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Ecological crisis and ways out of it. Ways out of the modern environmental crisis

25.09.2019

Let's start with ecopolitics. According to V.I. Vernadsky, humanity became a global geological force at the end of the last century. The natural resources available to him are almost completely involved in economic turnover. Their overexploitation is often observed, which is the basis of the environmental crisis. The commodity market has become planetary. It includes global natural resources in one way or another, although many of them are considered global non-commodity assets. The absence of a formal price for sunlight, atmospheric air and sea water does not mean that it is zero. This follows at least from the fact that in order to maintain the transparency of the atmosphere (on which the intensity of the energy flow reaching the Earth’s surface from the Sun depends), its purity (stable gas composition) and quality sea waters considerable effort is already required, and therefore labor and material-monetary costs. They are different for different countries, but the world community is gradually coming to the conclusion that the Earth and its resources belong to all planets - people. And all natural wealth is one way or another globally distributed among everyone, especially environmental living conditions. The planet's boat is one for all. It is small and has become unreliable under the blows of technology and anthropogenic pressure.

And if this is all true, if smoke and gas emissions over Europe or America echo with smog in the Arctic and ozone holes in Antarctica, then many prohibitions and logical questions immediately arise. One of the prohibitions is completely obvious: atomic and any other large-scale war, given the existing environmental stress, will certainly be disastrous for humanity. Even if it does not lead to immediate death, humanity will not have enough means to eliminate the emerging environmental threats. It is gradually degrading along with the collapsing nature.

The second prohibition is also obvious - dangerous pollution leading to global consequences is equally harmful for the one who allowed this pollution as for others. Don't spit in the well...

Third, are state borders “locked” so important and necessary if they do not exist ecologically (and, by the way, demographically)? And is it possible to get any benefits, except, of course, political ones, by changing these borders? 1 . The world has turned into a superorganism, permeated commodity market and the ecological interdependence of people. In such a system, as in any other holistic formation, there is nothing superfluous, and the more you strive to take something away from your neighbor, the greater the general and your own losses. This was shown in the post-war period. The defeated countries - Japan, Italy and Germany (represented by Germany) found themselves in a more advantageous position than many of the victorious countries. Socio-economically, they won the war primarily because they dropped out of the arms race for a long time. Now they will be able to solve environmental problems more easily, since they have more funds and technical capabilities for this. But why then was the post-war arms race, all the casualties and shocks of the war? Their meaninglessness is completely obvious. And this is not an accident, but a general pattern. The era of “profitable” wars is behind us.

The ideology of confrontation is inevitably becoming a thing of the past. It is environmentally prohibited and economically unprofitable. Any absolute political division of the world is nonsense, since the world is not a pie, but a system that is like our body: wherever you prick, it hurts everywhere, and blood will flow from every place. Everyone will feel this. There are no pain-free areas. And hence, only interaction and mutual assistance, and not confrontation, are suitable for communication and living together on the planet. Group egoism is becoming a thing of the past. However, this does not mean that some groups should sacrifice their well-being for the sake of others, for “everyone.” This demagoguery precisely indicates confrontational thinking. It is through “group egoism” in quotation marks that the main path of development passes. Better for me means better for you, and if it’s worse for you, it’ll be better for me. The situation is like in the body. The liver cannot be "interested" in reducing the size of the heart or stomach. And vice versa. For all organs there is a limit of optimality in the upper and lower directions. Surgically, you can lose part of the stomach or even the entire stomach. But this is not “in the interests” of other bodies. Only removal of diseased tissue is beneficial. Many people still have not realized this fundamental change in our existence. It still seems that something can be gained at the expense of others. Local wars and internal upheavals of our time clearly show the fallacy of this approach. Wars only bring destruction.

Of course, the principle “better for you is better for me” is not easy to implement. It’s human nature to pull the blanket over oneself. National and state borders have been declared “sacred” for too long to be easily abandoned under the pressure of environmental-economic innovation. In addition, the difference in the economic development of individual countries is very large, so it is sometimes even dangerous to open borders just like that. It will resemble a collapsed dam on a river. First, it is necessary to equalize socio-economic conditions. And everyone is interested in this.

At the present stage, national separatism, even the sovereignty of small entities, right down to seemingly absurd separateness, is the only way... to unite the world. Let us again recall the structure of the body's organs. If they were not “separate”, the individual would never have arisen. An amorphous mass of cells would not give it. Physiologically, the organs of the body are “equal,” but none of them opens its “boundaries” except humorally. Self-regulation of the whole is inevitable, otherwise it will not exist. The excess will disappear by itself. These are the laws of evolution. The limits of development are ultimately the same for the whole world. There are fluctuations associated with the uneven distribution of natural resources and socio-economic development. If it is impossible to change the abundance of natural resources in certain territories, then the direction of socio-economic development is quite manageable. Environmental problems can also be solved. However, there is no clear understanding of how this is done.

Even the currently known methods for improving the environmental situation turn out to be different 1 . Engineering thought offers some recipes, and scientific thought offers others. Over the years of industrial and technical development, the idea has become deeply ingrained that all environmental problems should be solved by technical methods and only by them - by digging canals, creating space cities and similar engineering tricks. Meanwhile, this is only part of the upcoming activities. Perhaps not even the main one, and sometimes even leading astray. For example, television and video salons attract people to a not so healthy form of recreation. Of course, it would be completely absurd to deny these technological achievements. It is not they who are to blame, but their overdose. But, firstly, it arose from technocratic pressure, and, secondly, it diverts society’s funds and reduces investments in other forms of recreation, including elementary physical culture (however, most of the blame here falls on the unlimited and absurd development of the elite sports).

The power of technocrats is no longer quickly transferred to the hands of synthetically thinking, highly cultured politicians. Changing development milestones is not an instant process. In addition, it proceeds differently in each country, in each region of the world. They have unequal degrees of environmental and social well-being and historical maturity. In order to consciously join the ecological and economic organism of the world, many countries and regions must first separate and become independent. The era of decolonization has not yet ended with the fragmentation of all great empires and rigid alliances. Political power still dominates economic ties. The ecological imperative is still not deeply understood. The authority of the authorities has not yet been crushed by the power of the authority. Humanity still remains in the phase of Homo faber (active man) and has not become fully intelligent. It operates according to the patterns of yesterday, not tomorrow.

Environmental policy should become dominant in all world politics, as it determines the possibilities and ways of survival of humanity as a whole, each and every one. Today, taking into account all the paths of inertia in development, it very slowly and reluctantly turns to face people not as impersonal citizens and labor resources, but as people with their needs, sorrows and joys. And this anthropo-ecologicalization is a sign of the times. People don’t care what “-isms” they live in. They are more interested in personal freedom, an abundance of goods, clean air, clear water, forest for relaxation, swimming pools, well-being in the family. But no matter how deeply they understand the environmental limitations of development, without mechanisms that automatically direct technology towards saving resources and low waste, and demographic processes towards negative growth, global problems will not be solved. Only self-regulation can lead humanity to the path of well-being. And there is a huge field for the activities of ecological economics (or, if you prefer, economic ecology) and environmental demography.

A progressive worldview and the needs of society require the development of science, because the worldview slogan does not yet indicate the ways of its implementation. The crisis phenomena are so deep and wide that doubt arises whether the planet's ecosystems will collapse before humanity naturally becomes a self-regulating system. And is it possible to passively look at the formation of self-regulation mechanisms? It always follows the most inhumane, cruel paths, since this natural mechanism is initially devoid of humanity in its very essence, by definition. It is quite obvious that humanity can hardly do without attempts to create an artificial control mechanism that would help implement self-regulation in the least destructive way. This would be extremely inhumane to yourself and your own descendants. Such a global task forms the entire cycle of socio-ecological knowledge. It is also resolved in the course of the modern ecological revolution, which transfers post-industrial human society from the scientific and technical to the scientific and humanistic, ecologized phase. ". Lack of time has become threatening. -The first phase of the environmental crisis was associated with the technical progress of those countries that are usually called developed. They began to fight pollution, carry out an environmental policy of nature conservation with grief in half, population growth has stabilized in them, and even sometimes a life-saving depopulation. However, at the same time, the “removal of pollution” began, as if changing the places of components in the global life support system could change the unfavorable amount. The removal of outdated, or even simply ambitious, technologies is also flourishing.

At the same time, a wave of the second phase of the global environmental crisis is rising, caused by the industrialization of the Third World countries. They are too poor to pay attention to the destruction of the living environment and its pollution. At the same time, their population is an order of magnitude larger than it was in developed countries during the period of the industrial and scientific-technical revolution (in China and the Hindustan Peninsula alone there are significantly more than 2 billion people). The specific pressure on the living environment of this huge population during industrialization will not be much different from what was observed in the past in developed countries, and may turn out to be immeasurably greater. Consequently, the overall impact on the biosphere will be almost an order of magnitude higher than in the first phase of the environmental crisis. There is no certainty that the biosphere and ecosphere of the planet will withstand such pressure (although this is not excluded and I would like to believe in it).

Scientific and technological development without proper culture raises the danger of the emergence of an essentially gangster ideology of seizing accumulated wealth. Irresponsible people end up with the power of weapons in their hands and develop appetites for the property of nearby countries. The idea of “expropriation of expropriators” easily won during the overthrow of capitalism in our country. It largely ensured the success of the October revolution and gave birth to many pseudo-socialist regimes. It is very populist, as recent events in the Middle East show. The world community is not yet mature enough to transfer direct responsibility to state leaders. Regional conflicts distract the world community's attention from environmental needs. Humanity is losing its chance for universal survival by solving particular, narrowly regional problems. And it cannot avoid solving them: individual abscesses can cause general blood poisoning.

The war has become the hardest environmental crime, which does not bring benefits to the aggressor and threatens all of humanity. Any war becomes global in the sense of its impact on the globe. This new hypostasis of war has not yet been fully realized. During the second stage of the environmental crisis, this should become the property of not only all political minds, but also all citizens of the planet.

Science, politics and ideology in in this case go hand in hand. Ecology turns out to be a tool that shapes the worldview of the ecological stage of development of universal human culture. This conclusion is confirmed by the change in tone of summarizing international reports on environmental problems Oh. It is enough to compare “There is only one Earth” (Barbara Ward, Rene Dubos. M.: Progress, 1975. 319 pp.) and “Our common future. Report of the International Commission on Environment and Development” (M.: Progress, 1989. 376). However, even in these works there is no analysis of what, with what ecological structures, the human world is dealing and what natural laws the human world is subject to in the natural world.

An analysis of the laws of development, or at least a list of them, is given in Chapter 3. Now it is advisable to briefly outline the main positions of modern environmental policy (the basics of environmental policy are outlined in the appendix in the form of a separate condensed document). They appear to be as follows.

First of all, we need a thorough inventory of natural resources, including the natural conditions of life on Earth, in its ecosystems throughout their entire hierarchy. A global bank of natural data is now absolutely necessary. It should include both statements of the quantity and quality of resources, as well as the dynamics of their change, and the response of ecosystems to anthropogenic pressure. If non-compliance with the Le Chatelier-Brown principle in the Earth's biosphere is a reality, then humanity is facing the edge of an abyss or is already falling into it. Monitoring can indicate the speed of sliding towards the abyss, but not the path to escape. Inventory should provide feedback, because knowing where the threat comes from means being prepared to repel it.

One of the main ways for the survival of mankind should be considered the creation of a mechanism for the preventive conservation of natural resources and conditions on a market basis. So far, the price of natural resources and the assessment of damage from changes in the living environment (also a resource factor, but usually allocated to a special category) are determined on the basis of different approaches. There is a resource market regulated by national laws, global conditions and regional agreements. The sale of the right to saved pollution occurs at the state or local, even point level. There is no international practice of this kind. There are no agreed standards either. And they are hardly possible in conditions where the scientific and technical development of countries is very different. Even concluded agreements with obligations to reduce the transboundary transfer of pollution cannot be fulfilled, for example, by our country due to its severe economic condition. It is also impossible to agree on a significant improvement in the ecological situation of the world's oceans. Highly developed countries do not want to invest in a common cause without getting something out of it real gain. Momentary interests are higher than long-term goals.

This situation becomes threatening. It is not possible to fulfill the second most important environmental requirement - to bring the rate of exploitation of natural systems into equality with the intensity of self-healing of these systems. Natural resource potential must be equal to or greater than the level of resource extraction and the rate of change in the living environment. However, increasing desertification suggests otherwise. Anthropogenic disturbances in the biosphere are higher than its ability to self-regulate.

Consequently, global standards must arise and world prices for all natural resources (and conditions, including pollution), and a global market for them, must emerge. Its regulatory mechanism will be differential rent, the level of scarcity and the initial price, taking into account the historical past of mankind. The zero assessment of natural resources is long gone. Any part of the “organism” of nature is worth something to humanity, if only because there are no longer resources for everyone who wants it.

Quotas for the withdrawal of resources and changes in the living environment are, as a rule, not established either for countries or for their parts. What this can lead to is shown by the example of the Sahel and the Aral Sea region, the seas of the Arctic Ocean within Russia and partly the North Sea. A similar tragedy could soon occur in South America, China and the Hindustan Peninsula. On the one hand, it is very difficult to agree on quotas for states, and on the other, the use of resources on their territories is the internal matter of these states, in which the international community has no right to interfere. It can only monitor the situation in the world - establish monitoring.

Sanctions in this case cannot be any effective. If the situation in a country is difficult, international sanctions will not make it any easier. We need an incentive mechanism. In international practice, two positive directions have emerged, which, hopefully, will supplant the negative process of “pollution removal” mentioned above. The first mechanism is updating the technologies of backward countries at the expense of developed ones with gradual repayment, i.e. technical “lending” under economic and environmental conditions. This stimulates the desire to improve the living environment. “Environmental” loans allow the countries providing these loans to improve the living environment within their borders.

The second way, already mentioned in section 6.4, is to buy out the debts of developing countries at the expense of organizations of developed countries with the condition of conserving the natural resources of the debtor countries. So far, only the first steps have been taken in this direction. For example, in Bolivia, its debt in the amount of 650 thousand dollars was purchased at a price of 15 cents per dollar by the organization International Security (headquartered in Washington) under the obligation of the Bolivian government to allocate 1.5 million hectares tropical forest as a specially protected area (this includes the Beni Biosphere Reserve and the habitat of the Shiman Indians). A similar transaction was made in Costa Rica, where a debt of $5.4 million was purchased for $1 million. The debt market is gradually expanding 1 . Apparently, due to the obvious inability of many countries to pay off their debts, the latter will be used for partial financing of environmental protection and will become an incentive mechanism for agreeing to quotas for the use of natural resources.

An area where it is necessary to introduce tough economic sanctions is compensation to the international community for environmental damage caused by the unleashed war. “Environmental indemnity” has now become an ecological and political inevitability. Its real threat can significantly moderate the aggressive intentions of country leaders. And the UN must relentlessly demand that countries and governments fulfill their obligations to the world. The era of environmental irresponsibility is objectively becoming a thing of the past.

Due to the physical unity of the world, each citizen “owns” a certain part of the global natural resource potential. With a high degree of development of the country, he can use this part entirely, and sometimes “borrow” from citizens of less developed countries. Thus, it has become common to say that the United States provides itself with only 60% of oxygen, while European countries “eat up” atmospheric resources that are several times greater than the amount of natural compensation produced on their territory. This does not mean that developing countries should fully pay developing countries the resulting difference in income from the exploitation of the natural resource potential of the world: the resulting intellectual foundation and technical development ultimately become the property of the whole world. And it must also be paid. However, the absence of a World Fund and a Bank for Nature Conservation turns out to be equally dangerous for all earthlings. Humanity cannot survive without contributions to such a fund and loans from the mentioned bank. Obviously they will arise.

“Selling pollution” is likely to become an international practice. Equally possible will be the “selling of purity” - the potential for the accumulation of pollution - and compensation for maintenance; ecological balance. It already occurs in the form of payment for recreational resources from income from local and international tourism.

A specific mechanism for the socio-economic regulation of the “nature - man” system requires urgent development. It must be built on mutually beneficial principles for all countries and peoples. Taking into account, of course, the interests of future generations.

Obviously, at the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 (Rio de Janeiro) a number of environmental policy issues will be raised. They are unlikely to be easily resolved, but the development of political and economic mechanisms for preserving nature in order to save people is necessary and inevitable. There is no other way.

Technological eco-approaches are very multiple. Let's focus on the most obvious ones.

This is, first of all, the intensification of the use of natural resources, subject to the preservation of the living environment and an increase in the rate of economic growth. This task seems akin to the fable “take the skin, so be it.” But in most cases it is doable. One way is to more fully extract mineral resources, such as oil, which is sometimes lost up to 70%. The same applies to agricultural resources. Environmental planning for agriculture avoids environmental damage while increasing economic returns. This problem can be easily solved in Central Asia if the unjustified monoculture of cotton is replaced (the price of low-grade cotton on the world market is very low) with other crops. The same process is possible in forestry, where predatory deforestation is currently taking place. Selective removal of forests using special equipment, as the experience of Finland and other developed countries shows, can increase wood growth by one and a half times and preserve the forest environment for decades (Section 4.5). In a number of places in the country, the production of souvenirs and small wood products is many times more efficient than cutting down forests for round timber. In general, in all underdeveloped countries, forestry is still extremely irrational - no more than one tenth of the volume of cut down wood is usefully utilized.

In some cases, environmental goals are served by the development of recreational potential. On the coasts of the warm seas of the former USSR, about 9.4 million people (25% of the total number of holidaymakers in the country) annually vacation and receive treatment. Of course, one can hardly agree with the opinion that the recreational potential of the coasts is equal to 190 million people in the Caspian Sea, 150 million in the Azov-Black Sea, 60 million in the Baltic and 17 million in the Sea of Japan 1 . However, a multiple expansion of recreational zones is certainly possible (Section 4.8), and with it better care for nature.

Large reserves are contained in an array of secondary resources. In Czechoslovakia, for example, 90% of ferrous metal scrap is used, 15 to 85% of non-ferrous metals, 50% of paper waste, 65% of textile waste, over 30% of glass waste, 20% of plastic waste and 12% of rubber waste (in the USSR these the figures were 2-3 times lower). Energy consumption for processing scrap ferrous and non-ferrous metals is much less than from ore. Our country is literally littered with rusting metal. On the coasts of seas, lakes, and along rivers lie the remains of thousands of dead or disabled ships, boats, etc. Cities are littered with iron rubbish. Even in rural areas many tons of used metal fall on 1 hectare of territory. There are thousands and thousands of used barrels lying around in the North. We mainly burn or rot paper and its derivatives, while already in the world, recycled paper accounts for 1/3 of all production (75 million tons of paper are recycled per year).

An internal resource circle that does not involve natural resources from the outside, from nature, is impossible, but in some cases, it can take leading place. The only issue is to reduce the cost of using secondary resources, at least for fuel. In the USA, for example, 220 million tons of industrial and household waste are collected per year. Of this, 209 million tons are disposed of in landfills and 11 million tons are incinerated. If all the garbage were burned, about 90 million tons of ash would remain. And the price of energy-based waste disposal would be higher than storage 1 . However, the shortage of places for constructing landfills and the “old sins” of dumping hazardous waste in inappropriate places (and there are thousands of such places) turns the waste recycling industry into a socially inevitable sector of the economy, although still unprofitable.

Saving energy and changing its sources to hydrogen and solar panels are inevitable, although this will not happen soon - generations of energy sources are replaced no more often than after 30-40 years. The important thing is that this change will go along the line of using the heat and light that comes to the Earth and dissipates, and not that which is concentrated and removed from the bowels, i.e. along the path of reducing, not increasing, the thermal load. Otherwise, a thermal (or thermodynamic) crisis will occur, which has actually already begun. The number of hydroelectric power stations, nuclear power plants and thermal power plants has already exceeded the limit of reasonable sufficiency. Their further development is dangerous, even if it is possible to capture the exhaust gases of thermal power plants and nuclear power plants. All these energy sources add a lot of unproductive heat to the Earth's biosphere. In addition, hydroelectric power plants, breaking the ecological chain “river - reservoir”, lead to unpredictable changes in sea ecosystems, aggravated by the acidification of shallow waters with acid rain, radioactive decay and the release of toxic substances at the bottom of the ocean from the still ongoing dumping of hazardous waste.

A significant management issue is environmental standardization and certification of technologies, equipment and products of the entire economic complex (Section 6.4). The introduction of standards and certification must be carried out in a highly professional manner, since they will direct banks, insurance companies, and, consequently, the entire economic life in the direction greening.

An essential branch in the sphere of reproduction of the natural environment is the maintenance of ecological balance. This is a polysemantic term and concept, but its general essence is that it is necessary to maintain a certain relationship between the quantity and quality of environmental components - energy, water, air, soil substrates, plants, animals and microorganisms (Chapter 5). In other words, you cannot plow up the whole world with impunity, harmfully use super-heavy agricultural machines, make open cuts for mining, resulting in the formation of groundwater depression craters covering an area within a radius of 150-200 km, etc. Maintaining an ecological balance is a huge the field of science and practice is seportology. There are known methods of this maintenance - component and territorial. There is a theory and practice of optimizing fisheries, agriculture and all environmental management, the method of eco- or geo-equivalents, the theory of specially protected areas (reserves, wildlife sanctuaries, special-purpose forests, etc.). Society will inevitably be in everything to a greater extent adopt the achievements of seportology - otherwise it will face a very serious crisis of environmental imbalance (for more information, see Chapter 5).

The process of greening will continue in the field of human biology, social ecology and that section of ecology that is called endoecology, i.e. the ecology of the internal Environment of the organism. Medicine will move on an environmentally friendly basis. At the same time, it will abandon many of its postulates and focus even more on preventing diseases (in our country, the sanitary and epidemiological service is extremely poor and completely environmentally illiterate). The recreational complex will expand sharply. Sports “gladiatorship” with the payment of huge sums will soon become an ordinary, routine, and therefore unattractive spectacle - it has reached abnormal proportions.

In general, slowly but surely, the complex of human reproduction is becoming a significant economic sector, occupying an increasingly large part of the service sector. At the same time, it is often depreciated by transport difficulties, overwork of vacationers, poor service standards and the anti-environmental friendliness of the resort complexes themselves. Huge crowds of people make the beaches very unsuitable for recreation and centers of unsanitary conditions. Deconcentration of recreation is necessary.

Serious changes are taking place in agriculture. The need to abandon pesticides has already been recognized. But no one knows how to do this. Obviously, pest control will be carried out by blocking ecological niches, that is, by unique biological methods of displacing pests, turning them into “friends.”

The use of mineral fertilizers also exceeded the threshold of reasonable sufficiency. The transition to biological, or ecological, farming is predetermined, but for now it is hampered by the lack of special plant varieties. In addition, of course, the area of closed ground and, in general, the conditionally closed space of both agricultural and livestock products will increase sharply. The role of aqua and mariculture is increasing.

In the course of certification and standardization of technologies on an environmental basis, the same assessment of all economic development will select the most socially beneficial paths of progress. Since economics is the science of relative processes (price is a variable value depending on many parameters), and ecology is the science of relative benefits, but having an absolute framework for human and human survival, environmental limits will increasingly be taken into account in economic decisions. Dominant social value life above its economic value will increase.

Generating life for the sake of destroying it is clearly unreasonable. Demographic planning is on the agenda. It is possible only on the basis of socio-economic compensation, changing the very basis of population reproduction. This is already happening in developed countries that have low or negative population growth. Its basis is the highest social security and material security of people, an acceptable quality of life, a high general culture, self-esteem and respect for human rights, confidence in their future and the future of their few descendants. Greening in this area (as elsewhere) is inseparable from increasing economic well-being, which in turn is now directly related to the level of education and awareness. Knowledge-intensive production requires high qualifications, professionalism, a sense of purpose and a sense of its achievability. Let us repeat once again that it is not a mass of resources, but skillful hands and smart heads that are now the decisive condition for success, although the importance of the availability of resources does not decrease. The more countries achieve significant economic success, the relatively less the population will grow, and thus the pressure on the environment will gradually decrease. At the same time, labor productivity and its efficiency will replace the increase in the number of workers until equilibrium, the level of which will continuously decrease. Enlightened people do not strive for the locust effect.

In 1978, only 45 governments considered population growth in their countries to be too high. After 10 years, 125 states had family planning programs. But these programs turned out to be largely ineffective because they were not aimed at creating internal incentives to reduce the birth rate. According to the most recent forecasts, by 2025 there will be 8.467 billion people on Earth. However, this same period is enough for almost all of humanity to die out from AIDS and other new diseases. A decisive demographic policy is required.

In the near future, processes of environmental optimization, planning, scientific examination of projects, abandonment of environmentally harmful industries and other economic undertakings, taking into account the principle of reasonable sufficiency, maintaining environmental balance, developing recreation, greening medicine, increasing the volume of services, and relieving stress will take place at almost all levels. Everyday life. The world is very colorful. Somewhere people are starving and still believe in the power of amulets and spells of illness, somewhere they are concerned about their daily bread, almost everywhere politics still occupies the minds more than the future of the Earth. People have not yet learned to live within the framework of a long-term perspective, even if this perspective, like shagreen skin, is shrinking visibly and uncontrollably. The belief in “maybe” permeates everything. But only until the formation of a culture of a certain level - material, social, economic, environmental, and so on. If people directed military spending, which is absolutely unnecessary and senseless, to the development of the world, they would achieve significant success. And despite everything, this is already happening. With difficulty, but the world is turning its face to man, his needs, health and future.

It is always easier to determine the contours of a future development scheme than to develop an action plan, and even more so to create a program of these actions with the construction of a tree of goals. Unfortunately, this truth has not been sufficiently mastered in our country, so the development of “programs” (including environmental ones) immediately begins, which, upon closer examination, turn out to be a set of good wishes, set difficult to achieve goals and certain unrealistic deadlines that are not combined into a single system by assessing the available material resources. , labor and other opportunities. All “programs” created in our country are impossible because they are non-programmatic. And it is impossible to compile them due to the lack of an appropriate scientific and information base, economic and legislative framework. We can only outline the general features of ecodevelopment on a conventionally global, regional, local and point scale. Logically and essentially, one should start from the lower level of the hierarchy, but for a text description the reverse path is more convenient.
Let's start with ecopolitics. According to V.I. Vernadsky, humanity became a global geological force at the end of the last century. The natural resources available to him are almost completely involved in economic turnover. Their overexploitation is often observed, which is the basis of the environmental crisis. The commodity market has become planetary. It includes global natural resources in one way or another, although many of them are considered global non-commodity assets. The absence of a formal price for sunlight, atmospheric air and sea water does not mean that it is zero. This follows at least from the fact that to maintain the transparency of the atmosphere (on which the intensity of the energy flow reaching the Earth’s surface from the Sun depends), its purity (stable gas composition) and the quality of sea waters already require significant efforts, and therefore labor and financial -money spendings. They are different in different countries, but the world community is gradually coming to the conclusion that the Earth and its resources belong to all planetary people - people. And all natural wealth is one way or another globally distributed among everyone, especially environmental living conditions. The planet's boat is one for all. It is small and has become unreliable under the blows of technology and anthropogenic pressure.
And if this is all true, if smoke and gas emissions over Europe or America echo with smog in the Arctic and ozone holes in Antarctica, then many prohibitions and logical questions immediately arise. One of the prohibitions is completely obvious: atomic and any other large-scale war, given the existing environmental stress, will certainly be disastrous for humanity. Even if it does not lead to immediate death, humanity will not have enough means to eliminate the emerging environmental threats. It is gradually degrading along with the collapsing nature.
The second prohibition is also obvious - dangerous pollution leading to global consequences is equally harmful for the one who allowed this pollution as for others. Don't spit in the well...

* These statements do not mean that any borders should be forcibly destroyed or, conversely, that the few multinational and multi-structured empires that still exist should be preserved. The ongoing systemic process is twofold. On the one hand, there is a consolidation of forces with the formation of sovereign national and cultural-ethnic unities, and on the other, the unification of the countries of the world into conglomerates of unions. The fact is that there are three main forms of political (as well as any other) management - population (individual countries), population-consortium (confederation of countries, sometimes with the allocation of a leading power, but while maintaining full sovereignty) and organismic (from federal to authoritarian -totalitarian organization). Most consistent with current historical moment consortium-population form of the political structure of the world. Therefore, the desire to preserve empires, as well as the self-isolation of countries from outside world absurd.

Third, are state borders “locked” so important and necessary if they do not exist ecologically (and, by the way, demographically)? And is it possible to get any advantages, except, of course, political ones, by changing these borders?*. The world has become a superorganism, permeated by the commodity market and the ecological interdependence of people. In such a system, as in any other holistic formation, there is nothing superfluous, and the more you strive to take something away from your neighbor, the greater the general and your own losses. This was shown in the post-war period. The defeated countries - Japan, Italy and Germany (represented by Germany) found themselves in a more advantageous position than many of the victorious countries. Socio-economically, they won the war primarily because they dropped out of the arms race for a long time. Now they will be able to solve environmental problems more easily, since they have more funds and technical capabilities for this. But why then was the post-war arms race, all the casualties and shocks of the war? Their meaninglessness is completely obvious. And this is not an accident, but a general pattern. The era of “profitable” wars is behind us.
The ideology of confrontation is inevitably becoming a thing of the past. It is environmentally prohibited and economically unprofitable. Any absolute political division of the world is nonsense, since the world is not a pie, but a system that is like our body: wherever you prick, it hurts everywhere, and blood will flow from every place. Everyone will feel this. There are no pain-free areas. And hence, only interaction and mutual assistance, and not confrontation, are suitable for communication and living together on the planet. Group egoism is becoming a thing of the past. However, this does not mean that some groups should sacrifice their well-being for the sake of others, for “everyone.” This demagoguery precisely indicates confrontational thinking. It is through “group egoism” in quotation marks that the main path of development passes. Better for me means better for you, and if it’s worse for you, it’ll be better for me. The situation is like in the body. The liver cannot be "interested" in reducing the size of the heart or stomach. And vice versa. For all organs there is a limit of optimality in the upper and lower directions. Surgically, you can lose part of the stomach or even the entire stomach. But this is not “in the interests” of other bodies. Only removal of diseased tissue is beneficial. Many people still have not realized this fundamental change in our existence. It still seems that something can be gained at the expense of others. Local wars and internal upheavals of our time clearly show the fallacy of this approach. Wars only bring destruction.
Of course, the principle “better for you is better for me” is not easy to implement. It’s human nature to pull the blanket over oneself. National and state borders have been declared “sacred” for too long to be easily abandoned under the pressure of environmental-economic innovation. In addition, the difference in the economic development of individual countries is very large, so it is sometimes even dangerous to open borders just like that. It will resemble a collapsed dam on a river. First, it is necessary to equalize socio-economic conditions. And everyone is interested in this.
At the present stage, national separatism, even the sovereignty of small entities, right down to seemingly absurd separateness, is the only way... to unite the world. Let us again recall the structure of the body's organs. If they were not “separate”, the individual would never have arisen. An amorphous mass of cells would not give it. Physiologically, the organs of the body are “equal,” but none of them opens its “boundaries” except humorally. Self-regulation of the whole is inevitable, otherwise it will not exist. The excess will disappear by itself. These are the laws of evolution. The limits of development are ultimately the same for the whole world. There are fluctuations associated with the uneven distribution of natural resources and socio-economic development. If it is impossible to change the abundance of natural resources in certain territories, then the direction of socio-economic development is quite manageable. Environmental problems can also be solved. However, there is no clear understanding of how this is done.

Even the currently known methods for improving the environmental situation turn out to be different*. Engineering thought offers some recipes, and scientific thought offers others. Over the years of industrial and technical development, the idea has become deeply ingrained that all environmental problems should be solved by technical methods and only by them - by digging canals, creating space cities and similar engineering tricks. Meanwhile, this is only part of the upcoming activities. Perhaps not even the main one, and sometimes even leading astray. For example, television and video salons attract people to a not so healthy form of recreation. Of course, it would be completely absurd to deny these technological achievements. It is not they who are to blame, but their overdose. But, firstly, it arose from technocratic pressure, and, secondly, it diverts society’s funds and reduces investments in other forms of recreation, including elementary physical culture (however, most of the blame here falls on the unlimited and absurd development of the elite sports).
The power of technocrats is no longer quickly transferred to the hands of synthetically thinking, highly cultured politicians. Changing development milestones is not an instant process. In addition, it proceeds differently in each country, in each region of the world. They have unequal degrees of environmental and social well-being and historical maturity. In order to consciously join the ecological and economic organism of the world, many countries and regions must first separate and become independent. The era of decolonization has not yet ended with the fragmentation of all great empires and rigid alliances. Political power still dominates economic ties. The ecological imperative is still not deeply understood. The authority of the authorities has not yet been crushed by the power of the authority. Humanity still remains in the phase of Homo faber (active man) and has not become fully intelligent. It operates according to the patterns of yesterday, not tomorrow.
Environmental policy should become dominant in all world politics, as it determines the possibilities and ways of survival of humanity as a whole, each and every one. Today, taking into account all the paths of inertia in development, it very slowly and reluctantly turns to face people not as impersonal citizens and labor resources, but as people with their needs, sorrows and joys. And this anthropoecologicalization is a sign of the times. People don’t care what “-isms” they live in. They are more interested in personal freedom, an abundance of goods, clean air, clear water, forests for recreation, swimming pools, and family well-being. But no matter how deeply they understand the environmental limitations of development, without mechanisms that automatically direct technology towards saving resources and low waste, and demographic processes towards negative growth, global problems will not be solved. Only self-regulation can lead humanity to the path of well-being. And there is a huge field for the activities of ecological economics (or, if you prefer, economic ecology) and environmental demography.
A progressive worldview and the needs of society require the development of science, because the worldview slogan does not yet indicate the ways of its implementation. The crisis phenomena are so deep and wide that doubt arises whether the planet's ecosystems will collapse before humanity naturally becomes a self-regulating system. And is it possible to passively look at the formation of self-regulation mechanisms? It always follows the most inhumane, cruel paths, since this natural mechanism is initially devoid of humanity in its very essence, by definition. It is quite obvious that humanity can hardly do without attempts to create an artificial control mechanism that would help implement self-regulation in the least destructive way. This would be extremely inhumane to yourself and your own descendants. Such a global task forms the entire cycle of socio-ecological knowledge. It is also resolved in the course of the modern ecological revolution, which transfers post-industrial human society from the scientific and technical to the scientific and humanistic, ecologized phase.
The lack of time has become threatening. The first phase of the environmental crisis was associated with the technological progress of those countries that are commonly called developed. They have begun the fight against pollution, are pursuing an ecological policy of nature conservation with grief, their population growth has stabilized, and even sometimes life-saving depopulation occurs. However, at the same time, the “removal of pollution” began, as if changing the places of components in the global life support system could change an unfavorable amount. The export of outdated or even simply ambitious technologies is also flourishing.
At the same time, a wave of the second phase of the global environmental crisis is rising, caused by the industrialization of the Third World countries. They are too poor to pay attention to the destruction of the living environment and its pollution. At the same time, their population is an order of magnitude larger than it was in developed countries during the industrial, scientific and technological revolution (in China and the Hindustan Peninsula alone there are significantly more than 2 billion people). The specific pressure on the living environment of this huge population during industrialization will not be much different from what was observed in the past in developed countries, and may turn out to be immeasurably greater. Consequently, the overall impact on the biosphere will be almost an order of magnitude higher than in the first phase of the environmental crisis. There is no certainty that the biosphere and ecosphere of the planet will withstand such pressure (although this is not excluded and I would like to believe in it).
Scientific and technological development without proper culture raises the danger of the emergence of an essentially gangster ideology of seizing accumulated wealth. Irresponsible people end up with the power of weapons in their hands and develop appetites for the property of nearby countries. The idea of “expropriation of expropriators” easily won during the overthrow of capitalism in our country. It largely ensured the success of the October revolution and gave birth to many pseudo-socialist regimes. It is very populist, as recent events in the Middle East show. The world community is not yet mature enough to transfer direct responsibility to state leaders. Regional conflicts distract the world community's attention from environmental needs. Humanity is losing its chance for universal survival by solving particular, narrowly regional problems. And it cannot avoid solving them: individual abscesses can cause general blood poisoning.
War has turned into a grave environmental crime that does not bring benefits to the aggressor and threatens all of humanity. Any war becomes global in the sense of its impact on the globe. This new hypostasis of war has not yet been fully realized. During the second stage of the environmental crisis, this should become the property of not only all political minds, but also all citizens of the planet.
Science, politics and ideology in this case go hand in hand. Ecology turns out to be a tool that shapes the worldview of the ecological stage of development of universal human culture. This conclusion is confirmed by the change in tone of summarizing international reports on environmental problems. It is enough to compare “There is only one Earth” (Barbara Ward, Rene Dubos. M: Progress, 1975. 319 pp.) and “Our common future. Report of the International Commission on Environment and Development” (M.: Progress, 1989. 376 pp.). However, in these works there is no analysis of what, what ecological structures humanity is dealing with and what natural laws the human world is subject to in the natural world.
An analysis of the laws of development, or at least a list of them, is given in Chapter 3. Now it is advisable to briefly outline the main positions of modern environmental policy (the basics of environmental policy are outlined in the appendix in the form of a separate condensed document). They appear to be as follows.
First of all, we need a thorough inventory of natural resources, including the natural conditions of life on Earth, in its ecosystems throughout their entire hierarchy. A global bank of natural data is now absolutely necessary. It should include both statements of quantity and quality
resources, as well as the dynamics of their change, the response of ecosystems to anthropogenic pressure. If non-compliance with the Le Chatelier-Brown principle in the Earth's biosphere is a reality, then humanity is facing the edge of an abyss or is already falling into it. Monitoring can indicate the speed of sliding towards the abyss, but not the path to escape. Inventory should provide feedback, because knowing where the threat comes from means being prepared to repel it.
One of the main ways for the survival of mankind should be considered the creation of a mechanism for the preventive conservation of natural resources and conditions on a market basis. So far, the price of natural resources and the assessment of damage from changes in the living environment (also a resource factor, but usually allocated to a special category) are determined on the basis of different approaches. There is a resource market regulated by national laws, global conditions and regional agreements. The sale of the right to saved pollution occurs at the state or local, even point level. There is no international practice of this kind. There are no agreed standards either. And they are hardly possible in conditions where the scientific and technical development of countries is very different. Even concluded agreements with obligations to reduce the transboundary transfer of pollution cannot be fulfilled, for example, by our country due to its difficult economic condition. It is also impossible to agree on a significant improvement in the ecological situation of the world's oceans. Highly developed countries do not want to invest in a common cause without receiving real benefits from it. Momentary interests are higher than long-term goals.
This situation becomes threatening. It is not possible to fulfill the second most important environmental requirement - to bring the rate of exploitation of natural systems into equality with the intensity of self-healing of these systems. Natural resource potential must be equal to or greater than the level of resource extraction and the rate of change in the living environment. However, increasing desertification suggests otherwise. Anthropogenic disturbances in the biosphere are higher than its ability to self-regulate.
Consequently, global standards must arise and world prices for all natural resources (and conditions, including pollution), and a global market for them, must emerge. Its regulatory mechanism will be differential rent, the level of scarcity and the initial price, which has developed taking into account the historical past of mankind. The zero assessment of natural resources is long gone. Any part of the “organism” of nature is worth something to humanity, if only because there are no longer resources for everyone who wants it.
Quotas for the withdrawal of resources and changes in the living environment are, as a rule, not established either for countries or for their parts. What this can lead to is shown by the example of the Sahel and the Aral Sea region, the seas of the Arctic Ocean within Russia and partly the North Sea. A similar tragedy may soon occur in South America, China and the Hindustan Peninsula. On the one hand, it is very difficult to agree on quotas for states, and on the other, the use of resources on their territories is the internal matter of these states, in which the international community has no right to interfere. It can only monitor the situation in the world - establish monitoring.
Sanctions in this case cannot be any effective. If the situation in a country is difficult, international sanctions will not make it any easier. We need an incentive mechanism. In international practice, two positive directions have emerged, which, hopefully, will supplant the negative process of “pollution removal” mentioned above. The first mechanism is updating the technologies of backward countries at the expense of developed ones with gradual repayment, i.e. technical “lending” under economic and environmental conditions. This stimulates the desire to improve the living environment. “Environmental” loans allow the countries providing these loans to improve the living environment within their borders.
The second way, already mentioned in section 6.4, is to buy out the debts of developing countries at the expense of organizations of developed countries with the condition of conserving the natural resources of the debtor countries. While in. Only the first steps have been taken in this direction. For example, in Bolivia, its debt in the amount of 650 thousand dollars was purchased at a price of 15 cents per dollar by the organization International Conservation (headquartered in Washington) under the obligation of the Bolivian government to allocate 1.5 million hectares of tropical forest as a specially protected area (there includes the Beni Biosphere Reserve and the habitat of the Shiman Indians). A similar transaction was made in Costa Rica, where a debt of $5.4 million was purchased for $1 million. The debt market is gradually expanding*.

* Page D. Debt-for-natere swams: fad or medic formula?//AMBIO. 1988. 17. No. 3. P. 243 - 244.

Apparently, due to the obvious inability of many countries to pay off their debts, the latter will be used for partial financing of environmental protection and will become an incentive mechanism for agreeing to quotas for the use of natural resources.
An area where it is necessary to introduce tough economic sanctions is compensation to the international community for environmental damage caused by the unleashed war. “Environmental indemnity” has now become an ecological and political inevitability. Its real threat can significantly moderate the aggressive intentions of country leaders. And the UN must relentlessly demand that countries and governments fulfill their obligations to the world. The era of environmental irresponsibility is objectively becoming a thing of the past.
Due to the physical unity of the world, each citizen “owns” a certain part of the global natural resource potential. With a high degree of development of the country, he can use this part entirely, and sometimes “borrow” from citizens of less developed countries. Thus, it has become common to say that the United States provides itself with only 60% of oxygen, while European countries “eat up” atmospheric resources that are several times greater than the amount of natural compensation produced on their territory. This does not mean that developing countries should fully pay developing countries the resulting difference in income from the exploitation of the natural resource potential of the world: the resulting intellectual foundation and technical development ultimately become the property of the whole world. And it must also be paid. However, the absence of a World Fund and a bank for nature conservation turns out to be equally dangerous for all earthlings. Humanity cannot survive without contributions to such a fund and loans from the mentioned bank. Obviously they will arise.
“Selling pollution” is likely to become an international practice. Equally possible will be the “selling of purity” - the potential for the accumulation of pollution - and compensation for maintaining the ecological balance. It already occurs in the form of payment for recreational resources from income from local and international tourism.
A specific mechanism for the socio-economic regulation of the “nature - man” system requires urgent development. It must be built on mutually beneficial principles for all countries and peoples. Taking into account, of course, the interests of future generations.
Obviously, at the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 (Rio de Janeiro) a number of environmental policy issues will be raised. They are unlikely to be easily resolved, but the development of political and economic mechanisms for preserving nature in order to save people is necessary and inevitable. There is no other way.
Technological eco-approaches are very multiple. Let's focus on the most obvious ones.
This is, first of all, the intensification of the use of natural resources, subject to the preservation of the living environment and an increase in the rate of economic growth. This task seems akin to the fable “take the skin, so be it.” But in most cases it is doable. One way is to more fully extract mineral resources, such as oil, which is sometimes lost up to 70%. The same applies to agricultural resources. Environmental planning for agriculture avoids environmental damage while increasing economic returns. This problem can be easily solved in Central Asia if the unjustified monoculture of cotton is replaced (the price of low-grade cotton on the world market is very low) with other crops. The same process is possible in forestry, where predatory deforestation is currently taking place. Selective removal of forests using special equipment, as the experience of Finland and other developed countries shows, can increase wood growth by one and a half times and preserve the forest environment for decades (Section 4.5). In a number of places in the country, the production of souvenirs and small wood products is many times more efficient than cutting down forests for round timber. In general, in all underdeveloped countries, forestry is still extremely irrational - no more than one tenth of the volume of cut down wood is usefully utilized.
In some cases, environmental goals are served by the development of recreational potential. On the coasts of the warm seas of the former USSR, about 9.4 million people (25% of the total number of holidaymakers in the country) annually vacation and receive treatment. Of course, one can hardly agree with the opinion that the recreational potential of the coasts is equal to 190 million people in the Caspian Sea, 150 million in the Azov-Black Sea, 60 million in the Baltic and 17 million in the Sea of Japan*. However, a multiple expansion of recreational zones is certainly possible (Section 4.8), and with it better care for nature.

Large reserves are contained in an array of secondary resources. In Czechoslovakia, for example, scrap ferrous metals are used at 90%, non-ferrous - from 15 to 85, paper waste at 50, textile waste at 65, glass - over 30, plastic at 20 and rubber at 12% (in the USSR these the figures were 2-3 times lower). Energy consumption for processing scrap ferrous and non-ferrous metals is much less than from ore. Our country is literally littered with rusting metal. On the coasts of seas, lakes, and along rivers lie the remains of thousands of dead or disabled ships, boats, etc. Cities are littered with iron rubbish. Even in rural areas, many tons of used metal fall on 1 hectare of territory. There are thousands and thousands of used barrels lying around in the North. We mainly burn or rot paper and its derivatives, while already in the world, recycled paper accounts for 1/3 of all production (75 million tons of paper are recycled per year).
An internal resource circle that does not involve natural reserves from the outside, from nature, is impossible, but in a number of cases, it can take a leading place. The only issue is to reduce the cost of using secondary resources, at least for fuel. In the USA, for example, 220 million tons of industrial and household waste are collected per year. Of this, 209 million tons are disposed of in landfills and 11 million tons are incinerated. If all the garbage were burned, about 90 million tons of ash would remain. And the price of energy waste disposal would be higher than storage*. However, the shortage of places for constructing landfills and the “old sins” of dumping hazardous waste in inappropriate places (and there are thousands of such places) turns the waste recycling industry into a socially inevitable sector of the economy, although still unprofitable.

* Wallgren D. A. Sanitary landfills are forever//Waste Age. 1987. V. 18. No. 4. P. 234 - 236.

As stated above, the modern environmental crisis has two syndromes - a bull in a china shop and a swarm of locusts in the field. Economic supergiants and myriads of small sources of pollution disturb the living environment. Reasonable sufficiency in the number and size of enterprises is absolutely necessary. At the same time, one should strive to keep products as miniature as possible in order to take up a minimum of resources. Optimizing the number and size of business units and their products is another way to alleviate the environmental situation. Once again it should be recalled that gigantism is the beginning of the end. This is a system-wide law.
Saving energy and changing its sources to hydrogen and solar panels are inevitable, although this will not happen soon - generations of energy sources are replaced no more often than after 30 - 40 years. The important thing is that this change will go along the line of using the heat and light that comes to the Earth and dissipates, and not that which is concentrated and removed from the bowels, i.e. along the path of reducing, not increasing, the thermal load. Otherwise, a thermal (or thermodynamic) crisis will occur, which has actually already begun. The number of hydroelectric power stations, nuclear power plants and thermal power plants has already exceeded the limit of reasonable sufficiency. Their further development is dangerous, even if it is possible to capture the exhaust gases of thermal power plants and nuclear power plants. All these energy sources add a lot of unproductive heat to the Earth's biosphere. In addition, hydroelectric power plants, breaking the ecological chains “river - reservoir”, lead to unpredictable changes in sea ecosystems, aggravated by acidification of shallow waters with acid rain, radioactive decay and the release of toxic substances at the bottom of the ocean from the still ongoing dumping of hazardous waste.
Environmental standardization and certification of technologies, equipment and products of the entire economic complex is becoming a significant management issue (Section 6.4). The introduction of standards and certification must be carried out in a highly professional manner, as they will direct banks, insurance companies, and investigators throughout economic life towards greening.
An essential branch in the sphere of reproduction of the natural environment is the maintenance of ecological balance. This is a multi-valued term and concept, but its general essence is that it is necessary to maintain a certain relationship between the quantity and quality of environmental components - energy, water, air, soil substrates, plants, animals and microorganisms (Chapter 5). In other words, it is impossible to plow up the whole world with impunity, harmfully use super-heavy agricultural machines, make open cuts for mining, resulting in the formation of groundwater depression craters covering an area within a radius of 150 - 200 km, etc. Maintaining an ecological balance is a huge the field of science and practice - seportology. There are known methods of this maintenance - component and territorial. There is a theory and practice of optimizing fisheries, agriculture and all environmental management, the method of eco- or geo-equivalents, the theory of specially protected areas (reserves, wildlife sanctuaries, special-purpose forests, etc.). Society will inevitably increasingly adopt the achievements of seportology - otherwise it will face a very serious crisis of environmental imbalance (for more information, see Chapter 5).
The process of greening will continue in the field of human biology, social ecology and that section of ecology called endoecology, that is, the ecology of the internal environment of the body. Medicine will move on an environmentally friendly basis. At the same time, it will abandon many of its postulates and focus even more on preventing diseases (in our country, the sanitary and epidemiological service is extremely poor and completely environmentally illiterate). The recreational complex will expand sharply. Sports “gladiatorship” with the payment of huge sums will soon become an ordinary, routine, and therefore unattractive spectacle - it has reached abnormal proportions.
In general, slowly but surely, the complex of human reproduction is becoming a significant economic sector, occupying an increasingly large part of the service sector. At the same time, it is often depreciated by transport difficulties, overwork of vacationers, poor service standards and the anti-environmental friendliness of the resort complexes themselves. Huge crowds of people make the beaches very unsuitable for recreation and centers of unsanitary conditions. Deconcentration of recreation is necessary.
Serious changes are taking place in agriculture. The need to abandon pesticides has already been recognized. But no one knows how to do this. Obviously, pest control will be carried out by blocking ecological niches, that is, by unique biological methods of displacing pests, turning them into “friends.”
The use of mineral fertilizers also exceeded the threshold of reasonable sufficiency. The transition to biological, or ecological, farming is predetermined, but for now it is hampered by the lack of special plant varieties. In addition, of course, the area of closed ground and, in general, the conditionally closed space of both agricultural and livestock products will increase sharply. The role of aqua and mariculture is increasing.
In the course of certification and standardization of technologies on an environmental basis, the same assessment of all economic development will select the most socially beneficial paths of progress. Since economics is the science of relative processes (price is a variable value depending on many parameters), and ecology is the science of relative benefits, but having an absolute framework for human and human survival, environmental limits will increasingly be taken into account in economic decisions. The dominance of the social value of life over its economic assessment will increase.
Generating life for the sake of destroying it is clearly unreasonable. Demographic planning is on the agenda. It is possible only on the basis of socio-economic compensation, changing the very basis of population reproduction. This is already happening in developed countries that have low or negative population growth. Its basis is the highest social security and material security of people, an acceptable quality of life, a high general culture, self-esteem and respect for human rights, confidence in their future and the future of their few descendants. Greening in this area (as elsewhere) is inseparable from increasing economic well-being, which in turn is now directly related to the level of education and awareness. Knowledge-intensive production requires high qualifications, professionalism, a sense of purpose and a sense of its achievability. Let us repeat once again that it is not a mass of resources, but skillful hands and smart heads that are now the decisive condition for success, although the importance of the availability of resources does not decrease. The more countries achieve significant economic success, the relatively less the population will grow, and thus the pressure on the environment will gradually decrease. At the same time, labor productivity and its efficiency will replace the increase in the number of workers until equilibrium, the level of which will continuously decrease. Enlightened people do not strive for the locust effect.
In 1978, only 45 governments considered population growth in their countries to be too high. After 10 years, 125 states had family planning programs. But these programs turned out to be largely ineffective because they were not aimed at creating internal incentives to reduce the birth rate. According to the most recent forecasts, by 2025 there will be 8.467 billion people on Earth. However, this same period is enough for almost all of humanity to die out from AIDS and other new diseases. A decisive demographic policy is required.
In the near future, processes of environmental optimization, planning, scientific examination of projects, abandonment of environmentally harmful industries and other economic undertakings, taking into account the principle of reasonable sufficiency, maintaining environmental balance, developing recreation, greening medicine, increasing the volume of services, and relieving stress will take place at almost all levels. Everyday life. The world is very colorful. Somewhere people are starving and still believe in the power of amulets and spells of illness, somewhere they are concerned about their daily bread, almost everywhere politics still occupies the minds more than the future of the Earth. People have not yet learned to live within the framework of a long-term perspective, even if this perspective, like shagreen skin, is shrinking visibly and uncontrollably. The belief in “maybe” permeates everything. But only until the formation of a culture of a certain level - material, social, economic, environmental, and so on. If people directed military spending, which is absolutely unnecessary and senseless, to the development of the world, they would achieve significant success. And despite everything, this is already happening. With difficulty, but the world is turning its face to man, his needs, health and future.

Greening in our country is progressing slowly. The transition to the market will slow it down even more. But without this transition there would be no hope at all. The country had no other future but destruction. And not as a political unification (the remaining two empires - Soviet and Yugoslav - are falling apart miserably), but as physical death. Suffice it to say that a noticeable local “ozone hole”, in addition to Antarctica and the Arctic, in the Northern Hemisphere* was also recorded over Moscow and its region, allergic diseases affected the majority of the population of the USSR, that the level of mental health is steadily and rapidly falling, the stress of permanent deficiency has become a byword in only socialist countries speak, spectacles and monuments instead of bread are a symbol of socialism.
Greening requires normal socio-economic foundations. We don’t have them in our country, for five main reasons:
- non-optimal size of economic entities with a low level of transport and information support (dinosaur syndrome);
- confusion with property (union, republican, local, public, private, cooperative and God knows what else) and monetary units - the Tower of Babel syndrome;
- alienation of the manufacturer from the results of labor, which go into the sand of mismanagement, or vice versa, attachment intellectual property to its carrier without the possibility of “implementation” into life (tissue incompatibility syndrome);
- low management culture (Bulgakovsky Sharikov syndrome) and, finally;
- overload of a militarized country with a bureaucratic and military-coercive apparatus, which is virtually useless (syndrome of heavy chains and armor).
Obviously, we should start with size optimization, because in ecology, as elsewhere, optimization begins with oneself, from below. Your own shirt is closer to the body, and its size cannot be larger or smaller than necessary. Territorial-economic optimization will inevitably lead to environmental optimization.
There can be only two types of property - private (personal) and collective (cooperative, state, etc.) as socialized private (no property at all). Money is just as unitary as a reflection of the social significance (including value) of anything. In this sense, greening without solving the problem of property and money is impossible.
Without increasing the efficiency of labor, and therefore the economy, environmental problems cannot be solved, because they will always be financed on a residual basis. And this remainder will tend to zero.
Sharikov from “The Heart of a Dog” by M. A. Bulgakov will never understand the meaning of greening, no matter how much he talks about it. We need professionalism and high culture, flexibility of thought and its depth.
A country shackled by the military-industrial complex and structures of oppression cannot move forward, including along the path of greening. The horse of the economy will not carry out both the rider and his ideological chains, dressed over steel armor. If the world requires direct environmental conversion, then in our country it is indirect, along the chain: military production - civilian production - greening. This path is long and contradictory.
If the listed syndromes are not removed and the overwhelming stress of deficit remains, the country will constantly be in a state of psychosis and hysterical panic. In fact, she had not lived a year without cards or other forms of directive distribution; she had not seen abundance. And without it, everything is suppressed by fear - hunger, disease, etc. In our country, environmental movements “for now” mainly manifest themselves in the form of spontaneous riots, rather than targeted work to improve the living environment. They are destructive, not creative, as unprofessional as everyone else, and therefore easily susceptible to any form of blackmail. (We’ll freeze without TPP! You’ll be left without light without NPP! You’ll die of hunger without BVK! etc.). We need a well-thought-out state environmental policy; we need the real thing, not quasi-programs to improve the living environment.
And all this requires knowledge. In the USA, a country that can hardly be suspected of frivolously throwing away money, spending on science from 1972 to 1987 increased from 40.092 billion to 132.4 billion dollars, which in the final year was in total higher than the same allocations in Germany , France, Great Britain and Japan combined. At the same time, the number of scientists increased only from 56 to 66 per 10,000 population. Let us recall that in the USSR in 1987, spending on science amounted to 32.8, and in 1989 - 43.6 billion rubles, the number of scientific workers in 1989 reached 1522 thousand, i.e. approximately 53 people per 10,000 population, including 47.4 thousand doctors and 484.2 thousand candidates of sciences. Moreover, 37% of doctors of science were over 61 years old, therefore, in terms of funding and even the relative number of scientists, we quickly lagged behind. The productivity of scientists could not help but fall. Medicine and technology are not included in science in the USA, but the State Statistics Committee stopped publishing the professional composition of our scientists many years ago for reasons of secrecy and has not resumed these publications until now.
As a result, 80% of all scientific innovations in the world come from the United States. In our country, military developments dominate (according to various sources, from 60 to 82%). Therefore, although we spend 4.7% of GNP on science, and the United States spends up to 10% of GNP, these numbers are not comparable (taking into account the size of GNP itself). For environmental protection in 1990 financial year The US allocated $12.7 billion, which is $4.1 billion less than in 1989. However, this is only the federal budget, which usually accounts for less than half of all funds allocated. EPA received $4.9 billion in 1990 (for research on ozone problems, $79.1 million, climate warming
10.8 million dollars). The USSR's capital investments in environmental protection measures in 1989 were equal to 3255 million rubles, and total costs were 12 billion rubles. The corresponding amounts in the USA (taking into account all sources of financing) are almost 10 times higher.
With the transition of the former USSR to the market, allocations for environmental purposes will fall sharply, but only in that part that does not bring economic income or noticeable social benefits. Expenses will move from a liability to an asset and will become more rational. For example, in the USSR, with the monstrous consumption of mineral fertilizers and the poisoning of lands by them, organic fertilizers, as a rule, do not reach the field, end up in water bodies, or, as a result of their barbaric use, do not increase, but decrease yields. At the same time, obtaining a large harvest does not mean preserving it (storage losses exceed 40, and according to some sources even 60%). Technological losses are also great - some sugar factories in our country have existed for 100 - 150 years almost without modernization, the lack of their capacity leads to a natural decrease in the sugar content of beets during storage by 15 - 30%, and liquid waste exceeds all standards. An animal waste industry with manure ripening can produce fertilizers and biogas (with the process completed by fertilizing the soil), and the construction of new modern small sugar factories can simultaneously reduce sugar losses and the discharge of recyclable liquid waste. From a formal point of view, these are not environmental protection costs, but the final effect is exactly that. The dominant desire to get as much harvest as possible and the inability to preserve it go beyond logic. The destruction of something that can be easily saved and that society needs is incomprehensible.
There are no general recipes for quickly unraveling environmental knots. The problems that have arisen are specific and interconnected into individual formations that are not repeated in other places, although they are similar everywhere (analogy, as we know, is deceptive; it is not homology). Every question can eventually be answered, but only by detailed analysis specific facts and a leisurely sequence of actions based on deep knowledge. There are no unsolvable problems. There are only situations from which we do not want to get out. This desire must be acquired. Only those who strive for it are worthy of life.

Homo sapiens, who managed to violate the law of nature regulating population numbers, is the culprit of environmental crises. The consequences of the growth of the Earth's population are: a shortage of resources, an excess of waste and a deterioration in the quality of the human environment as a biological species. The tertiary (anthropogenic) products he created removed a huge mass of matter from the global biological cycle and disrupted the quality of its habitat. And this is the youngest biological species, unable to adapt to an environment of a different quality. Changes in the chemical composition of air, water and food have become a real threat to the death of the entire population of Homo sapiens. For the sake of survival on board a spaceship called Earth, a person must change his lifestyle and attitude towards nature - the guardian of favorable conditions for his existence, and not just a source of resources and a container of waste. To do this, he must reduce resource consumption to the level of physiological needs, preserve the maximum area of natural ecosystems that regulate quality environment, and take responsibility for fulfilling the environmental functions of producer and decomposer. Compliance with these mandatory conditions means the transition of the biosphere to the noosphere. To intelligently manage one’s own life, a person must study the laws of nature and strictly observe them, and not try to control natural processes. It is too early.

The need and possibility of the transition of the biosphere to the noosphere

Biosphere- this is the area of \u200b\u200blife on the planet, the earth's shell inhabited by creatures, including resources and products of their vital activity. The stability of its homeostasis - an ecosystem on a global scale - is maintained for billions of years by the cyclical nature of its metabolism. The degree of closedness of the cycle of matter in a normal ecosystem reaches 90 - 99% of its total mass (Marchuk, Kondratyev, 1992).

The endless alternation of processes of synthesis and decay of biomass has created an almost closed cycle of the biological cycle of matter in the biosphere due to the mutual exchange of waste from a great variety of species of biota. A variety of spatial combinations of environmental factors has created a “shimmering” mosaic of biosphere ecosystems.

In the metabolism of the biosphere, man performs the function of a consumer (consuming ready-made organic substances. - Red.), which periodically violates the law of nature regulating population size. The mind and the technology created with its help have significantly increased the physiological capabilities of the human body and allowed it to find and develop resources that are inaccessible to other types of biota. Thus, man was able to overcome the main limitation of population growth - the lack of resources. The unlimited growth of the human population was periodically interrupted by environmental crises of overpopulation, which was overcome by changing lifestyles and developing new resources and territories inaccessible to other species. The recovery from the next crisis stimulated rapid population growth, which was interrupted by the onset of the next crisis - a shortage of resources.

The current crisis may be the last, since human needs have reached the limit of nature's capabilities. The life support of the monopolist species is achieved through the unreasonable exploitation of other biological species and their habitat. Therefore, nature is trying to resist human expansion - epidemics, epizootics, exotic diseases - these are nature’s attempts to limit the growth of our population. However, advances in medicine so far allow people to avoid such a catastrophe.

The manifestation of life processes is possible in a strictly limited range of hydrothermal conditions in which biochemical reactions can occur. Initially, life is believed to have appeared in an aquatic environment with an abundance of food and favorable temperature conditions (Fig. 1).

Fig.1. Hydrothermal field of biota

Colonization of land by eukaryotic organisms reduced the influx of biophilic elements into the ocean due to decreased rates of mechanical erosion and the emergence of terrestrial closed biogeochemical cycles. At the turn of the Archean and Proterozoic, there was a sharp decrease in the temperature of the atmosphere and ocean waters from 50-60 to 8-10 0 C. For every 10 0 C decrease in temperature, the rate of chemical and biochemical reactions decreases by 3-4 times. In this case, it decreased by 20 times (Fedonkin, 2008). This reduced the availability of chemical elements associated with biocatalysis to trace element levels. Their main reservoir was the biota itself, which preserved in the biochemistry of the cells relics of the geochemistry of the primary biosphere.

Geochemical depletion of the biosphere with decreasing temperature in the Archean and Early Proterozoic, especially by metals involved in biocatalysis, forced the biota to solve the problem in three ways - the formation of specific symbioses based on the exchange of waste products, the absorption of living organisms with their geochemically rich contents, the destruction of dead biomass with the release of minerals elements.

Oxygenation (“oxygenation.” - Ed.) biosphere as a result of cooling became a disaster for the prokaryotic anaerobic (“oxygen-free.” - Ed.) biota and forced it to seek protection from oxygen from archaic types of metabolism, as well as to satisfy geochemical hunger. The eukaryotic cell was formed as a result of the symbiosis of prokaryotes based on the exchange of waste products. An ecosystem is the result of a group symbiosis of phytocenosis and pedocenosis based on the exchange of waste.

Fig.2. Metabolism of the biosphere-noosphere

Noosphere, one might say, is a biosphere disturbed by man and continues to function due to his reasonable efforts to maintain global homeostasis by managing the environmental management system and other types of economic activities in full accordance with the laws of nature. But man, having overcome the population limit, brought his needs to the limit of the capabilities of the biosphere and created conditions for the manifestation of a global environmental crisis - a shortage of life-support resources, an excess of waste and deterioration in the quality of his habitat (Fig. 2). To successfully overcome the global environmental crisis and maintain the homeostasis of the biosphere, which preserves the favorable quality of the habitat, a person must, with the help of reason and technology, take responsibility for performing the additional functions of a producer and a decomposer. At the same time, he will have to preserve a maximum area of the “irreducible reserve” of natural ecosystems that automatically regulate the quality of their own habitat.

Human function in the biosphere and noosphere

Man, with the help of reason and technology, violated the law of nature regulating population size and gradually brought the Earth's population to the limit of the biosphere's ability to provide it with resources. In addition, he created an excess of waste from his life, which disrupted the global biological cycle of matter and sharply deteriorated the quality of the human environment. At the same time, he turned out to be unable to adapt to an environment of a different quality. Even slight fluctuations in the chemical composition of air, water and food cause pathological changes in the human body. Back in the 70s of the last century, American ecologist Louis Battan said: “One of two things - either people will make there is less smoke on Earth, or smoke will make there are fewer people on Earth!” Changes in the quality of the environment are the most important threat to human existence on Earth. And so the problem of “burning out reserves” of natural resources is widely discussed in the world (Fig. 3).

Fig.3. Time of “burn-out” of explored resources (Harald Sverdrup, 2012)

From the table above it is clear that with the existing system of processing fossil resources, proven reserves will last for 100-200 years. Even if a fantastic 95% of resource recycling is achieved, most of it will run out within 1000 years.

So far, no one is concerned about the gigantic scale of loss of soil resources, which has already reached 20 million hectares per year due to their alienation, pollution and degradation. In 50 years, we will lose 1 billion hectares of fertile soil, while there are 1.5 billion hectares in global agriculture. During the same period, the Earth's population is expected to double. But the threat of world hunger is not even on the list of global priorities. Modern civilization has already lost 2 billion hectares of fertile soil, turning them into deserts. Meanwhile, it is possible to reduce the rate of loss of soil resources now through joint efforts, if we realize their real danger.

To reduce the scale of alienation of fertile soils for construction, flooding and other non-agricultural needs, it is enough to include lost profits for 100 years in the cost of land acquisition. If there is an urgent need to locate construction projects on fertile soil, society must be compensated for lost profits. The scale of soil pollution can be reduced (without waiting for the organization of an expensive system of monitoring and regulation) by tightening control over trade in contaminated products. Then the producers themselves will be interested in cleaning up contaminated soils.

To reduce losses from soil degradation, it will be necessary to radically change traditional agricultural technologies based on deep plowing and monoculture, which stimulate soil degradation. Deep moldboard plowing activates soil microflora to mineralize soil organic matter and provide cultivated plants with mineral nutrition elements. However, a monoculture is capable of absorbing no more than 20% of the mineral nutrition released by the soil, dooming the rest to be washed out of it. Well-known alternative technologies can counteract these losses: no-till farming (zero and minimal tillage) and polydominant crops (permaculture). The former minimize the release of mineral nutrition elements into the soil during processing, while the latter ensure their complete assimilation by a multi-species phytocenosis. It is only necessary to improve these technologies for widespread use in different regions based on the existing successful experience of their use.

Ways out of environmental crises

Ecological crises have plagued humans since the very beginning of collective environmental management in primitive tribes. Hunting and gathering were widespread but local in nature, and therefore quickly depleted local resources. The improvement of technologies for collective hunting of large animals led to the fact that within the tribe’s habitat, the objects of hunting were eventually destroyed or migrated to safer places. This caused the first environmental crises of “overgrazing,” which were resolved with the help of the agricultural revolution. People learned to cultivate the soil and sow grains, tamed animals and began to use their products for a long time. But the revolution could not happen immediately in an instant after the crisis; someone had to prepare it. And it was prepared by outcast tribes, whose excommunication from the collective forced them to look for other means of livelihood. It was they who invented cattle breeding and agriculture. And when the crisis of “overgrazing” occurred, the achievements of the outcasts were useful to those who deprived these people of the guardianship of the collective.

The next crisis occurred during the heyday of irrigated agriculture, when, as a result of violations of irrigation norms in the absence of drainage, fertile soils were subjected to secondary waterlogging and secondary salinization, that is, they became infertile. The mass famine was overcome through the development of rain-fed farming. The productivity of the slash-and-burn farming system turned out to be lower than the irrigated system, but there was wide scope for development. And this revolution was prepared by outcasts of society who did not have enough irrigated land or who lost these lands for various reasons. They were forced to look for an alternative means of livelihood. And when the crisis struck, people doomed to starvation quickly mastered the experience of rain-fed farming and populated Europe. Then in 100 years its population grew 10 times. Outcasts from society, rejected for various reasons, have always saved this society from extinction.

Modern ecologists are in the position of ancient outcasts. They are also considered alarmists, their “horror stories” are rejected with ironclad arguments of “conquering nature” with the help of traditional technologies, proven by a long time of use. This is where all known environmental crises began.

Features of the modern environmental crisis

The modern environmental crisis differs from previous ones in its global scale, gigantic shortage of resources and unprecedented excess of human waste. Professor Harald Sverdrup (Sweden) prepared a table of the “burn-up” of proven reserves of natural resources under different technologies for their use (Fig. 3). With the current system of environmental management, a significant part of the resources will “burn out” in the next century. Even if 95% of resources are processed, their “burnout” time for most will come in 1000 years.

The second danger turned out to be of the opposite sign - excess human waste. Man, in pursuit of comfort, has created a new class of substance in the biosphere - tertiary (anthropogenic) products, which include artificial substances and materials, machines and mechanisms, buildings and structures, production and consumption waste. These products began to accumulate because natural decomposers were unable to utilize them and return them to the global metabolic cycle of the biosphere. As a result, it was removed from the global biological cycle great amount biophilic elements valuable for biota. In addition, gigantic accumulations of the seized substance began to disrupt the quality of the human environment.

The sources of these two global dangers were traditional industrial and agricultural technologies, as well as stable traditional human ideas about nature as a source of resources and a receptacle for waste. This is facilitated by the still instilled religious dogma that God created the Earth and its riches for the benefit of man and placed him at his complete disposal. The Soviet government reinforced this dogma with its own: “We have nothing to expect from nature! Taking them from her is our task!” This slogan hung in every classroom of any Soviet school and raised several generations of “heroes” - “conquerors” of nature. Our descendants will have to reap the bitter fruits of this sowing.

Humanity needs the instinct of self-preservation

Previous crises arose unexpectedly and were therefore accompanied by great loss of life. Not knowing the causes of these disasters, people attributed them to heavenly punishments for numerous sins before God. The modern crisis has already repeatedly sent signals of impending disaster and continues to send them in the form of diseases, epidemics, natural and man-made disasters. But man, armed with technology and powerful weapons of mass destruction, has lost the instinct of self-preservation. He imagined himself as the ruler of the world and cannot believe that his life could depend on some gentle daisy insects that are useless to him.

An unreasonable child of nature is ready to destroy not only himself, but also the mother nature that gave birth to him, for the sake of his ambitions. But wise nature has developed many protective mechanisms that help it function successfully for billions of years, overcoming a variety of disasters. A person’s defense mechanism is his mind, which must also be aimed and tasked with overcoming specific dangers. The experience of history shows that the human mind awakens after disasters, when the surviving remnants of the population begin to look for a way to survive.

There are many dangers that await humanity, but the main ones, requiring immediate counteraction, have already been clearly identified: deficit of natural life-support resources, excess waste life activity, deterioration in the quality of the living environment.

In terms of the degree of danger to humans, deterioration in the quality of the living environment should come first. It was said above that man, as the youngest biological species, is not able to adapt to an environment of a different quality. Even minor changes in the chemical composition of air, water and food cause pathological disorders in his body and even death. Therefore, the main attention in ensuring environmental safety should be focused on this position. And since we still cannot competently manage the quality of our habitat, since we have difficulty mastering weather forecasts, we must leave on Earth the maximum possible area of natural ecosystems, which, without our participation, automatically regulate the quality of the environment favorable to humans. To do this, it is necessary to determine the “irreducible reserve” of the area of natural ecosystems of the biosphere, capable of maintaining a safe level of homeostasis of the biosphere, and strictly observe it. And in the rest of the territory it will be necessary to conduct economic activities in strict accordance with the laws of nature to maintain an irreducible level of global homeostasis. It also needs to be defined.

In the metabolism of the biosphere, humans perform the ecological function of a consumer, along with other warm-blooded animals that use primary and secondary biological products for existence. Unlike other species, humans have managed to develop resources that were inaccessible to other species, increased the population size enormously and created a new class of matter in the biosphere - tertiary (anthropogenic) products, which natural decomposers cannot cope with.

To overcome the shortage of life support resources, a person must create a super-powerful and waste-free industry for the production of primary and secondary products (producer function). To return the withdrawn substance of tertiary (anthropogenic) products into the biological cycle, a person will have to create a new powerful recycling industry. All substances taken from nature must be returned to the global metabolic cycle of the biosphere (decomposer function) to restore disturbed homeostasis and a favorable quality of the habitat.

The implementation of the assigned tasks will require the investment of large material and intellectual resources, which can be obtained from conversion - switching militarization to peaceful ones. There is no point in fighting for the redistribution of territories if, as a result of a peaceful change in the chemical composition of air, water and food, every person on Earth will die, regardless of nationality, social status and amount of capital. The habitat for all people is the same, and if its quality changes, the entire population of Homo sapiens will die. This common global threat should awaken the instinct of self-preservation in people at the population level.

Only then will there be a conflict-free transition from the biosphere to the noosphere, and humanity will have a chance of survival on board a spaceship called Earth, rushing lonely through the vastness of the Universe with a limited supply of resources and an ever-growing crew size.

Producer

Bibliography

Kerzhentsev A.S.. Functional ecology. M.: Nauka, 2006.

Kerzhentsev A.S.. A conflict-free transition of the biosphere to the noosphere is a reasonable way out of the environmental crisis // Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences 2008. T. 78, No. 6. P. 513.

Kerzhentsev A.S. New promising scientific direction // Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences 2012. T.82, No. 5. P. 432.

Marchuk G.I., Kondratiev K.Ya.. Priorities of global ecology. M.: Nauka, 1992.

Sverdrup Harald. Reasoning about a sustainable society, 2012. http://www.ecolife.ru/zhurnal\articles/4457/.

Fedonkin M.A. The role of hydrogen and metals in the formation and evolution of metabolic systems / Problems of the origin and evolution of the biosphere. Ed. E.M. Galimova. M.: LIBRIKOM, 2008, p. 417.

Introduction. 2

1. Environmental problems 3

2. Way out of the environmental crisis 4

2.1. Greening production 6

2.2. Application of administrative measures and measures

Legal responsibility for environmental

Offenses (administrative and legal direction) 8

2.3. E religious education direction 10

2.4. International legal protection 11

Conclusion 13

References 14

Introduction.

The current state of the environment has forced the planet's population to think about its protection. Human economic activity has recently led to serious environmental pollution. The atmosphere is saturated with chemical compounds, waters become unsuitable for use and life of organisms, the lithosphere also “received its share of industrial waste.” Nature cannot independently cope with such human influence; large-scale pollution occurs, covering all living shells of the Earth. This is where the definition of “ecological crisis” comes from.

So, the environmental crisis -the stage of interaction between society and nature, at which the contradictions between economics and ecology are aggravated to the limit, and the possibility of preserving the ability of self-regulation and ecosystems under conditions of anthropogenic impact is seriously undermined.Since everything in nature is interconnected, a violation of one component (for example, depletion of water reserves) leads to changes in others (drying and cooling of the climate, changes in soils and the species composition of organisms), which poses a danger to humanity. Therefore, the task of this work is to show the importance of solving environmental problems and ways out of the current situation.

Ecological problems.

Let's consider environmental problems in different areas that have priority in solving the problem of overcoming the environmental crisis.

In the atmosphere there is a high level of air pollution in cities and industrial centers; adverse effects of atmospheric pollutants (pollutants) on the human body, animals, the state of plants and ecosystems; possible climate warming (“greenhouse effect”); risk of ozone depletion; acid rain and acidification of natural environments due to the anthropogenic spread of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides; photochemical (containing chemicals that can oxidize, these include gasoline vapors, paints, tropospheric ozone) air pollution;

In the hydrosphere - increasing pollution of freshwater and marine ecosystems, increasing volumes of wastewater; ocean pollution; reduction in biological productivity of aquatic ecosystems; the occurrence of mutagenesis in polluted aquatic environments; depletion of fresh groundwater reserves; progressive decrease in the minimum permissible surface water flow; shallowing (disappearance) and pollution of small rivers; reduction and drying of inland water bodies; Negative consequences regulation of river flow for organisms permanently living in the aquatic environment; negative environmental consequences of the creation of large lowland reservoirs;

In the lithosphere - desertification due to improper land use; expansion of desert areas due to human intervention; wind and water soil erosion; soil contamination with pesticides, nitrates and other harmful substances; reduction in soil fertility to a critical level; waterlogging and secondary salinization; alienation of land for construction and other purposes; activation of landslides, mudflows, flooding, permafrost and other unfavorable geological processes, negative changes in natural ecosystems during subsoil development (relief disturbances, emissions of dust and gas, movement and sedimentation of rocks, etc.); irretrievable losses of huge amounts of mineral raw materials; increasing costs and scarcity of critical mineral resources;

In biotic (living) communities – reduction of the planet's biological diversity; loss of regulatory functions of living nature at all levels; degradation of the gene pool of the biosphere; reduction of forest area, destruction of tropical rainforests over vast areas; forest fires and burning of vegetation; change in albedo of the earth's surface; reduction in the disappearance of many species of vascular plants, reduction in numbers in the extinction of certain animal species;

In the environment (in general) – an increase in the volume of industrial and household waste, including the most dangerous (for example, radioactive); low level of safety of their storage; increase in radiological load on the biosphere due to the development of nuclear energy; negative physiological consequences for living organisms caused by physical (noise, electromagnetic radiation etc.) and biological (bacteria, viruses, etc.) influences; deliberate human impact on the natural environment for military purposes; the rapid increase in the number of major man-made accidents and disasters at energy, chemical, transport and other facilities, due to the increased concentration of production and the high degree of wear and tear of machinery and equipment.

Way out of the environmental crisis.

Finding a way out of the global environmental crisis is the most important scientific and practical problem of our time. Thousands of scientists, politicians, and practitioners in all countries of the world are working on its solution. The task is to develop a set of reliable anti-crisis measures that will make it possible to actively counteract further degradation of the natural environment and achieve sustainable development of society. Attempts to solve this problem by any means alone, for example technological ones (sewage treatment plants, waste-free technologies, etc.), are fundamentally incorrect and will not lead to the necessary results.

The prospect of overcoming the environmental crisis lies in changing human production activities, his lifestyle, and his consciousness.Overcoming it is possible only under the condition of harmonious developmentnature and man, removing the confrontation between them, it is necessarychanging the concept of managing human society from nature-conserving, consumer to environmental. An integrated approach is needed when solving environmental problems, i.e. ensure the protection of all components of the natural environment - atmospheric air, water, soil, etc. - as a single whole.

There are five main directions for overcoming the environmental crisis:

Improvement of technology, which includes the creation of environmentally friendly technology, the introduction of waste-free, low-waste production, renewal of fixed assets, etc.

Development and improvement of the economic mechanism for environmental protection.

Application of administrative measures and measures of legal liability for environmental offenses (administrative and legal direction).

Harmonization of environmental thinking (ecological and educational direction).

Harmonization of environmental international relations (international legal direction).

2.1. Greening of production.

Progress in overcoming the environmental crisis will be achieved with the creation of environmentally friendly equipment. Therefore, greening production is important when solving the problem of overcoming the environmental crisis. This task is achieved through engineering developments. Most the right decision is the use of closed waste-free and low-waste technologies for processing raw materials, the integrated use of all its components, minimizing the amount of gaseous, liquid, solid, and energy waste in technological processes. Construction of wastewater treatment plants remains one of the most effective ways combating biosphere pollution.

To clean the atmosphere, dry and wet dust collectors, fabric (cloth) filters and electric precipitators are used. The choice of equipment type depends on the type of dust, its physical and chemical properties, dispersed composition and general content in the air. Methods for cleaning industrial waste are divided into the following groups: washing emissions with solvents of impurities (absorption method), washing emissions with solutions of reagents that chemically bind impurities (chemisorption method); absorption of gaseous impurities by solid active substances (adsorption method); absorption of impurities using catalysts.

Preventing hydrosphere pollution also consists of creating waste-free technological processes. Wastewater is purified using mechanical, physico-chemical, and biological methods.

The mechanical method consists of settling and filtering mechanical impurities. Particles are captured by gratings and sieves of various designs, and surface contamination is captured by oil traps, oil traps, tar traps, etc.

Physico-chemical treatment consists of adding chemical reagents to wastewater that react with pollutants and promote the precipitation of insoluble and partially soluble substances.Mechanical and physico-chemical methods are the first stages of wastewater treatment, after which they are sent for biological treatment.

The biological treatment method involves the mineralization of organic pollutants in wastewater using aerobic biochemical processes. There are several types of biological devices for wastewater treatment: biofilters (water is passed through a layer of coarse material covered with a thin bacterial film, due to which biochemical oxidation processes occur), aeration tanks (a method using activated sludge) and biological ponds.

Contaminated wastewater is also purified using the electrolytic method (by passing electric current through contaminated waters), using ultrasound, ozone, ion exchange resins and high pressure.

The protection of the lithosphere should include the neutralization and processing of municipal solid waste (MSW). Work on neutralization and recycling of waste is expensive and extremely necessary. Waste incineration plants, landfills, and waste treatment plants are used. Waste recycling plants serve as a source of valuable components: scrap metals, paper, plastics, glass, food waste, which can serve as secondary raw materials. The use of recycled materials, in turn, allows you to save on production, which in turn saves the environment from the negative impact of the production process.

2.2. Application of administrative measures

And measures of legal liability for environmental violations

(administrative and legal direction).

Let's consider the measures developedat the state levelon environmental protection and methods of punishment applied to violators.

A set of legal norms and legal relations governing public relations in the sphere of interaction of society is called environmental law. The sources of environmental law are regulatory legal acts containing environmental legal norms. These are the Constitution of the Russian Federation, international treaties of the Russian Federation, laws of the Russian Federation, legislative and other regulatory acts of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, departmental regulatory acts, regulatory legal acts of local governments, etc. In 2002, the Ecological Doctrine was adopted Russian Federation And the federal law No. 7-FZ “On Environmental Protection”, which defines the legal basis of the country’s state policy in the field of environmental protection, ensuring a balanced solution of socio-economic problems, preservation of a favorable environment, biological diversity and natural resources. It contains: standards: permissible impact on the environment, permissible emissions and discharges of substances and microorganisms, generation of production and consumption waste and limits on their disposal, permissible physical impacts on the environment, permissible removal of components of the natural environment; state standards for new equipment, technologies, materials, substances, technological processes, storage, transportation; licensing of certain types of activities in the field of environmental protection; certification in the field of OS protection; environmental control. In accordance with the Federal Law “On Environmental Protection”, economic and other activities that have an impact on the environment must be carried out on the basis of the following principles:

respect for the human right to a healthy environment;

conservation of biological diversity;

priority of conservation of natural ecological systems, natural landscapes and natural complexes;

protection, reproduction and rational use natural resources;

ensuring the reduction of negative impacts on the environment in accordance with environmental standards, which can be achieved through the use of the best existing technologies, taking into account economic and social factors;

mandatory environmental impact assessment when making decisions on economic and other activities.

For violation of legislation in the field of environmental protection, the following types of liability are established: administrative, criminal, disciplinary and property. Measures can be applied to citizens, officials and legal entities.

Administrative responsibility is expressed in the application of administrative penalties (fines). Criminal liability occurs in the presence of socially dangerous consequences. Punishment ranges from a fine to imprisonment for up to 5 years, and in special cases up to 20 years. Officials and employees of organizations are subject to disciplinary liability if, as a result of their improper performance of their official or labor duties, the organization incurred administrative liability for violation of environmental legislation, which led to a negative impact on the environment.

Property liability is aimed at compensating the losses caused to the victim at the expense of the offender.

2.3. E religious education direction.

A significant part of the damage caused to nature is due to low environmental culture and poor awareness.

Nowadays, people who make responsible technical decisions and do not know at least the basics of natural sciences become socially dangerous to society. To savenature needsso that every personin contact withindustrial oragriculturalproduction, with householdchemicals, was not only environmentally conscious, but and was aware your responsibilityfor actions that bring there is obvious harm to her.

One of the sources of educating the population about ecological situation in different regions of the country there are mass media: newspapers, magazines, radio, television. They bear a huge responsibility for reflecting not only conflicts with nature, but also the complexity of their resolution. They should show ways out of critical situations and reflect the need to preserve the natural environment.

Book publishing has its place in the work of educating the population. It is necessary to increase the printing of specialized literature, which is becoming less and less over time.

Environmental education activities are carried out in cultural institutions and government organizations and it must be continued. Conduct in libraries, organize local history museums, hold reader conferences, etc.

To improve environmental education activities it is necessary:

Create a unified system of mass environmental information for all segments of the population;

Provide the population with comprehensive environmental information at their place of residence;

Achieve maximum transparency in environmental work.

An effective reinforcement link information activities is an integrated approach to organizing environmental propaganda and involving people in practical environmental work. The information content of all categories of people is ultimately intended to ensure the formation of a humane attitude towards nature.

2.4. International legal protection.

The deplorable state of the environment has led to the united efforts of countries around the world to solve global environmental problems and ensure global environmental safety. Various levels of organizations, commissions, committees, international agreements, global observation systems and services, research programs, and projects are being created.

There are many organizations that support and implement conservation programs. These include the United Nations (UN) system, which is uniquely positioned to take action to address global environmental issues and assist governments. Various UN structures are actively promoting the creation of more effective structures for economic and social development to achieve sustainable development goals on a global scale (meaning human activities that do not harm nature). UN organizations include: Commission (committee) UN Environment– UNEP, the UN organization foreducation, science, culture –UNESCO, European Economic commission UN. An important role in solving environmental problems is played by: the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), World Fund wildlife(WWF), International Union for Conservation of Nature And Natural Resources (IUCN), International council of scientific unions (ICSU) and its Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPES ICSU),Organization of economic cooperation and development (OECD), International Agency on nuclear energy (IAEA). There are also observation services for climate, oceans, changes in atmospheric chemistry, etc.

In order to solve global environmental problems, many conventions have been adopted and protocols to them have been signed.

International cooperation focuses on the following environmental issues:

Climate and its changes. The work is centered on the Climate Convention, as well as WMO organizations, projects and “climate” programs carried out jointly with other international organizations.

The problem of “clean water” is the attention of WHO, various UN structures, and WMO.

Problems of environmental pollution. Almost all international and interethnic organizations deal with them.

Waste. To solve this problem, the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal was adopted.

Biodiversity loss and species loss. The Convention on Biodiversity was adopted, and the Pan-European Strategy for the Conservation of Biodiversity was developed.

Coastal areas. Are being implemented agreements and documents aimed at preserving natural ecosystems and landscapes.

Medical ecology. Projects and programs are carried out by WHO and the UN.

Safety of biotechnologies, transgenic products and food.

Thus, we noted the approach to studying and solving the problems of the global environmental crisis on a global scale.

Conclusion.

This work examined the concept of an environmental crisis, environmental problems in various areas,It was found that solving the global environmental crisis is the most important problem of our time.

To achieve the goal of the solution global problem An integrated approach to environmental protection is needed. Not only technical measures must be taken to protect the environment, but also awareness-raising work with all segments of the population is necessary; it is necessary to set the task of protection for every inhabitant of the planet. The work reflects measures of administrative restraint and legal liability for violation of state legislation in the field of environmental protection. I would like to note that punishments for particularly serious violations of nature are equivalent in severity to punishments for killing a person.

Problems of the environmental crisis are being solved not only within one state, but throughout the world. A huge number of international organizations, committees, and agreements have been created aimed at fighting for a clean environment.

And yet the indicator of environmental problems will not improve and new environmental threats will arise until the task of every person becomes practical concern for the environment.

Bibliography.

Danilov-Danilyan V.I., Losev K.S., Environmental challenge and sustainable development. Tutorial. M.: Progress-Tradition, 2000. – 416 pp., 18 ill.

Korobkin V.L., Peredelsky L.V., Ecology. – Rostov n/d: Publishing house “Phoenix”, 2001 – 576 p.

Lisichkin G.V. Ecological crisis and ways to overcome it // Modern natural science: Encyclopedia. In 10 volumes - M.: Publishing center House Magistr-Press, 2000. - T.6 - General chemistry. – 320 pp.: ill.

Losev A.V., Provadkin G.G. Social ecology: Textbook. manual for universities / Ed. V.I. Zhukova. – M.: Humanite. ed. VLADOS center, 1998 – 312 p.

Nikanorov A.L., Khorunzhaya T.A. Global ecology: Textbook. – M.: PRIOR Publishing House, 2000

Stepanovskikh A.S.Ecology: Textbook for universities. – M.: UNITY-DANA, 2001. – 703 p.

Ecology: Textbook. for universities / N. I. Nikolaikin, N. E. Nikolaikina, O. P. Melekhova. – 2nd ed., revised. and additional – M.: Bustard, 2003. – 624 p.: ill.

Kerzhentsev A.S.

Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor, Chief Researcher Institute of Fundamental Problems of Biology RAS

Yablokov A.V.

Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Advisor to the Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Developmental Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences yablokov@

Levchenko V.F

Doctor of Biological Sciences, Head laboratory of the Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry RAS

A SMART WAY OUT OF THE GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL CRISIS

Humanity has already entered a period of global environmental crisis and is trying to find a reasonable way out of this critical state. American ecologist Louis Battan aptly said about its essence back in the 70s of the last century: “One of two things: either people will make it so that there is less smoke on Earth, or smoke will make it so that there are fewer people on Earth.”

Environmental crises have happened before, but they were on a local or regional scale. Local crises arose at the dawn of human history, when the life of the tribe was supported by hunting for large animals and gathering. The improvement of hunting methods and tools led to the fact that one day there were no large animals in the accessible surroundings. Some of them were destroyed, some were frightened by the hunter-beaters and went to safer places. This circumstance doomed the tribes to extinction from hunger.

The situation was saved by the outcast tribe. Deprived of collective help, they came up with an alternative method of livelihood: they tamed animals and mastered agriculture. We now call this the Neolithic Revolution, which transformed hunters and gatherers into pastoralists and farmers. And in those days, this saved Homo sapiens as a biological species from extinction. The new way of life expanded the human resource base and raised the population limit. The population began to grow at an accelerated pace.

Regional crises erupted in Mesopotamia and other regions with developed irrigated agriculture. Regular violations of irrigation norms and lack of drainage have led to salinization and waterlogging of previously fertile soils, which have become infertile. A reasonable way out of the next environmental crisis has also been prepared by the outcasts of society. Deprived of irrigated land, they were forced to adopt a rainfed farming system. Crops without irrigation turned out to be less productive, but they provided people with new opportunities to develop the territory.

The slash-and-burn farming system significantly raised the human population limit and became the basis for the settlement of Europe. Population growth required additional life support resources. Reason allowed man to develop technologies for the development of mineral resources, invent a steam engine, mechanize industrial and agricultural technologies, and create a variety of vehicles.

Technological achievements of man have significantly enhanced his physiological capabilities: vision (microscopes, telescopes, periscopes), hearing (radio, telegraph, telephone), mode of transportation (horse, road, rail, water and air transport), carrying heavy loads (lifting mechanisms, construction equipment ), brain (calculators, computers, electronics). Thanks to technological progress, the Earth's population grew at the beginning of the 21st century to 7 billion people with their gigantic living needs.

Only in the second half of the twentieth century did the human community suddenly realize the approaching danger of a global environmental crisis, although Malthus had already warned about the possible overpopulation of the planet. Alarmed environmentalists (see, for example, the Club of Rome report “The Limits to Growth”) “reached out to politicians, and in 1972 the UN Stockholm Conference was held on global environmental problems. An Action Plan was developed, and the intergovernmental organization UNEP was created with headquarters in Nairobi (Kenya). The conference identified the main factors of human concern about the state of the environment: 1) reduction of biological diversity and, accordingly, the genetic fund of the biosphere; 2) “burning out” of reserves of non-renewable natural resources; 3) deterioration in the quality of the human environment.

By the 21st century, 2 billion hectares of fertile soils have been lost (disturbed, built up, deserted, etc.). At the current rate of soil loss (20 million hectares per year), in 50 years the world will lose one billion hectares out of the 1.5 billion hectares available to global agriculture.

In all cases, the initiator of environmental crises was Homo sapiens - the only biological species that managed to violate the law of nature that limits population growth. The increased needs of the planet's population and its active economic activity have significantly changed the dynamic balance of nature, disrupted the harmony of biological processes and the balance of the circulation of matter in the biosphere.

1. Vegetation cover of the Earth (producers - primary production). The area of natural ecosystems has decreased, multi-species forest and grassy ecosystems have been replaced by monoculture plantings. Added to this is the literal “devouring” of oxygen and the production of carbon dioxide by technologies that are based on the oxidation of organic and mineral substances. Calculations show that, for example, the industry of the Ural region works only three hours a day on oxygen released by the vegetation of this region; the Moscow agglomeration has been living for decades on oxygen produced 6 thousand kilometers away. The number of such regions - oxygen devourers - is constantly growing.

2. Fauna (consumers - secondary products). As already noted, the world's population has reached 7 billion. Instead of the diversity of natural animal species, the number of similar domestic animals requiring the same type of food has sharply increased. This circumstance, along with monoculture crops, changed the composition of matter in the biological cycle.

3. Soil cover (decomposers - utilization of dead biomass). The above FAO data on the annual loss of soil resources due to their alienation, pollution and degradation cast doubt on the reality of the forecast for the doubling of the Earth's population in 50 years, when the cultivated area will decrease three times compared to today. At the same time, the mass and activity of decomposers that perform the function of recycling dead biomass will sharply decrease.

4. Technological progress created a new class of biosphere matter – tertiary (anthropogenic) products, thanks to the successful development of natural resources (especially mineral ones) that are inaccessible to other biological species. These products include artificial substances and materials, machines and mechanisms, buildings and structures, production and consumption waste. The peculiarity of tertiary (anthropogenic) products is that natural decomposers are not able to utilize them and cannot return the removed substances back into the biological cycle. As a result of the accumulation of huge masses of tertiary (anthropogenic) products, a disruption of the global biological cycle occurred: valuable biophilic elements removed from it became a real threat to the deterioration of the quality of the human environment.

The latter circumstance turned out to be perhaps the greatest environmental danger for humans as a biological species that is not able to adapt to an environment of a different quality. Even minor changes in the chemical composition of air, water and food cause pathological disorders in the human body. In recent years, many previously unknown diseases of humans and domestic animals have appeared. This is the inevitable result of pollution of the human environment, which has already acquired a global scale in accordance with the effect of pollution of the biosphere by global and eternal pollutants.

A person can easily cope with the shortage of resources with the help of ingenious technologies, but at the same time he must breathe clean air, drink clean fresh water, and eat non-toxic food. A habitat of such quality was created in the long process of evolution of the biosphere long before the emergence of humans as a biological species. A change in the composition of air, water and food can result in the death of the entire population and will affect every person on Earth, regardless of his nationality, social status and amount of capital.

After getting rid of an aggressive monopolist species capable of destroying all life on Earth with the help of weapons of mass destruction and peaceful technologies, nature will quickly heal the wounds inflicted by it and continue the interrupted process of evolution. In a few thousand years, a new thinking creature may appear on Earth, which will have to go through all the stages of human development and approach the fatal point of a global environmental crisis. If his mind allows him to harmoniously integrate life activity into the global metabolic cycle of the biosphere, it can enter a new round of evolution and turn into the noosphere. If this does not happen, the new civilization will disappear, just as all the previous ones disappeared, traces of which we find in the surviving ancient monuments of high culture.

Our civilization still has a chance to overcome the global environmental crisis and preserve a healthy living environment. Outcasts from society - environmental enthusiasts - have already begun to prepare a way out of the global environmental crisis. They are ridiculed for environmental “horror stories”, brought to justice, even criminally, for sabotaging profitable economic decisions, for slowing down the process of economic development. And they, at their own peril and risk, continue to develop and test environmentally friendly technologies that can turn renewable resources into inexhaustible ones and preserve the environment in a state acceptable for humans. Their achievements will definitely be in demand when the extinction of humanity under the weight of an increasing genetic load becomes a reality.

To begin with, ecologists propose to imagine planet Earth in the form of a spaceship wandering alone in the vastness of space with a limited supply of resources and an ever-increasing crew size. In accordance with this very real idea, they propose to form a new way of life.

People emerged from past local and regional environmental crises by radically changing their lifestyle and abandoning traditional life-support technologies. In the current situation, he will have to do the same, only on a global scale.

The main condition is to overcome the syndrome of the conqueror (conqueror) of nature, a categorical rejection of the slogan that raised several generations of conquering heroes: “We have nothing to expect from nature! Taking them from her is our task!” and from the religious dogma that God created the Earth for man and gave it to him for eternal use. It's time to understand that it is not man who protects nature, but nature protects man like her little child, despite his unreasonable behavior.

Before the advent of man, the biosphere maintained a dynamic balance for millions of years, overcoming a variety of cataclysms through the coordinated interaction of heterogeneous groups of living organisms performing strictly defined ecological functions: producers, consumers and decomposers (Fig. 1).

Figure 1. Dynamic balance (Homeostasis) of the biosphere.

Man turned out to be the only consumer species that managed to violate the law of nature that limits population growth. The unlimited growth of the human population with its exorbitant needs has led to a violation dynamic equilibrium(homeostasis) of the biosphere.

First, the mass of consumers (secondary production) increased due to a decrease in the mass of producers (primary production) and decomposers (soil biota) (Fig. 2).

Figure 2. Disturbance of biosphere homeostasis by humans.

Then a mass of tertiary (anthropogenic) products appeared and grew to enormous sizes, the disposal of which natural decomposers cannot cope with (Fig. 3). As a result of the accumulation of tertiary (anthropogenic) products, the quality of the human environment (the composition of air, water and food) began to deteriorate. Many new diseases have emerged, and there is a real threat of the death of the entire population of Homo sapiens. The human mind, with the help of technology, must restore the disturbed dynamic balance and harmoniously fit human life into the global metabolic cycle of the biosphere.

Currently, in solving the problem of the global environmental crisis, two diametrically opposed approaches have emerged: 1) back to nature; 2) forward to new heights of technological progress. Both approaches inherently represent unrealizable extremes. Man will not voluntarily return back to nature; to do this, he must abandon the comfort of civilization. Hope for technological progress is still weak, since predicting the environmental consequences of our actions is much more difficult than predicting the weather.

Figure 3. Dynamic balance (Homeostasis) of the noosphere.

Create a system of super-productive waste-free technologies for the production of primary and secondary products;

Create an industry for recycling tertiary (anthropogenic) products to return removed biophilic elements into the biological cycle, restore the dynamic balance (homeostasis) of the biosphere disturbed by humans and maintain acceptable environmental quality.

In other words, for self-preservation, a person, with the help of reason, must take responsibility for performing not only the function of a consumer, but also two more ecological functions of the biota: the function of a producer and the function of a decomposer. To do this, he will need to create effective and waste-free technologies for the production of primary and secondary biological products, as well as effective technologies for recycling waste from his active life.

If these conditions are met, the biosphere will transition to the noosphere, where the mind will control human activity in strict accordance with the requirements of the laws of nature. We must not teach nature, but learn to observe its laws, the violation of which can destroy a person.

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Explanatory note

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