is, in just 30 years, the population of the Earth increased by already 1 billion people (from 2 billion to 3 billion people) Currently it is more than 6 billion people. From 1830 to 1930, the population of Europe and North America grew, and in recent years a population explosion has been observed in the countries of Asia and Latin America.

The Industrial Revolution began about 200 years ago and over the past 100-150 years the appearance of Europe and North America has completely changed. An inextricable connection between nature and society has emerged, which is reciprocal in nature. On the one hand, the natural environment, geographical and climatic features have a significant impact on social development. These factors can accelerate or slow down the pace of development of countries and peoples and influence the social development of labor. On the other hand, society influences the natural environment of humans. The history of mankind testifies to both the beneficial effects of human activity on the natural environment and its harmful consequences. Man has carried out chemical reactions that have never existed on Earth before. Iron, tin, lead, aluminum, nickel and many other chemical elements were isolated in their pure form. The amount of metals mined and smelted by humans reaches colossal proportions and increases every year. The extraction of combustible minerals is even more significant. When burning coal and other fuels, oxides of carbon, nitrogen, sulfur and other products are formed. The earth's surface turns into cities and cultural soil and dramatically changes its chemical properties.

Air pollution has exceeded all permissible limits. The concentration of substances harmful to health in the air exceeds medical standards in many cities by tens of times. Acid rain, containing sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, resulting from the operation of thermal power plants, transport and factories, brings death to lakes and forests. The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant showed the environmental threat posed by accidents at nuclear power plants; they are operated in 26 countries around the world.

The principles of the natural structure that are violated by man and lead to an environmental crisis:

1. The use by humans in their economic activities of energy sources internal to the biosphere (fossil fuels). This leads to an increase in the entropy of the biosphere, disruption of the ecological cycles of carbon dioxide, sulfur and nitrogen oxides, and thermal pollution.

2. Open-loop economic cycles lead to a large amount of waste that pollutes the environment. The use of many artificially synthesized substances along with natural ones causes a disturbance in the ecological balance and leads to an increase in environmental toxicity.

3. With the direct participation of humans, the destruction of the structural diversity of the biosphere and the death of many species occur. There is an excessive increase in pressure on the human biosphere, which leads to serious violations of environmental stability and a decrease in the stability of the biosphere.

Air pollution.

There are two main sources of air pollution: natural and anthropogenic.

Natural sources include volcanoes, dust storms, weathering, forest fires, and decomposition processes of plants and animals.

Anthropogenic, mainly divided into three main sources of air pollution: industry, domestic boiler houses, transport. The contribution of each of these sources to total air pollution varies greatly depending on location.

It is now generally accepted that industrial production produces the most air pollution. Sources of pollution are thermal power plants, which emit sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide into the air along with smoke; metallurgical enterprises, especially non-ferrous metallurgy, which emit nitrogen oxides, hydrogen sulfide, chlorine, fluorine, ammonia, phosphorus compounds, particles and compounds of mercury and arsenic into the air; chemical and cement plants. Harmful gases enter the air as a result of burning fuel for industrial needs, heating homes, operating transport, burning and processing household and industrial waste.

According to scientists (1990), every year in the world as a result of human activity, 25.5 billion tons of carbon oxides, 190 million tons of sulfur oxides, 65 million tons of nitrogen oxides, 1.4 million tons of chlorofluorocarbons (freons), organic lead compounds, hydrocarbons, including carcinogenic ones (causing cancer).

The most common air pollutants enter the atmosphere mainly in two forms: either in the form of suspended particles (aerosols) or in the form of gases. By weight, the lion's share - 80-90 percent - of all emissions into the atmosphere due to human activities are gaseous emissions. There are 3 main sources of gaseous pollution: combustion of combustible materials, industrial production processes and natural sources.

Let's consider the main harmful impurities of anthropogenic origin /

Carbon monoxide. It is produced by incomplete combustion of carbonaceous substances. It enters the air as a result of the combustion of solid waste, exhaust gases and emissions from industrial enterprises. Every year, at least 1250 million tons of this gas enter the atmosphere. Carbon monoxide is a compound that actively reacts with components of the atmosphere and contributes to an increase in temperature on the planet and the creation of a greenhouse effect.

Sulfur dioxide. It is released during the combustion of sulfur-containing fuel or the processing of sulfur ores (up to 170 million tons per year). Some sulfur compounds are released during the combustion of organic residues in mining dumps. In the USA alone, the total amount of sulfur dioxide released into the atmosphere amounted to 65% of global emissions.

Hydrogen sulfide and carbon disulfide. They enter the atmosphere separately or together with other sulfur compounds. The main sources of emissions are enterprises producing artificial fiber, sugar, coke plants, oil refineries, and oil fields. In the atmosphere, when interacting with other pollutants, they undergo slow oxidation to sulfuric anhydride.

Nitrogen oxides. The main sources of emissions are enterprises producing nitrogen fertilizers, nitric acid and nitrates, aniline dyes, nitro compounds, viscose silk, and celluloid. The amount of nitrogen oxides entering the atmosphere is 20 million tons per year.

Fluorine compounds. Sources of pollution are enterprises producing aluminum, enamels, glass, ceramics, steel, and phosphate fertilizers. Fluorine-containing substances enter the atmosphere in the form of gaseous compounds - hydrogen fluoride or sodium and calcium fluoride dust. The compounds are characterized by a toxic effect. Fluorine derivatives are strong insecticides.

Chlorine compounds. They enter the atmosphere from chemical plants producing hydrochloric acid, chlorine-containing pesticides, organic dyes, hydrolytic alcohol, bleach, and soda. In the atmosphere they are found as impurities of chlorine molecules and hydrochloric acid vapors. The toxicity of chlorine is determined by the type of compounds and their concentration.

In addition to gaseous pollutants, large amounts of particulate matter are released into the atmosphere. This is dust, soot and soot. Pollution of the natural environment with heavy metals poses a great danger. Lead, cadmium, mercury, copper, nickel, zinc, chromium, and vanadium have become almost constant components of the air in industrial centers.

Constant sources of aerosol pollution are industrial dumps - artificial embankments of redeposited material, mainly overburden rocks formed during mining or from waste from processing industry enterprises, thermal power plants.

Massive blasting operations serve as a source of dust and toxic gases. The production of cement and other building materials is also a source of dust pollution. The main technological processes of these industries - grinding and chemical processing of semi-finished products and resulting products in streams of hot gases - are always accompanied by emissions of dust and other harmful substances into the atmosphere.

The main atmospheric pollutants today are carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide.

Water pollution

Everyone understands how great the role of water is in the life of our planet and especially in the existence of the biosphere.

The biological need of humans and animals for water per year is 10 times greater than their own weight. Even more impressive are the domestic, industrial and agricultural needs of humans. Thus, “to produce a ton of soap requires 2 tons of water, sugar - 9, cotton products - 200, steel 250, nitrogen fertilizers or synthetic fiber - 600, grain - about 1000, paper - 1000, synthetic rubber - 2500 tons of water."

Water used by humans ultimately returns to the natural environment. But, apart from the evaporated water, this is no longer pure water, but domestic, industrial and agricultural wastewater, usually not treated or not treated sufficiently. Thus, freshwater bodies of water - rivers, lakes, land and coastal areas of the seas - are polluted.

Modern methods of water purification, mechanical and biological, are far from perfect. “Even after biological treatment, 10 percent organic and 60–90 percent inorganic substances remain in wastewater, including up to 60 percent nitrogen, 70 percent phosphorus, 80 percent potassium and almost 100 percent salts of toxic heavy metals.”

There are three types of water pollution – biological, chemical and physical.

Biological pollution is created by microorganisms, including pathogens, as well as organic substances capable of fermentation. The main sources of biological pollution of land waters and coastal sea waters are domestic wastewater, which contains feces, food waste, wastewater from food industry enterprises (slaughterhouses and meat processing plants, dairy and cheese factories, sugar factories, etc.), pulp and paper and chemical plants. industry, and in rural areas - wastewater from large livestock complexes. Biological pollution can cause epidemics of cholera, typhoid, paratyphoid and other intestinal infections and various viral infections, such as hepatitis.

Chemical pollution is created by the entry of various toxic substances into water. The main sources of chemical pollution are blast furnace and steel production, non-ferrous metallurgy, mining, chemical industry and, to a large extent, extensive agriculture. In addition to direct discharges of wastewater into water bodies and surface runoff, it is also necessary to take into account the ingress of pollutants onto the surface of water directly from the air.

So, the most widespread and significant is chemical pollution of the environment with substances of a chemical nature that are unusual for it. The accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is also progressing. The further development of this process will strengthen the undesirable trend towards an increase in the average annual temperature on the planet.

The continuing pollution of the World Ocean with oil and petroleum products, which, according to environmentalists, has already reached 1/10 of its total surface, is also alarming. Oil pollution of this size can cause significant disruptions in gas and water exchange between the hydrosphere and the atmosphere.

Formally, we cannot yet say that we are experiencing a global environmental catastrophe, since there are still areas on Earth where there are no serious traces of anthropogenic pollution. But such areas are becoming fewer and fewer, and some types of pollution are observed even in the most remote places from their sources, for example in Antarctica.

Recently, more and more often in the press, on radio, and television, environmental issues have become one of the main topics. The general public, aware of the critical state of the environment, must take active action. “Greenization” of the legislative and executive powers is now especially important, since the primary task is to make environmentally friendly production profitable and, conversely, any neglect of environmental standards economically unprofitable. Without this, calls to ordinary citizens to protect nature will look demagogic and are unlikely to achieve their goal. At the same time, the broadest educational work among citizens of all ages is also necessary.

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