Industrial technologies and global problems of mankind

/. What technical predictions of science fiction writers (for example, J. Verne) came true in the XX-XXI centuries? Which are waiting in the wings?

2. What scientific discoveries and technological advances would you like to see embodied in the first quarter of the 20th / century?

The results of the introduction of new and improved technologies are not always predictable for their creators.

The American engineer Hiram Maxim, who designed the machine gun in 1899, hoped that this formidable weapon would end wars, and it made them even more cruel. Construction of irrigation systems in Central Asia was undertaken to improve natural conditions and people's lives, and turned into the disappearance Aral Sea. And there are many such examples.

The beginning of the industrial revolution is associated with England, it coincides with the period when the depleting timber reserves in this country began to be replaced by coal, which was available in large quantities. The use of coal has given rise to the problems of waste rock removal, mine construction, water pumping, coal transportation and controlled burning. The use of coal fuel made it possible to create a steam engine. Machinery, not land, became the main means of production.

All this required considerable concentration. labor resources around mines and processing plants. Roads and railways, factories appeared everywhere and, as a result, chimneys, polluted water bodies and other signs of anthropogenic impact.

Cities grew, but prosperity in them turned out to be doubtful. The standard of living of a worker was lower than that of an average landowner. Labor in factories turned out to be even harder and more exhausting than in agriculture. Territories near factories came to a terrifying state.

Today, under the conditions of a market system, the change of technologies takes an average of 10 years, while the change of ʼʼnatural technologiesʼʼ, i.e. the emergence of new species of wildlife, occurs, according to paleontological data, on average over 3 million years. This huge, in several orders of magnitude, difference predetermined the dangerous ʼʼcompetitivenessʼʼ of human-created technologies in comparison with the ʼʼtechnologies of the biosphereʼʼ.

Today, the development of new advanced technologies cannot fully guarantee the environmental friendliness of production. Each production in a different volume affects the environment in one way or another.

All man-made technologies are aimed at consumption natural resources and are based on the fact that the biosphere is a "storehouse" of these resources for mankind. Often they talk and write about ʼʼenvironmentalʼʼ and even ʼʼenvironmentally friendlyʼʼ technologies. But such technologies do not exist. In fact, we are talking about technologies that use natural resources more efficiently: more end products are created from the same volume of natural raw materials with lower energy costs per unit of production. Considering that consumption will continue to grow in the future, the latest technology should be aimed at solving two basic production problems:

1.Creation of closed technological cycles (non-waste production). All materials should not, as far as possible, go beyond the closed cycle. The use of scarce raw materials should be minimized through the use of recycled materials.

2.Improving product quality . It is necessary to achieve as much as possible long terms life of goods, avoid the use of rare and dangerous materials, develop the production of easily repairable products.

Let us consider how and to what extent modern technologies of various industries (energy, transport, agriculture, etc.) affect ecosystems and what problems humanity faces in this regard.

Industrial technologies and global problems of mankind - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Industrial technologies and global problems of mankind" 2014, 2015.

Global problems of mankind and ways to solve them

Energy development strategy. Nuclear power today and tomorrow. Energy of the future.

The significance of the fuel and energy complex has recently been felt with particular acuteness.

Cheap energy (to be more precise, artificially low prices for it) has made almost all energy-saving technologies economically unprofitable. It is necessary to switch to new economic technologies on an industrial scale, replace worn-out equipment with more advanced ones, use highly efficient heat-insulating materials, and so on. In other words, before you save, you need to spend big.

Some experts believe that within the framework of energy saving policy it is necessary to solve the following tasks in the first place.

First of all, stop the construction and development of heavy-duty projects energy complexes and ultra-long-range power transmission, as well as powerful hydroelectric power plants. It is mandatory to conduct an independent environmental review of projects. Create conditions for healthy competition between electricity producers. To analyze the economic feasibility of domestic heating systems in comparison with foreign practice. To develop on a broad front the design and construction of environmentally friendly thermal power plants dispersed throughout the country. Aim research institutes to create competitive, efficient energy equipment of low average power.

Along with this, attention should be paid to the development of alternative energy sources, the introduction of which will immediately solve a whole range of problems.

ENERGY OF THE FUTURE:

During the existence of our civilization many times there has been a change of traditional energy sources to new, more advanced ones. And not because the old source has been exhausted. Today, oil and gas remain the leading types of fuel. But for each new cubic meter of gas or a ton of oil, you need to go further north or east, dig deeper into the ground. No wonder that oil and gas will cost us more and more every year.

Undoubtedly, nuclear sources will become the new energy leader. The reserves of uranium in comparison with the reserves of coal seem to be not so great. But on the other hand, per unit weight, uranium contains millions of times more energy than coal. And the result is this: when generating electricity at nuclear power plants, you need to spend much less money and labor than when extracting energy from coal.

In pursuit of an excess of energy, a person plunged deeper and deeper into the elemental world. natural phenomena and until some time he did not really think about the consequences of his deeds and actions.

But times have changed. Now, at the end of the 20th century, a new, significant stage of terrestrial energy begins. A "sparing" energy appeared, built in such a way that a person does not cut the branch on which he sits, but takes care of protecting the badly damaged biosphere.

Undoubtedly, in the future, in parallel with the intensive development of the energy sector, it will receive broad citizenship rights and an extensive direction: dispersed energy sources of not too high power, but with high efficiency, environmentally friendly, easy to use. A striking example of this is the rapid start of electrochemical energy, which later, apparently, will be supplemented by solar energy.

Demographic problems of mankind. Providing nutrition to the world's population.

In the short term, the depletion of the planet's raw materials vital for human civilization is brewing. To this is added population explosion- a very rapid increase in the number of people with severe consequences for the biosphere. People don't always realize that the Earth's resources are limited; its ability to recycle waste and produce crops is also not unlimited. One of the problems of maintaining life is the problem of providing the population of the planet with food. More than 20 years ago, at Stanford University in California, two scientists for the first time managed to replace its hereditary material in a bacterium with an alien one taken from a donor bacterium. This method of altering wildlife is called genetic engineering. drew attention to him in Food Industry. Dairy, cheese production, bread baking, sausage making, brewing and much more are based on the vital activity of microorganisms. Now there are more than 3 thousand laboratories working with genes in the world. But genetic engineering is not limited to the world of invisible beings. It invades the hereditary material of plants and animals, primarily agricultural. For example, potatoes have undergone several useful transformations. Tubers were obtained that are not afraid of falls, bumps - an important quality during transportation and storage. Another variety - for the table, contains little starch, but a lot of high-value proteins. The third grade gives a lot of starch. Tomatoes subjected to genetic operations have produced two varieties. In one species, a gene was removed from the heredity molecule that determines the ability of the fetus to quickly rot. A new tomato, already well ripened, can be stored without a refrigerator for up to 20 days. Another variety of tomato contains half as much water. It is beneficial in transportation and processing. With the help of genetic engineering, a disease-free cocoa plant, frost-resistant strawberries, and decaffeinated coffee beans were obtained. Fifty crops have already been improved by human intervention in their heredity. The first successes were achieved in animal husbandry. Correction of heredity in a pig made it possible to breed a new breed of animals, devoid of such a disadvantage as excess fat, pork becomes dietary meat. Another innovation: the cow gives milk that does not sour the same or the next day, as usual, because this milk already includes preservative substances produced by the animal's body itself. Scientists are confident that in the near future they will be able to transfer to agriculture such a variety of plants and animals, improved by their methods, that it will be possible to satisfy all mankind with food. It is not only about quantity, but also about quality. Even today's successes in genetic engineering convince us that people in the 21st century will not face hunger.

Pollution environment and the problem of protecting the ozone layer.

From the position of self-organization in the development of open non-equilibrium systems, a smooth (evolutionary) stage is singled out, during which there are no serious qualitative changes. But in the process of its flow, contradictions arise and accumulate, ultimately leading the system to an extremely unstable state. The system cannot remain in this state for a long time. Thus, the appearance of man in the biosphere was the beginning of a new era. In the early stages of the development of civilization, the impact of man on the biosphere was almost imperceptible. This period was the beginning of the evolutionary development of the biosphere under the conditions of a new era. But gradually, with his activity, man began to modify the flora and fauna of the planet, changing the appearance of its surface, in other words, he began to rebuild the biosphere, not assuming that the Earth's resources are limited. The intensity of the impact on the biosphere of agricultural, and then the industrial activity of people has increased especially rapidly in the last two hundred years and has reached a level where the biosphere and humanity as its constituent part have entered a crisis period of their development. Behind the threat of nuclear, radiation or toxic destruction of the biosphere, another, no less terrible threat, called an ecological catastrophe, looms. It is based on the spontaneous activity of people, accompanied by environmental pollution, disruption of the Earth's heat balance and the development of the so-called greenhouse effect. In the short term, the depletion of the planet's raw materials vital for human civilization is brewing. For example, on average, 20–30 tons of mineral raw materials are mined for each inhabitant of the planet per year, but only 3% of this goes into the final product. It is clear even to a non-specialist that a negligible useful yield testifies rather to the inability of the production workers than to the inevitability of "turning up" the entire planet. They have not yet learned how to use minerals in a complex enough way; in many cases, the technology is primitive, which was born, perhaps, even before our era. Among the possible stable states into which the biosphere as a system can pass in the process of self-organization, there are also those that exclude life on Earth or exclude the existence of human civilization on it. But there is a possibility to minimize or completely eliminate those unfavorable fluctuations that push an unstable system towards transition options that are undesirable for a person. For example, the prohibition and complete elimination of nuclear and chemical weapons (more precisely, any weapons of mass destruction) eliminates the fluctuation that can cause the destruction of the biosphere in a conflict. It would be even better if agreements were reached on a significant reduction and then complete elimination of conventional weapons. Then huge material, intellectual and financial resources will be released, which can be used to prevent an ecological catastrophe. But it is much more difficult to solve the environmental problem. Mankind cannot (and should not) abandon the civilization that has been created today and which not only generates well-being and comfortable conditions for the existence of modern people, but also creates unfavorable fluctuations that can push the biosphere to a transition that excludes the possibility of human existence in it. There is no doubt that restrictive measures such as reducing energy consumption, organizing more economical management industrial production, reducing the extraction and consumption of the most important minerals.

Just 25-30 years ago, mankind paid attention to the environment. They immediately started talking about it in alarming tones, because in the atmosphere, soil, in everything that grows and lives on it and in it, as well as in the aquatic environment - rivers, lakes and seas - they began to appear more and more noticeably and sharply never before unobserved abnormalities and disorders. At times they took on a completely intolerant character. And now more and more people began to talk about the environment, which was on the verge of a catastrophe. Well-equipped with various techniques and other means, a person directly affects nature: he extracts and uses, processes earthly wealth in unprecedented quantities. Every year it intervenes more and more noticeably in the natural environment that has developed naturally over thousands of years, especially in its living sphere. At the same time, nature is unrecognizably distorted and polluted. This process has already spread to almost the entire globe. And sometimes it is difficult to predict what actions may turn into what. The concept of "ecological boomerang" has come into use. It means unforeseen, dangerous, even detrimental consequences for the environment from changes in the environmental situation. And there are many such changes. Air, water, land are polluted with harmful to animals and humans chemicals, radionuclides, dangerous microflora. We are seeing the first tangible signs of the onset of the greenhouse effect - a noticeable change in the Earth's climate. Experts note the weakening, depletion of the ozone layer of the atmosphere, the formation of "ozone holes".

Spontaneous, uncontrolled development of scientific, technical and economic activity society, especially active in last years, began to significantly disrupt the natural mechanisms of compensation and self-regulation not only on Earth, but also in near-Earth outer space. Starting from a height of 50–60 km, the plasma shell of the planet extends, a layer of ionized gas several thousand kilometers thick is the ionosphere. It contains the Earth's ozone layer. It is not for nothing that it is called the "shield of the Earth": despite its small thickness, it plays an important role in protecting living organisms from the ultraviolet radiation of the sun, which can damage biological molecules, including DNA, cause skin cancer and eye diseases. A 15% reduction in ozone results in billions of dollars a year in agricultural losses around the world. The appearance of the "ozone hole" over Antarctica, apparently, is a natural and local process, and therefore has not yet had any tangible consequences. Ozone is reactive. It is formed as a result of the addition of another atom to the oxygen molecule, which arose during the decay of atmospheric oxygen under the action of short-wavelength solar radiation. The resulting ozone is destroyed, reacts with nitrogen oxide of natural atmospheric origin. This produces nitrogen dioxide and oxygen. In the presence of oxygen, nitrogen dioxide is converted back to oxide. Thus, in these reactions, nitric oxide behaves as a catalyst, it does not disappear in the reactions leading to the destruction of ozone, and prevents its accumulation. To maintain natural equilibrium, it is sufficient that the concentration of nitrogen oxide is only 0.1% of the concentration of ozone. But ozone oxide is intensively formed in the region of a high-frequency discharge, and the project of creating plasma mirrors, which is tempting at first glance, turns out to be environmentally dangerous and fraught with catastrophic degradation of the ozone layer. Another variant of using focused beams of radiation threatens the same danger: direct transfer of energy from the Earth to the spacecraft or vice versa - from an orbital solar power station to the Earth. It promises considerable benefits: it will be possible to use the unique conditions of space - weightlessness and vacuum for the production of ultra-pure materials and biological preparations and for energy production. But what will happen to the ozone layer and the ionosphere if it is implemented? And wouldn't it be better to use the energy obtained in space in the same place in space and use it without endangering the ozone layer? All this, of course, requires careful analysis and elementary verification, without which it would be reckless to start implementing such projects.

In preparing this work, materials from the site http://www.studentu.ru were used.

GLOBAL PROBLEMS OF HUMANITY

1. The era of global problems .

Humanity is approaching the change of two centuries. What will the next world be like??

The growing role of world politics and international relations, interconnectedness and scale of world processes in the economic, political , social and cultural life, inclusion in international life and communication of ever larger masses of the population - all these are objective prerequisites for the emergence of global, planetary problems. Of the variety of global problems, the following stand out:: prevention of global nuclear conflict and reduction of the arms race, overcoming the socio - economic backwardness of developing countries, energy and raw materials, demographic, food problems, environmental protection, ocean exploration and peaceful exploration of outer space, the elimination of dangerous diseases. These problems are global, as they threaten the life of mankind on Earth.

Factors contributing to the emergence and exacerbation of global problems (hereinafter GP) were:

- a sharp increase in the use of natural resources

- negative anthropogenic impact on the natural environment, deterioration of the environmental conditions of people's lives

- increased unevenness in the levels of social - economic development, between industrialized and developing countries

- creation of weapons of mass destruction.

Let's note the signs inherent in GP:

- global scale of manifestation

- severity of manifestation

- complex nature

- universal essence

- feature to predetermine the course further history humanity

- the possibility of their solution by the efforts of the entire world community.

Already now there is a threat of irreversible changes in the ecological properties of the geo-environment, a threat of violation of the emerging integrity of the world community and a threat of self-destruction of civilization.

It's time to remember that our World is ONE.

2. Save the world.

An exceptional place among the GPs of mankind is occupied by the problem of maintaining peace, preventing world wars and nuclear conflict. The accumulated stocks of modern weapons are capable of destroying millions of people in a matter of hours. Thus, there is already a risk of destruction of mankind.

Nuclear weapons have not been used in any of the regional conflicts. But with the growing number of candidates for membership"nuclear club" - the threat remains. Spreading nuclear weapons can be equated with the loss of control over it.

An integrated approach to disarmament problems would meet the interests of all countries of the world. A new world war, if not prevented, threatens with unprecedented disasters.

The best way to prevent nuclear war is to fundamentally change the relationship between the world's major powers. The new political thinking was embodied in the transition to foreign policy and our country from the principle“ class struggle”to the principle“ universal values” . This was expressed in the conclusion of the Soviet-American treaties, the elimination of Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe, the reduction of nuclear and conventional weapons, etc.

Unfortunately, the United States and the countries that are members of NATO have recently assumed the role of "justice of the peace." This manifested itself in the forceful solution of the Iraqi and Balkan conflicts, which led to tension in these regions and threatened the world order.

3. Ecological problem.

In recent years, the word"ecology" gained exceptional popularity.

Scientific achievements XX centuries have created the illusion of almost complete controllability, but the economic activity of human society, the extensive use of natural resources, the huge scale of waste - all this is in conflict with the capabilities of the planet (its resource potential, fresh water reserves, the ability to self-purify the atmosphere, waters, rivers, seas, oceans). ).

There are two aspects of the environmental problem:

- environmental crises arising as a result of natural processes

- crises caused by anthropogenic impact and irrational nature management.

The onset of glaciers, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, floods, etc. are natural factors. They are natural on our planet. The solution to such problems lies in the possibilities of their forecasting.

But there were other environmental crises. For centuries, man uncontrollably took everything that nature gives him and she“revenges” him for every wrong step (Aral Sea, Chernobyl, BAM, Lake Baikal).

The main problem is the inability of the planet to cope with the waste of human activity, with the function of self-purification and repair. The biosphere is being destroyed. Therefore, the risk of self-destruction of humanity as a result of its own life activity is great.

Nature is influenced by society in the following ways:

- use of environmental components as a resource base for production

- the impact of human production activities on the environment

- demographic pressure is not nature (agricultural land use, population growth, growth of large cities).

Here, many global problems of mankind are intertwined - resource, food, demographic - all of them have access to environmental issues. But it also has a great influence on these problems of mankind.

The current situation on the planet is characterized by a sharp deterioration in the quality of the environment - air pollution, rivers, lakes, seas, the union and even the complete disappearance of many species of animals and flora, soil degradation, desertification, etc. The adverse impact of human activity has spread to the biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere. This conflict creates a threat of irreversible changes in natural systems, undermining natural conditions and resources for the existence of generations of the planet's inhabitants. Growth productive forces societies, population growth, urbanization, scientific and technological progress are catalysts for these processes.

Even the trend of climate warming on the planet is associated with atmospheric pollution.

Carbon dioxide passes the radiant energy of the Sun, but delays the thermal radiation of the Earth and thereby creates a "greenhouse effect". The content of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is growing (as a result of deforestation, burning of forests, due to pollution with industrial waste and exhaust gases. Emissions of chlorofluorocarbons also contribute to climate warming. The impact of human civilization on the Earth's climate is a sad reality. The greenhouse effect disrupts the planet's climate, changing such important quantities such as rainfall, wind direction, cloud layer, ocean currents and the size of the polar ice caps.The level of the World Ocean may rise, there will be problems for island nations.

There are forecasts about the impact of the global process of climate warming on certain areas of the Earth. But no one knows exactly what the consequences on a global scale could be.

An assessment of the scientific evidence and possible course of action for the world community on this issue is needed.

The most important component of the atmosphere, which affects the climate and protects all life on Earth from solar radiation, is the ozone layer. Atmospheric ozone absorbs hard ultraviolet radiation. Oxides of nitrogen, heavy metals, fluorine, chlorine, and bromine play an active role in the processes of formation and destruction of ozone.

Observations from artificial satellites have shown a decrease in ozone levels. With an increase in the intensity of ultraviolet radiation, scientists associate an increase in eye diseases and oncological diseases, the occurrence of mutations. Man, the oceans, climate, flora and fauna were under attack.

It is impossible not to note the impact on the ecology of radioactive contamination of the environment (nuclear energy, nuclear weapons testing). After the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, directly opposite opinions are expressed: some are for further development, others are for the elimination of all nuclear power plants and the cessation of the construction of new ones. But their existence in the coming years is an objective reality. Thermonuclear fusion, according to the IAEA, is a way of generating energy that is potentially acceptable from the point of view of ecology, safety and economy and can provide the whole world with the necessary amount of energy in the future.

The severity of the socio-ecological situation in developing countries has led to the emergence of the phenomenon of the "third world". It is characterized by:

· natural originality of the tropical zone

· the traditional orientation of development, which objectively leads to increased pressure on the biosphere (rapid population growth, traditional agriculture, etc.);

· interrelation and interdependence of various regions of the world (transfer of pollution);

· underdevelopment of these countries, dependence on the former metropolises.

If for industrialized countries environmental problems are of an "industrial nature", then for developing countries - with the reuse of natural resources (forests, soils, etc.). natural resources). In other words, if developed countries suffer from their “wealth”, then developing countries suffer from “poverty”.

Developing countries accuse the developed world of unwillingness to accept responsibility for environmental pollution, the expansion of the ozone hole, the greenhouse effect, and so on. They believe that economically developed countries should take the lead in global action to prevent environmental catastrophe. Most likely, the world community will make a compromise solution. But will they be fulfilled?

Trees and soils are of great importance for the global circulation of oxygen and carbon. This is especially important in connection with the possibility of climate change due to an increase in the content of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The expansion of the needs of society accelerated, starting from the 16th century, the reduction of forests into Western Europe. However, at present, the area of ​​temperate forests is not decreasing, but even increasing as a result of reforestation.

In third world countries, the picture is different. Tropical rainforests are being destroyed at an unprecedented rate, and it is these forests that are often called the “lungs of the planet”. Among the main reasons for deforestation in developing countries are the following: traditional slash-and-burn farming, the use of wood as fuel, cutting for export. Tropical rainforests are cleared ten times faster than their natural regeneration. The catastrophic reduction of forests in Southeast Asia may lead to their complete destruction in 15-20 years.

Due to the very important wet- rainforest their convergence is an important economic disaster for the entire planet. It will be expressed in a reduction in the supply of oxygen and an increase in the content of carbon dioxide, the destruction of many species of plants and animals.

In terms of the rate of destruction processes and territorial distribution, deforestation in mountainous areas. This leads to high-altitude desertification.

Now the process of desertification, originating locally, has taken on a global scale.

According to climatic data, deserts and semi-deserts occupy more than a third of the land surface and more than 15% of the world's population lives in this territory. Only as a result of economic activities of people over the past 25 years, more than 9 million square kilometers of deserts have appeared.

The main causes of desertification include the destruction of sparse vegetation due to overgrazing, plowing pastures, cutting down trees and shrubs for fuel, industrial and road construction, etc. Wind erosion, drying up of the upper soil horizons, and droughts are added to these processes.

All this leads to a decrease in productive land in the countries of the "third world", namely, in these countries the largest population growth is observed, i.e. the need for food increases.

Soon, not ideological, but ecological problems will come to the fore all over the world, not relations between nations, but relations between nations and nature will dominate. Man urgently needs to change his attitude towards the environment and his ideas about safety. World military spending is about one trillion a year. At the same time, there is no means to monitor global climate change, to survey the ecosystems of disappearing tropical rainforests and expanding deserts. Governments continue to view security only from a military perspective. And although the possibility of unleashing a nuclear war still exists, the concept of security must still include concern for the environment.

The natural way to survive is to maximize the strategy of frugality in relation to the outside world. All members of the world community must participate in this process.

The ecological revolution will win when people can reassess their values, see themselves as not an integral part of nature, on which their future and the future of their descendants depend.

4. Demographic problem.

Population development is the only kind of development in which the means coincide with the end. The goal is the improvement of a person and the improvement of the quality of his life, the means are the person himself as the basis of economic development. Demographic development is not only population growth, it includes issues of nature management, population growth relative to territories and its natural resource base (demographic pressure factor, state and quality of the natural environment, ethnic problems, etc.).

Speaking about the causes of overpopulation, one can focus on the extraordinary amount of the population, or on the insufficiently high level of development of the productive forces. The second reason is currently the leading one.

The population of our planet is more than 5.5 billion people and is growing very fast. Over the next 10 years, the world's population will increase by another billion inhabitants. More than half of the population the globe concentrated in Asia - 60%. Over 90% of the total population growth occurs in less developed regions and countries, and in the future these countries will maintain high growth rates.

Most economically developed countries with a higher standard of living and culture of the population are characterized by a lower birth rate, which is explained by many reasons, including the later completion of their education and the formation of a family. In the least developed countries, there is an increasing trend towards lower fertility levels, but in general, traditionally high level is saved.

In our time, the consequences of population growth have become so relevant that they have received the status of a global problem. It is the population that is considered by many as one of the factors threatening the very survival of civilization, because. taking into account the growth in the consumption of natural resources, technical and energy equipment, the pressure of the population on the territory will continuously increase.

At the same time, it should be borne in mind that the socio-demographic situation in the developed and developing world is diametrically opposed (the term is a demographically divided world).

Only 5% of world population growth occurs in economically developed countries, most of which are located in the northern hemisphere. This increase is due to a decrease in the death rate and an increase in life expectancy. The birth rate in most economically developed countries is already insufficient even to ensure simple reproduction of the population.

At least 95% of the world population growth in the coming years will be in the developing countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America. The dynamic growth of the population of these countries is one of the most important socio-economic problems of global importance. It received the loud name "demographic explosion" and successfully emphasizes the essence of the process of population reproduction in these countries - its exit from the control of society.

At present, almost all territories with more or less favorable living and farming conditions are inhabited and developed. Moreover, about 75% of the population is concentrated on 8% of the earth's territory. This causes a huge "population pressure" in the territory, especially where economic activity has been going on for thousands of years. Regardless of the nature of the technology used, the level of consumption or waste, the extent of poverty or inequality, a larger population has a greater impact on the environment.

The progress of engineering and technology, the development of transport, the need to create new resource areas cause people to move to areas in extreme natural conditions (taiga, tundra, etc.). given the fragility of ecological systems in extreme areas, these loads lead to increasing destruction of the natural environment. Due to the integrity of the entire nature of the world, environmental stress of global significance arises.

"Population pressure" complicates not only the food or environmental situation, but also has a negative impact on the development process. For example, the rapid growth of the population does not allow stabilizing the problem of unemployment, makes it difficult to solve the problems of education, healthcare, etc. In other words, any socio-economic problem includes a demographic one.

The modern world is becoming more and more urbanized. In the near future, more than 50% of humanity will live in cities.

In developed capitalist countries, the share of the urban population reaches 80%; the largest agglomerations and megacities are located here. Thus, the crisis of cities manifests itself, when the concentration of industry and road transport drastically worsen the ecological situation.

Urbanization is organically linked to most global problems. Cities, due to the especially high territorial concentration of population and economy in them, also concentrated the bulk of the military-economic potential. They are also possible targets for nuclear and conventional weapons.

Cities are the largest centers of consumption of all natural resources, which is associated with the global problem of resource consumption. In addition, the continuous sprawl of cities leads to the absorption of valuable land, especially in developing countries.

Thus, urbanization at the turn of the third millennium remains one of the important global processes.

5. Energy and raw materials problem.

Changes in the biosphere as a result of human activity are rapid. During the 20th century, more minerals were extracted from the bowels than in the entire history of civilization.

The distribution of natural resources around the planet is characterized by extreme unevenness. This is due to differences in climatic and tectonic processes on earth, various conditions for the formation of minerals in past geological epochs.

Until the beginning of the 20th century, wood was the main energy resource, followed by coal. It was replaced by the extraction and consumption of other types of fuel - oil and gas. The era of oil gave impetus to the intensive development of the economy, which in turn required an increase in the production and consumption of fossil fuels. Every 13 years, energy needs have doubled. The global equivalent fuel reserves are made up primarily of coal (60%), oil and gas (27%). In total world production, the picture is different - coal accounts for more than 30%, and oil and gas - more than 67%. If we follow the forecasts of optimists, then the world's oil reserves should be enough for 2-3 centuries. Pessimists, on the other hand, believe that the available oil reserves can meet the needs of civilization for only a few decades.

Of course, these figures are provisional. However, one conclusion suggests itself: it is necessary to take into account the limited nature of natural resources, besides, an increase in the extraction of minerals also turns into environmental problems.

The use of energy resources is one of the indicators of the level of development of civilization. The energy consumption of the developed countries is much higher than the corresponding indicators of the countries of the developing world. Only the top 10 industrialized countries consume 70% of the world's total energy.

Most developing countries do not have large oil reserves and are dependent on this natural resource. in the least developed countries, however, the need for energy resources is covered by firewood and other types of biomass. As a result, the energy situation for many third world countries turns into complex problems (including deforestation). "Wood shortage" is a specific form of manifestation of the global energy crisis. The energy crisis itself can be defined as a tense state that has developed between the needs of modern society for energy and the reserves of raw materials for energy. He showed the world the limited reserves of energy sources in nature, as well as the wasteful nature of the consumption of the most scarce energy carriers.

Thanks to the energy crisis, the world economy has moved from an extensive path of development to an intensive one, the energy and raw materials intensity of the world economy has decreased, and the provision of its fuel and mineral resources(due to the development of new deposits, it even began to increase).

In the system of international division of labor, developed countries are the main consumers of raw materials, and developing countries are producers, which is determined both by the level of their economic development and by the location of minerals on earth.

Resource availability is the ratio between the amount of natural resources and the amount of their use.

The level of resource supply is determined by the potential of the country's own resource base, as well as other facts, for example, political and military-strategic considerations, the international division of labor, etc.

However, the example of Japan, Italy and other countries shows that the presence or absence of their own raw materials in the conditions of the modern world economy is not a decisive factor in the development of the country. It is often in countries with a rich resource base that resource wastefulness takes place. In addition, resource-rich countries often have a low utilization rate of secondary resources.

By the beginning of the 1970s, the growth in the consumption of raw materials exceeded the growth in its proven reserves, and the availability of resources decreased. Then the first gloomy forecasts appeared about the imminent exhaustion of world resources. There has been a transition to rational resource consumption.

Land resources, soil cover are the basis of all living nature. Only 30% of the world's land fund is agricultural land used by mankind for food production, the rest is mountains, deserts, glaciers, swamps, forests, etc.

Throughout the history of civilization, population growth has been accompanied by an expansion of cultivated land. More land has been cleared for settled agriculture in the past 100 years than in all previous centuries.

Now in the world there is practically no land left for agricultural development, only forests and extreme territories. Moreover, in many countries of the world land resources are rapidly decreasing (growth of cities, industry, etc.).

And if in developed countries the growth of crop yields and productivity of agriculture compensates for the loss of land, then in developing countries the picture is the opposite. This creates excessive pressure on soils in many densely populated areas developing world. Up to half of the world's arable land is used to the point of exhaustion, beyond reasonable loads.

Another aspect of the problem of providing land resources is soil degradation. Since ancient times, soil erosion and drought have been the trouble of farmers, and destroyed soil is restored very slowly. Under natural conditions, this takes more than one hundred years.

Every year, only 7 million hectares of land fall out of agricultural circulation due to erosion, and another 1.5 million hectares due to waterlogging - salinization, leaching. And although erosion is a natural geological process, in recent years it has clearly increased, often due to imprudent human activities.

Desertification is also not a new process, but it, like erosion, has accelerated in recent times.

The rapid growth of the population of developing countries exacerbates many processes, increasing the load on the planet's land background. The reduction of land resources in developing countries, caused by natural, socio-economic factors, underlies political and ethnic conflicts. Land degradation is a serious problem. The fight against the reduction of land resources is the most important task of mankind.

On our planet, forests cover 30% of the territory. There are clearly two forest belts: northern, with a predominance of coniferous trees, and southern - tropical rainforests of developing countries.

The largest area of ​​forests has been preserved in Asia and Latin America. The forest wealth of the world is great, but not unlimited.

In the developed countries of Western Europe and North America, the volume of wood growth exceeds the volume of logging and resource potential is growing. For most third world countries, a decrease in the provision of forest resources is characteristic.

In general, the world's forest resources are declining (by 2 times over the past 200 years). The destruction of forests at such a pace has catastrophic consequences for the whole world: oxygen supply is reduced, the greenhouse effect is increasing, and the climate is changing.

For many centuries, the reduction in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bforests on the planet practically did not hinder the progress of mankind. But since recently, this process has begun to have a negative impact on the economic and ecological state of many countries, especially third world countries. Forest protection and reforestation are necessary for the continued existence of mankind.

Water is a prerequisite for the existence of all living organisms on earth. Large volumes of water on the planet gives the impression of its abundance and inexhaustibility. For many years, the development of water resources was carried out almost uncontrollably. Water is now scarce where it does not exist in nature, where it is intensively used, where it has become unfit for consumption.

About 60% of the total land area is in areas where there is not enough fresh water. A quarter of humanity feels the lack of it, and more than 500 million inhabitants suffer from lack and poor quality.

Water resources are unevenly distributed across the continents. Asia, due to the large number of high population growth, is among the most water-poor continents. Many countries in Southwest and South Asia, as well as East Africa, will soon face water shortages, which will not only limit the development of agriculture and industry, but may also lead to political conflicts.

The need for fresh water is experienced by the population, industry and agriculture. However, most of the waters are the waters of the world's oceans, unsuitable not only for drinking, but also for technological needs.

Despite the advances in modern technology, the problem of reliable water supply for many countries of the world remains unresolved.

The increase in industrial consumption of water is associated not only with its rapid development, but also with an increase in the water intensity of production. A lot of water is required by the chemical industry, metallurgy, paper production.

World agriculture accounts for about 70% of the world's water withdrawal. And now most of the world's farmers use the same irrigation methods as their ancestors 5,000 years ago. Irrigation systems of third world countries are especially inefficient.

The following conclusion can be drawn - the shortage of fresh water is growing.

The reasons for this are: the rapid growth of the population, the increase in the consumption of fresh water for agriculture and industry, the discharge of sewage and industrial waste, and the decrease in the ability of water bodies to self-purify.

Limited, uneven distribution of fresh water resources and growing water pollution are one of the components of the global resource problem of mankind.

The ocean occupies most of the earth's surface - 70%. It is the supplier of half of the oxygen in the air and 20% of the protein food of mankind. Property sea ​​water- thermal generation, circulation of currents and atmospheric flows - determine the climate and weather on earth. It is believed that it is the oceans that will quench the thirst of mankind. The resource potential of the ocean in many respects can make up for the depleting reserves of land.

So what are the resources of the oceans?

- Biological resources (fish, zoo- and phytoplankton);

- Huge mineral resources;

- Energy potential (one tidal cycle of the World Ocean is able to provide humanity with energy - but so far this is the "potential of the future");

- For the development of world production and exchange, the transport significance of the oceans is great;

- The ocean is a receptacle for most of the waste of human economic activity (by the chemical and physical effects of its waters and the biological influence of living organisms, the ocean disperses and purifies the bulk of the waste entering it, while maintaining the relative balance of the earth's ecosystems);

- The ocean is the main reservoir of the most valuable and increasingly scarce resource - water (the production of which by desalination is increasing every year).

Scientists believe that the biological resources of the ocean will be enough to feed 30 billion people.

Of the biological resources of the ocean, fish is currently used primarily. However, since the 1970s, the increase in catch has been falling. In this regard, humanity will seriously think about the fact that the biological resources of the ocean, as a result of their overexploitation, are under threat.

The main reasons for the depletion of biological resources include:

unsustainable management of the world's fisheries,

ocean water pollution.

In addition to biological resources, the World Ocean has huge mineral resources. Almost all elements of the periodic table are represented in sea water. The bowels of the ocean, its bottom are rich in iron, manganese, nickel, cobalt.

Currently, offshore oil and gas production is developing, and the share of offshore production is approaching 1/3 of the world production of these energy carriers.

However, along with the exploitation of the rich natural resources of the world's oceans, pollution is also increasing, especially with the increase in oil transportation.

The question is on the agenda: will the ocean turn into a waste dump? 90% of the waste dumped into the seas every year ends up in coastal areas, where it damages fisheries, recreation, and more.

The development of ocean resources and its protection is undoubtedly one of the global problems of mankind. The world ocean determines the face of the biosphere. A healthy ocean means a healthy planet.

6. Food problem.

The task of providing the world's population with food has long historical roots. Food shortages have accompanied humanity throughout its history.

The food problem has a global character both because of its humanistic significance and because of its close interconnection with the difficult task of overcoming the socio-economic backwardness of the former colonial and dependent states.

Unsatisfactory food supply for a significant population of developing countries is not only a brake on progress, but also on historical social and political instability in these states.

The global problem manifests itself in another way. While some countries suffer from hunger, others have to deal with either food surpluses or overconsumption.

The food problem cannot be approached in isolation from the analysis of other global problems of mankind - war and peace, demographic, energy, environmental.

Thus, it is an urgent, multifaceted problem, the solution of which goes beyond agriculture.

The solution of the food problem is associated not only with an increase in food production, but also with the development of strategies for the rational use of food resources, which should be based on an understanding of the qualitative and quantitative aspects of human nutritional needs.

In general, the world's food resources are sufficient to provide a satisfactory diet for mankind. World economy has the agricultural resources and technology to feed twice the number of people on earth. However, food production is not provided where it is needed. Starvation and malnutrition of 20% of the world's population is the main social content of the food crisis.

The food situation in the world is influenced by: physical and geographical conditions and the distribution of the population, the development of world transport and world trade.

The economic backwardness of most third world countries, expressed in the low level of development of the productive forces of agriculture, in its narrow agricultural specialization in raw materials, poverty and low purchasing power of the bulk of the population.

The weak material and technical base of agriculture, dependence on the weather, insufficient use of fertilizers, difficulties in irrigating and land reclamation - all this gives rise to low labor productivity in most developing countries.

Undoubtedly, rapid demographic growth limits the possibility of easing the tense food situation in the world.

So, only in Africa, in the states of the arid zone, over the past 30 years, grain production has increased by 20%, and the population has doubled.

The rapidly developing process of urbanization in the third world countries has a great influence on the food situation.

The food situation in developing countries is closely intertwined with other problems, many of which are also becoming global. These include: military spending, growing external financial debt, and the energy factor.

7. The problem of socio-economic backwardness of developing countries.

The "Third World" is a very conditional community of countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Oceania, which in the past constituted the colonial and semi-colonial periphery of the developed capitalist countries.

For this group of countries, the emergence and aggravation of global problems has its own specifics, arising from the peculiarities of the development of their culture and economy.

These countries, although they gained political independence, continue to experience the consequences of the colonial past.

On the one hand, most of the world's population is concentrated in developing countries, and significant reserves of the world's natural resources are concentrated on their territory. On the other hand, Third World countries produce a little over 18% of the world's national product, a significant part of their population does not have an income level that meets the standards of the developed world.

The rapid growth of the financial debt of the countries of the "third world" by the beginning of the 90s. exceeded $1 trillion. Each year, developing countries pay three times the amount of aid they receive on debt interest alone.

In general, the following characteristics are inherent in most developing countries: an extremely low level of development of productive forces, uneven socio-economic and political evolution, narrowness industry composition economy, the leading importance of mineral and raw materials industries, the crisis state of agriculture and the acuteness of the food problem, rapid population growth, hyperurbanization, illiteracy, poverty, etc.

However, all types of societies existing in the world are interconnected by a system of political, economic and cultural relations. The world we live in is one. And a certain group of countries cannot develop, follow the path of progress, while other states are experiencing ever-increasing economic pressure.

The deterioration of the economic situation of developing countries undoubtedly affects the entire world community: where there are glaring differences in living standards different peoples, global stability is impossible. This is the understanding of the importance of the problem of socio-economic backwardness of developing countries.

The solution of the economic problems of developing countries is extremely complicated by the exceptionally high rates of annual population growth. The continuing "population explosion" largely determines the shift of the center of gravity of the main problems to the countries of the "third world".

Scientists come to the conclusion that there is a complex system of relationships between population growth and the problems of hunger, housing, unemployment, and inflation. The rapid growth of the population is only one of the reasons for the aggravation of the food situation.

The role of agriculture in the economy of developing countries is great and diverse. With the general trend of its decline in the world, many developing countries still remain agrarian in the structure of the economy. Agriculture provides employment for the population, gives it a livelihood, provides foreign exchange through the export of agricultural products. But despite the rural orientation of many developing countries, they do not provide themselves with the food they need.

Large external debt and interest payments on external debt also deprive developing countries of the opportunity to modernize agriculture.

In connection with the above, we can conclude that the main cause of hunger and lack of food in developing countries lies not in natural disasters, but in the economic backwardness of these countries and the neo-colonial policy of the West.

Studies of the last twenty years and social practice have shown that the epicenter of the global environmental problem is gradually moving to developing regions that are on the verge of an environmental crisis.

Dangerous changes in the environment of developing countries include the continued growth of cities, the degradation of land and water resources, intensive deforestation, desertification, and the increase in natural disasters.

It is assumed that by the end of the 1990s, dangerous changes will reach critical proportions, affecting developed countries as well. But if the developed countries have long been studying the permissible limits of the impact on nature, the possible consequences of its violation and taking measures, then the developing countries are busy with something completely different, because. exist below the poverty line, and environmental protection costs are seen as a luxury that they cannot afford.

Such a contradiction of approaches can lead to a significant deterioration of the ecological situation on the planet.

Continuing further to characterize the reasons that exacerbate the socio-economic backwardness of the developing countries, it is necessary to note the growth in military spending. Many Third World countries are infected with the virus of militarization. Between the early 1960s and 1985, their military spending as a whole increased 5 times.

Often the costs of importing weapons and military equipment exceed spending on food imports, including grain.

In addition to economic significance, militarization has important political significance. As the war machine grows, it increasingly arrogates power to itself. At the same time, there is often a bias in the development of the country towards further militarization of the economy.

Thus, we are witnessing the emergence of a vicious circle, when political contradictions lead to an increase in military spending, which, in turn, reduces military-political stability in certain regions and throughout the world.

All of the above data characterize the countries of the "third world" as a pole of underdevelopment in the modern world. The crisis phenomena in the economies of these countries turned out to be so deep and large-scale that in the conditions of an interconnected and interdependent world, their overcoming is considered by the world community as one of the global problems.

At present, everyone is aware of the fact that it is no longer possible to ignore the processes taking place in the "third world", where more than half of the world's population lives.

Summing up, it becomes clear that global problems were the result of a huge scale of human activity, radically changing nature, society, people's way of life, as well as the inability of a person to rationally manage this powerful force.

We see that there are a large number of problems that threaten all life on Earth. The main thing, however, is not in the completeness of the list of these problems, but in understanding the causes of their occurrence, nature and, most importantly, in identifying effective ways and means of resolving them.

Global problems, in my opinion, require great attention, their comprehension and immediate solutions, otherwise not solving them can result in a catastrophe. I, as a resident of planet Earth, cannot but be concerned about the global problems of mankind, because I want to breathe clean air, eat healthy food, live in peace and communicate with smart, educated people.

It is easy to understand what awaits us if we do not pay due attention to these problems. Then the whole civilization will suffer. That danger worries not only me, already many people are trumpeting all over the planet about problems in all spheres of life. Special organizations are being created to develop solutions and overcome emerging dangers to all living things.

The disease of civilization can be cured only by the common efforts of the peoples of the Earth. One can hope that international solidarity, a growing sense of belonging to a single human community, will force the GP to look for solutions.

LIST OF USED LITERATURE

1. Global environmental problem. M.: Thought, 1988.

2. Global problems of geographical science. M.: Central Council of Philosophical Seminars at the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. 1988.

3. The Global Food Problem: A Geographical Analysis. M.: VINITI, 1992.

4. Global problems of our time: regional aspects. M.: VNIISI, 1998.

5. Earth and humanity. Global problems. Series "Countries and peoples". M.: Thought, 1985.

6. Kitanovich B. Planet and civilization in danger. Moscow: Thought, 1991.

7. Rodionova I.A. Global problems of mankind. Program "Renewal of Humanities Education in Russia". M.: 1994.

Abstract on

social studies

On the topic of:

“ GLOBAL PROBLEMS OF HUMANITY ”

student10 class“ B” school number 1257

Stepanova Nikolay

I Regional competition for young researchers

"Step into the future, Junior - Saratov"

Ecology

Abstract on the topic:

"Global problems of mankind"

Saratov region

Romanovsky district

With. Small Shcherbedino

comprehensive school",

Grade 9

Supervisor:

Zenchenko Tatyana Viktorovna,

geography teacher

MOU "Maloshcherbedinskaya secondary

comprehensive school"

With. Small Shcherbedino, 2010

IIntroduction.

Now, at the turn of two centuries, humanity has come close to the most acute global problems of our time, threatening the very existence of civilization and even life itself on our planet. The term "global" itself originates from the Latin word "globe", that is, the Earth. For the planetary problems of the present era, affecting humanity as a whole.
Failure to foresee and prevent the negative consequences of the scientific and technological revolution threatens to plunge humanity into a thermonuclear, environmental or social catastrophe:
In many cities and rural areas, the current state of the environment can be called an ecological disaster. And the number of these cities and rural areas is increasing. We are practically on the verge of a close global catastrophe. And if humanity does not give priority to environmental issues in all activities, it will multiply efforts to preserve and restore the natural environment.
In the ecstasy of the struggle with nature and dissidents, we overlooked two grandiose systems.
1) The fact that humanity exists and develops at the expense of nature. It is foolish to cut the branch on which you sit.
2) The fact that it is not confrontation at all, but mutual assistance is the basis of everything that exists on Earth.
While people were fighting for a piece of bread, they could still be forgiven. When they try to sink the ship, on which they are all sailing together on the ocean of non-existence, they have no forgiveness. And no one will help them. Only by common efforts, it is possible to pass to well-being.

Chapter 1. The concept of global problems.

The term "Global Problems" is now generally accepted.
The global nature of these problems follows, therefore, not from their "ubiquity" and, moreover, not from " biological nature person".
The global problems of our era are a natural consequence of the entire modern global situation that has developed on the globe. For a correct understanding of the origin, essence and possibility of their solution, it is necessary to see in them the result of the previous world-historical process in all its objective inconsistency. This provision, however, should not be understood tritely and superficially, considering modern global problems as simply local or regional contradictions, crises or disasters traditional in the history of mankind that have grown to planetary scales. The global problems of modernity are generated, in the final analysis, precisely by the all-penetrating unevenness of the development of world civilization.

Chapter II. Major global issues.

1. Destruction of the natural environment.

Today, the biggest and most dangerous problem is the depletion and destruction of the natural environment, the violation of the ecological balance within it as a result of the growing and poorly controlled human activities. Exceptional harm is caused by industrial and transport disasters, which lead to the mass death of living organisms, infection and pollution of the world's oceans, atmosphere, and soil. But the continuous emissions of harmful substances into the environment have an even greater negative impact.
Firstly, a strong impact on people's health, all the more destructive because humanity is increasingly crowded in cities, where the concentration of harmful substances in the air, soil, atmosphere, directly in the premises, as well as in other influences (electricity, radio waves, etc.) very high.
Secondly, many species of animals and plants disappear, and new dangerous microorganisms appear.
Thirdly, the landscape is deteriorating, fertile lands are turning into piles, rivers into sewers, the water regime and climate are changing in places. But the biggest danger is global climate change (warming), possible, for example, due to an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This can lead to the melting of glaciers. As a result, huge and densely populated areas will be under water in different regions peace.

2. Air pollution.

The most common atmospheric pollutants enter it mainly in two forms: either in the form of suspended particles or in the form of gases.
Carbon dioxide. As a result of fuel combustion, as well as the production of cement, a huge amount of this gas enters the atmosphere. This gas itself is not poisonous.
Carbon monoxide. Combustion of fuel, which creates most of the gaseous and aerosol pollution of the atmosphere, serves as a source of another carbon compound, carbon monoxide. It is poisonous, and its danger is aggravated by the fact that it has neither color nor smell, and poisoning with it can occur completely unnoticed.
Currently, as a result of human activity, about 300 million tons of carbon monoxide are released into the atmosphere.
A powerful source of mineral dust in the building materials industry. The extraction and crushing of rocks in quarries, their transportation, the production of cement, the construction itself, all this pollutes the atmosphere with mineral particles. A powerful source of solid aerosols is the mining industry, especially in the extraction of coal and ore in open pits.
Aerosols are removed from the atmosphere in three ways: dry deposition by gravity (the main route for large particles), deposition on obstacles, and sedimentation. Aerosol pollution affects weather and climate. Chemical inactive aerosols accumulate in the lungs and lead to damage. Ordinary quartz sand and other mica silicates, clays, asbestos, etc. accumulates in the lungs and enters the bloodstream, leading to cardiovascular disease and liver disease.

3.Soil pollution.
Almost all pollutants that are initially released into the atmosphere end up on land and water. Settling aerosols may contain toxic heavy metals lead, mercury, copper, vanadium, cobalt, nickel. Usually they are inactive and accumulate in the soil. But acids also get into the soil with rain. By combining with them, metals can turn into soluble compounds available to plants. Substances that are constantly present in the soil also pass into soluble forms, which sometimes leads to the death of plants.

4. Water pollution.
The water used by man is eventually returned to the natural environment. But, apart from the evaporated, it is no longer pure water, and domestic, industrial and agricultural wastewater, usually not treated or treated insufficiently. Thus, freshwater reservoirs of rivers, lakes, land and coastal areas of the seas are polluted.
There are three types of water pollution biological, chemical and physical.
Pollution of the oceans and seas is due to the entry of pollutants with river runoff, their precipitation from the atmosphere, and, finally, due to human activities.
A special place in the pollution of the oceans is occupied by pollution with oil and oil products. natural pollution occurs as a result of oil seepage from oil-bearing layers, mainly on the shelf.
The greatest contribution to oil pollution of the ocean is made by sea transportation of oil, as well as sudden spills of large quantities of oil during tanker accidents.

5. Problems of the ozone layer.

On average, about 100 tons of ozone is formed and disappears every second in the Earth's atmosphere. Even with a small increase in the dose, a person has burns on the skin. Skin cancer diseases, as well as eye diseases, leading to blindness, are associated with an increase in the intensity of UV radiation.
The biological effect of UV radiation is due to the high sensitivity of nucleic acids, which can be destroyed, which leads to cell death or the occurrence of mutations. The world has learned about the global environmental problem of "ozone holes". First of all, the destruction of the ozone layer is the increasingly developing civil aviation and chemical production. Applications of nitrogen fertilizers in agriculture; chlorination of drinking water, the widespread use of freons in refrigeration plants, for extinguishing fires, as solvents and in aerosols, has led to the fact that millions of tons of chlorofluoromethanes enter the lower atmosphere in the form of a colorless neutral gas. Spreading upwards, chlorofluoromentormethanes are destroyed under the action of UV radiation, releasing fluorine and chlorine, which are actively involved in the processes of ozone destruction.

Ozone layer over Antarctica

6. The problem of air temperature.
Although air temperature is the most important characteristic, it certainly does not exhaust the concept of climate, for the description of which (and corresponds to its changes) it is important to know a number of other characteristics: air humidity, cloudiness, precipitation, air flow, etc. Unfortunately, data that would characterize changes in these quantities over a long period on the scale of the entire globe or hemisphere are currently absent or very scarce. Work on the collection, processing and analysis of such data is underway, and there is hope that soon it will be possible to more fully assess climate change in the 20th century.
Better than others apparently, this is the case with precipitation data, although this climate characteristic is very difficult to objectively globally analyze. An important characteristic of the climate is "cloudiness", which largely determines the influx of solar energy. Unfortunately, there are no data on changes in global cloudiness over the entire hundred-year period.
a) The problem of acid rain.

Acid rain (or, more correctly), acid precipitation, since the fallout of harmful substances can occur both in the form of rain and in the form of snow, hail, causes environmental, economic and aesthetic damage.
As a result of acid precipitation, the balance in ecosystems is disturbed, soil productivity deteriorates, metal structures rust, buildings, structures, architectural monuments, etc. are destroyed. sulfur dioxide is adsorbed on the leaves, penetrates inside and takes part in oxidative processes. This entails genetic and species changes in plants.
First of all, some lichens die, they are considered "indicators" of clean air. Countries should strive to limit and gradually reduce air pollution, including pollution that goes beyond the borders of their state.

7. The problem of the greenhouse effect.
Carbon dioxide is one of the main culprits of the "greenhouse effect" because the other known "greenhouse gases" (and there are about 40 of them) account for only about half of global warming. Just like in a greenhouse, a glass roof and walls let in solar radiation, but do not allow heat to escape, and carbon dioxide along with other "greenhouse gases". They are practically transparent to the sun's rays, but they delay the thermal radiation of the Earth and prevent it from escaping into space.
An increase in the average global air temperature should inevitably lead to an even more significant decrease in continental glaciers. Climate warming leads to melting polar ice and rising sea levels.
Global warming can cause a shift in the main areas of agriculture, large floods, persistent droughts, forest fires. Changes in the situation will inevitably follow the coming climate changes natural areas a) reduction of coal consumption, its replacement with natural gas, b) development of nuclear energy, c) development of alternative types of energy (wind, solar, geothermal) d) global energy savings.

8. The problem of overpopulation of planets.
The number of earthlings is growing rapidly. But each person consumes a large number of different natural resources. Moreover, this growth is primarily in the underdeveloped or underdeveloped countries. However, they are guided by developed countries, where the level of well-being is very high, and the amount of resources consumed by each inhabitant is huge. If we imagine that the entire population of the Earth (the main part of which today lives in poverty, or even starves) will have a standard of living as in Western Europe or the USA, our planet simply cannot stand it. But also to believe that there is always a majority
earthlings will vegetate in poverty, ignorance and squalor unfairly and inhumanely. The rapid economic development of China, India, Mexico and a number of other populous countries refute this assumption.
Consequently, there is only one way out - birth control with a simultaneous decrease in mortality and an increase in the quality of life.
However, birth control runs into many obstacles. Among them are reactionary social relations, the huge role of religion, which encourages large families; primitive communal forms of management in which large families benefit; illiteracy and ignorance, the poor development of medicine, etc. Consequently, backward countries have before them a tight knot of the most complex problems.
The problem of ecology, overpopulation and backwardness is directly related to the threat of possible food shortages in the near future. Today, in a large number of countries, due to rapid population growth and insufficient development of agriculture and its productivity, they cannot afford the use of modern technologies. However, the possibilities of increasing its productivity, apparently, are not unlimited. After all, an increase in the use of mineral fertilizers, pesticides leads to a deterioration in the environmental situation and an increasing concentration of substances harmful to humans in food. On the other hand, the development of cities and technology takes a lot of fertile land out of circulation. Especially harmful is the lack of good drinking water.

9. Problems of energy resources.
Artificially low prices misled consumers and triggered the second phase of the energy crisis. Today, energy obtained from fossil fuels is used to maintain and increase the achieved level of consumption. But since the state of the environment is deteriorating, energy and labor will have to be spent on stabilizing the environment, which the biosphere can no longer cope with. But then more than 99 percent of electrical and labor costs will be spent on environmental stabilization. Less than one percent remains for the maintenance and development of civilization. There is no alternative to increasing energy production yet. But nuclear energy has come under the powerful pressure of public opinion, hydropower is expensive, and non-traditional types of energy production - solar, wind, tidal - are under development.
What remains is ... traditional thermal power engineering, and with it the dangers associated with atmospheric pollution. The work of many economists have shown: electricity consumption per capita is a very representative indicator of the standard of living in a country.
Electricity is a commodity that can be spent on your needs or sold for rubles.

10. The problem of AIDS and drug addiction.
Fifteen years ago, one could hardly have foreseen that the media would pay so much attention to a disease that received short title AIDS "Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome".
Now the geography of the disease is striking. The World Health Organization estimates that at least 100,000 cases of AIDS have been detected worldwide since the start of the epidemic. The disease was found in 124 countries. Most of them are in the USA.
The social, economic and purely humanitarian costs of this disease are already high, and the future is not so optimistic as to seriously count on a speedy solution to this problem.
Among the reasons for the growing addiction to drugs are young people who do not have a job, but even those who have a job are afraid of losing it, whatever it may be. There are, of course, reasons for the "personal" nature of not developing relationships with parents, unlucky in love. And in a difficult moment, thanks to the "cares" of the drug mafia, drugs are always at hand ... The "White Death" is not satisfied with the positions won, feeling the growing demand for their goods, the sellers of poison and death continue their offensive.

11. The problem of thermonuclear war.
No matter how serious dangers for humanity are accompanied by all other global problems, they are even remotely incomparable in the aggregate with the catastrophic demographic, ecological and other consequences of the world thermonuclear war, which threatens the very existence of civilization and life on our planet.
Back in the late 70s, scientists believed that a world thermonuclear war would be accompanied by the death of many hundreds of millions of people and the destruction of world civilization.
Studies on the probable consequences of a thermonuclear war have revealed that even 5% of the nuclear arsenal of the great powers accumulated to date will be enough to plunge our planet into an irreversible environmental catastrophe: the soot that has risen into the atmosphere from incinerated cities and forest fires will create a screen impenetrable to sunlight and will lead to a drop in temperature by tens of degrees, so that even in tropical zone There will be a long polar night.
The priority of preventing a world thermonuclear war is determined not only by its consequences, but also by the fact that a non-violent world without nuclear weapons creates the need for prerequisites and guarantees for the scientific and practical solution of all other global problems in the conditions of international cooperation.

The most powerful thermonuclear bomb in the world

Chapter III. The relationship of global problems.
All global problems of our time are closely connected with each other and mutually determined, so that their isolated solution is practically impossible. Thus, ensuring the further economic development of mankind with natural resources obviously presupposes the prevention of increasing environmental pollution, otherwise this will lead to ecological disaster on a planetary scale.

That is why both of these global problems are rightly called environmental and even with a certain reason are considered as two sides of a single environmental problem. In turn, this environmental problem can be solved only on the path of a new type of environmental development, fruitfully using the potential scientific and technical revolution while preventing its negative consequences.
Statistical calculations show that if the annual population growth in developing countries were the same as in developed countries, then the contrast between them in terms of per capita income would have been reduced by now. Up to 1:8 and could be in comparable sizes per capita twice as high as now. However, this "demographic explosion" in the developing countries itself, according to scientists, is due to their continuing economic, social and cultural backwardness. The inability of mankind to develop at least one of the global problems will most negatively affect the possibility of solving all the others.
In the view of some Western scientists, the interrelation and interdependence of global problems form a kind of "vicious circle" of disasters insoluble for humanity, from which there is either no way out at all, or the only salvation lies in the immediate cessation of ecological growth and population growth. Such an approach to global problems is accompanied by various pessimistic forecasts of the future of mankind.

Conclusion

At the present stage of human development, perhaps, the hottest problem is how to preserve nature, since no one knows when and in what form it is possible to move towards an ecological catastrophe. And humanity has not even come close to creating a global mechanism for regulating the nature user, but continues to destroy the colossal gifts of nature. There is no doubt that the inventive human mind will eventually find a replacement for them. But the human body, will it survive, will it be able to adapt to the abnormal conditions of life?
This is disastrous not only for nature, but also for man and his culture, which at all times has given harmony to the relationship of man with nature. Therefore, to create a new artificial environment would mean destroying both culture and man.

What measures are needed to solve global environmental problems!

First of all, it is necessary to move from a consumer-technocratic approach to nature to the search for harmony with it and production: environmentally friendly technologies, mandatory environmental impact assessment of new projects, and the creation of waste-free closed-cycle technologies.
Another measure aimed at improving the relationship between man and nature is reasonable self-limitation in the use of natural resources, especially energy sources (oil, coal), which are of paramount importance for human life.

However, all the above and other measures can give a tangible effect only if the efforts of all countries are combined to save nature.

Now interstate forms of cooperation are reaching a qualitative level. new level. International conventions on environmental protection are being signed (quotas for catching fish, a ban on whale hunting, etc.), and a variety of joint developments and programs are being carried out. The activities of public organizations for the protection of the environment - "green" ("Greenpeace") - have intensified. Green Cross Green Crescent Environmental International is currently developing a program to address the problem of "ozone holes" in the Earth's atmosphere. However, it should be recognized that with a very different level of socio-political development of the states of the world the international cooperation in the environmental sphere is still very far from its perfection.
Another direction for solving the environmental problem, and perhaps in the future - the most important of all, is the formation of ecological consciousness in society, people's understanding of nature as another living being, over which one cannot rule without harming him and himself. Ecological education and upbringing in society should be put on the state level, carried out from early childhood. With any insights born by the mind, and aspirations, the invariable vector of human behavior should remain its harmony with nature.

Our school pays a lot of attention to the environment. An important role in the education of students is played by the ecological circle "Green House".

The ecological circle "Green House" has existed since November 2003.

There are 20 students in the circle. The work of the circle covers different areas. These are ecological holidays, quizzes, educational games, excursions, gardening of the school, planting flowers and caring for them. All of them are aimed at educating the children's interest in environmental problems. During the academic year and within the framework of the Days of Protection from Environmental Hazards, various events are held:

Competition of drawings and posters "Let's be friends with nature";

Literary competition - essays, fairy tales, stories, poems of ecological content;

Campaign "Clean house". School students are involved in practical environmental activities: cleaning the territory adjacent to the school, school garden, sports stadium.

Campaign "Plant a tree". 25 bushes of chokeberry and red mountain ash were planted near the school. A flower garden was planted at the monument. Broken flower beds at the school. All summer the students take care of them.

Environmental holidays: "International Water Day" - March 22

"International Bird Day" - April 1

"Earth Day" - April 22

Every year we take part in regional ecological gatherings, conferences and festivals of ecological theaters.

The members of the circle publish the newspaper "Ecologist", where various material is placed on environmental topics. All the work of the ecological circle is aimed at developing interest in nature and its protection. Leaflets were issued by members of the circle.

A new direction in the work of the circle – ecological theater.

The tasks of the theater: - to draw the attention of children to the problems of nature protection;

activate and realize creative activity

children; promote environmental knowledge among

parents and villagers.

Ecological theater unites children who are interested in the world around them. They manifest themselves in amateur performances, reincarnate, reveal their individual abilities. The audience of the theater are school students, teachers, parents, villagers.

Each performance is a joint activity of the theater director, students and parents. Parents take part in organizing theatrical performances - tailoring costumes, making scenery. In our work with children, we learn to see the beauty of our native nature. Theater classes, preparation and display of environmental performances, theatrical performances, fairy tales, literary and musical compositions help to acquire the skills of communicating with nature. Theater is an effective form of environmental education. It complements the knowledge acquired in the lessons at school. Children's words are intelligible and simple, the appeal of children from the stage awakens consciousness and souls, encourages them to join the movement in defense of nature.

Ecological theater "Green House"

Our motto: "Be nature's friend"

Our principles:

It is necessary to improve the environmental awareness of the population. - By our actions to educate those who are close to us. - Do not pollute the environment around us. - Plant greenery in our village and school. - Conduct ecological excursions with the aim of not only studying, but also providing practical assistance to nature.

environmental leaflet

Dear adults!

We, members of the ecological circle, appeal to you, our peers, and to you, our older friends - adults, and urge you to become our like-minded people. We invite everyone who cares about the state of nature, our village, the environment, everyone who has ever thought about the future of the planet to become participants in the environmental movement. This movement needs your strength, your mind, your interested participation. Our main task is clear - to improve and preserve the world around us, to heal the wounds inflicted on nature, to stand in the way of those who continue to destroy it. Each of us must do everything in his power. Saving our native land, we take on a matter of paramount importance. And let no one think that such a task is beyond the capacity of the children's movement. There are a lot of illegal dumps in our village. You are gradually turning your native village into a solid dump. And what is left for us children? And would we want to continue to live in such a filthy place? And then: what example are you showing us, your children? We are your continuation and will do the same as you.

Think again, adult citizens!

Tidy up your village

clean up all rubbish!

Members of the ecological circle

MOU Maloshcherbedinskaya secondary school

"Global Problems of the Present".

Annotation:

Global problems are problems that:

concern all mankind, affecting the interests and destinies of all countries, peoples, social strata;

lead to significant economic and social losses, in case of their aggravation, they can threaten the very existence of human civilization;

can only be solved through cooperation on a planetary scale.

This lesson shows the causes and consequences of problems on the planet. is the final one in the topic "Industrial technologies and global problems of mankind " The lesson consists of two parts - informative and practical. This material will also be useful for teachers of ecology, geography, chemistry, etc.

Lesson type: repetitive generalizing.

Conduct form: integrated lesson.

The purpose of the lesson: to prove that the solution of global environmental problems is possible through the joint action of all countries, starting with the solution of local and regional problems.

Lesson objectives:

Educational:

Deepen knowledge about the global environmental problems of our time;

Update previously acquired computer analysis skills to the study of environmental problems;

Review and summarize students' knowledge of technology, computer science, and ecology.

Developing:

informational

Continue developing skills to work with various types and sources of information;

Develop the ability to work with diagrams, drawings, encyclopedias, reference books, a computer, a multimedia projector;

Ability to apply knowledge of environmental terminology and symbolism when conducting a thought experiment.

intellectual:

Develop the ability to compare (working with various sources of information);

The ability to analyze practical activities, putting forward a hypothesis based on a thought experiment;

Ability to generalize and establish patterns;

Develop formal-logical, dialectical thinking.

Educational:

To increase the susceptibility of students to the problems of the world around them;

Raise a sense of responsibility for what is happening on Earth;

To form an active civil position for the protection of the environment of the native land.

Educational Technology: design; collaborative learning.

Forms of organization learning activities: group, individual.

Teaching methods: problem-based learning, partially exploratory, reproductive.

Means of education:- computers, multimedia projector, Internet, globe;

Electronic tutorial"Ecology. 10-11 grades. Edited by A.K. Akhlebinina, V.I. Sivoglazov. Publishing house "Drofa", 2004.

Control system: teacher control, mutual control.

Predicted result: during the lesson, students should be convinced that the solution of global environmental problems is possible through the joint action of all countries, starting with the solution of local and regional problems.

Preparatory stage:

Dividing students into groups, choosing a topic for creating a presentation

Themes:

energy problem

2. Consultation of students in the choice of sources for the preparation of projects

Project work plan.

Objective.

The essence of the problem.

Reasons for the problem.

Ecological situation on this issue c.

Forecast of the development of the problem.

Possible solutions.

During the classes:

1. Organizing time.

Teacher: Any civilization, ancient Roman, ancient Greek, etc. arises, develops forward and upward, reaches the stage of maturity, reaches the stage of flourishing, and then overripeness, degradation, decay occurs. (In history from ancient times to the present, there are approximately 20 major civilizations).

If before all civilizations were local, now civilization is global, as well as the problems that arise in this case.

2. Viewing the video "Chronicles of Planet Earth"

3. Teacher: What are your impressions? What emotions did this story evoke in you? Why do you think such a studied problem as environmental protection, raised in the school curriculum repeatedly and in courses of various subjects, was brought up for discussion again at the end of your school path?

students express their opinion and collectively formulate the purpose and objectives of the lesson.

Show that the environmental problems of mankind are the result of its economic activity;

To prove that the solution of global environmental problems is possible through the joint action of all countriesstarting with decisionlocal andregional problems.

4. Teacher: And now get acquainted with the plan of our work with you. The first part of the lesson will be dedicated to protecting your projects. Let's set the time limit - up to 5 minutes for one performance. At the end of the speech, representatives of other groups, as well as those present, can ask questions. And in the final part of the lesson - let's summarize the discussion of possible alternatives for the economic development of the state.

5. Protection of projects by students, discussion, answers to questions. ( project demonstration).

6. Teacher: It should be noted that the proposed environmental problems were considered in sufficient detail. There are many other environmental problems that we will not consider in the course of technology. And each of us can contribute to solving environmental problems. Starting from the fulfillment of the elementary requirement "Do not litter!"

And now we will summarize the results of your projects and summarize the proposed solutions:

Environmental problems of the atmosphere

Solutions: Atmospheric pollution is the result of pollutant emissions from various sources. The established content of pollutants in the air (emissions) determines the degree of destructive impact on a given region.

Environmental problems of the hydrosphere

Ways of solution: creation of a global structure of the maritime economy (allocation of oil production zones, fishing and recreational zones), improvement of the infrastructure of port industrial complexes.

Protection of the waters of the oceans from pollution.

Prohibition of military testing and disposal of nuclear waste.

Desertification and soil conditions

Solutions: An extensive solution is to expand arable land, pastures and fisheries.

The intensive way is to increase the production of agricultural products through mechanization, chemicalization, automation of production, through the development of new technologies, the development of high-yielding, disease-resistant plant varieties and animal breeds.

The use of the resources of the World Ocean - at all stages of human civilization, the World Ocean has been one of the most important sources of sustaining life on Earth. At present, the ocean is not just a single natural space, but also a natural and economic system.

energy problem

Solutions: Increasing use of non-traditional energy and heat sources (solar, wind, tidal, etc.). Development of nuclear energy;

7. Evaluation of student work.

8. Teacher: And finally, we invite you to smile. Throughout the lesson, we discussed serious environmental problems. But the ability to take care of nature did not come to us at school, and not even in kindergarten. This is the first time our parents have spoken to us about this.

Methodical literature:

Simonenko V.D. Technology: basic level: grades 10-11: a textbook for students of educational institutions, edited by Simonenko D.V. – M.: Ventana-Graf, 2011.

2. Sivoglazov V.I., Agafonova I.B., Zakharova E.T. General biology. 10 - 11 grades M.: Bustard, 2005.

3. Kriksunov E.A., Pasechnik V.V. . Ecology. 10 - 11 class. M.: Bustard, 1999 -2004.

4. M.V. Vysotskaya Elective courses. Ecology. Grade 9, Volgograd: "Teacher", 2007

Internet resources:

http:// www. ecsocman. edu. en

http:// www. eeg. en

http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=316359

http://earth.yzoz.com/

http://www.dvinaland.ru/

http://www.arkheco.ru/resource/forest/?314