Doctor of Economic Sciences Y. Shishkov

We see the bottomless blue sky, green forests and meadows, hearing the singing of birds, breathe air, consisting almost entirely of nitrogen and oxygen, swim along rivers and seas, drink water or use it, sunbathe in affectionate solar rays - and all this perceive as natural And ordinary. It seems otherwise there can be no way: it was always that it will be forever! But this is a deep misconception generated by the everyday habit and ignorance of how and why the planet Earth has become such as we know. Planets arranged otherwise than ours, not only can be, but also really exist in the universe. But is there anywhere in the depths of the space planet with environmental conditions, more or less close to earth? Such an opportunity is very hypothetical on and minimal. Earth if not unique, then, in any case, "piece" works of nature.

The main ecosystems of the planet. Mountains, forests, deserts, sea, oceans - there are still relatively clean nature - and megalopolises - the focus of the life and activity of people who can turn the land into a solid dump.

Such a beautiful seemed from the Space Earth - a unique planet, which caused life.

Science and life // illustration

The figure shows the stages of the evolution of the planet Earth and the development of life on it.

Here are just some of the negative consequences caused by the activities of humanity on Earth. The water of the seas and oceans are polluted by oil, although there is not one way to collect it. But waters are clogged and banal household waste.

There is no dwelling continent, where the factory and plants would not smoke, not to better changing the surrounding atmosphere.

Science and life // illustration

Painting typical for any major city Earth: endless mills of cars, whose exhaust gases are sick, trees die ...

Science and life // illustration

Science and life // illustration

Science and life // illustration

Science and life // illustration

Environmentally friendly production is the only thing that will give the opportunity if not to make the planet is cleaner, then at least to leave it that we got it.

Long formation of the Earth ecosystem

First of all, we recall how the evolution of the solar system was going. Approximately 4.6 billion years ago, one of the many vortex gas-dye clouds within our galaxy began to be compacted and turn into a sunny system. Inside the cloud was formed the main spherical, then another cold rotating bunch consisting of gas (hydrogen and helium) and space dust (fragments of atoms of heavier chemical elements from previously exploding giant stars) is the future sun. Around him, under the influence of the gravity, smaller clots of the same cloud began to apply - future planets, asteroids, comets. The orbits one of them turned out to be closer to the sun, others - further, some were built from large bushings of interstellar matter, others from smaller.

At first it did not matter much. But over time, the strength of gravity has become increasingly sealing the sun and planet. And the degree of seal depends on their initial mass. And the stronger these clots of matter squeezed, the more they warmed off from the inside. In this case, heavy chemical elements (First of all, iron, silicates) melted and lowered to the center, and light (hydrogen, helium, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen) remained on the surface. Connecting with hydrogen, carbon turned into methane, nitrogen - in ammonia, oxygen into water. On the surface of the planets, the cosmic cold reigned, so all the compounds were in the form of ice. A gaseous layer of hydrogen and helium was located above the solid part.

However, the masses of even such large planets, as Jupiter and Saturn, were not enough to ensure that the pressure and temperature in their centers reach the point when the thermonuclear reaction begins, and this reaction has begun inside the Sun. It reached and about four billion years ago turned into a star, which sends not only wave radiation into space - light, heat, x-ray and gamma rays, but also the so-called solar wind - flows of charged particles of matter (protons and electrons).

For forming planets began testing. They hit them the streams of the thermal energy of the sun and the solar wind. The cold surface of the protoplant was laughed, the clouds of hydrogen and helium climbed over them, and the ice arrays of water, methane and ammonia melted and began to evaporate. Persisive sunny windThese gases were carried out into space. The degree of such "undressing" of the primary planets determined the distance of their orbits from the Sun: the closest to it was evaporated and blurred by the solar wind most intensively. As the planets "Lesus", their gravitational fields weakened, and evaporation and blowing intensified while the closest planets did not completely disappear into space.

Mercury - the next planets closest to the Sun is a relatively small, very dense celestial body with a metal core, but barely noticeable magnetic field. It is almost deprived of the atmosphere, and its surface is covered with rocky rocky rocks, which in the daytime are late at the sun to 420-430 o C, and therefore liquid water can not be here. The Venus is more removed from the Sun size and the density is very similar to our planet. She has almost the same large iron core, but due to slow rotation around its axis (243 times slower than the Earth), it is deprived of a magnetic field that could protect it from the solar wind, destructive for all living things. Venus, however, retained pretty powerful atmosphere, 97% consisting of carbon dioxide (CO 2) and less than 2% of nitrogen. Such a gas composition creates a powerful greenhouse effect: CO 2 interferes with solar radiation, reflected by the Venusian surface, to go into space, which is why the surface of the planet and the lower layers of its atmosphere are hot to 470 ° C. In such a bake about liquid water, and therefore, there can be no speech about living organisms.

Another our neighbor, Mars, almost twice the ground. And although it has a metal kernel and rotates around his axis almost at the same speed as the Earth, he does not have a magnetic field. Why? Its metal core is very small, and most importantly - it is not melted and therefore does not induce such a field. As a result, the surface of Mars is constantly bombarded by the charged fragments of hydrogen nuclei and other elements that continuously throws the sun. The atmosphere of Mars is similar in composition on the Venusian: 95% CO 2 and 3% of nitrogen. But due to the weak gravity of this planet and the solar wind, its atmosphere is extremely cut: the pressure on the surface of Mars is 167 times lower than on Earth. At such a pressure there, there is also no liquid water. However, it does not have it on Mars and because of the low temperature (during the day on average minus 33 o C). In the summer, at the equator, it increases the maximum to a plus of 17 ° C, and in the winter in high latitudes it drops to minus 125 ° C, when atmospheric carbon dioxide is turned into ice - this is also explained to the seasonal increase in white polar caps of Mars.

Large planets, Jupiter and Saturn, do not have a solid surface at all - the upper layers consist of liquid hydrogen and helium, and the lower - from the molten heavy elements. Uranium is a liquid ball with a kernel of molten silicates, over the core is a hot water ocean with a depth of about 8 thousand kilometers, and over all of this - a hydrogen-helium atmosphere with a thickness of 11 thousand kilometers. It is just as unsuitable for the origin of biological life and the farthest planets - Neptune and Pluto.

Lucky only land. Random confluence (the main among them is the original mass at the protofable stage, the distance from the sun, the speed of rotation around its axis and the presence of a semi-liquid iron kernel, giving it a strong magnetic field that protects against the solar wind) allowed the planet with time to become the same as we used see it. The long geological evolution of the Earth led to the emergence of life only on it.

First of all, the gas composition of the earth's atmosphere has changed. Initially, it apparently consisted of hydrogen, ammonia, methane and water vapor. Then, interacting with hydrogen, methane turned into CO 2, and ammonia - in nitrogen. Oxygen in the primary atmosphere of the Earth was not. As it was cooled, water steam condensed into liquid water and formed oceans and sea covered three quarters ground surface. In the atmosphere, the amount of carbon dioxide has decreased: it dissolved in water. During continuous eruptions of volcanoes characteristic of the early stages of the history of the Earth, part of CO 2 was associated in carbonate compounds. The reduction in the atmosphere of carbon dioxide was weakened by the greenhouse created by them: the temperature on the surface of the Earth decreased and began to differ radically from the one that existed and exists on Mercury and Venus.

The sea and oceans played a decisive role in the biological evolution of the Earth. Atoms of a variety of chemical elements dissolved in water, interacting, formed new, more complex not organic compounds. Of these, under the action of the electrical discharges of lightning, radioactive radiation of metals, the eruptions of underwater volcanoes in seawater occurred the simplest organic compounds - amino acids, those initial "bricks", of which proteins are developing - the base of living organisms. Most of these simple amino acids decayed, but some of them, complicated, became the primary single-cell organisms of the type of bacteria that can adapt to the habitat and multiply.

So about 3.5 billion years ago in the geological history of the Earth, a qualitatively new stage came. Her chemical evolution added (and rather, it moved to the background) the evolution of biological. This did not know any other planet solar system.

It took another one hundred and a half billion years before in cells of some bacteria, chlorophyll and other pigments appeared, capable of solar light to carry out photosynthesis - convert carbon dioxide molecules (CO 2) and water (H 2 O) to organic compounds and free oxygen (about 2). Now the light radiation of the Sun began to serve the infinite buildup of biomass, the development of organic life went much faster.

And further. Under the action of photosynthesis, absorbing carbon dioxide and released unrelated oxygen, the gas composition of the earth's atmosphere changed: the share of CO 2 was reduced, and the share of 2 increased. The forest covered with land accelerated this process. And about 500 million years ago, the simplest waterfowl vertebrate animals appeared. After approximately 100 million years, the amount of oxygen has reached such a level that allowed some vertebral to go to the land. Not only because all the land animals breathe oxygen, but also due to the fact that in the upper layers of the atmosphere at an altitude of 25-30 kilometers, a protective layer of ozone appeared (O 3), absorbing a significant part of ultraviolet and x-ray radiation Sun, destructive for land animals.

The composition of the earth's atmosphere acquired by this time extremely favorable properties for the further development of life: 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 0.9% of argon and a bit (0.03%) carbon dioxide, hydrogen and other gases. With such an atmosphere, the land, getting quite a lot of thermal energy of the Sun, about 40% of it, in contrast to Venus, reflects into space, and the earth's surface does not overheat. But that's not all. Thermal solar energy, almost freely entering the ground in the form of short-wave radiation, is reflected in space as long-wave infrared radiation. It partially delayed in an atmosphere of water ferry, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxide and other gases that create a natural greenhouse effect. Thanks to him, in the lower layers of the atmosphere and on the surface of the Earth, a more or less stable moderate temperature is maintained, which is about 33 ° C above, which could be if there was no natural greenhouse effect.

So step by step on the ground was a unique ecological system suitable for life. Large, half molten iron core and the rapid rotation of the Earth around its axis create a fairly strong magnetic field, which causes the streams of solar protons and electrons to contend our planet, without causing it a significant harm even during periods of high radiation of the sun (whether it is a smaller core and hard Rotation of the Earth - preferred, it would remain defenseless in front of the solar wind). And thanks to its own magnetic field And a significant self-mass of the land has retained a fairly powerful atmosphere (thickness of about 1000 km), which creates a comfortable thermal mode on the surface of the planet and the abundance of liquid water - the indispensable condition for the origin and evolution of life.

For two billion years, the number of different types of plants and animals on the planet reached about 10 million. Of these, 21% fall on plants, almost 76% - for invertebrates and slightly more than 3% - on vertebrates, of which only the tenth part is mammals. In each natural-climatic zone, they complement each other as a trophic links, that is, food, chains, forming relatively steady biocenosis.

The biosphere emerged on Earth gradually fit into the ecosystem and became an integral component involved in the geological cycle of energy and substances.

Living organisms are active components of many biogeochemical cycles in which water, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, sulfur, iron, potassium, calcium and other chemical elements are involved. From the inorganic phase, they go into the organic, and then in the form of waste of the vital activity of plants and animals, or their remains are returned to the inorganic phase. It is estimated, for example, that through the organic phase annually passes the seventh of the entire carbon dioxide and 1/4500 part of the oxygen. If the process of photosynthesis on Earth for some reason ceased, then free oxygen would disappear from the atmosphere for about two thousand years. And at the same time all green plants and all animals would disappear, with the exception of the simplest anaerobic organisms (some types of bacteria, yeast and worms).

The Earth's ecosystem is self-sustained and thanks to other cycling rates of substances that are not related to the functioning of the biosphere, we will remind the water cycle known to the school bench in nature. The whole combination of closely interrelated biological and nebiological cycles forms a complex self-regulating environmental system in relative equilibrium. However, its stability is very fragile and vulnerable. Proof of this - repeated planetary catastrophes, the cause of which became or a fall in large space bodies, or powerful eruption of volcanoes, which is why the flow of sunlight to the earth's surface was reduced for a long time. Whether such disasters were carried out from 50 to 96% of earthly biota. But life reborn again and continued to develop.

Aggressive Homo Sapiens.

The appearance of photosynthetic plants, as already mentioned, marked a new stage in the development of the Earth. Such a cardinal geological shift was generated by relatively simple alive organisms that do not have a mind. From a person, the organism is highly organized, endowed with powerful intelligence - can naturally expect much more tangible effects on the ecosystem of the Earth. The far ancestors of such a creature - the hominids appeared, according to different estimates, from about 3 to 1.8 million years ago, Neanderthals - about 200-100 thousand, and modern Homo Sapiens Sapiens - only 40 thousand years ago. In geology, even three million years are stacked in the framework of chronological error, and 40 thousand are just one millionth age of the Earth. But even for this geological moment, people managed to thoroughly break the balance of its ecosystems.

First of all, the growth of the Homo Sapiens population for the first time in history was not balanced by natural limiters: neither disadvantage of food nor devouring people predators. With the development of labor tools (especially after the industrial revolution), people practically fell out of the usual trophic chain and got the opportunity to multiply almost impossible. Two thousand years ago they were about 300 million, and by 2003 the number of the earth's population increased 21 times to 6.3 billion.

Second. Unlike all other biological species having a more or less limited habitat, people settled throughout the earth's surface, despite the soil-climatic, geological, biological and other conditions. Therefore, the degree of their influence on nature is not comparable to the influence of any other beings. And finally, thanks to its intellect, people are not so much adapting to the natural environment as adapting this environment to their needs. And such a device (even recently said with pride: "conquest of nature") becomes more and more offensive, even aggressive.

For many millennia, people almost never felt restrictions on the part of the environment. And if we saw that in the nearest district, the amount of game exterminated by them was decreased, processed soils or meadows for grazing of livestock were drainaged, they moved to a new place. And everything was repeated. Natural resources It seemed inexhaustible. Only sometimes such a purely consumer, the environment of the environment ended in deplorable. More than nine thousand years ago, Sumerians in order to feed the growing population of Mesopotamia, began to develop irrigated agriculture. However, the irrigation systems created by them over time led to lagarment and soil salinization, which served as the main cause of the death of the Sumerian civilization. Another example. The Mayan civilization that flourished on the territory of modern Guatemalas, Honduras and Southeast Mexico, suffered from about 900 years ago mainly due to the erosion of the soil and driving rivers. The same reasons caused the drop in the ancient agricultural civilizations of Meternrech in South America. The cases of only exceptions from the rule that reads are: screames from the bottomless well of nature as much as you can. And people drenched from him without looking at the state of the ecosystem.

To date, a person has adapted for its needs about half of the earth sushi: 26% - under pastures, 11% - under Pashnya and forestry, the remaining 2-3% - for the construction of housing, industrial facilities, transport and services. As a result of the deforestation of forests, agricultural land increased from 1700 six times. Of the available fresh fresh water sources, humanity uses more than half. At the same time, almost half of the planet rivers substantially roughly roughly or contaminated, and about 60% of the 277 largest water arteries are overplicated by dams and other engineering facilities, which led to the creation of artificial lakes, changes in the ecology of water bodies and the mouth of the rivers.

People worsened or destroyed the habitats of many representatives of flora and fauna. Only since 1600, 484 species of animals and 654 types of plants disappeared on Earth. More than eighth parts of 1183 species of birds and the fourth - out of 1130 species of mammals today threatens disappearance from the face of the Earth.

The world ocean suffered from man less. People use only eight percent of its initial productivity. But here he left his unkind "trail", caught up to the limit of two thirds of marine animals and violating the ecology of many other inhabitants of the sea. Only throughout the 20th century, almost half of all coastal mangroves was destroyed and the tenth of coral reef was irretrievably destroyed.

And finally, one more unpleasant consequence The rapidly growing humanity is its production and household waste. From the total mass of the mined natural raw materials into the final consumption product turns into no more than the tenth of the part, the rest goes to the landfill. Wasters of organic origin, humanity, according to some calculations, produces in 2000 more than the rest of the biosphere. Today, the ecological "trail" Homo Sapiens outweighs the negative impact on environment All other living beings combined. Humanity came close to environmental deadlock, or rather, to say to the edge of the cliff. From the second half of the XX century, the crisis of the entire environmental system of the planet is growing. It is generated by many reasons. Consider only the most important of them - pollution of the earth's atmosphere.

Technical progress has created many ways to pollution. These are various stationary installations that convert solid and liquid fuel into thermal or electrical energy. These vehicles (cars and airplanes are undoubtedly leading) and agriculture with its rotary waste of agriculture and animal husbandry. These are industrial processes in metallurgy, chemical production, etc. These are municipal waste and, finally, the extraction of fossil fuels (we will repeal at least constantly smaghous torches on oil and gaspinds or areas of dumps near coal mines).

The air is poisoned not only by primary gases, but also secondary, which are formed in the atmosphere during the reaction of the first with hydrocarbons under the influence of sunlight. Sulfur dioxide and various nitrogen compounds are oxidized by water drops that are going in the clouds. Such acidic water, falling out in the form of rain, fog or snow, poisoned the soil, reservoirs, ruffles the forest. In Western Europe around large industrial centers, lake fish will die out, and the forests turn into the cemeteries of the dead, bare trees. Forest animals in such places are almost completely dying.

These catastrophes caused by anthropogenic pollution of the atmosphere, although they are universal, but still spatially more or less localized: they cover only individual areas of the planet. However, some types of pollution acquire a planetary scale. We are talking about emissions into the atmosphere of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrogen oxide, which enhance the natural greenhouse effect. The emissions into the atmosphere of carbon dioxide create about 60% of the additional greenhouse effect, methane - approximately 20%, other carbon compounds - another 14%, the remaining 6-7% contributes nitrogen oxide.

In natural conditions, the content in the atmosphere of CO 2 over the past few hundred million years is about 750 billion tons (approximately 0.3% of the total air weight in surface layers) and is maintained at this level due to the fact that its excess mass is dissolved in water and absorbed Plants in the process of photosynthesis. Even a relatively small violation of this balance is threatened with essential moving in the ecosystem with difficult to predict the effects and for climate, and for the plants and animals adapted to it.

Over the past two centuries, humanity has made a significant "contribution" in violation of such equilibrium. Back in 1750, it threw out only 11 million tons of CO 2 into the atmosphere. After a century, the volume of emissions increased 18 times, reaching 198 million tons, and in a hundred years increased by 30 times and amounted to 6 billion tons. By 1995, this figure increased four times to 24 billion tons. The content of methane in the atmosphere over the past two centuries increased by about twice. And he in its ability to strengthen the greenhouse effect 20 times greater than CO 2.

The consequences did not slow down to affect: in the XX century, the average global surface temperature rose by 0.6 ° C. It would seem - a trifle. But this increase in temperature is enough so that the XX century is the warmest for the last millennium, and the 90s are the warmest in the past century. The snow cover of the earth's surface from the end of the 1960s decreased by 10%, and the thickness of the ice in the north Arctic Ocean Over the past decades, it has decreased by more than a meter. As a result, the World Ocean Level over the past hundred years has increased by 7-10 centimeters.

Some skeptics include anthropogenic climate warming to the number of myths. Say, there are natural cycles of temperature fluctuations, one of which is observed now, and the anthropogenic factor is pulled by the ears. Natural cycles of temperature fluctuations of the near-earth atmosphere really exist. But they are measured by many decades, some - centuries. The monitoring of the climate is observed in the last two years, not only does not fit into the usual natural cyclicity, but also happens unnaturally quickly. The Climate Change Intergovernmental Commission, collaborating with scientists from different countries The world, said in early 2001, that anthropogenic changes are becoming increasingly obvious that warming is accelerating, and its consequences are much more severe than expected before. In particular, it is expected that by 2100 the average temperature of the earth's surface in different latitudes can increase by another 1.4-5.8 ° C with all the ensuing consequences.

Climate warming is unevenly distributed: in northern latitudes it is stronger than in the tropics. Therefore, this century will significantly increase the winter temperature in Alaska, in Northern Canada, in Greenland, in the northern part of Asia and Tibet, and the summer - in Central Asia. Such a allocation of warming entails a change in the dynamics of air flows, and therefore the redistribution of precipitation. And this in turn generates more and more natural disasters - hurricanes, floods, droughts, forest fires. In the 20th century, about 10 million people died in such catastrophes. Moreover, the number of the largest catastrophes and their destructive consequences increase. In the 50s, there were 20 large-scale natural disasters, in the 70s - 47, and in the 90s - 86. The damage caused by natural catastrophes is huge (see schedule).

The first years of this century is noted by unprecedented floods, hurricanes, droughts and forest fires.

And this is just the beginning. Further warming of climate in high latitudes threatens the thawing of permafrost in Northern Siberia, on the Kola Peninsula and in the indoor regions of North America. This means that the foundations are floating under buildings in Murmansk, Vorkuta, Norilsk, Magadan and dozens of other cities and villages standing on frozen soil (signs of disaster approaches have already been marked in Norilsk). However, this is not all. The armor of permafrost is deflated, and the exit stored under it for millennia is a huge accumulation of methane - gas, causing elevated greenhouse effect. It has already been fixed that methane in many places Siberia begins to leak into the atmosphere. If the climate here is very warm here, then the ejection will become mass. The result is the strengthening of the greenhouse effect and even greater climate warming throughout the planet.

According to a pessimistic scenario due to climate warming by 2100, the World Ocean level will increase by almost one meter. And then the southern coast Mediterranean Sea, West Coast of Africa, South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Maldives), all coastal countries in Southeast Asia and Coral Atollas in a quiet and Indian Ocean Steel arena natural disaster. In one Bangladesh, the sea threatens to flood about three million hectares of the Earth and forcing 15-20 million people to resettlement. 3.4 million hectares can be flooded in Indonesia and no less than two million people are expelled from habitats. For Vietnam, these figures would compile two million hectares and ten million immigrants. A total of such victims around the world can reach about a billion.

According to ENEP experts, the costs caused by the warming of the land climate will continue to grow. The costs of protective structures from the enhancing sea level and high storm waves can make one billion dollars a year. If the CO 2 concentration in the atmosphere doubles compared to the pre-industrial level, global agriculture and forestry, due to droughts, floods and fires will be losing up to $ 42 billion, and the water supply system will come up with additional costs (about $ 47 billion).

A person more and more inflicts the nature of himself in a dead end, to get out of which is increasingly harder. Outstanding domestic mathematician and ecologist Academician N. N. Moiseyev warned that the biosphere, like every complex nonlinear system, could lose stability, resulting in its irreversible transition to a certain quasi-prevail state. More than probably, in this new state, the parameters of the biosphere will be unsuitable for people's lives. Therefore, it will not be a mistake to say that humanity is balanced on the scene of the razor. How long can it be so balancing? In 1992, the two most authoritative scientific organizations in the world - the British Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences jointly stated: "The future of our planet is hanging on the hairs. Sustainable development can be achieved, but only if you stop the irreversible degradation of the planet in time. The following 30 years will become decisive. " In turn, N. N. Moiseev wrote that "such a catastrophe may not happen in some uncertain future, but maybe in the middle of the coming XXI century."

If these forecasts are true, then the time to search for exit remains, by historical standards, quite a bit - from three to five decades.

How to get out of a dead end?

For many hundreds of years, people were absolutely convinced: a person was created by the Creator as a crown of nature, her lord and the conversion of the vitel. Such self-confidence is still maintained by the main world religions. Moreover, such a homocentric ideology was supported by an outstanding domestic geologist and geochemist V. I. Vernadsky, formulated in the 20s of the last century the idea of \u200b\u200bthe transition of the biosphere to the nosphere (from the Greek NOOS - Mind), into a peculiar intellectual "reservoir" of the biosphere. "Humanity, taken as a whole, becomes powerful geological force. And before him, before his thought, the question of restructuring the biosphere in the interests of free-thinking humanity as a whole," he wrote. Moreover, "[a person] can and should rebuild the labor and thought of the area of \u200b\u200bhis life, rebuilding the fundamentally compared to what it was before" (MEDU. - Yu. Sh.).

In fact, as already mentioned, we do not have the transition of the biosphere to the nosphere, but the transition of it from natural evolution to an unnatural, imposed by the aggressive intervention of humanity. This destructive intervention applies not only to the biosphere, but also to the atmosphere, hydrosphere and partly to the lithosphere. What is the kingdom of mind, if humanity, even realizing many (although not all) aspects of the natural environment degradation generated by them, are unable to stop and continues to exacerbate ecological crisis. It behaves in a natural habitat as an elephant in the dishwasher.

It has come a bitter hangover - the sharp need to find an output. Its search is difficult, since modern humanity is very inhomogeneous - and in terms of technical and economic and cultural development, and on mentality. Someone is simply indifferent to the further fate of the world society, and someone adheres to Dedov's logic: they went out and not from such a shot, then you will get out this time. Hope on "Avos" may well be a fatal miscalculation.

Another part of humanity understands the seriousness of the hijling, but instead of participating in collective search for the exit, all its energy directs the exposure of the culprits of the current situation. These people consider the liberal globalization responsible for the crisis, then selfish industrialized countries, and even the "main enemy of all mankind" - the United States. Poured their own anger on the pages of newspapers and magazines, organize mass protests, participate in street riots and with pleasure beat windows in the cities where the forums go international organizations. Do you need to say that such exposures and demonstrations do not promote a solution to the solution of a universal problem, but rather prevent this?

Finally, the third, very small part of the world community not only understands the degree of threat, but also concentrates its intellectual and material resources on finding ways to exit the situation. She seeks to see in the fog of the future of the future and find the best way to not be stupid and not break into the abyss.

Weighing the real dangers and resources with which humanity has at the beginning of the XXI century, it can be said that there are still some chances of getting out of the ceased deadlock. But unprecedented mobilization of sound sensitory and the will of the entire world community is required to solve many problems in three strategic directions.

The first of them is the psychological reorientation of world society, a cardinal change of stereotypes of his behavior. "To get out of crises generated by man-made civilization, society will have to go through the complex stage of the spiritual revolution, as in the era of the Renaissance," said Academician BC Stepin. - We will have to develop new values \u200b\u200b... it is necessary to change the attitude towards nature: it is impossible to consider it as a bottomless storage room, As a field for alteration and patching. " Such a psychological revolution is impossible without a significant complication of the logical thinking of each individual and the transition to a new model of behavior of most humanity. But, on the other hand, it is impossible without fundamental changes in relations within society - without the new rules of morality, without a new organization of micro and macrosocyium, without new relationships between different societies.

Such a psychological reorientation of humanity is very difficult. We will have to break stereotypes of thinking and behaviors for thousands of years. And first of all, a fundamental review of the self-assessment of a person as a crown of nature, its converter and the lord is needed. This homocentric paradigm, over the Millennium, preached by many world religions, supported in the 20th century, and the teachings about the noosphere should be sent to an ideological dump of history.

Nowadays, a different value system is needed. The attitude of people to living and inanimate nature should be built not on opposition - "we" and "everything else", but on the understanding of the fact that both "we", and "everything else" the essence of the equal passengers of the spacecraft under the name "Earth". Such a psychological coup seems unlikely. But recall that in the era of the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the coup of this kind, albeit of a smaller scale, occurred in the consciousness of the aristocracy, which traditionally divided the society to "we" (people of blue blood) and "they" (commoner and just black). In the modern democratic world, such representations became immoral. In the individual and public consciousness, the numerous "taboos" in relation to Nature can also emerge and should emerge, which requires the proportion of the needs of world society and every person with the capabilities of the ecosphere. The morals will go beyond the limits of interpersonal or international relations and include the norms of behavior regarding living and inanimate nature.

The second strategic direction is the forcing and globalization of scientific and technological progress. "Since the brewing environmental crisis, threatening to grow into a global catastrophe, is caused by the development of the productive forces, the achievements of science and technology, then the way out of it is unthinkable without further development of these components of the Civilization process," wrote N. N. Moses. - In order to find a way out The limit voltage of the creative genius of mankind will be required, countless inventions and discoveries. Therefore, it is necessary to maximize the personality as soon as possible, create opportunities for the disclosure of your creative potential to anyone able to this person. "

Indeed, humanity has to dramatically change the structure of production to the current centuries, extremely decreasing in it specific gravity mining industry, polluting soil and groundwater of agriculture; move from hydrocarbon energy to nuclear; Replace automotive and air transport operating on liquid fuel, some other, environmentally friendly; Significantly rebuilding the entire chemical industry to minimize the pollution of its products and waste of the atmosphere, water and soil ...

Some scientists see the future of humanity in the care of the technogenic civilization of the XX century. Yu. V. Yakovets, for example, believes that in the post-industrial era, which seems to him as a "humanistic society", "the technogenic character of the Late Minister Society will be overcome." In fact, to prevent environmental disasters, maximum intensification of scientific and technical efforts is required to create and implement environmental technologies in all areas of human life: agriculture, energy, metallurgy, chemical industry, construction, life, etc. Therefore, the post-industrial society becomes Not posthnogenic, but, on the contrary, supertechnogenic. Another thing is that the vector of its technogenicity changes from resource absorption on the resource consumption, with environmentally friendly technologies on environmental protection.

It is important to keep in mind that such qualitatively new technologies are becoming more and more dangerous because they can be used both for the benefit of humanity and nature and in harm to them. Therefore, there are steadily growing caution and caution.

The third strategic direction is to overcome or at least a significant reduction in the feasibility and socio-cultural gap between the post-industrial center of the world community and its periphery and half-period. After all, cardinal technological shifts should occur not only in highly developed countries that have large financial resources and personnel resources, but in all developing worldwhich is rapidly industrialized mainly on the basis of old, environmentally hazardous technologies and has no financial, no personnel opportunities to introduce environmental technologies. Technological novelties, created so far only in the post-industrial center of the world community, should be implemented on its industrial or industrialized periphery. Otherwise, there will be obsolete, environmentally dangerous technologies and the degradation of the planet's natural environment will be used in a growing scale. Stop the process of industrialization of developing regions of the world is impossible. So you need to help them do it so as to minimize damage to ecology. Such an approach is in the interests of all mankind, including the population of highly developed countries.

All three strategic tasks facing the world community are unprecedented both by their difficulty and in importance for further fates of mankind. They are closely interconnected and interdependent. The failure in solving one of them will not allow solving the rest. By and large - this is an exam on the maturity of the kind of Homo Sapiens, which happened to become the "smartest" among animals. It is time to prove that he is really a smart and can save the earthly ecosphere from degradation and itself in it.

Lecture No. 2 Environmental Systems.

Lecture Plan:

The concept of environmental systems.

Ecosystem structure.

Biotic structure of the ecosystem.

Production and decomposition in nature.

Homeostasis ecosystem.

Energy ecosystems.

Biological productivity of ecosystems.

Environmental pyramids.

Environmental Sukecession.

1. The concept of environmental systems.

Environmental system (ecosystem) - This is any unit (biosystem), which includes all the joint functioning organisms (biotic community) in this area and interacting with the physical medium in such a way that the energy flow creates clearly defined biotic structures and the volume of substances between living and inanimate parts. (according to Yu. Odumu).

The concept of an ecological system can also be determined through the concepts of biocenosis and biotop.

Biocenosis - This is a combination of jointly dwelling populations of different types of microorganisms, plants and animals.

Biotope - These are conditions of surrounding (inanimate) medium on a certain territory (air, water, soil and underlying rocks).

Thus, the ecosystem is biocenosis + biotope.

When studying ecosystems, the main subject of research is the processes of transformation of the substance and energy between the biota and the physical environment, i.e. The emerging biogeochemical circulation of substances in the ecosystem as a whole.

Biota - This is Flora and the fauna of this territory in the aggregate.

Ecosystems include biotic communities of any scale from their habitat from the pond to the world's ocean and from Stump Forest to an extensive forest massif.

Allocate also:

microshosystems (lichen pillow on a tree trunk),

mesoecosystems (pond, lake, steppe ...)

macroecosystems (continent, ocean),

global ecosystem (biosphere of the Earth).

2. Ecosystem structure.

The ecosystem consists of three parts:

communities

energy flow

flow (cycle) substances.

The ecological system on the trophic structure is divided into two tiers:

upper - authotrophic tier, or "green belt", including photosynthetic organisms, creating complex organic molecules from inorganic simple compounds,

the lower is the heterotrophic tier, or the "brown belt" of soils and precipitation, in which the decomposition of dead organic substances prevails again to ordinary mineral formations.

From a biological point of view in the composition of the ecosystems allocate:

inorganic substances (C, N, CO 2, H 2 O, P, O, etc.) involved in the cycle.

Organic compounds (proteins, carbohydrates, fats, humus substances, etc.).

air, aqueous and substrate medium, including abiotic factors.

producers,

consversal

recurates.

Inorganic substances in ecosystems are involved in a permanent cycle. Reserves of substances that are consumed by organisms are in nature are not limited. If these substances were not used many times, life on Earth would be impossible. Such an infinite cycle of substances in nature is possible only in the presence of functionally different groups of organisms capable of carrying out and maintaining the flow of substances retrieved by them from the environment.

The biotic structure of the ecosystem is the ways of interaction of various categories of system organisms.

The ecological system or ecosystem is considered by science as a large-scale interaction of living organisms with an inanimate medium of their habitat. They affect each other, and their assistance allows you to maintain life. The concept of "ecosystem" is generalized, it does not have a physical size, as it includes the ocean and, and at the same time a small puddle and flower. Ecosystems are very diverse, they depend on the large number of factors, such as climate, geological conditions and human activity.

General concept

In order to fully understand the term "ecosystem", consider it on the example of the forest. The forest is not just a large number of trees or shrubs, but a complex set of interconnected elements of alive and inanimate (land, sunlight, air) of nature. Related to living organisms:

• insects;
• lichens;
• bacteria;
• mushrooms.

Each organism performs its clear role, and general work All living and non-living elements creates a balance for uninterrupted ecosystem operation. Every time an extraneous factor or a new living creature penetrate the ecosystem may occur negative consequencesDestructuring and potential harm. The ecosystem may be collapped as a result of human vital activity or natural disasters.

Types of ecosystems

Depending on the scale of manifestation, there are three main types of ecosystems:

1. Macroecosystem. A large-scale system consisting of small systems. An example becomes a desert, or the ocean populated by thousands of marine animals and plants.
2. Mesoecosystem. Small ecosystem (pond, forest array or separate glade).
3. Microshosystem. Small-size ecosystem, which mimics in a miniature nature of various ecosystems (aquarium, corpse of animal, fishing stump, a puddle of water inhabited by microorganisms).

The uniqueness of the ecosystems is that they do not have clearly indicated boundaries. Most often, they complement each other or are separated by deserts, oceans and seas.

A person plays a significant role in ecosystem vital activity. Nowadays, humanity creates new and ruffles existing environmental systems to meet their own purposes. Depending on the method of ecosystem formation, two groups are also divided into two groups:

1. Natural ecosystem. It is created as a result of the forces of nature, it is capable of independently recovering and create a vicious circle of substances, from creating before decay.
2. Artificial or anthropogenic ecosystem. It consists of plants and animals that live in conditions of human hands (field, pasture, reservoir, botanical garden).

One of the biggest artificial ecosystems is the city. A person came up with it for the convenience of its own existence and created artificial influx of energy in the form of gas and water pipelines, electricity and heating. However, the artificial ecosystem requires additional inflows of energy and substances from the outside.

Global ecosystem

The combination of all environmental systems is a global ecosystem. It is the largest set of interaction of living and inanimate nature on the planet Earth. Located in balance due to the equilibrium of a huge set of ecosystems and the diversity of species of living organisms. It is so huge that covers:

• earth surface;
• upper part of the lithosphere;
• lower atmosphere;
• all water spaces.

Due to the constant, the global ecosystem retains its livelihood over billions of years.

01/15/2018 Article

TEXT Ecocosm.

The term "ecosystem" is familiar with each of us with a school bench and, if you look at the custody of the memory, then today we can say: the ecosystem is the functional unity of living organisms and their habitat (that is, inanimate nature surrounding these organisms). And this is the answer to "excellent" ... for a sixth grader.

In fact, the essence and role of environmental systems is much more complex than it may seem at first glance. Being the main functional units of ecology and structural components of the biosphere, the ecosystems are amazing not only by species manifold, but also a wide range of functions that they perform.

The most important importance that environmental systems have for humanity is a reason to get to know them closer and learn something new about them – What can be a discovery for you.

How the concept of the ecosystem appeared

The existence of a close relationship between all alive organisms in nature was not a secret already during antiquity. People could not help but notice the patterns uniting various natural processes, however, the term denoting the combination of living organisms on a certain habitat area, at that time did not exist.

At the end of the XIX century, the German scientist K. Möbiius took another step towards determining the concept of the ecosystem, giving the community of organisms in the oyster bank name "Biocenosis". And in 1887, thanks to his American colleague S. Forbus, the term "microcosm" appears, which it uses to determine the lake in a set with all organisms living in it.

The emergence of the term "ecosystem"

Moscow Clean ponds Only at the beginning of the 18th century received their current name after bringing them away by the efforts of Prince Menshikov, whose property they became at that time. Previously, the ponds were called the dies, performing the role of giant waste ditch

The term "environmental system" in the understanding in which he is familiar to us today was introduced in everyday life relatively recently – In 1935. – English biologist Artur Tensley.

Scientist determines the ecosystem as a totality of objects of alive and inanimate nature. Simply say – organisms and lives of their habitat.

Along with this term, similar concepts appear in the adjacent sciences. For example, in geology, the concept of "geosystem" is distributed, and F. Clements in 1930 introduces the term "Golotoce". IN AND. Vernadsky belongs to the name "Biocosal Body" introduced by him in 1944. Judging by the objectively, the concept of ecosystems is basic for all directions of environmental science.

Ecosystem with detailed consideration

The main features of any environmental system are its openness and ability to self-regulation, self-organization and self-development. Thus, not any biological system may be called the ecosystem, since not each of them has certain self-sufficiency and cannot exist for a long time without regulation from the outside. A bright example of a non-ecosystem biosystem can serve as an aquarium or pool with fish.

A similar community is just a part of a more complex system and is called "Microcosm" or "Fiti" (in geoecology).

Ecosystem and biogeocenosis

The ecological misfortune ended the adherence to the member of the New York Biological Society of Evgeny Sheffelin. For the past 100 years, the Skvorts, delivered to them in the Central Park of New York, seriously violate the work of all ecosystems in the United States, with the exception of several states, where bird immigrants did not have time to reach. The intentions of the scientist were exclusively good - allow residents of the city to admire all types of birds mentioned by Shakespeare in his works

Ecosystem and biogeocenosis are practically synonymous. The difference between these concepts lies in the latitude of their values. If the ecosystem may be any territory (including the entire biosphere of the planet), then biogeocenosis is characterized by a binding to the specifically taken land plot. Thus, biogeocenosis can be considered a simplified ecosystem.

Ecosystems in the service of mankind

Since the first Homo Sapiens landed at the Hawaiian Islands, here 71 species of birds disappeared

Ecosystem ability to self-healing and self-regulation – The most valuable quality is both for the entire planet and for a person in particular. Thanks to the so-called services that apply to us ecosystems, the population of the Earth is provided not only by food and drinking water, but also air.

These services are difficult to overestimate, but scientists nevertheless attempted to calculate and announce the price of the help that humanity had an ecosystem in 2014. The amount turned out to be more than impressive – 125 trillion American dollars.

What are the services, so kindly provided to us by nature?

"Providing" services

This includes all the benefits that a man of time impact of centuries got used to get from the ground free of charge, that is, for free: food (both vegetable and animal origin), water for drinking and household needs, industrial raw materials and construction Materials, components for making drugs, food additives and cosmetics (vegetable and animals).

"Auxiliary" services

As a habitat for a variety of living organisms used in food not only by a person, but also by other inhabitants, ecosystems perform an important auxiliary role. They are essentially providing the table and blood millions of living beings, and also provide their species manifold. This fact is extremely important for the nature of the Earth, since the number of types of animals and plants grown by man is significantly inferior to the "wild" diversity, durable ecological systems.

"Regulatory" services

Every year, 11 million hectares of tropical forests cease to exist on Earth.

Ensuring proper quality of soil, water resources and air, pollination of cultivated plants – All this refers to the regulatory function of environmental systems. Absolutely all ecosystems take part in its provision. For example, microorganisms living in wetlands destroy the pathogenic flora formed in wastewater, ensuring their filtering and decomposition of waste.

And one more function performed by ecosystems, which is difficult to overestimate – Selection by plants into the atmosphere of oxygen. Forest arrays and other green plantings contribute to the decomposition of carbon dioxide on oxygen and carbon, giving the rest of living beings to breathe freely.

"Cultural" services

To this category of values \u200b\u200bthat us from ecosystems belongs to our aesthetic pleasure from communicating with nature, our love for native land and countless joys of a tourist holiday. After all, if you analyze the list of cultural goods that travel to us (contemplation of architecture and picturesque landscapes, acquaintance with the original culture of different nations) It turns out that most of them are closely related to the natural features of this area (the soil climate, landscape, flora and fauna); in other words – With the features of ecosystems that exist in this area.

The objects of the cultural heritage of UNESCO play a special role in providing services in this category.

Based on the above facts, the conclusion suggests itself: the value attached to scientists to environmental systems is in no way exaggerated and the preservation of their integrity today – Task number one for all mankind. How to do it? – there is no more difficult question and at the same time easier than this.

Natural ecosystems, which did not affect the destructive activities of a person, are in Europe only 3 - 4% of the lands. Most of these sites are protected areas.

You should not try to solve the problem globally, feeling responsible for the entire population of the globe. It is enough just to reconsider your habits that directly or indirectly affect the ecosystems surrounding you personally. The latitude of the scope of activity in this area literally is limitless. You can at least start sorting garbage, which thrown into the container in the yard, and take batteries to a special reception. And the maximum ... Well, it is all determines for himself –

The term "ecosystem" was proposed by the English ecologist A. TENSLI (1935).

One of the definitions environmental system (ecosystem) - a set of populations of various types of plants, animals and microbes, interacting between themselves and the environment surrounding them in such a way that this set is preserved indefinitely for a long time. Examples of environmental systems: meadow, forest, lake, ocean, water drop, dried out of the lake, planet Earth as a whole, etc.

The composition of the ecosystem is represented by the abiotic components of inanimate nature and biotic components of wildlife.

Abiotic components - this is:

Inorganic substances and chemical elements involved in the exchange between living and dead matter (water, oxygen, calcium, magnesium, iron, nitrogen, phosphorus, etc.).

Organic substances that bind the abiotic and biotic parts of ecosystems (carbohydrates, fats, amino acids, proteins);

Biotic components - These are all living organisms.

Ecosystem functioning Provided by the interaction of the three main components: communities, energy flow, cycle of substances.

From the point of view of the spatial structure in natural systems, two tiers are distinguished:

Top - autotrophic or the "green belt" of land, which includes plants or their parts containing chlorophyll;

Nizhny - heterotrophic, Or the brown belt of the Earth, which includes soils or bottom sediments, where the processes of decomposition of dead organic remnants of plants and animals prevail.

Ecosystems exist everywhere - in water and on Earth, in dry and wet areas, in cold and hot locations. They look like differently, include different kinds Plants and animals. However, in the "behavior" of all ecosystems, there are general aspects associated with the principal similarity of the energy processes occurring in them.

One of the fundamental rules that all environmental systems are subject to, is principle le chateel-brownWell known in physics. With an external effect that displays a system from a state of stable equilibrium, this equilibrium shifts in the direction at which the effect of external influence is weakened.

When studying ecosystems, it is primarily analyzed, first of all, the flow of energy and the cycle of substances between the corresponding biotope and biocenosis. The ecosystem approach takes into account the community of organization of all communities regardless of the habitat. This confirms the similarity of the structure and functioning of ground and aquatic ecosystems.

By definition, V. N. Sukacheva, biogeocenosis (from Greek. bios.- a life, gEO- Land, cenosis - Community) is a combination of homogeneous natural elements (atmosphere, rock breed, vegetation, animal peace and world of microorganisms, soil and hydrological conditions) on a certain section of the surface of the Earth. Biogerocenosis contour is installed along the border of the plant community (phytocenosis).

The terms "Environmental System" and "Biogeocenosis" are not synonymous. The ecosystem is any combination of organisms and their habitats, including, for example, a pot with a flower, an anthill, aquarium, a swamp, a piloted spacecraft. The listed systems do not have a number of signs from the definition of V. N. Sukachev, and first of all the element "Geo" - Earth. Biocenoses are only natural education. However, biocenosis can be fully considered as an ecosystem. Thus, the concept of "ecosystem" is wider and fully covers the concept of "biogeocenosis". Biogeocenosis is a special case of "ecosystem".

The largest natural ecosystem on Earth is a biosphere. The boundary between the large ecosystem and the biosphere is as conditional as between many other concepts in ecology. The difference mainly consists in such a characteristic of the biosphere, as a globality and a large conditional closure (with thermodynamic openness). The other Earth ecosystems are practically not closed.

Bioma - The largest ground ecosystems corresponding to the main climatic zones of the Earth (deserted, herbaceous and forest).

Water ecosystems - The main ecosystems existing in the water sphere (hydrosphere). Sometimes in the literature there is a close, but less clear classification, primarily highlighting wet rainforests, savanna, deserts, steppes, a mild belt forest, coniferous (taiga), tundra.

Each biome includes a number of smaller in size, interconnected ecosystems. Some of them can be very large, an area of \u200b\u200bmillions of square kilometers, others - small, such as a small forest. It is important that any ecosystem can be defined as a more or less specific grouping of plants and animals interacting with each other and with the medium. For example, it is easy to distinguish many types of aquatic ecosystems (streams, rivers, lakes, ponds, swamps, etc.) or subdivide the oceans into separate ecosystems (coral reefs, continental shelf, abissal, etc.). Clear borders between ecosystems are rare, usually between them is a transition area with its own characteristics.

On the border of two ecosystems, for example, on the edge of the forest, representatives of forest and meadow species are at the same time. The contrast of the medium, and therefore a larger abundance of environmental capabilities generates "concentration of life", called rule of Regional Effect, or rule Ecotona (from Greek. tonos - Communication). It is well known that in the edges of the forest life is richer, and in his depth, as in the middle of the meadow, it is less diverse. In nature, everything exists only together, and two nearby formations can smoothly move into each other.

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