Every person is obliged to know how people's activities affect the world around them, and to feel responsible for their actions and the actions of others. Every year human activity becomes more and more aggressive and actively transforming (destructive) force on our planet. At all times, man felt himself to be the master of everything around him. The natural balance is quite fragile, so one wrong decision and it may take decades to correct a fatal mistake. Industry is developing, the world's population is growing, all this is aggravating the state of the environment. In recent years, environmental policy has become increasingly active. But in order for it to be competently and correctly constructed, it is necessary to study in detail the problem of the influence of human activity on the surrounding nature, so as not to eliminate the consequences of this activity, but to prevent them.
Solving the environmental problem is perhaps the largest, most ambitious and expensive program.
Types of human impacts on nature
Impact is the direct impact of human economic activities on the environment.
There are $4$ types of impact:
- unintentional;
- deliberate;
- direct;
- indirect (mediated).
Unintended Impact is a side effect of intentional exposure.
Example 1
For example, open-pit mining can provoke a decrease in groundwater levels, air pollution, and the formation of man-made landforms (heap waste heaps, quarries, tailings dumps). And the construction of hydroelectric power stations leads to the formation of artificial reservoirs that affect the environment: increasing the level of groundwater, changing the hydrological regime of rivers, etc. By receiving energy from traditional sources (coal, gas, oil), people pollute the atmosphere, groundwater, surface watercourses, etc.
Intentional impact carried out in the course of material production, the purpose of which is to satisfy certain needs of society. These needs include:
- construction of hydraulic structures (reservoirs, hydroelectric power stations, irrigation canals);
- mining;
- deforestation in order to expand areas suitable for agriculture, obtain timber, etc.
Both of the above types of impacts can be both direct and indirect.
Direct impact observed when human economic activity directly influences the environment, for example, irrigation directly affects the soil, which leads to a change in all processes associated with it.
Indirect impact occurs indirectly through the interrelation of influences. Intentional indirect impacts include the use of fertilizers and the direct impact on crop yields, and unintentional impacts include the impact of the aerosols used on the amount of solar radiation (especially in cities), etc.
Impact of mining on the environment
Mining directly and indirectly impacts natural landscapes. This impact is manifold. The open-pit method of mining leads to the greatest extent of disturbance of the earth's surface.
The results of the impact of mining production were:
- destruction of vegetation;
- the emergence of man-made landforms (dumps, quarries, tailings, etc.);
- deformation of sections of the earth's crust (mostly with the underground method of mining).
Indirect impacts include:
- changes in groundwater regimes;
- pollution of surface watercourses and groundwater, air basin;
- flooding and waterlogging, which as a result leads to an increase in the incidence of disease in the local population.
Note 1
The most common factors of air pollution are gas pollution and dust. Mining heavily pollutes groundwater and surface watercourses with mineral salts and mechanical impurities. During open-pit mining, high-quality fresh water supplies are depleted.
The impact of mining on the Earth’s interior is also negative, since industrial waste and radioactive waste, etc., are buried there.
Impact on the hydrosphere
Humans significantly influence the planet's water balance and hydrosphere. Anthropogenic transformations of continental waters are taking on a global scale, while disrupting the natural regime of the largest rivers and lakes on the planet. This was caused by:
- construction of hydraulic structures (irrigation canals, reservoirs and water transfer systems);
- increasing the area of irrigated land;
- watering of arid areas;
- urbanization;
- pollution of fresh waters by municipal and industrial wastewater.
Currently, there are about 30 thousand reservoirs in the world, the volume of which exceeds 6000 km3. Large reservoirs have a negative impact on the environment:
- their water areas occupy large areas of fertile land;
- lead to secondary soil salinization;
- they change the groundwater regime.
Hydraulic structures contribute to the degradation of river ecosystems. Recently, our country has been developing schemes for improving the natural and technical condition and improving some large canals and reservoirs. Which can lead to a reduction in the degree of their adverse impact on the environment.
Impact on wildlife
Along with plants, animals play an exceptional role in the migration of chemical elements, which forms the basis of the relationships existing in nature. In addition, they play an important role in human existence as they are a source of food and various resources. The fauna of our planet is greatly influenced by human economic activities. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, since $1600, 63 species of mammals and 94 species of birds have become extinct on our planet. The result of anthropogenic impact on the continents has been an increase in the number of endangered and rare species of animals.
In Russia, by the beginning of this century, certain species of animals (river beaver, bison, sable, kulan, muskrat) had become rare; reserves began to be organized for their protection and reproduction, which led to the restoration of the bison population and an increase in the numbers of polar bears and Amur tigers.
However, recently the excessive use of mineral fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture, pollution of the World Ocean and other anthropogenic factors have negatively affected the animal world.
Impact on the earth's crust
Note 2
With human intervention in the life of the earth's crust, man-made relief forms began to appear on the Earth's surface: shafts, mounds, excavations, pits, quarries, embankments, etc. Cases of subsidence of the earth's crust under reservoirs and large cities began to be observed, and an increase in natural seismicity began to be observed in mountainous areas . The greatest impact on the bowels of the earth and on its surface is exerted by mining, especially open-pit mining. Cases of local subsidence of the earth's crust in coal mining areas were noted in Great Britain, the Silesian region of Poland, Japan, the USA, etc. Man, extracting minerals from the bowels of the earth, geochemically changes the composition of the earth's crust.
Anthropogenic changes to the earth's surface can be caused by the construction of large hydraulic structures. The maximum magnitudes and rates of subsidence of the earth's surface caused by the filling of reservoirs are significantly less than during gas and oil production and large pumping of groundwater. Thus, only detailed studies of the relationships between anthropogenic and natural relief-forming processes will help eliminate the undesirable consequences of human economic activity on the earth’s surface.
Impact on climate
Impacts of this type in some regions of our planet in recent years have become critical and dangerous, both for the biosphere and for the existence of man himself. Every year the concentration of anthropogenic pollutants in the atmospheric air increases: carbon dioxide and monoxide, nitrogen oxides, methane, sulfur dioxide, freons, ozone, etc., which significantly affect the global climate, causing depletion of the ozone layer, the “greenhouse effect”, photochemical smog, acid rain, etc.
An increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere leads to global warming. For the planet's biosphere, such climate change can have both negative and positive environmental consequences. The negative ones include the rise in the level of the World Ocean and its negative consequences, disruption of the stability of permafrost, etc. The positive ones include an increase in the intensity of photosynthesis, which can have a beneficial effect on the yield of many agricultural crops. In addition, such climate changes affect the river flow of large rivers, and therefore the water sector in the regions.
Impact on marine ecosystems
Every year, a huge amount of pollutants enter the waters of reservoirs, which leads to the degradation of marine ecosystems: eutrophication, reduction in species diversity, replacement of entire classes of benthic fauna with those resistant to pollution, etc. To solve environmental problems of the seas, within the framework of a special Program for integrated environmental monitoring of the ocean, extensive research to predict the state of the natural environment in the basins of the southern seas.
Human impact on the environment
The more we take from the world, the less we leave in it, and we end up having to pay our debts at what may be a very inopportune moment to ensure the continuation of our lives.
Norbert Wiener
Man began to change natural systems already at the primitive stage of the development of civilization, during the period of hunting and gathering, when he began to use fire. The domestication of wild animals and the development of agriculture expanded the area of manifestation of the consequences of human activity. As industry developed and muscle power was replaced by fuel energy, the intensity of anthropogenic influence continued to increase. In the 20th century Due to the particularly rapid rate of population growth and its needs, it has reached unprecedented levels and spread throughout the world.
When considering human impact on the environment, we must always remember the most important environmental postulates formulated in Tyler Miller's wonderful book, Living in the Environment.
1. Whatever we do in nature, everything causes certain consequences in it, often unpredictable.
2. Everything in nature is interconnected, and we all live in it together.
3. Earth's life support systems can withstand significant pressure and rough interventions, but there is a limit to everything.
4. Nature is not only more complex than we think about it, it is much more complex than we can imagine.
All human-created complexes (landscapes) can be divided into two groups depending on the purpose of their creation:
– direct – created by purposeful human activity: cultivated fields, gardening complexes, reservoirs, etc., they are often called cultural;
– accompanying – not intended and usually undesirable, which were activated or brought to life by human activity: swamps along the banks of reservoirs, ravines in fields, quarry-dump landscapes, etc.
Each anthropogenic landscape has its own history of development, sometimes very complex and, most importantly, extremely dynamic. In a few years or decades, anthropogenic landscapes can undergo profound changes that natural landscapes will not experience in many thousands of years. The reason for this is the continuous intervention of man in the structure of these landscapes, and this interference necessarily affects the man himself. Here's just one example. In 1955, when nine out of every ten residents of North Borneo fell ill with malaria, on the recommendation of the World Health Organization (WHO), the pesticide began to be sprayed on the island to combat the mosquitoes that carry malaria. The disease was practically banished, but the unforeseen consequences of such a fight turned out to be terrible: dieldrin killed not only mosquitoes, but also other insects, in particular flies and cockroaches; then the lizards that lived in the houses and ate dead insects died; after this, cats who ate the dead lizards began to die; Without cats, rats began to multiply quickly - and a plague epidemic began to threaten people. We got out of this situation by dropping healthy cats by parachute. But... it turned out that dieldrin did not affect the caterpillars, but destroyed the insects that fed on them, and then numerous caterpillars began to eat not only the leaves of the trees, but also the leaves that served as roofs for the roofs, as a result the roofs began to collapse.
Anthropogenic changes in the environment are very diverse. By directly influencing only one of the components of the environment, a person can indirectly change the others. In both the first and second cases, the circulation of substances in the natural complex is disrupted, and from this point of view, the results of the impact on the environment can be classified into several groups.
To the first group include impacts that lead only to changes in the concentration of chemical elements and their compounds without changing the form of the substance itself. For example, as a result of emissions from motor vehicles, the concentration of lead and zinc increases in the air, soil, water and plants, many times higher than their normal levels. In this case, the quantitative assessment of exposure is expressed in terms of the mass of pollutants.
Second group– impacts lead not only to quantitative, but also qualitative changes in the forms of occurrence of elements (within individual anthropogenic landscapes). Such transformations are often observed during mining, when many ore elements, including toxic heavy metals, pass from mineral form into aqueous solutions. At the same time, their total content within the complex does not change, but they become more accessible to plant and animal organisms. Another example is changes associated with the transition of elements from biogenic to abiogenic forms. Thus, when cutting down forests, a person, cutting down a hectare of pine forest and then burning it, converts about 100 kg of potassium, 300 kg of nitrogen and calcium, 30 kg of aluminum, magnesium, sodium, etc. from biogenic form into mineral form.
Third group– the formation of man-made compounds and elements that have no analogues in nature or are not characteristic of a given area. There are more and more such changes every year. This is the appearance of freon in the atmosphere, plastics in soils and waters, weapons-grade plutonium, cesium in the seas, widespread accumulation of poorly decomposed pesticides, etc. In total, about 70,000 different synthetic chemicals are used every day in the world. About 1,500 new ones are added every year. It should be noted that little is known about the environmental impact of most of them, but at least half of them are harmful or potentially harmful to human health.
Fourth group– mechanical movement of significant masses of elements without significant transformation of the forms of their location. An example is the movement of rock masses during mining, both open-pit and underground. Traces of quarries, underground voids and waste heaps (steep-sided hills formed by waste rocks transported from mines) will exist on Earth for many thousands of years. This group also includes the movement of significant masses of soil during dust storms of anthropogenic origin (one dust storm can move about 25 km 3 of soil).
When analyzing the results of human activity, one should also take into account the state of the natural complex itself and its resistance to impacts. The concept of sustainability is one of the most complex and controversial concepts in geography. Any natural complex is characterized by certain parameters and properties (one of them, for example, is the amount of biomass). Each parameter has a threshold value - a quantity upon reaching which changes in the qualitative state of the components occur. These thresholds have been practically unstudied, and often, when predicting future changes in natural complexes under the influence of one or another activity, it is impossible to indicate the specific scale and exact time frame of these changes.
What is the real scale of modern anthropogenic influence? Here are some numbers. Every year, over 100 billion tons of minerals are extracted from the depths of the Earth; 800 million tons of various metals are smelted; produce more than 60 million tons of synthetic materials unknown in nature; They introduce over 500 million tons of mineral fertilizers and approximately 3 million tons of various pesticides into the soils of agricultural lands, 1/3 of which enters water bodies with surface runoff or lingers in the atmosphere (when dispersed from airplanes). For their needs, people use more than 13% of river flow and annually discharge more than 500 billion m3 of industrial and municipal wastewater into water bodies. The list can be continued, but what has been stated is enough to realize the global impact of man on the environment, and therefore the global nature of the problems arising in connection with this.
Let us consider the consequences of three main types of human economic activity, although, of course, they do not exhaust the entire complex of anthropogenic influence on the environment.
1. Industrial impacts
Industry, the largest branch of material production, plays a central role in the economy of modern society and is the main driving force of its growth. Over the last century, world industrial production has increased more than 50 (!) times, and 4/5 of this growth has occurred since 1950, i.e. a period of active implementation of scientific and technological progress into production. Naturally, such a rapid growth of industry, which ensures our well-being, primarily affected the environment, the load on which has increased many times over.
Industry and the products it produces impact the environment at all stages of the industrial cycle: from exploration and extraction of raw materials, their processing into finished products, waste generation, and ending with the use of finished products by the consumer, and then their disposal due to further unsuitability. At the same time, land is alienated for the construction of industrial facilities and access roads to them; constant use of water (in all industries) 1 ; release of substances from raw material processing into water and air; removal of substances from soil, rocks, biosphere, etc. The load on landscapes and their components in leading industries is carried out as follows.
Energy. Energy is the basis for the development of all sectors of industry, agriculture, transport, public utilities. This is an industry with very high rates of development and huge scale of production. Accordingly, the share of participation of energy enterprises in the load on the natural environment is very significant. Annual energy consumption in the world is more than 10 billion tons of standard fuel, and this figure is continuously increasing 2. To obtain energy, they use either fuel - oil, gas, coal, wood, peat, shale, nuclear materials, or other primary energy sources - water, wind, solar energy, etc. Almost all fuel resources are non-renewable - and this is the first stage of impact on the nature of the energy industry - irreversible removal of masses of substance.
Each source, when used, is characterized by specific parameters pollution of natural complexes.
Coal- the most common fossil fuel on our planet. When it is burned, carbon dioxide, fly ash, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, fluoride compounds, as well as gaseous products of incomplete combustion of fuel enter the atmosphere. Sometimes fly ash contains extremely harmful impurities such as arsenic, free silica, free calcium oxide.
Oil. When burning liquid fuel, in addition to carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and sulfuric anhydrides, nitrogen oxides, vanadium and sodium compounds, and gaseous and solid products of incomplete combustion are released into the air. Liquid fuel produces fewer harmful substances than solid fuel, but the use of oil in the energy sector is declining (due to the depletion of natural reserves and its exclusive use in transport and the chemical industry).
Natural gas - the most harmless of fossil fuels. When it is burned, the only significant air pollutant other than CO 2 is nitrogen oxides.
Wood Most used in developing countries (70% of the population of these countries burns an average of about 700 kg per person per year). Burning wood is harmless - carbon dioxide and water vapor enter the air, but the structure of biocenoses is disrupted - the destruction of forest cover causes changes in all components of the landscape.
Nuclear fuel. The use of nuclear fuel is one of the most controversial issues in the modern world. Of course, nuclear power plants pollute the air to a much lesser extent than thermal power plants (using coal, oil, gas), but the amount of water used at nuclear power plants is twice the consumption at thermal power plants - 2.5–3 km 3 per year at a nuclear power plant with a capacity of 1 million kW, and the thermal discharge at a nuclear power plant per unit of energy produced is significantly greater than at thermal power plants under similar conditions. But especially heated debates are caused by the problems of radioactive waste and the safety of operation of nuclear power plants. The colossal consequences for the natural environment and people of possible accidents at nuclear reactors do not allow one to treat nuclear energy as optimistically as it was in the initial period of using the “peaceful atom”.
If we consider the impact of the utilization of fossil fuels on other components of natural complexes, we should highlight impact on natural waters. For the cooling needs of generators, power plants produce huge amounts of water: to generate 1 kW of electricity, 200 to 400 liters of water are needed; a modern thermal power plant with a capacity of 1 million kW requires 1.2–1.6 km 3 of water per year. As a rule, water withdrawals for cooling systems of power plants account for 50–60% of total industrial water withdrawals. The return of wastewater heated in cooling systems causes thermal pollution of water, as a result of which, in particular, the solubility of oxygen in water decreases and at the same time the vital activity of aquatic organisms is activated, which begin to consume more oxygen.
The next aspect of the negative impact on the landscape during fuel extraction is alienation of large areas, where vegetation is destroyed, soil structure and water regime are changed. This applies primarily to open-pit methods of fuel extraction (in the world, about 85% of minerals and building materials are mined by open-pit mining).
Among other primary sources of energy - wind, river water, sun, tides, underground heat - water occupies a special place. Geothermal power plants, solar panels, wind turbines, and tidal power plants have the advantage of having a low environmental impact, but their distribution in the modern world is still quite limited.
River waters, used by hydroelectric power plants (HPPs), which convert the energy of water flow into electricity, have virtually no polluting effect on the environment (with the exception of thermal pollution). Their negative impact on the environment lies elsewhere. Hydraulic structures, primarily dams, disrupt the regimes of rivers and reservoirs, impede the migration of fish, and affect the groundwater level. Reservoirs created to equalize river flow and uninterrupted water supply to hydroelectric power stations also have a detrimental effect on the environment. The total area of the world's largest reservoirs alone is 180 thousand km 2 (the same amount of land is flooded), and the volume of water in them is about 5 thousand km 3. In addition to flooding land, the creation of reservoirs greatly changes the river flow regime and affects local climatic conditions, which, in turn, affects the vegetation cover along the banks of the reservoir.
Metallurgy
. The impact of metallurgy begins with the extraction of ores of ferrous and non-ferrous metals, some of which, such as copper and lead, have been used since ancient times, while others - titanium, beryllium, zirconium, germanium - have been actively used only in recent decades (for the needs of radio engineering, electronics , nuclear technology). But since the middle of the 20th century, as a result of the scientific and technological revolution, the extraction of both new and traditional metals has sharply increased, and therefore the number of natural disturbances associated with the movement of significant masses of rocks has increased.
In addition to the main raw material – metal ores – metallurgy quite actively consumes water. Approximate figures for water consumption for the needs of, for example, ferrous metallurgy are as follows: about 100 m 3 of water is spent on the production of 1 ton of cast iron; for the production of 1 ton of steel – 300 m 3; for the production of 1 ton of rolled products - 30 m 3 of water.
But the most dangerous side of the impact of metallurgy on the environment is the technogenic dispersion of metals. Despite all the differences in the properties of metals, they are all impurities in relation to the landscape. Their concentration can increase tens and hundreds of times without external changes in the environment (water remains water, and soil remains soil, but the mercury content in them increases tens of times). The main danger of trace metals lies in their ability to gradually accumulate in the bodies of plants and animals, which disrupts food chains.
Metals enter the environment at almost all stages of metallurgical production. Some is lost during transportation, enrichment, and sorting of ores. Thus, in one decade at this stage, about 600 thousand tons of copper, 500 thousand tons of zinc, 300 thousand tons of lead, 50 thousand tons of molybdenum were scattered throughout the world. Further release occurs directly at the production stage (and not only metals are released, but also other harmful substances). The air around metallurgical plants is smoky and contains high levels of dust. Nickel production is characterized by emissions of arsenic and large quantities of sulfur dioxide (SO 2); Aluminum production is accompanied by fluorine emissions, etc. The environment is also polluted by wastewater from metallurgical plants.
The most dangerous pollutants include lead, cadmium and mercury, followed by copper, tin, vanadium, chromium, molybdenum, manganese, cobalt, nickel, antimony, arsenic and selenium.
In the changing landscape around metallurgical enterprises, two zones can be distinguished. The first, with a radius of 3–5 km, directly adjacent to the enterprise, is characterized by the almost complete destruction of the original natural complex. There is often no vegetation here, the soil cover is largely disturbed, and the animals and microorganisms that inhabited the complex have disappeared. The second zone is more extensive, up to 20 km, looks less oppressed - the disappearance of the biocenosis rarely occurs here, but its individual parts are disturbed and an increased content of polluting elements is observed in all components of the complex.
Chemical industry
– one of the most dynamic industries in most countries; New industries often arise in it and new technologies are introduced. But it is also associated with the emergence of many modern environmental pollution problems caused by both its products and technological production processes.
This industry, like metallurgy and energy, is extremely water-intensive. Water is involved in the production of most of the most important chemical products - alkalis, alcohols, nitric acid, hydrogen, etc. The production of 1 ton of synthetic rubber requires up to 2800 m3 of water, 1 ton of rubber – 4000 m3, 1 ton of synthetic fiber – 5000 m3. After use, the water is partially returned to reservoirs in the form of heavily polluted wastewater, which leads to weakening or suppression of the vital activity of aquatic organisms, which makes the processes of self-purification of reservoirs difficult.
The composition of air emissions from chemical plants is also extremely diverse. Petrochemical production pollutes the atmosphere with hydrogen sulfide and hydrocarbons; production of synthetic rubber - styrene, divinyl, toluene, acetone; production of alkalis - hydrogen chloride, etc. Substances such as carbon and nitrogen oxides, ammonia, inorganic dust, fluorine-containing substances and many others are also released in large quantities.
One of the most problematic aspects of the impact of chemical production is the spread of previously non-existent compounds into nature. Among them, synthetic surfactants (surfactants) (sometimes called detergents) are considered especially harmful. They enter the environment during the production and household use of various detergents. When entering water bodies with industrial and domestic wastewater, surfactants are poorly retained by treatment facilities, contribute to the appearance of abundant foam in water, impart toxic properties and odor to it, cause death and degeneration of aquatic organisms and, which is very significant, enhance the toxic effect of other pollutants.
These are the main negative impacts on natural systems of the leading branches of world industry. Naturally, the influence of industry is not limited to the above: there is mechanical engineering, which uses the products of metallurgy and the chemical industry and contributes to the dispersion of many substances in the environment; There are water-intensive industries such as pulp and paper and food, which also provide a large share of organic environmental pollution, etc. Based on an analysis of the environmental impact of the three main industries, it is possible to determine the nature and paths of industrial environmental pollution for any industry, for which you need to know specifics of production.
To be continued
Photo by M. Kabanov
1 The total industrial water withdrawal is about 800 km 3 per year, with irreversible losses of 30–40 km 3.
2 The main consumers of energy are developed countries. For example, in 1989, 249 million Americans used more energy for air conditioning alone than 1.1 billion Chinese used for all needs.
8 Answer. Negative impact on the environment, main indicators and characteristics.
negative impact on the environment- deterioration of its quality indicators and condition in general, due to economic and other human activities.
Types of negative impact on the environment include: emissions of pollutants and other substances into the air; discharges of pollutants, other substances and microorganisms into surface water bodies, underground water bodies and drainage areas; pollution of subsoil and soil; disposal of production and consumption waste; environmental pollution by noise, heat, electromagnetic, ionizing and other types of physical influences; and other types of negative impact on the environment.
9 Answer. The concept of “Harm to the environment” (ecological harm), characteristics and main indicators.
harm to the environment(environmental harm ) - negative changes in its condition, expressed in pollution of the natural environment, depletion of natural resources, destruction of natural ecosystems, metabolic and energy disorders, harmonious development of society and nature.
Environmental harm- this is any deterioration of the state of the environment that occurred as a result of violation of legal environmental requirements, and any associated encroachment on material and intangible benefits protected by law, including human life and health, property of individuals and legal entities.
Environmental harm is expressed in the severance of natural connections in nature. Thus, it is impossible to compensate in monetary terms for the damage caused to the environment (irreparable harm), and compensation for damage in kind is only possible partially, that is, such compensation is conditional, since natural objects have no value (relatively reparable harm). The monetary amount evaluates only that which, as a rule, cannot be compensated in kind (actual reparable harm).
Types of environmental damage objects:
Environment – anthropogenic harm;
Human health – physiological harm;
The future generation of humanity is genetic harm.
10Answer. The concept of "Ecological safety of the environment" main indicators and characteristics.
ecological safety of the environment- the state of protection of the natural environment and vital human interests from the possible negative impact of economic and other activities, natural and man-made emergencies, and their consequences.
Environmental Safety– the state of protection of the biosphere and human society, and at the state level – the state, from threats arising as a result of anthropogenic and natural impacts on the environment.
The concept of environmental safety includes a system of regulation and management that makes it possible to predict, prevent, and, if it occurs, eliminate the development of emergency situations.
Environmental safety is implemented at the global, regional and local levels.
The global level of environmental safety management involves forecasting and monitoring processes in the state of the biosphere as a whole and its constituent spheres. (for example, in biosphere reserves). Management of global environmental safety is the prerogative of interstate relations at the level of the UN, UNESCO, UNEP and other international organizations.
The regional level includes large geographical or economic zones, and sometimes the territories of several states. Control and management is carried out at the level of the state government and at the level of interstate relations (United Europe, CIS, Union of African States, etc.).
At this level, the environmental safety management system includes:
Greening the economy;
Creation and implementation of new environmentally friendly technologies;
Maintaining the pace of economic development that does not impede the restoration of the quality of the environment and promotes the rational use of natural resources.
The local level includes cities, districts, enterprises of metallurgy, chemical, oil refining, mining and the defense complex, as well as control of emissions, wastewater, etc. Environmental safety management is carried out at the level of administrations of individual cities, districts, enterprises with the involvement of the relevant services responsible for sanitary state and environmental activities.
With the emergence of life on earth, the spread of living beings, and changes in topography, one can observe the influence of man and nature on each other. It is worth noting that in ancient centuries this influence was not so significant, because the surrounding world was a kind of helper, a way of survival for ancient people. With the development of intelligence and civilization, the pressure on the environment gradually increased. And today it has reached such a point that people look at their future with caution.
From the famous Kazakh writer Olzhas Suleimenov There is a poem “Earth, bow to man!” It should be recognized that the earth, having not withstood many years of struggle, has long been at the feet of man.
However, it is unfair to say that there are only negative impacts on nature, and a considerable number of positive ones as well.
Positive influence of man on nature
- To protect and preserve natural resources, for the past century, nature reserves and sanctuaries. By prohibiting all human activity in such areas of the territory, states are able to carry through time the original views and landscapes created by nature. Thus, on the territory of the Caucasus Nature Reserve of the Russian Federation there are Mount Elbrus and Kazbek, on the slopes of which there is snow all the time. And the Valley of Geysers in the Kronotsky Nature Reserve is truly an amazing sight.
- Intensive creation and use of irrigation systems. What are these systems? Irrigation is available a set of measures that allows water to be delivered to dry areas of our planet. The simplest example of irrigation is watering beds in vegetable gardens and dachas. But if we talk about large volumes of land that need watering, today a number of technical structures have been invented that are striking in their architecture.
- Beneficial human activities include invention of powerful cleaning structures for retention of organic and mineral waste. They are widely used in industry, sewerage structures, and production stations.
- Optimal use of agricultural land are considered to be among the important tasks of environmental management today. Rational and efficient use of land includes a number of measures that can prevent soil depletion and contamination; preserve and enhance beneficial qualities and properties.
Negative influence of humanity
- Air pollution toxic substances, the main source of which is industrial enterprises and cars. Due to the release of industrial waste into the atmosphere, such as carbon and nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides, the living shell of the Earth suffers, including humans themselves. About four million people die every year from air pollution.
- Sometimes trying to help, humanity causes considerable harm. An example of such assistance is soil fertilization. Thus, there is a possibility that due to the use of potassium and phosphorus fertilizers in the soil, the concentration of radioactive substances significantly increases. The accumulation and lack of proper processing of household waste also destroys soil cover. The surface layer of the earth suffers from industrial waste, toxic emissions into the atmosphere, and petroleum products. Such human activity leads to the fact that the soil loses its ability to self-clean itself from harmful microorganisms and becomes a source of many diseases.
- The hydrosphere, like other shells of the Earth, suffers primarily due to release of industrial and agricultural wastewater. Particular attention should be paid to the pollution of the World Ocean during oil production and refining. Satellite photographs show that a third of the water surface is covered with an oil film, which disrupts its interaction with the atmosphere and disrupts the water cycle in nature. The globe is almost 70% covered with water, but according to research, only 1% is suitable for human consumption.
- Poaching, illegal hunting, fishing. By destroying and shooting common or endangered fauna, poachers cause ecological imbalance in individual regions. The restoration of the number of animals occurs much more slowly than their destruction. Large-scale fishing with nets can only be explained by a thirst for profit. The use of fishing rods and electric fishing rods leads to the devastation of water bodies, which is fraught with consequences for the biosphere.
- Negative impacts on flora and fauna include: deforestation. When exposed to direct sunlight, shade-loving plants wither. The herbaceous and shrub layers of the flora are modified due to changes in external conditions, some even disappear altogether. In addition, mass hikes by tourists, trampling and compaction of the soil turn out to be a bad side for the vegetation cover.
Time to take stock
The future of humanity directly depends on the state of nature. Maintaining natural balance is necessary primarily for the full existence of a person. Environmental protection and efficient use of natural resources are the most relevant measures today.
Many countries support environmental policies by developing special laws and authorities to protect the environment. For example, the UN system has created the UNEP program, which unites all countries and is designed to protect nature at the system-wide level. In solving these problems, an important role is played by the education of the population, decent education and training of qualified specialists in the field of ecology.
For thousands of years, man has been a part of nature. Without opposing himself to her, he took what was necessary for survival: food, material for housing, fuel. However, the further the human race went in technical inventions, the more resources it consumed, the more serious damage it caused to the environment.
Today, the issue of ecology has come to the attention of the inhabitants of our planet. A whole range of problems threaten to change the earth beyond recognition and cause irreparable harm directly to people, their health and well-being.
It must be said that people themselves cause damage to the quality of their lives. Much has already been destroyed, dozens of species of animals and plants have disappeared, but it is possible to preserve what remains. To do this, it is important to take a responsible approach to various areas of your life. It is necessary to think about what will be left as a legacy to subsequent generations, how our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, society will feel, whether they will have a chance to change something.
Technical sphere in modern life of the Planet
Today, the amount of technology produced by humans (what is called technomass in science) for the first time in the history of our world has exceeded biomass (that is, wild living organisms).
By analogy with biomass, the concept of which underlies the biosphere, there is a generalized concept of technomass, into which scientists put the following components:
- devices extracting minerals;
- energy generating devices;
- devices processing raw materials;
- technology that creates consumer products;
- everything related to the development of devices for processing and storing information.
A separate category includes autonomous multifunctional systems, which, for example, perform various actions in space, and “technical orderlies” - waste processing devices.
Thus, we can say that the technosphere copies the biosphere in structure. At the same time, until the last moment, all the industrial power of humanity was aimed at maximum exploitation of natural resources. The absence of a humanistic component and insufficient interaction of social sciences with the exact ones has led to the fact that nature is driven into reservations, species become extinct, plant and animal life in entire regions is practically destroyed, and industrial waste forms landscapes.
The first step to solving a problem is recognizing it. Society needs to appreciate the horror of the state of nature, the role and impact of humans on the environment. Only in this case is it possible to save what remains.
How does modern society harm nature?
- Each of us, to a greater or lesser extent, is aimed at consumption. Every person has many things without which life seems impossible. Moreover, the industry needs to constantly expand its sales market. Therefore, with the help of advertising, we are told that old (no matter whether good or not) things need to be thrown away and purchased new ones. This applies to cars and mobile phones, household appliances, clothing, shoes, furniture and much more.
Thus, production volumes are constantly increasing, new factories and plants are being built. Each of them must have treatment facilities, all basic technologies and forms of activity must be regularly updated, and money must be invested in minimizing harmful emissions. This requires considerable financial costs, which the owners do not want to undertake. As a result, the atmosphere is polluted, forests and water bodies die, and people acquire serious diseases.
The petrochemical industry emits hydrocarbon compounds into the air, and metallurgy emits heavy metals.
- Special substances are released by ballistic and space rockets. Every military exercise, every flight to orbit costs us part of our atmosphere, what we breathe and with the help of which we exist.
- A special word should be said about cars. Today their number per capita, especially in cities, is becoming critical. This is evidenced by traffic jams, accidents, and problems with parking spaces. But the most important thing is that exhaust gases - products of fuel processing - also rise upward, polluting the air and creating a “greenhouse effect”. In short, its result is an increase in temperature throughout the planet. This contributes to the melting of glaciers, climate change, and frequent natural disasters. The main means of neutralizing the harm of cars is to adjust engines and install special systems for cleaning combustion products, as well as replacing ethyl gasoline with other, environmentally friendly fuel.
- The human impact on the environment also lies in the active operation of thermal power plants. The oxides of sulfur and nitrogen that form when raw coal burns, along with other chemical compounds, cause acid rain. They are dangerous both for human society and for the natural environment - they acidify soils and water bodies, contribute to the extinction of entire species of plants and living beings, and negatively affect the skin, hair, and the condition of human internal organs.
This situation can be corrected. This will require, first of all, considerable funds. However, the consequences of human economic activity for the environment are so catastrophic that such investments are the only way to save nature.
- It is necessary to replace old-style thermal power plants with new ones, which include mechanisms for the disposal of harmful gas and dust waste.
- It is necessary to clean the coal right after its extraction - even before it reaches the thermal power plant. Ideally, it should be replaced with the most environmentally friendly and safe fuel today - natural gas.
- Deforestation. Modern society is accustomed to taking from nature without giving anything in return. The destruction of forests has acquired catastrophic proportions, especially in those countries where this natural wealth was initially abundant.
The most valuable timber from the tropical forests of South America is being cut down. As for our country, unauthorized plots can be found in almost any region, and especially in the taiga.
Reducing the number of forests is harmful not only for those animals that have lost their home and are forced to migrate. The consequences of human economic activity for the environment in this case are climate changes, which will affect the quality of life of each of us. Also, a decrease in forest area will help reduce the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere.
Constant and systematic restoration of plantings, careful treatment of them, protection from deforestation and fires, from diseases - this is the recipe for preserving one of the main wealth - forests.
- A special word should be said about the waste collection system in our country. It is at a low level. There are several reasons for this:
- Ignorance and illiteracy of each individual person. Most of our cities are littered, many people throw food wrappers, bottles and cigarette butts right under their feet, teaching their children this by their own example.
- Unorganized waste separation system. In European countries, society is configured and accustomed to the fact that garbage needs to be separated into biodegradable (food waste and paper), metal, glass, plastic. Most of what is collected is sent for recycling. To do this, it is necessary to invest money in the construction of factories, the purchase and establishment of mechanisms, and basic collection technologies. However, the result becomes noticeable soon.
All changes in the biosphere follow each other, they are characterized by a chain reaction. Therefore, by destroying, for example, a certain species of animal, a person disrupts the state of the entire ecosystem of a forest, steppe or desert, and interferes with the natural course of events that has existed for thousands of years. Failure to understand these connections leads to a significant change in the state of our planet and life on it.
The consequences of human economic activity for the environment are becoming more and more catastrophic every year. Therefore, it is important to develop a set of measures where every person, enterprise, and state will be responsible for nature, as for our common home, and do what they can, making their contribution to the life and well-being of the planet. After all, no money or benefits of civilization can replace air, clean water, greenery and all the riches that nature generously shares with us.