What does social ecology study. Concept, object and subject of social ecology. Problems of social ecology and safety

Origin and development social ecology closely related to the widespread approach that the natural and social world cannot be considered in isolation from each other.

The term "social ecology" was first used by American scientists R. Park and E. Burgess in 1921 to determine the internal mechanism of development of the "capitalist city". Under the term "social ecology" they understood, first of all, the process of planning and developing the urbanization of large cities as the epicenter of the interaction between society and nature.

Danilo Zh. Markovich (1996) notes that "social ecology can be defined as a sectoral sociology, the subject of which is the specific relationship between humanity and the environment; the influence of the latter as a combination of natural and social factors on a person, as well as its impact on the environment with position of its preservation for his life as a natural-social being".

social ecology - This scientific discipline, empirically exploring and theoretically summarizing the specific relationships between society, nature, man and his living environment (environment) in the context of global problems of mankind with the aim of not only preserving, but also improving the human environment as a natural and social being.

Social ecology explains and predicts the main directions in the development of society's interaction with the natural environment: historical ecology, cultural ecology, ecology and economics, ecology and politics, ecology and morality, ecology and law, environmental informatics, etc.

The subject of study of social ecology is to identify the patterns of development of this system, value-ideological, socio-cultural, legal and other prerequisites and conditions for its sustainable development. That is the subject of social ecology is the relationship in the system "society-man-technology-environment".

In this system, all elements and subsystems are homogeneous, and the connections between them determine its immutability and structure. The object of social ecology is the system "society-nature".

In addition, scientists have proposed that within the framework of social ecology, a relatively independent (territorial) level of research should be singled out: the population of urbanized zones, individual regions, areas, the planetary level of the planet Earth was studied.

The creation of the Institute of Social Ecology and the definition of its subject of research were influenced primarily by:

The complex relationship of man with the environment;

Aggravation of the ecological crisis;

Norms of necessary wealth and organization of life, which should be taken into account when planning the ways of exploiting nature;

Knowledge of the possibilities (study of mechanisms) of social control, in order to limit pollution and preserve the natural environment;

Identification and analysis of public goals, including a new way of life, new concepts of ownership and responsibility for the preservation of the environment;

Influence of population density on people's behavior, etc.


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The subject of study of social ecology

The subject of the study of social ecology is the identification of patterns of development of this system, value-ideological, socio-cultural, legal and other prerequisites and conditions for its sustainable development. That is, the subject of social ecology is the relationship in the system "society-man-technology-environment".

In this system, all elements and subsystems are homogeneous, and the connections between them determine its immutability and structure. The object of social ecology is the "society-nature" system.

The problem of developing a unified approach to understanding the subject of social ecology

One of the most important problems facing researchers in present stage formation of social ecology is the development of a unified approach to understanding its subject. Despite the obvious progress made in the study of various aspects of the relationship between man, society and nature, as well as a significant number of publications on social and environmental issues that have appeared in the last two or three decades in our country and abroad, on the issue of what exactly does this industry study scientific knowledge still, there are different opinions.

In the school reference book "Ecology" A.P. Oshmarin and V.I. Oshmarina gives two options for defining social ecology: in a narrow sense, it is understood as the science of “the interaction human society with the natural environment”, and in a broader sense, the science “about the interaction of an individual and human society with natural, social and cultural environments”. It is quite obvious that in each of the presented cases of interpretation we are talking about different sciences that claim the right to be called “social ecology”. No less revealing is the comparison between the definitions of social ecology and human ecology. According to the same source, the latter is defined as: “1) the science of the interaction of human society with nature; 2) ecology of the human personality; 3) the ecology of human populations, including the doctrine of ethnic groups. One can clearly see the almost complete identity of the definition of social ecology, understood "in the narrow sense", and the first version of the interpretation of human ecology.

The desire for the actual identification of these two branches of scientific knowledge, indeed, is still characteristic of foreign science, but it is quite often subjected to well-reasoned criticism by domestic scientists. S. N. Solomina, in particular, pointing out the expediency of breeding social ecology and human ecology, limits the subject of the latter to consideration of the socio-hygienic and medical-genetic aspects of the relationship between man, society and nature. With a similar interpretation of the subject of human ecology, V.A. Bukhvalov, L.V. Bogdanova and some other researchers, but strongly disagree with N.A. Agadzhanyan, V.P. Kaznacheev and N.F. Reimers, according to whom this discipline covers a much wider range of issues of the interaction of the anthroposystem (considered at all levels of its organization from the individual to humanity as a whole) with the biosphere, as well as with the internal biosocial organization of human society. It is easy to see that such an interpretation of the subject of human ecology actually equates it with social ecology, understood in a broad sense. This situation is largely due to the fact that at present there has been a steady trend of convergence of these two disciplines, when there is an interpenetration of the subjects of the two sciences and their mutual enrichment through the joint use of the empirical material accumulated in each of them, as well as methods and technologies of socio-ecological and anthropoecological research.

Everything today more researchers tend to broaden the interpretation of the subject of social ecology. So, according to D.Zh. Markovich, the subject of study of modern social ecology, understood by him as a particular sociology, is the specific relationship between a person and his environment. Based on this, the main tasks of social ecology can be defined as follows: the study of the influence of the environment as a combination of natural and social factors on a person, as well as the influence of a person on the environment, perceived as the framework of human life.

A somewhat different, but not contradictory, interpretation of the subject of social ecology is given by T.A. Akimov and V.V. Haskin. From their point of view, social ecology as part of human ecology is a complex of scientific branches that study the relationship of social structures (starting with the family and other small social groups), as well as the relationship of man with the natural and social environment of their habitat. This approach seems to us more correct, because it does not limit the subject of social ecology to the framework of sociology or any other separate humanitarian discipline, but emphasizes its interdisciplinary nature.

Some researchers, when defining the subject of social ecology, tend to emphasize the role that this young science is called upon to play in harmonizing the relationship of mankind with its environment. According to E. V. Girusov, social ecology should study, first of all, the laws of society and nature, by which he understands the laws of self-regulation of the biosphere, implemented by man in his life.

Principles of social ecology

  • · Mankind, like any population, cannot grow indefinitely.
  • · Society in its development must take into account the measure of biospheric phenomena.
  • · The sustainable development of society depends on the timeliness of the transition to alternative resources and technologies.
  • Any transformative activity of society should be based on an environmental forecast
  • · Development of nature should not reduce the diversity of the biosphere and worsen the quality of life of people.
  • · The sustainable development of civilization depends on the moral qualities of people.
  • · Everyone is responsible for their actions before the future.
  • We must think globally, act locally.
  • · The unity of nature obliges humanity to cooperate.

What color is the grass or sky on a clear summer day? What color is orange or lemon? Probably, any person from early childhood will answer these questions without thinking twice. And here is the question: “What kind of color is it -“ withered rose ”or“ marengo ”? - will make many think before answering. Although it is one of the common favorite colors in fashion design. A good secondary education level is also required, and even better - artistic special training in order to distinguish the color of "Pompeii" from the color of "Syracuse" or the color of "Kuindzhi" from "Van Dyck". Well, to the question: “What color is the“ thigh of a frightened nymph ”or“ the song of a lark ”?” - only the authors of these names will certainly answer. But the names of these colors and others like them have already sounded more than once from the Parisian catwalks of high fashion, and, probably, many non-Parisians would like to know out of curiosity, and maybe sew something for themselves in the color of the “nymph”. Unfortunately, neither the color printing of magazines, nor the broadcast on television will be able to convey the true color. And then they come to the rescue main color characteristics, which can be used to choose any color. True, simple seamstresses do not really use them, but professional fashion designers, textile workers, designers, as well as military and criminalists, manufacturers of paints and precision measuring devices cannot do without them.

Hue, lightness and saturation- subjective basic characteristics of color. They are called subjective because they are used to describe visual sensations, in contrast to the objective, determined with the help of instruments.

Color tone - the main characteristic of chromatic colors, is determined by the similarity of a given color with one of the colors of the spectrum. Color tone denotes a person's own color sensations - red, yellow, yellow-red, and each of these sensations is generated by radiation of a certain wavelength (A.). So, for example, a red color tone corresponds to a wavelength of 760 nm, and blue-green to 493 nm. When we look at a red rose and a yellow dandelion, we see that they differ in color tone - red and yellow.

Achromatic colors have no hue. "Color tone" in color science and "tone" in painting are different concepts. Artists change the color tone or tonality with white paint, which reduces the intensity of the color, increasing its lightness. Or by applying layers of paint one on top of the other. The concept of "tone" is also used in drawing. In the visual arts, terms such as halftone, undertone, shade . A semitone is a darker or light tone. For example, blue and light blue. A subtone is an admixture of another color in the main color tone, which creates a shade. For example, magenta is a shade of red, namely red with a blue undertone.

Lightness. When we look at two green leaves on the same branch of a tree, we see that they can be the same in color tone, but one can be lighter (lit by the sun) and the other darker (in the shade). In these cases, the colors are said to differ in lightness.

Lightness - a characteristic of colors that determines the proximity of chromatic and achromatic colors to white. Rated by reflectance (p), measured as a percentage or nits (nt). In the scale of lightness, the lightest - White color. The darkest is black, between them are gradations of pure gray. Among the spectral colors, the lightest is yellow, the darkest is violet.

Lightness is characterized by the degree of brightness of direct or reflected radiation, but at the same time, the feeling of lightness is not proportional brightness . We can say that brightness is the physical basis of lightness. Very often in the floristic literature these concepts are confused.

Brightness (radiation power) is an objective concept, since it depends on the amount of light entering the observer's eye from an object that emits, transmits or reflects light. In everyday life, the difference between brightness and lightness is usually not noticed, and both concepts are considered almost equivalent. However, one can notice some difference in the use of these terms, which also reflects the difference in both characteristics. As a rule, the word "brightness" is used to characterize especially light surfaces, strongly illuminated and reflecting a large amount of light. So, for example, sunlit snow is a bright surface, and white wall rooms are bright. The term "brightness" is predominantly used to evaluate light sources. Finally, this term is often used to characterize color, referring to such qualities of the latter as saturation or purity.

Saturation. If we compare two transparent glasses, one filled with orange juice and the other filled with water slightly tinted with orange dye, we notice a difference. orange color by saturation. (Yes, and the taste of these drinks are also very different).

Saturation is a characteristic of colors, which is determined by the content of pure chromatic color in a mixed one (P), expressed in fractions of a unit. Pure chromatic colors are spectral colors. Their purity is taken as one. The lower the saturation of a chromatic color, the closer it is to achromatic colors, and the easier it is to find an achromatic color corresponding to it in lightness. Therefore, sometimes in the florist literature there is a definition of saturation as “the degree of difference of a given chromatic color from a gray color of the same lightness. The combination of hue and saturation is called chromaticity .

Thus, all chromatic colors are evaluated by parameters, the numerical definition of which makes it possible to characterize all possible combinations of color emissions.

That is, anywhere in the world it is possible to determine with almost 100% accuracy what is the color loved by Parisian designers - “the color of the thigh of a frightened nymph”. (If, of course, they will kindly tell the world the color parameters - the main characteristics of this color.)

The goal of social ecology is to create a theory of the evolution of the relationship between man and nature, the logic and methodology for transforming the natural environment.

Social ecology reveals the patterns of relationships between nature and society, it is designed to understand and help bridge the gap between the humanities and natural sciences.

The laws of social ecology are as fundamental as the laws of physics. However, the subject of social ecology is very complex: three qualitatively different subsystems are not Live nature, wildlife, human society. At present, social ecology is predominantly an empirical science, and its laws often look like extremely general aphoristic statements (“Commoner's laws”*).

The concept of law is interpreted by most methodologists in the sense of an unambiguous causal relationship. In cybernetics, a broader interpretation has been adopted: the law is the restriction of diversity. This interpretation is more suitable for social ecology.

Social ecology reveals the fundamental limitations of human activity. The adaptive possibilities of the biosphere are not unlimited. Hence the "environmental imperative": human activity should in no case exceed the adaptive capacity of the biosphere.

As the basic law of social ecology, the law of the correspondence of productive forces and production relations to the state of the natural environment is recognized.

12.Functions of social ecology.

Functions of social ecology:

1. theoretical - the development of the main conceptual paradigms that explain the nature of the ecological development of society, man and nature (the concept of the noosphere, the concept of zero growth, the limits of growth, sustainable development, co-evolution);

2. pragmatic - dissemination of environmental knowledge, environmental information, environmental concerns, advanced training of managers and managers;

3. prognostic - determining the immediate and distant prospects for the development of society and changes in the biosphere;



4. environmental - study of the impact of environmental factors on the environment; environmental factors are divided into:

a) abiotic - factors of inanimate nature ( sunlight, radiation, temperature, humidity, relief, climate, soil composition, composition atmospheric air);

c) anthropogenic factors - the impact of human economic activity and the size of the human population on the environment, manifested in excessive depletion of natural resources and pollution of the natural environment.

13.Methods of social ecology.

Nature is studied by the natural sciences, such as biology, chemistry, physics, geology, etc., using a natural science (nomological) approach. Society studies the humanities - sociology, demography, ethics, economics, etc. - and uses a humanitarian (ideographic) approach. social ecology as an interdisciplinary science, it is based on three types of methods: 1) natural sciences, 2) humanities, and 3) systemic research that combines natural sciences and the humanities.

important place in the methodology of social ecology takes the methodology of global modeling.

Main stages global simulation come down to the following:

1) a list of causal relationships between variables is compiled and a feedback structure is outlined;

2) after studying the literature and consulting demographers, economists, ecologists, geologists, etc., a general structure is revealed that reflects the main relationships between levels.

After the global model has been created in general terms, work with this model is to be done, which includes the following steps: 1) quantification of each connection - global data are used, and if there are no global data, then characteristic local data are used; 2) with the help of a computer, the effect of the simultaneous action of all these connections in time is determined; 3) the number of changes in the underlying assumptions is checked to find the most critical determinants of the system's behavior.

The global model uses the most important relationships between population, food, investment, resources and output. The model contains dynamic statements about the physical aspects of human activity. It contains assumptions that the nature of social variables (income distribution, family size regulation, etc.) will not change.

The main task is to understand the system in its elementary form. Only then can the model be improved on the basis of other, more detailed data. The model, once it has emerged, is usually constantly criticized and updated with data.

The value of the global model is that it allows you to show the point on the chart where growth is expected to stop and the beginning of a global catastrophe is most likely. To date, various private methods of the global modeling method have been developed. For example, the Meadows group uses the principle of system dynamics. The peculiarity of this technique is that: 1) the state of the system is completely described by a small set of values; 2) the evolution of the system in time is described by differential equations of the 1st order. It should be kept in mind that system dynamics deals only with exponential growth and equilibrium.

The methodological potential of the theory of hierarchical systems applied by Mesarovic and Pestel is much wider than that of the Meadows group. It becomes possible to create multi-level systems.

Wassily Leontiev's input-output method is a matrix reflecting the structure of intersectoral flows, production, exchange and consumption. Leontiev himself studied the structural relationships in the economy in conditions where "a multitude of seemingly unrelated interdependent flows of production, distribution, consumption and investment constantly influence each other and, ultimately, are determined by a number of basic characteristics of the system" (Leontiev, 1958 , p. 8).

As a model, you can use real system. So, for example, agrocenosis is an experimental model of biocenosis.

All activities to transform nature are modeling, which accelerates the formation of theory. Since the organization of production must take into account the risk, the simulation allows you to calculate the likelihood and severity of the risk. Thus, modeling contributes to optimization, i.e. choosing the best ways to transform the natural environment.

14.The structure of social ecology.

The term "ecology" (from the Greek oikos- home, dwelling, habitat and logos- science) was introduced into scientific circulation by the German scientist E. Haeckel in 1869. He also gave one of the first definitions of ecology as a science, although some of its elements are contained in the works of many scientists, starting with thinkers Ancient Greece. The biologist E. Haeckel considered the relationship of the animal with the environment as a subject of ecology, and, initially, ecology developed as a biological science. However, the ever-increasing anthropogenic factor, a sharp aggravation of relations between nature and human society, the emergence of the need to protect the environment immeasurably expanded the scope of the subject of ecology.

At the moment, ecology must be considered as a complex scientific direction that generalizes, synthesizes data from the natural and social sciences about the natural environment and its interaction with man and human society. It has indeed become the science of "home", where "home" (oikos) is our entire planet Earth.

Among the environmental sciences, a special place is occupied by social Ecology, considering the relationship in the global system "human society-environment" and studying the interaction of human society with the natural and man-made environment created by it. Social ecology develops the scientific foundations of nature management, which involves improving the quality of human life in its environment while ensuring the conservation of nature.

human ecology includes the ecology of the city, the ecology of population, the ecology of the human personality, the ecology of human populations (the doctrine of ethnic groups), etc.

At the intersection of human ecology and building ecology, a architectural Ecology, which studies methods of creating a comfortable, durable and expressive environment for people. It is ecologically unacceptable to destroy the architectural environment of the city, which often occurs in the absence of a compositional and artistic connection between new and old objects, etc., since architectural disharmony causes a decrease in working capacity and deterioration in human health.

A new scientific direction is directly adjacent to architectural ecology - videoecology, studying the interaction of man with the visible environment. Video ecologists consider the so-called homogeneous and aggressive visual fields dangerous for humans at the physiological level. The first are bare walls, glass showcases, blind fences, flat roofs buildings, etc., the second - all kinds of surfaces, dotted with identical, evenly spaced elements, from which ripples in the eyes (flat facades of houses with identical windows, large surfaces lined with rectangular tiles, etc.).

15.Man and society as subjects of socio-ecological interaction.

Human ecology and social ecology have as their subject the study of man (society) as a central object at the heart of a large, multi-level system called the environment.

modern science sees in Man, first of all, a biosocial being who has gone through a long path of evolution in his development and developed a complex social organization.

Coming out of the animal kingdom, Man still remains one of its members. Kingdom Animals, subkingdom Multicellular, section Bilaterally symmetrical, phylum Chordata, subtype Vertebrates, group Jaws, class Mammals, detachment Primates, suborder Monkeys, section Narrow-nosed, superfamily Higher narrow-nosed (hominoids), family Hominidae, genus Man, species Homo sapiens - such its position in the system of the organic world.

According to the ideas prevailing in science modern man descended from an ape-like ancestor. The reason for the departure of human ancestors from the general line of evolution, which predetermined an unprecedented leap in improving its physical organization and expanding the possibilities of functioning, was the changes in the conditions of existence that occurred as a result of the development of natural processes. The general cooling, which caused a reduction in the areas of forests - natural ecological niches inhabited by human ancestors, made it necessary for him to adapt to new, extremely unfavorable circumstances of life. One of the features of the specific strategy of adaptation of human ancestors to new conditions was that they "stake" mainly on the mechanisms of behavioral rather than morphophysiological adaptation. This made it possible to respond more flexibly to current changes in the external environment and thus more successfully adapt to them.

The most important factor The factor that determined the survival and subsequent progressive development of man was his ability to create viable, extremely functional social communities. Gradually, as a person mastered the skills of creating and using tools, creating a developed material culture, and, most importantly, developing intellect, he actually moved from passive adaptation to the conditions of existence to their active and conscious transformation. Thus, the origin and evolution of man not only depended on the evolution of living nature, but also largely predetermined serious environmental changes on Earth.

The level (individual, population, society, etc.) corresponds to its own environment and its own ways of adapting to it.

This model-matrix emphasizes the complexity of man and the diversity of human communities. Even at the level of an individual person, an individual in each of the subsystems, one has to deal with an innumerable variety of traits, signs, properties, because there are no two genetically identical people. Also, obviously, no two personalities are the same, etc. and so on. This is also true for associations of people, the diversity of which increases with the growth of the hierarchical level, up to the unique - humanity, represented by an infinite variety of people and human communities.

The most important characteristics of a person are his properties, among which are the presence of needs and the ability to adapt.

One of the first positions in this series of properties is occupied by needs, considered as a need for something necessary for human life and development. Reflecting his dependence on environmental conditions, they at the same time act as a source of human activity in his relations with the environment, a regulator of his behavior, direction of thinking, feelings and will.

One of the key properties of a person in his relationship with the environment is adaptability, ability to actively adapt to the environment and its changes.

concept adaptation mechanisms reflects ideas about how a person and society adapt to changes in the environment. The entire set of such mechanisms can be conditionally divided into two large groups: biological and extrabiological mechanisms. The first can be attributed to the mechanisms of morphological, physiological, immunological, genetic and behavioral adaptation, to the second - social behavior and mechanisms of cultural adaptation.

As indicators of the degree of human adaptation to specific conditions of existence, studies on human ecology and social ecology use such characteristics as social and labor potential And health.

16.The human environment and its elements as subjects of socio-ecological interaction.

The human environment is a complex formation that integrates many different components, which makes it possible to talk about a large number of environments, in relation to which the “human environment” acts as a generic concept. The diversity, the multiplicity of heterogeneous environments that make up a single human environment, ultimately determine the diversity of its influence on him.
The human environment in its most general form can be defined as a set of natural and artificial conditions in which a person realizes himself as a natural and social being. The human environment consists of two interrelated parts: natural and social.

1. The natural component of the environment is the total space directly or indirectly accessible to a person. This is, first of all, the planet Earth with its diverse shells. The social part of the human environment is made up of society and social relations, thanks to which a person realizes himself as a social active being.
The atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, plants, animals and microorganisms are considered as elements of the natural environment.
The atmosphere is called the gas, air shell that surrounds the globe and the force of gravity associated with it.

The hydrosphere is the water shell of the Earth, which includes the World Ocean, land waters (rivers, lakes, glaciers), as well as groundwater.

The lithosphere (or the earth's crust) is the upper solid stone shell of the Earth, bounded from above by the atmosphere and hydrosphere, and from below by the surface of the mantle substrate, established by seismic data.
Plants, animals and microorganisms make up the living natural environment of man.

2. The natural environment transformed by people (“second nature”), otherwise the environment is quasi-natural (from Latin quasi - “as if”). She is incapable of self-maintenance for a long time. This different kind"cultural landscapes" (pastures, gardens, arable land, vineyards, parks, lawns, domestic animals, indoor and cultivated plants).

3. Man-made environment ("third nature"), artenatural environment (from Latin arte - "artificial"). It includes residential premises, industrial complexes, urban developments, etc. This environment can only exist if it is constantly maintained by a person. Otherwise, it is inevitably doomed to destruction. Within its boundaries, the cycles of substances are sharply disturbed. This environment is characterized by the accumulation of waste and pollution.

4. Social environment. It has a great influence on a person. This environment includes the relationship between people, the degree of material security, the psychological climate, health care, general cultural values, etc.

17.Socio-environmental consequences of population growth.

The interaction of society and nature is the key problem of the political and socio-economic development of society. Expanding and strengthening anthropogenic and technogenic pressure on nature, society is faced with a repeatedly reproduced "boomerang effect": the destruction of nature turns into economic damage and social damage. The processes of ecological degradation acquire the character of a deep ecological crisis. The question of the conservation of nature is turning into a question of the survival of mankind. And there is no political system in the world that in itself would guarantee the ecological well-being of the country.

Many environmental problems of relationships in the "society-nature" system have now stepped over the boundaries of national economies and have acquired a global dimension. Soon, not ideological, but environmental problems will come to the fore all over the world, not relations between nations, but relations between nations and nature will dominate.

The only 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.

Factors contributing to the emergence and exacerbation of global problems were:

· a sharp increase in the consumption of natural resources;

· negative anthropogenic impact on the natural environment, deterioration of the ecological conditions of people's lives;

· increased unevenness in the levels of socio-economic development between industrialized and developing countries;

creation of weapons of mass destruction.

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.

Now a person is facing two major problems: prevention nuclear war and ecological disaster. The comparison is not accidental: anthropogenic pressure on the natural environment threatens the same as the use of atomic weapons, the destruction of life on Earth.

A feature of our time is the intensive and global human impact on the environment, which is accompanied by intense and global negative consequences. The contradictions between man and nature can become aggravated due to the fact that there is no limit to the growth of human material needs, while the ability of the natural environment to satisfy them is limited. Contradictions in the system "man - society - nature" have acquired a planetary character.

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 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 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 on 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.

The current situation on the planet is characterized by a sharp deterioration in the quality of the environment - air pollution, rivers, lakes, seas, the unification and even the complete disappearance of many species of animals and flora, soil degradation, desertification, etc. This conflict poses a threat of irreversible changes in natural systems, undermining natural conditions and resources for the existence of generations of the planet's inhabitants. The growth of the productive forces of society, population growth, urbanization, scientific and technological progress are the catalysts for these processes.

The depletion of the ozone layer is a much more dangerous reality for all life on Earth than the fall of some super-large meteorite. Ozone prevents dangerous cosmic radiation from reaching the Earth's surface. If not for ozone, these rays would destroy all life. Studies of the causes of the depletion of the ozone layer of the planet have not yet given definitive answers to all questions. Observations from artificial satellites showed a reduction in ozone levels. With an increase in the intensity of ultraviolet radiation, scientists associate an increase in the incidence of eye diseases and oncological diseases, the occurrence of mutations. Man, the oceans, climate, flora and fauna were under attack.

18. Socio-ecological consequences of the resource crisis.

Energy resource problem. The rapid growth of industry, accompanied by global pollution of the natural environment, has posed an unprecedentedly acute problem of raw materials. Now a person in his economic activity has mastered almost all types of resources available and known to him, both renewable and non-renewable.

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. 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.

The main directions of the economy of energy resources are: improvement technological processes, improving equipment, reducing direct losses of fuel and energy processes, improving equipment, reducing direct losses of fuel and energy resources, structural changes in production technology, structural changes in manufactured products, improving the quality of fuel and energy, organizational and technical measures. Carrying out these activities is caused not only by the need to save energy resources, but also by the importance of taking into account environmental issues when solving energy problems. Of great importance is the replacement of fossil fuels with other sources (solar energy, wave energy, tide energy, earth energy, wind energy). These sources of energy resources are environmentally friendly. By replacing fossil fuels with them, we reduce the harmful impact on nature and save organic energy resources. .

Land resources, soil cover is the basis of all living nature. Only 30% of the land fund of the world 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. Over the past 100 years, more have been cleared land areas for settled agriculture than in all previous centuries.

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

Land degradation is a serious problem. The fight against the reduction of land resources is the most important task of mankind.

Of all types of resources, fresh water is in the first place in terms of the growth of demand for it and the increase in the deficit. 71% of the entire surface of the planet is occupied by water, but fresh water makes up only 2% of the total, and almost 80% of fresh water is in the Earth's ice cover. 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 people suffer from lack and poor quality.

The situation is complicated by the fact that a large amount of natural water is polluted by industrial and household waste. All this eventually ends up in the ocean, which is already heavily polluted.

Water is a prerequisite for the existence of all living organisms on Earth.

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 are enough to feed 30 billion people.

The main reasons for the depletion of biological resources include: irrational management of the world's fisheries, pollution of ocean waters.

In the future, the situation with another natural resource that was previously considered inexhaustible - the oxygen of the atmosphere - is alarming. When the products of photosynthesis of past eras - combustible fossils - are burned, free oxygen is bound into compounds. Long before fossil fuels are depleted, people must stop burning them, so as not to suffocate themselves and destroy all life.

The population explosion and the scientific and technological revolution have led to a colossal increase in the consumption of natural resources. At such a rate of consumption, it became obvious that many natural resources would be depleted in the near future. At the same time, waste from giant industries began to pollute the environment more and more, destroying the health of the population.

The danger of an ecological - resource crisis with the scientific and technological revolution is not accidental. The scientific and technological revolution creates conditions for the removal of technical restrictions on the development of production. A new contradiction has taken an exceptionally sharp form - between the internally unlimited possibilities for the development of production and the naturally limited possibilities of the natural environment.

19.Socio-ecological consequences of changes in the gene pool.

Habitat change resulting from human activities has an impact on human populations that is mostly harmful, resulting in increased morbidity and reduced life expectancy. However, in developed countries, life expectancy is steadily - by about 2.5 years per decade - approaching its biological limit (95 years), within which a specific cause of death is of no fundamental importance. Impacts that do not seem to lead to premature death, however, often reduce the quality of life, but the deeper problem lies in the imperceptible gradual change in the gene pool, which is becoming global.

The gene pool is usually defined as the totality of genes present in individuals of a given population, group of populations or species, within which they are characterized by a certain frequency of occurrence.

The impact on the gene pool is most often talked about in connection with radiation pollution, although this is by no means the only factor affecting the gene pool. According to VA Krasilov, there is a big gap between everyday and scientific ideas about the effect of radiation on the gene pool. For example, they often talk about the loss of the gene pool, although it is quite clear that the gene pool of the human species can be lost only if people are practically completely destroyed. The loss of genes or their variants in the foreseeable time scale is likely only in relation to very rare variants. In any case, the emergence of new gene variants, changes in gene frequencies and, accordingly, the frequencies of heterozygous and homozygous genotypes are no less possible.

VA Krasilov notes that not everyone evaluates the change in the gene pool as a negative phenomenon. Supporters of eugenics programs believe that it is possible to get rid of unwanted genes by physical destruction or exclusion of their carriers from the reproduction process. However, the action of a gene depends on its environment, interaction with other genes. At the level of personality, defects are often compensated by the development of special abilities (Homer was blind, Aesop was ugly, Byron and Pasternak were lame). And the methods of gene therapy available today open up the possibility of correcting birth defects without interfering with the gene pool.

The desire of most people to preserve the gene pool as nature created it has quite natural grounds. Historically, the gene pool has developed as a result of a long evolution and has ensured the adaptation of human populations to a wide range of natural conditions. The genetic diversity of humans at the population and individual levels is sometimes obviously adaptive (for example, dark skin color in low latitudes associated with resistance to ultraviolet radiation), while in other cases it is neutral with respect to environmental factors. Regardless of this, genetic diversity predetermined the diversity and dynamism of the development of human culture. The highest achievement of this culture - the humanistic principle of the equivalence of all people - translated into biological language means the preservation of the gene pool, which is not subject to artificial selection.

At the same time, the action of natural factors of change in the gene pool continues - mutations, genetic drift and natural selection. Environmental pollution affects each of them. Although these factors act together, it makes sense for analytical purposes to consider them separately.

20.The natural movement of the population.

Vital movement of the population is the change in population due to births and deaths.

The study of natural movement is carried out using absolute and relative indicators.

Absolute indicators

1. Number of births for the period(R)

2. Number of deaths per period(U)

3. Natural increase (decrease) population, which is defined as the difference between the number of births and deaths for the period: SP \u003d P - Y

Relative indicators

Among the indicators of population movement, there are: the birth rate, the death rate, the natural increase rate and the vitality rate.

Social ecology is a scientific discipline about the harmonization of the relationship between nature and society. This branch of knowledge analyzes the human relationship (taking into account the correspondence of the humanistic side) with the needs of development. At the same time, comprehension of the world in its general concepts is used, expressing the degree of historical unity of nature and man.

The conceptual and categorical structure of science is in constant development and improvement. This process of change is quite diverse and penetrates all ecologies, both objectively and subjectively. In this peculiar way, scientific creativity is reflected and the evolution of methods of scientific research and the interests of not only individual scientists, but also various teams as a whole are influenced.

The approach to nature and society that social ecology proposes to apply may, to a certain extent, seem intellectually demanding. At the same time, he avoids some of the simplification of dualism and reductionism. Social ecology seeks to show the slow and multi-phase process of the transformation of nature into society, taking into account all the differences on the one hand and, on the other hand, the degree of interpenetration.

One of the primary tasks facing researchers at the stage of the modern establishment of science is the definition of a general approach to understanding the subject of the discipline. Despite some progress that has been made in the study of various areas of interaction between man, nature and society, a large amount of material published over the past decades, there is still a lot of controversy on the question of what exactly social ecology studies.

All large quantity researchers prefer an extended interpretation of the subject of the discipline. For example, Markovic (a Serbian scientist) believed that social ecology, considered by him as a private sociology, studies the specific connections that are established between a person and his environment. Based on this, the tasks of the discipline may consist in studying the influence of a combination of social and natural factors that make up the surrounding conditions on a person, as well as the impact of an individual on external conditions perceived as the boundaries of a person’s life.

There is also to some extent another, however, not contradicting the above explanation of the interpretation of the concept of the subject of discipline. So, Haskin and Akimova consider social ecology as a complex of individuals who explore the relationship between social structures (starting with the family itself and other small public collectives and groups), as well as between a person and the natural, social environment. Using this interpretation, it becomes possible to study more fully. In this case, the approach to understanding the subject of the discipline is not limited to the framework of one. At the same time, attention is focused on the interdisciplinary nature of the discipline.

Defining the subject of social ecology, some researchers tend to emphasize the importance that it is endowed with. The role of discipline, in their opinion, is very significant in the issue of harmonizing the interaction between mankind and its environment. A number of authors believe that the task of social ecology, first of all, is to study the laws of nature and society. In this case, these laws are understood as the principles of self-regulation in the biosphere, applied by man in his life.

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