To understand how global problems are interconnected, it is important to carefully study each of them. Humanity of the modern world is faced with solving the most difficult problems. Some issues really threaten our existence, as well as all life on the “green” planet.
What are global problems?
Why is the topic of the interconnection of global problems constantly raised at scientific conferences and at UN meetings? Apparently, the previous century became a kind of breaking point in world history into “before” and “after”. Not long ago, humanity lost confidence in immortal existence. And even nature seems to hint with its massive cataclysms that sooner or later one will have to pay too high a price for the desire to endlessly conquer it and receive maximum benefits to the detriment of it.
The interconnection of global problems of our time is a mechanism consisting of individual elements - threats hanging over humanity, and clearly working against life on Earth.
Unlike natural disasters that are temporary and passing in nature, this chain of dangers has an incomparable scale and concerns the future of an entire civilization. Global problems of humanity affect the destinies and interests of all segments of the population, leading to significant socio-economic losses, and therefore their solution requires close interstate cooperation and the efforts of all countries, nations and nationalities.
requiring urgent solutions
Scientists who have studied this topic have presented to the world different understandings of global problems and the relationships between them. They are endowed with inconsistency and disproportion, which is uncharacteristic of the full-fledged life of a modern person. The threats hanging over the world are usually classified as follows:
- International social difficulties. Here we are talking about an example of the interconnection of global problems of our time, such as militarization in most countries and the build-up of the arms race, which in some cases leads to war and slowdown in the formation of states with developing economies.
- Problems of a humanitarian nature. These include the global demographic boom, difficulties in overcoming hunger and incurable diseases, and cultural and ethnic issues.
- The result of the negative impact of society on the world around us. Problems of low level of environmental protection, food production, shortage of natural resources, etc. can be called relevant today.
How global problems are interconnected: obvious examples
Give examples of the interconnection of global problems. Confused? You don't have to be a great scientist to do this. We should start with the most pressing problem of interaction between man and the world around him.
As is known, until the middle of the last century, the causes of environmental chaos were considered to be natural phenomena, i.e., natural disasters. At the moment, no one doubts that the culprit is irresponsible human management, which, in turn, has led to widespread pollution, not limited locally, but affecting the entire globe.
Another example of the interconnection of global problems is the intersection of the demographic crisis with global food supply indicators due to the accelerating growth. The number of inhabitants of the planet increases every year in a stable progression, which inevitably leads to pressure on natural potential, negative anthropogenic development of the natural environment, but not accompanied by an increase in the food supply. Thus, population increases, as a rule, occur in developing countries with a lower cultural and economic level.
The interconnection of global problems of our time can be continued with the next “link” - the exploration of outer space. Considering how young the industry is, it has made significant progress over a half-century period. One way or another, humanity is heading towards the prospect of extracting alien resources in order to replenish the shortage of earthly reserves. However, the problem lies in the financial inaccessibility of space exploration. Today, spending money on research in this industry is beyond the capabilities of most countries.
War as a cause of the global world crisis
The above three examples of the interconnection of global problems of our time are not the only ones. The issues of war and peace are no less pressing. The confrontation between interstate interests often takes on total features: the number of human losses, crazy financial costs and the destruction of material support. The general damage from the escalation of numerous conflicts and the active phase of hostilities in the last century forced humanity to make a sharp scientific and technological leap forward. However, progress and the establishment of industrial society gave rise to other negative consequences. The inability to manage natural resources economically and an unjustified increase in their expenditure led to the backwardness of individual states, while other, more successful countries worked to improve weapons production.
The arms race, despite the relative easing of global tension, has colossal negative consequences, impoverishing the world economy, constantly provoking aggressive attacks in the international arena of individual countries, leveling the culture of spirituality and militarizing political thinking. The desire of individual states to increase their defensive power led to the fact that by the mid-80s the global nuclear potential had reached a hundred times the total firepower of the weapons used by all parties during the Second World War.
Interdependence of demographic and socio-public tasks
It is impossible not to mention one more element in the chain of interrelation of global problems - overcoming the backwardness of developing countries. It's no secret: every fifth inhabitant of the earth is hungry. Returning again to the problem of disappearing resources that are consumed by the annually increasing number of earthlings. As a rule, an increase in the birth rate occurs in economically underdeveloped countries. It is enough to imagine this situation a little differently. What would happen if all representatives of modern humanity had high level life? Unfortunately, our planet would not have been able to cope long ago. One of the ways to solve the problem should be to limit the birth rate while simultaneously reducing mortality rates, accompanied by an increase in the quality of life.
In this context, discord in social relations is added to the interconnection of global problems of humanity. Due to the high importance of religious views in most modern states, birth control, which implies, in particular, the absence of a ban on artificial termination of pregnancy, de facto becomes an inactive and unpopular measure in society. Most religious teachings promote and encourage large families. However, today only a few countries in Western Europe and North America are able to provide “large” families with social guarantees to the extent necessary for full-fledged life. Otherwise, primitive forms of farming (community), illiteracy, lack of education, bad manners, the presence of chronic diseases and the absence of any real prospects “win”.
Almost all examples of the relationship of global problems intersect with each other within the framework of the social system of relations “man-society” and the plane “man-nature-man”. Thus, in order to overcome the difficulties of providing raw materials, it is expected that decisions will be made based on the rational use of energy sources, including the reserves of the World Ocean. To remove barriers to the development of scientific and technological progress, it is not enough to pay attention only to the material and production segment in the state’s economy. Since low indicators of human potential are the result of imperfections in the education, health and cultural systems, contribution to their development can be considered the first step for the successful formation of the scientific and technical sphere.
At the same time, it will be possible to give examples of the relationship between global problems for a long time. Each of the above prerequisites for the total self-destruction of the modern world can be viewed from a different angle, which will help to find completely different cause-and-effect relationships, and therefore more effective solutions. Perhaps, at first glance, the relationship between global environmental problems and the lag in economic development of some states will seem absurd or completely non-existent. But still, finding evidence of its relevance is not so difficult.
Economically developed and backward countries: what difficulties arise?
To begin with, it is worth paying attention to some patterns. Thus, the division of labor within the world economy is implemented according to the scheme in such a way that the role of leading industrial centers is given to promising, rapidly developing urbanized countries. States with a low standard of living “by default” take on the functions of the periphery, aimed at providing the agricultural and raw materials segment.
And what comes out of all this? Stronger and more confidently standing powers find legal (in accordance with international law) ways to use the resources of underdeveloped economic countries, thereby blocking the latter’s path to self-development and formation, advancement economic indicators and financial independence.
Poverty and hunger as a result of external public debt
In addition, the conditions of the population boom are forcing countries with low living standards to seek financial assistance from international financial organizations. Large loans over and over again tightened the knot of bondage around the borrowers' necks. Today, the problem of the external affairs of modern states is acquiring global features: $1.25 trillion is the debt of the powers of the so-called “third world”.
Interest payments and debts place a pressing burden on the population of these states, and therefore the figures demonstrating the global nature of the problem across the globe are, to put it mildly, impressive:
- more than 700 million people are hungry;
- twice as many people lack access to health care;
- Almost 1.5 billion people live below the extreme poverty line.
Economic stability and financial viability of the state is inversely proportional to the amount of external debt. Using the example of the Russian Federation, it is easy to see that over the past few years, the debt to creditor countries has tripled - from 50 billion to 150 billion dollars.
Scope of potential environmental threat
Against the backdrop of widespread industrialization throughout the world, the environmental problem has radically worsened. The reason for this is the preferential approach to material production. The creation of powerful enterprises in a specific industrial sector still entails the production of one or more consumer goods, while the rest is destroyed due to obscenity or impossibility of storage.
Scientists call the current situation an “ecological infarction.” This is where more than three examples of the interconnection of global problems originate:
- Of the total mass of raw materials extracted by humans, only a few percent are used for their intended purpose and are of practical importance. The rest is garbage, waste that is sent back into the environment, but in a modified, unacceptable and alien form to nature. Considering that the volumes of world industrial production double every decade, the level of pollution on the planet will become critical in the near future.
- During the disposal of such waste over the past 200 years, almost 200 billion tons of carbon dioxide have been released into the atmosphere. The permissible concentration of the substance is increasing at an unprecedented rate, which has led to a change in the composition of the air envelope and the formation of the so-called greenhouse effect.
- In turn, the climate “cap” of carbon dioxide has caused a global increase in temperature. Its consequence is the melting of Arctic and Antarctic ice. Warming on a planetary scale leads to the fact that in 70-80 years the air temperature will increase by several degrees Celsius.
- A change in temperature, in accordance with the elementary laws of physics, will lead to an increase in precipitation. Thus, scientists predict that the level of the World Ocean will rise by 65 cm, hiding entire megacities and billions of lives under its waters.
- Emissions of other chemical compounds into the atmosphere lead to a reduction in the thickness of the ozone layer. As is known, this atmospheric shell plays the role of a kind of filter, trapping ultraviolet rays. Otherwise, i.e., when the ozone layer thins, the human body is threatened by the negative effects of solar radiation, implying an increase in the number of cancer diseases, pathologies of the heart and blood vessels, genetic abnormalities and a decrease in life expectancy.
AIDS and drug addiction: a problem for young people!
Awareness of the interconnection of global problems in the world ecology is terrifying. But, unfortunately, the list of potential threats to human existence does not end there. What is the cost of AIDS alone? The disease keeps everyone at bay, and not only because of the loss of actual human resources - the disease is striking in its geography. The relationship between the global problem and drug addiction is obvious: favorable environment for the spread of this “evil” it cripples the lives and health of millions of people. Many modern residents associate the term “drug addiction” with a large-scale catastrophe that has befallen entire generations.
If only there was no nuclear war!
However, not a single disease or substance can compare with the danger to humans that nuclear weapons pose. The full-scale interconnectedness of the global problems described above is incomparable with the irreversible consequences of the Third World War. The thermonuclear impact of even an insignificant fraction of the arsenal of superpowers accumulated to date will lead to the final destruction of the planet.
That is why preventing the use of nuclear weapons is the primary task of humanity. Only a peaceful compromise that does not imply the use of nuclear weapons will make it possible to find solutions to other global problems within the framework of close international cooperation.
Introduction
The development of human society has never been a conflict-free, consistent process. Throughout the history of the existence of intelligent life on Earth, questions have invariably arisen, the answers to which forced us to radically reconsider the already familiar ideas about the world and man. All this gave rise to countless problems that faced man most acutely in the second half of the 20th century, when his destructive activities acquired global proportions. Conditions, processes, and phenomena have arisen on our planet that have placed humanity in danger of undermining the very foundations of its existence. The range of problems whose solution ensures the survival of humanity is called the global problems of our time.
The concept of globalization became truly key at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. For the first time in its history, the human race was faced with the possibility of its general destruction. The very existence of life on Earth was called into question, i.e. global problems of humanity cover all countries, the Earth’s atmosphere, the World Ocean and near-Earth space; affect the entire population of the Earth.
A distinctive feature of modern civilization is the increase in global threats and problems. We are talking about the threat of nuclear war, the growth of armaments, unreasonable spending natural resources, diseases, hunger, poverty, etc., therefore, the study of the phenomenon of globalization attracts scientists, public and political figures, and representatives of the business world.
The purpose of this work: a comprehensive study and characterization of modern global problems of humanity, as well as the causes of their occurrence.
To do this, we will solve the following problems:
the essence, causes, features of each of the global problems, possible ways to solve them;
possible consequences of the manifestation of global problems on modern stage development of societies.
The work consists of an introduction to three chapters of the main part, a conclusion, a list of sources used and applications.
1. Modern global problems of humanity
1 Concept, essence, origin and nature of global problems
Second half of the 20th century marked by the processes of globalization. According to the view of most researchers, the main content of the globalization process is the formation of humanity as a single society. In other words, if in the 19th century. Since humanity was still a system of independent societies, then in the 20th century, and especially in its second half, certain signs emerged indicating the formation of a single global civilization.
Globalization is a natural and inevitable process, its basis is internationalization, a high degree of division of labor, the development of high, and above all, information technologies, and the formation of global markets. The end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries. led to the development of a number of local, specific issues of development of countries and regions into the category of global ones. The problems that have arisen have given rise to a threat that is of a worldwide, planetary nature and is therefore called global.
The importance of global problems especially increased in the second half of the twentieth century, by which time the territorial division of the world was completed, two poles had formed in the world economy: at one pole there were industrialized countries, and at the other there were countries with agrarian and raw materials appendages. The latter were drawn into the international division of labor long before the emergence of national markets there. The world economy formed in this way, even after the former colonies gained independence, preserved the relationship between the center and the periphery for many years. This is where the current global problems and contradictions originate.
Thus, the global problems of our time should be understood as a set of problems on the solution of which the further existence of civilization depends.
Global problems are generated by the uneven development of different areas of life of modern humanity and the contradictions generated in the socio-economic, political-ideological, socio-natural and other relations of people. These problems affect the life of humanity as a whole.
Despite all the diversity and internal differences, global problems have common features:
have acquired a truly planetary, worldwide character, and therefore affect the interests of the peoples of all states;
threaten (if their solution is not found) humanity with either the death of civilization as such, or a serious regression in the further development of productive forces, in the conditions of life itself, in the development of society;
need urgent solutions and actions to overcome and prevent dangerous consequences and threats to the livelihoods and safety of citizens;
For their solution, they require collective efforts and actions on the part of all states and the entire world community.
The global problems of our time are in organic connection and interdependence with each other, forming a single, integral system, characterized by their well-known subordination, hierarchical subordination.
This circumstance allows us to classify these problems on the basis of establishing cause-and-effect relationships between them, as well as taking into account the degree of their severity and, accordingly, the priority of solutions. The main criteria for classifying a problem as global are its scale and the need for joint efforts to eliminate it. According to their origin, nature and methods of solution, global problems, according to the accepted international classification, are divided into 3 groups.
The first group consists of problems determined by the main socio-economic and political tasks of humanity. These include maintaining peace, ending the arms race and disarmament, non-militarization of space, creating favorable conditions for global social progress, overcoming the development gap of countries with low per capita incomes.
The second group covers a complex of problems revealed in the triad “man - society - technology”. These problems should take into account the effectiveness of using scientific and technical progress in the interests of harmonious social development and the elimination of the negative impact of technology on people, population growth, the establishment of human rights in the state, its liberation from under excessively increased control state institutions, especially on personal freedom as the most important component of human rights.
The third group is represented by problems related to socio-economic processes and the environment, i.e. problems of relations between society and nature. This includes solving raw materials, energy and food problems, overcoming the environmental crisis, which is spreading to more and more new areas and can destroy human life.
Note that the above classification is relative, because various groups global problems taken together form a single, extremely complex, multifactorial system in which all components are interconnected.
The scale, location and role of individual global problems are changing. Until recently, the struggle to preserve peace and disarmament occupied a leading place; now the environmental problem has taken first place.
Changes are also taking place within global problems: some of their components lose their former significance and new ones appear. Thus, in the problem of the struggle for peace and disarmament, the main emphasis began to be placed on the reduction of means of mass destruction, the non-proliferation of mass weapons, the development and implementation of measures for the conversion of military production; in the fuel and raw materials problem, a real possibility has arisen of the depletion of a number of non-renewable natural resources, and in the demographic problem, new tasks have arisen associated with a significant expansion of international migration of the population, labor resources, etc. It is also necessary to take into account that global problems do not arise somewhere nearby with pre-existing and local problems, but grow organically from them.
2 Contemporary problems caused by globalization
In the scientific literature you can find various lists of global problems, where their number varies from 8-10 to 40-45. This is explained by the fact that, along with the main, priority global problems (which will be discussed further in the textbook), there are a number of more specific, but also very important problems: for example, crime, drug addiction, separatism, democratic deficit, man-made disasters, natural disasters, etc. .
IN modern conditions The main global problems include:
The North-South problem is a problem of economic relations between developed countries and developing countries. Its essence is that in order to bridge the gap in the levels of socio-economic development between developed and developing countries, the latter require various concessions from developed countries, in particular, expanding access for their goods to the markets of developed countries, increasing the influx of knowledge and capital (especially in the form assistance), debt write-off and other measures in relation to them. The backwardness of developing countries is potentially dangerous not only at the local level, but also for the global economic system as a whole. The backward South is his integral part and, therefore, its economic, political and social problems will inevitably find and are already finding manifestation outside. Concrete evidence of this can be, for example, large-scale forced migration from developing countries to developed ones, as well as the spread in the world of both new and previously considered infectious diseases. That is why the North-South problem can be rightfully interpreted as one of the global problems of our time.
The problem of poverty is one of the main global problems. Poverty refers to the inability to provide the simplest and most affordable living conditions for most people in a given country. Large levels of poverty, especially in developing countries, pose a serious threat not only to national but also to global sustainable development. According to World Bank estimates, the total number of poor people, i.e. There are 2.5-3 billion people living on less than $2 a day in the world. Including the total number of people living in extreme poverty (less than $1 a day) - 1-1.2 billion people. In other words, 40-48% of the world's population are poor, and 16-19% are ultra-poor. Most of the poor are concentrated in rural areas of developing countries. In some developing countries, the problem of poverty has long reached critical levels. For example, at the beginning of the 21st century. 76% of the population of Zambia, 71% of Nigeria, 61% of Madagascar, 58% of Tanzania, 54% of Haiti are forced to live on less than $1 a day. What makes the global problem of poverty especially acute is that many developing countries, due to low income levels, do not yet have sufficient opportunities to alleviate the problem of poverty. This is why eliminating pockets of poverty requires widespread international support.
The world food problem lies in the inability of humanity to date to fully provide itself with vital food products. This problem appears in practice as a problem of absolute food shortage (malnutrition and hunger) in the least developed countries, as well as nutritional imbalance in developed countries. Over the past 50 years, significant progress has been made in food production - the number of undernourished and hungry people has almost halved. At the same time, a large part of the world's population still experiences food shortages. The number of people in need exceeds 850 million people, i.e. Every seventh person experiences absolute food shortages. More than 5 million children die every year from the consequences of starvation. Its solution will largely depend on the effective use of natural resources, scientific and technological progress in agriculture and the level of government support.
The global energy problem is the problem of providing humanity with fuel and energy now and in the foreseeable future. The main reason the emergence of a global energy problem should be considered fast growth consumption of mineral fuels in the 20th century. On the supply side, it is caused by the discovery and exploitation of huge oil and gas fields in Western Siberia, Alaska, and on the North Sea shelf, and on the demand side, by an increase in the vehicle fleet and an increase in the production of polymer materials. The increase in the production of fuel and energy resources has entailed a serious deterioration in the environmental situation (expansion of open-pit mining, offshore mining, etc.). And the growing demand for these resources has increased competition both between countries exporting fuel resources for the best sales conditions, and between importing countries for access to energy resources. At the same time, there is a further increase in mineral fuel resources. Under the influence of the energy crisis, large-scale geological exploration work intensified, leading to the discovery and development of new energy deposits. Accordingly, the availability of the most important types of mineral fuel has also increased: it is believed that at the current level of production, proven coal reserves should last for 325 years, natural gas for 62 years, and oil for 37 years. If developed countries are now solving this problem, first of all, by slowing down the growth of their demand by reducing energy intensity, then in other countries there is a relatively rapid increase in energy consumption. Added to this may be growing competition in the global energy market between developed countries and newly large industrialized countries (China, India, Brazil). All these circumstances, combined with military and political instability in some regions, can cause significant fluctuations in the level of world prices for energy resources and seriously affect the dynamics of supply and demand, as well as the production and consumption of energy goods, sometimes creating crisis situations.
The global demographic problem is divided into two aspects: rapid and poorly controlled growth (demographic explosion) of the population of countries and regions of the developing world; demographic aging of the population of developed and transition countries. For the former, the solution is to increase economic growth and reduce population growth. For the second - emigration and reform of the pension system.
Never in the entire history of mankind have the world population growth rates been as high as in the second half of the 20th - early 21st centuries. During the period from 1960 to 1999, the planet's population doubled (from 3 billion to 6 billion people), and in 2007 it amounted to 6.6 billion people. Although the average annual growth rate of the world's population has decreased from 2.2% in the early 60s. to 1.5% in the early 2000s, the absolute annual growth increased from 53 million to 80 million people. The demographic transition from the traditional (high birth rate - high death rate - low natural increase) to the modern type of population reproduction (low birth rate - low death rate - low natural population growth) was completed in developed countries in the first third of the 20th century, and in most countries with transition economies - in the middle of the last century. At the same time, in the 1950-1960s, a demographic transition began in a number of countries and regions of the rest of the world, which begins to end only in Latin America, East and Southeast Asia and continues in East Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle and Middle East. The rapid rate of population growth compared to the rate of socio-economic development in these regions leads to aggravation of problems of employment, poverty, food situation, land issue, low level education, deteriorating public health. These countries see the solution to their demographic problem in accelerating economic growth and simultaneously reducing the birth rate (China could be an example). In European countries, Japan and a number of CIS countries since the last quarter of the 20th century. There is a demographic crisis, manifested in slow growth and even natural decline and aging of the population, stabilization or reduction of its working population. Demographic aging (increase in the proportion of the population over 60 years of age over 12% total number of the population over 65 years old - over 7%) - this is a natural process, which is based on advances in medicine, improved quality of life and other factors that contribute to prolonging the life of a significant part of the population.
For the economies of developed and transition countries, increasing life expectancy has both positive and negative consequences. The first is the possibility of extension labor activity senior citizens above the current retirement age threshold. The second includes problems of both material support for elderly and elderly citizens, and their medical and consumer services. The fundamental way out of this situation lies in the transition to a funded pension system, in which the citizen himself is primarily responsible for the size of his pension. As for the aspect of the demographic problem in these countries, such as a reduction in the economically active population, its solution is seen primarily in the influx of immigrants from other countries.
The relationship between population growth and economic growth has long been the subject of research by economists. As a result of research, two approaches to assessing the impact of population growth on economic development have been developed. The first approach is, to one degree or another, associated with the theory of Malthus, who believed that population growth is faster than food growth and therefore the world population is inevitably becoming poorer. The modern approach to assessing the role of population on the economy is comprehensive and identifies both positive and negative factors in the impact of population growth on the economic growth. Many experts believe that the real problem is not population growth per se, but the following problems: underdevelopment - underdevelopment; depletion of the world's resources and environmental destruction.
The problem of human development is the problem of matching the qualitative characteristics of the labor force with the nature of the modern economy. Human potential is one of the main types of total economic potential and is distinguished by specific and qualitative characteristics. In the conditions of post-industrialization, the requirements for the physical qualities and especially for the education of the worker increase, including his ability to constantly improve his skills. However, the development of the qualitative characteristics of the labor force in the world economy is extremely uneven. Worst performance In this regard, developing countries demonstrate, which, however, act as the main source of replenishment of the world labor force. This is what determines the global nature of the problem of human development.
The problem of disarmament and maintaining peace on Earth. The history of mankind can be viewed as the history of wars. Only in the 20th century. There were two world wars and many local wars (in Korea, Vietnam, Angola, the Middle East and other regions). Only after the Second World War until the beginning of the 21st century. There were more than 40 international and about 90 intrastate conflicts, where tens of millions of people died. Moreover, if in international conflicts the ratio of civilian and military deaths is approximately equal, then in civil and national liberation wars civilian population three times more people die than military personnel. And today, dozens of potential international or interethnic conflicts continue to exist on the planet.
The problem of ensuring human safety. Increasing globalization, interdependence and the reduction of time and spatial barriers create a situation of collective insecurity from various threats, from which a person cannot always be saved by his state. This requires the creation of conditions that enhance a person’s ability to independently withstand risks and threats. Over the past two decades, the concept of security has undergone significant revision. Its traditional interpretation as the security of the state (its borders, territory, sovereignty, population and material values) was supplemented by human security (human security).
Human security is a state of people being protected from internal and external threats and risks and freedom from fear and want, which is achieved through the joint and purposeful activities of civil society, the nation state and the international community. The main conditions ensuring human security include: personal freedom; peace and personal security; full participation in management processes; protection of human rights; access to resources and basic necessities of life, including access to health services and education; a natural environment favorable for human life. Creating these conditions involves, firstly, eliminating the root causes or establishing effective control over the sources of threat and, secondly, increasing the ability of each individual to withstand threats. To ensure these conditions, it is possible to use two groups of measures: preventive, or long-term, and immediate, extraordinary. The first group includes activities aimed at overcoming problems that are most often sources of instability and local conflicts. The second set of measures includes activities to resolve ongoing conflicts or post-conflict reconstruction measures and humanitarian assistance.
The problem of the World Ocean is the problem of conservation and rational use of its spaces and resources. The essence of the global problem of the World Ocean lies in the extremely uneven development of the Ocean's resources, in the increasing pollution of the marine environment, and in its use as an arena for military activity. As a result, over the past decades, the intensity of life in the World Ocean has decreased by 1/3. That's why it's very great importance has the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, adopted in 1982, which is called the “Charter of the Seas”. It established economic zones of 200 nautical miles from the coast, within which the coastal state can also exercise sovereign rights to exploit biological and mineral resources. Currently, the World Ocean, as a closed ecological system, can hardly withstand the greatly increased anthropogenic load, and a real threat of its destruction is created. Therefore, the global problem of the World Ocean is, first of all, the problem of its survival. The main way to solve the problem of using the World Ocean is rational oceanic environmental management, a balanced, integrated approach to its wealth, based on the combined efforts of the entire world community. The essence of this problem lies in the difficult finding of ways to optimize the exploitation of the ocean's biological resources.
The environmental situation is currently one of the most acute and difficult to resolve. A feature of our time is the intense and global human impact on the environment, which is accompanied by intense and global negative consequences. Contradictions between man and nature can worsen 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. The contradictions in the “man - society - nature” system have acquired a planetary character.
There are two aspects of the environmental problem:
environmental crises arising as a consequence of natural processes;
crises caused by anthropogenic impact and irrational environmental management.
The main problem is the inability of the planet to cope with the waste of human activity, with the function of self-cleaning and repair. The biosphere is being destroyed. Therefore, there is a great risk of self-destruction of humanity as a result of its own life activity.
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 use of land, population growth, growth of large cities).
Many global problems of humanity are intertwined here - resource, food, demographic - they all have access to environmental issues.
The ecological potential of the world economy is increasingly undermined by human economic activity. The answer to this was the concept of environmentally sustainable development. It involves the development of all countries of the world, taking into account current needs, but not undermining the interests of future generations. The problem of ecology and sustainable development is the problem of stopping the harmful effects of human activities on the environment.
Back in the middle of the last century, ecology was an internal matter of each country, because pollution as a result of industrial activity manifested itself only in areas with high concentrations of environmental pollution. hazardous industries. However, in the second half of the 20th century. The economic impact on nature has reached levels at which it began to lose its ability to self-heal. In the 1990s. The environmental problem has reached a global level, which is manifested in the following negative trends:
the world ecosystem is being destroyed, more and more representatives of flora and fauna are disappearing, upsetting the ecological balance in nature;
More and more large areas of the planet are becoming a zone of environmental disaster;
The most complex and potentially the most dangerous problem is possible climate change, which is expressed in an increase in average temperature, which, in turn, leads to an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme natural and climatic events: droughts, floods, tornadoes, sudden thaws and frosts that cause significant economic damage to nature, people and the economies of countries. Climate change is usually associated with an increase in the “greenhouse effect” - an increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that enter there from the combustion of fuel, associated gas in places of extraction, on the one hand, and deforestation and land degradation, on the other.
The main consequences of environmental pollution are as follows: harm to human health and farm animals; contaminated areas become unsuitable or even unsuitable for human habitation and their economic activities, and pollution can lead to disruption of the biosphere’s ability to self-purify and its complete destruction. The main directions of exacerbation of the environmental crisis include the withdrawal from land use of saline soils subject to wind and water erosion; excessive use of chemical fertilizers, etc.; more and more chemical exposure on food, water, human habitat; destruction of forests, i.e. everything that in one way or another affects the life and health of people; growing emissions of pollutants into the atmosphere leading to the gradual destruction of the protective ozone layer; rapid growth of waste, proximity to landfills of various industrial and domestic wastes of the human environment.
In principle, the level of environmental pressure can be reduced in three ways: reducing the population; reducing the level of consumption of material goods; making fundamental changes in technology. The first method is in fact already being implemented naturally in developed and many transition economies, where the birth rate has decreased significantly; this process is gradually covering more and more parts of the developing world, but the growth of the total world population will continue. Reducing the level of consumption is hardly possible, although recently a new consumption structure has been emerging in developed countries, in which services and environmentally friendly components and products predominate reuse. Therefore, technologies aimed at preserving the planet’s environmental resources are of paramount importance for the sustainable development of the world economy:
tightening measures to prevent environmental pollution. Today, there are strict international and national regulations regarding the content of harmful substances, for example, in car exhaust gases, which forces automobile companies to produce environmentally less harmful cars. As a result, NOCs, concerned about the negative reaction of their consumers to environmental scandals, strive to follow the principles of sustainable development in all countries where they operate;
creating cost-effective products that can be reused. This makes it possible to reduce the growth in consumption of natural resources;
creation of clean technologies. The problem here is that many industries use outdated technologies that do not meet the needs of sustainable development. For example, in the pulp and paper industry, many production processes are based on the use of chlorine and its compounds, which are one of the most dangerous pollutants, and only the use of biotechnology can change the situation.
The number of global problems is not constant and is growing steadily. As human civilization develops, the understanding of existing global problems changes, their priority is adjusted, and new global problems arise (space exploration, weather and climate control, etc.).
Currently, other global problems are emerging.
The twenty-first century, having just begun, has already added its own problems: international terrorism. In the context of globalization, international terrorism represents the most serious security problem. International terrorism is aimed at undermining the stability of society, destroying borders and usurping territories. The goals of globalization are the same: to achieve influence, power, wealth and redistribution of property at the cost of public or international security.
The social danger of international terrorism is expressed, first of all, in the transnational scale of its activities; expanding its social base; changing the nature and increasing the scope of goals; increasing the severity of the consequences; rapid changes in growth rates and level of organization; in the relevant logistical and financial security his nature.
Thus, the problem of international terrorism poses a real planetary threat to the world community. This problem has its own specificity, which distinguishes it from other universal human difficulties. However, this problem is closely interconnected with most of the global problems of modern international relations, and therefore can be considered as one of the most pressing global problems of our days.
Terrorist acts of recent years, and above all the tragic events of September 11, 2001 in New York, have become unprecedented in the history of mankind in their scale and influence on the further course of world politics. The number of victims, the extent and nature of the destruction caused by terrorist attacks at the beginning of the 21st century were comparable to the consequences of armed conflicts and local wars. The response measures caused by these terrorist acts led to the creation of an international anti-terrorist coalition, which included dozens of states, which previously took place only in the case of major armed conflicts and wars.
Retaliatory anti-terrorist military actions have acquired a planetary scale.
Under these conditions, the global problem of international terrorism cannot be considered only as an independent phenomenon. It began to turn into an important component of a more general military-political global problem related to fundamental issues of war and peace, on the solution of which the further existence of human civilization depends.
In modern conditions, a new, already formed global problem is the exploration of outer space. The urgency of this problem is quite obvious. Human flights in near-Earth orbits have helped us create a true picture of the surface of the Earth, many planets, the terra firma and ocean expanses. They gave a new understanding of the globe as a center of life and an understanding that man and nature are an inextricable whole. Cosmonautics has provided a real opportunity for solving important national economic problems: improving international communication systems, long-term weather forecasting, and developing navigation of sea and air transport. The entry of man into space was an important impetus for the development of both fundamental science and applied research. Modern communication systems, forecasting of many natural disasters, remote exploration of mineral resources are only a small part of what has become a reality thanks to space flights. At the same time, the scale financial costs, necessary for further exploration of outer space, today already exceed the capabilities of not only individual states, but also groups of countries. The extremely expensive components of research are the creation and launch of spacecraft and the maintenance of space stations. Enormous investments are required to implement projects related to the exploration and future development of other planets in the solar system. As a consequence, the interests of space exploration objectively imply broad interstate interaction in this area, the development of large-scale international cooperation in the preparation and conduct of space research.
Emerging global problems currently include the study of the structure of the Earth and the management of weather and climate. Like space exploration, the solution to these two problems is only possible on the basis of broad international cooperation. Moreover, weather and climate management requires, among other things, global harmonization of behavioral norms of business entities in order to universally minimize the harmful impact of economic activity on the environment.
An independent problem on a planetary scale is the problem of man-made disasters that have nothing to do with natural disasters.
One of the most pressing global problems of our time in the scientific literature is identified with the process of urbanization.
According to many scientists, natural phenomena can be identified as an independent global problem of our time.
Another emerging global problem is the problem of suicide (voluntary death). According to open statistics, in most countries of the world the suicide curve is creeping up today, which indicates the global nature of this problem. There is a point of view according to which it is suicide (not drugs, AIDS or road accidents) that is becoming an increasingly common cause of death in peaceful conditions. This is an inevitable payment for the benefits of technological progress in all its manifestations: industrialization, urbanization, acceleration of the pace of life, complications of human relationships and, of course, lack of spirituality.
The concept, essence, classification and ways to solve global problems of our time are clearly shown in the Appendix.
2. Causes of global problems and ways to solve them
An objective prerequisite for the emergence of global problems is the internationalization of economic activity. The global development of labor has led to the interconnectedness of all states. The scale and degree of involvement of various countries and peoples in world economic relations have acquired unprecedented proportions, which has contributed to the development of local, specific problems of development of countries and regions into the category of global ones. All this indicates that there are objective reasons for the emergence of such problems in the modern world that affect the interests of all countries. Contradictions on a global scale are emerging, affecting the foundations of the existence of life on earth.
The UN appeals to all countries: if we want to take the best of globalization and avoid the worst, we must learn to govern better together. These calls could work well if most countries were at a sufficiently high level of economic development, and there were not such significant differences in per capita income between countries. The vast inequality in the distribution of wealth in today's world, the miserable conditions in which more than a billion people live, the prevalence of ethnic conflicts in some regions of the world and the rapid deterioration of the natural environment - all these factors combine to make the current development model unsustainable. We can rightfully say that in order to reduce tension on a number of global problems, it is necessary to completely discard the factors of class and political confrontation social systems and groups of people, and use the principle of spatial institutionality when considering global problems affecting the formation of the world economy.
Thus, the reasons for the emergence of global problems: on the one hand, are the enormous scale of human activity, which has radically changed nature, society, and people’s way of life; on the other hand, it is a person’s inability to rationally manage this power.
The following ways to solve global problems of our time are identified:
preventing a world war with the use of thermonuclear weapons and other means of mass destruction that threaten the destruction of civilization. This involves curbing the arms race, prohibiting the creation and use of weapons systems of mass destruction, human and material resources, the elimination of nuclear weapons, etc.;
overcoming economic and cultural inequality between the peoples inhabiting the industrialized countries of the West and East and the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America;
overcoming the crisis state of interaction between humanity and nature, which is characterized by catastrophic consequences in the form of unprecedented environmental pollution and depletion of natural resources. This makes it necessary to develop measures aimed at the economical use of natural resources and the reduction of pollution of soil, water and air by waste from material production;
reducing population growth rates in developing countries and overcoming the demographic crisis in developed capitalist countries;
preventing the negative consequences of the modern scientific and technological revolution;
overcoming the downward trend in social health, which involves combating alcoholism, drug addiction, cancer, AIDS, tuberculosis and other diseases.
Therefore, the priority global goals of humanity are as follows:
in the political sphere - reducing the likelihood and, in the future, completely eliminating military conflicts, preventing violence in international relations;
in the economic and environmental spheres - the development and implementation of resource- and energy-saving technologies, the transition to non-traditional energy sources, the development and widespread use of environmental technologies;
in the social sphere - improving living standards, global efforts to preserve people's health, creating a global food supply system;
in the cultural and spiritual sphere - the restructuring of mass moral consciousness in accordance with today's realities.
Solving these problems is an urgent task for all of humanity today. The survival of people depends on when and how they begin to be resolved.
Thus, summarizing the above, we note that the global problems of our time are a set of key problems that affect the vital interests of all humanity and require coordinated international actions within the global community for their resolution.
Global problems include the problems of preventing thermonuclear war and ensuring peaceful conditions for the development of all peoples, overcoming the growing gap in economic levels and per capita income between developed and developing countries, problems of eliminating hunger, poverty and illiteracy on the globe, demographic and environmental problems.
A distinctive feature of modern civilization is the increase in global threats and problems. We are talking about the threat of thermonuclear war, the growth of armaments, the unreasonable waste of natural resources, diseases, hunger, poverty, etc.
All global problems of our time can be reduced to three main ones:
the possibility of the destruction of humanity in a global thermonuclear war;
the possibility of a worldwide environmental disaster;
spiritual and moral crisis of humanity.
It is important to note that when solving the third problem, the first two are solved almost automatically. After all, a spiritually and morally developed person will never accept violence either towards another person or towards nature. Even a simply cultured person does not offend others and will never throw garbage on the sidewalk. From little things, from incorrect individual behavior of a person, global problems grow. We can say that global problems are rooted in human consciousness, and until he transforms it, they will not disappear in the outside world.
Conclusion
Thus, global problems are the key problems that confronted all of humanity in the second half of the twentieth century, on the solution of which its existence, preservation and development of civilization depend. These problems, which previously existed as local and regional, have acquired a planetary character in the modern era. Thus, the time of the emergence of global problems coincides with the achievement of the apogee of industrial civilization in its development. This happened approximately in the middle of the 20th century.
Global problems emerged under the conditions of the scientific and technological revolution in the second half of the twentieth century; they are interconnected, cover all aspects of people’s lives and affect all countries of the world without exception.
Many problems are considered global; in the scientific literature their number varies from 8-10 to 40-45. This is explained by the fact that, along with the main, priority global problems (which will be discussed further in the textbook), there are also a number of more specific, but also very important problems: crime, drug addiction, separatism, democratic deficit, man-made disasters, natural disasters.
There are various classifications of global problems, usually distinguished: problems of the most “universal” nature, problems of a natural-economic nature, problems of a social nature, problems of a mixed nature. There are also “older” and “newer” global problems. Their priority may also change over time. So, at the end of the twentieth century. Environmental and demographic problems came to the fore, while the problem of preventing a third world war became less pressing.
Among modern global problems, the main groups are distinguished:
Problems of a socio-political nature. These include: preventing global thermonuclear war, creating a nuclear-free, non-violent world, bridging the growing gap in the level of economic and cultural development between the advanced industrial countries of the West and the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Problems related to the relationship between humanity and society. We are talking about the elimination of poverty, hunger and illiteracy, the fight against disease, stopping population growth, anticipating and preventing the negative consequences of the scientific and technological revolution and the rational use of its achievements for the benefit of society and the individual.
Ecological problems. They arise in the sphere of relations between society and nature. These include: protection and restoration of the environment, atmosphere, soil, water; providing humanity with the necessary natural resources, including food, raw materials and energy sources.
The problem of international terrorism has recently acquired particular relevance and, in fact, has become one of the highest priorities.
The causes of global problems are:
the integrity of the modern world, which is ensured by deep political and economic ties, for example, war;
the crisis of world civilization is associated with the increased economic power of man: the impact of man on nature in its consequences is comparable to the most formidable natural forces;
uneven development of countries and cultures: people living in different countries, with different political systems, in terms of the achieved level of development, they live in historically different cultural eras.
Global problems of humanity cannot be solved by the efforts of one country; jointly developed regulations on environmental protection, coordinated economic policies, assistance to backward countries, etc. are needed.
In general, the global problems of humanity can be schematically represented as a tangle of contradictions, where from each problem various threads stretch to all other problems.
Solving global problems is only possible through the joint efforts of all countries coordinating their actions at the international level. Self-isolation and development features will not allow individual countries to remain aloof from economic crisis, nuclear war, the threat of terrorism or the AIDS epidemic. To solve global problems and overcome the danger that threatens all of humanity, it is necessary to further strengthen the interconnection of the diverse modern world, change the interaction with the environment, abandon the cult of consumption, and develop new values.
globalization economic growth crisis
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Interrelation of global problems of humanity
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a set of problems of humanity, on the solution of which social progress and the preservation of civilization depend:
preventing global thermonuclear war and ensuring peaceful conditions for the development of all peoples;
bridging the gap in economic level and per capita income between developed and developing countries by eliminating their backwardness, as well as eliminating hunger, poverty and illiteracy on the globe;
stopping rapid population growth (“population explosion” in developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa) and eliminating the danger of “depopulation” in developed countries;
prevention of catastrophic environmental pollution; ensuring the further development of humanity with the necessary natural resources;
prevention of immediate and long-term consequences of the scientific and technological revolution.
Some researchers also include among the global problems of our time problems of health care, education, social values, relations between generations, etc.
Their features are: - They have a planetary, global character, affecting the interests of all peoples of the world. - They threaten degradation and/or death of all humanity. - Need urgent and effective solutions. - They require collective efforts of all states, joint actions of peoples for their resolution.
Major global problems
Destruction of the natural environment
Today, the biggest and most dangerous problem is the depletion and destruction of the natural environment, the disruption of the ecological balance within it as a result of growing and poorly controlled human activities. Exceptional harm is caused by industrial and transport disasters, which lead to mass death of living organisms, contamination and contamination of the world's oceans, atmosphere, and soil. But an even greater negative impact is caused by continuous emissions of harmful substances into the environment. Firstly, a strong impact on people’s health, all the more destructive since 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, and the water regime and climate are changing in places. But the greatest danger is global climate change (warming), possible, for example, due to an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This could lead to the melting of glaciers. As a result, vast and densely populated areas in different regions of the world will be under water.
Air pollution
The most common air pollutants enter the atmosphere 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 and cement production, huge amounts of this gas are released into the atmosphere. This gas itself is not poisonous. Carbon monoxide. The combustion of fuel, which creates most of the gaseous and aerosol pollution in 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, about 300 million tons of carbon monoxide enters the atmosphere as a result of human activity. Hydrocarbons entering the atmosphere as a result of human activities make up a small proportion of naturally occurring hydrocarbons, but their pollution is very important. Their release into the atmosphere can occur at any stage of production, processing, storage, transportation and use of substances and materials containing hydrocarbons. More than half of the hydrocarbons produced by humans enter the air as a result of incomplete combustion of gasoline and diesel fuel during the operation of cars and other vehicles. Sulphur dioxide. Atmospheric pollution with sulfur compounds has important environmental consequences. The main sources of sulfur dioxide are volcanic activity, as well as the oxidation of hydrogen sulfide and other sulfur compounds. Sulfurous sources of sulfur dioxide have long surpassed volcanoes in intensity and are now equal to the total intensity of all natural sources. Aerosol particles enter the atmosphere from natural sources. The processes of aerosol formation are very diverse. This is, first of all, crushing, grinding and spraying of solids. In nature, mineral dust raised from the surface of deserts during dust storms has this origin. The source of atmospheric aerosols is of global importance, since deserts occupy about a third of the land surface, and there is also a tendency for their share to increase due to unwise human activity. Mineral dust from the surface of deserts is carried by the wind for many thousands of kilometers. Volcanic ash, which enters the atmosphere during eruptions, occurs relatively rarely and irregularly, as a result of which this source of aerosol is significantly inferior in mass to dust storms, its significance is very high, since this aerosol is thrown into the upper layers of the atmosphere - into the stratosphere. Remaining there for several years, it reflects or absorbs some of the solar energy that would, in its absence, reach the Earth's surface. The source of aerosols is also the technological processes of human economic activity. A powerful source of mineral dust is the building materials industry. Extraction and crushing of rocks in quarries, their transportation, cement production, construction itself - all this pollutes the atmosphere with mineral particles. A powerful source of solid aerosols is the mining industry, especially during the extraction of coal and ore in open pits. Aerosols enter the atmosphere when solutions are sprayed. The natural source of such aerosols is the ocean, which supplies chloride and sulfate aerosols resulting from the evaporation of sea spray. Another powerful mechanism for the formation of aerosols is the condensation of substances during combustion or incomplete combustion due to lack of oxygen or low combustion temperature. Aerosols are removed from the atmosphere in three ways: dry deposition under the influence of gravity (the main route for large particles), deposition on obstacles, and removal by precipitation. Aerosol pollution affects weather and climate. Chemical inactive aerosols accumulate in the lungs and lead to damage. Ordinary quartz sand and other silicates - mica, clay, asbestos, etc. accumulates in the lungs and penetrates the blood, leading to diseases of the cardiovascular system and liver disease.
Soil pollution
Almost all pollutants that are initially released into the atmosphere eventually end up on the surface of land and water. Settling aerosols may contain toxic heavy metals - lead, mercury, copper, vanadium, cobalt, nickel. They are usually inactive and accumulate in the soil. But acids also enter the soil with rain. By combining with it, metals can transform into soluble compounds available to plants. Substances that are constantly present in the soil also turn into soluble forms, which sometimes leads to the death of plants.
Water pollution
Water used by humans is ultimately returned to natural environment. But, apart from the evaporated water, this is no longer pure water, but domestic, industrial and agricultural wastewater, usually not treated or not treated sufficiently. Thus, freshwater bodies of water - 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 occurs due to the entry of pollutants with river runoff, their fall out from the atmosphere and, finally, due to human activity. A special place in the pollution of the oceans is occupied by pollution by oil and petroleum products. Natural pollution occurs as a result of oil seepage from oil-bearing layers, mainly on the shelf. The greatest contribution to ocean oil pollution comes from maritime oil transportation, as well as sudden spills of large quantities of oil due to tanker accidents.
Ozone layer problems
On average, about 100 tons of ozone are formed and disappeared every second in the Earth's atmosphere. Even with a slight increase in dose, a person develops burns on the skin. Skin cancer, as well as eye disease, leading to blindness, is 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, leading to cell death or mutations. The world learned about the global environmental problem of “ozone holes.” First of all, the destruction of the ozone layer is caused by the increasingly developing civil aviation and chemical production. Application of nitrogen fertilizers in agriculture; chlorination of drinking water, widespread use of freons in refrigeration units, for extinguishing fires, as solvents and in aerosols have led to the fact that millions of tons of chlorofluoromethanes enter the lower layer of the atmosphere in the form of a colorless neutral gas. Spreading upward, chlorofluoromethanes are destroyed under the influence of UV radiation, releasing fluorine and chlorine, which actively participate in the processes of ozone destruction.
Air temperature problem
Although air temperature is the most important characteristic, it, of course, does not exhaust the concept of climate, for the description of which (and corresponding to its changes) it is important to know a number of other characteristics: air humidity, cloudiness, precipitation, air current speed, etc. Unfortunately, there is currently no or very little data that would characterize changes in these quantities over a long period on the scale of the entire globe or hemisphere. Work on collecting, processing and analyzing such data is underway, and it is hoped that soon it will be possible to more fully assess climate change in the twentieth century. The situation seems to be better than others with precipitation data, although this climate characteristic is very difficult to objectively analyze globally. An important characteristic of 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. When studying acid rain, we must first answer two basic questions: what causes acid rain and how it affects the environment. Every year about 200 mil. are emitted into the Earth's atmosphere. Solid particles (dust, soot, etc.) 200 mil. t. sulfur dioxide (SO2), 700.mil. t. carbon monoxide, 150.mil. tons of nitrogen oxides (Nox), which in total amounts to more than 1 billion tons of harmful substances. 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 disrupted, 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. Some lichens die first; they are considered “indicators” of clean air. Countries should strive to limit and gradually reduce air pollution, including pollution that extends beyond their borders.
Greenhouse effect problem
Carbon dioxide is one of the main culprits of the “greenhouse effect”, which is why other known “greenhouse gases” (and there are about 40 of them) determine only about half of global warming. Just as in a greenhouse the glass roof and walls allow solar radiation to pass through, but do not allow heat to escape, so do carbon dioxide along with other “greenhouse gases”. They are practically transparent to the sun's rays, but they retain the Earth's thermal radiation and prevent it from escaping into space. A rise in average global air temperature should inevitably lead to an even more significant reduction in continental glaciers. Climate warming is leading to the melting of polar ice and rising sea levels. Global warming can cause major agricultural zones to shift in temperature, major floods, persistent droughts, and forest fires. Following the upcoming climate changes, changes in the position of natural zones will inevitably occur: a) reduction in coal consumption, replacement of its natural gases, b) development of nuclear energy, c) development of alternative types of energy (wind, solar, geothermal) d) global energy saving. But the problem of global warming, to some extent, is currently being compensated for by the fact that another problem has developed on its basis. Global dimming problem! At the moment, the planet's temperature has risen only one degree in a hundred years. But according to scientists’ calculations, it should have risen to a higher value. But due to global dimming, the effect was reduced. The mechanism of the problem is based on the fact that: rays of sunlight that should pass through the clouds and reach the surface and, as a result, increase the temperature of the planet and increase the effect of global warming, cannot pass through the clouds and be reflected from them as a result of never reaching the surface of the planet. And it is precisely thanks to this effect that the planet’s atmosphere does not heat up rapidly. It would seem easier to do nothing and leave both factors alone, but if this happens, then the person’s health will be in danger.
The problem of overpopulation of the planet
The number of earthlings is growing rapidly, although at a constantly slowing pace. But every person consumes a large number of various natural resources. Moreover, at present this growth occurs primarily in weakly or underdeveloped countries. However, they are focused on the development of a state where the level of well-being is very high, and the amount of resources consumed by each resident is enormous. If we imagine that the entire population of the Earth (the bulk 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 to believe that the majority of earthlings will always vegetate in poverty, ignorance and squalor is unfair, inhumane and unjust. 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 - limiting the birth rate with a simultaneous decrease in mortality and improving the quality of life. However, birth control faces many obstacles. These include reactionary social relations, the huge role of religion, which encourages large families; primitive communal forms of management, in which those with many children benefit; illiteracy and ignorance, poor development of medicine, etc. Consequently, backward countries face a tight knot of complex problems. However, very often in backward countries, those who put their own or tribal interests above the state ones rule, and use the ignorance of the masses for their own selfish purposes (including wars, repression, etc.), the growth of armaments and similar things. The problem of ecology, overpopulation and backwardness are directly related to the threat of a possible food shortage in the near future. Today, in a large number of countries, due to rapid population growth and insufficient development of agriculture, modern methods. However, the possibilities for increasing its productivity are apparently not unlimited. After all, an increase in the use of mineral fertilizers, pesticides, etc. leads to a deterioration of 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 production. Lack of good drinking water is especially harmful.
Problems of energy resources.
Artificially low prices misled consumers and served as an impetus for the second phase of the energy crisis. Nowadays, the energy obtained from fossil fuels is used to maintain and increase the achieved level of consumption. But as the state of the environment deteriorates, 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 the electrical and labor costs will go to stabilizing the environment. But the maintenance and development of civilization remains less than one percent. 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 unconventional forms of generating energy from solar, wind, and tidal energy are under development. What remains is... traditional thermal power engineering, and with it the dangers associated with air pollution. The work of many economists has shown: electricity consumption per capita is a very representative indicator of the standard of living in the country. Electricity is a commodity that can be spent on your needs or sold for rubles.
The problem of AIDS and drug addiction.
Just fifteen years ago it was hardly possible to foresee that the means mass media There will be so much attention to the disease, which has received the short name AIDS - “acquired immunodeficiency 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 outbreak began. The disease has been detected in 124 countries. The largest number of them are in the USA. The social, economic and purely humanitarian costs of this disease are already great, and the future is not so optimistic as to seriously count on a quick solution to this problem. No less evil is the international mafia and especially drug addiction, which poisons the health of tens of millions of people and creates a breeding ground for crime and disease. Already today, even in developed countries, there are countless diseases, including mental ones. In theory, the hemp fields should be protected by the workers of the state farm - the owner of the plantation. The foreman's are red from constant lack of sleep. When understanding this problem, it is necessary to take into account that in this small North Caucasian republic there is no cultivation of poppy and hemp - neither public nor private. The republic has become a “transshipment base” for dope traders from various regions. The growth of drug addiction and the struggle with the authorities resembles a monster that is being fought. This is how the term “drug mafia” arose, which today has become synonymous with millions of ruined lives, broken hopes and destinies, a synonym for the catastrophe that befell an entire generation of young people. In recent years, the drug mafia has been spending part of its profits on strengthening its “material base.” That is why the caravans with the “white death” in the “golden triangle” are accompanied by detachments of armed mercenaries. The drug mafia has its own runways, etc. A war has been declared against the drug mafia, in which tens of thousands of people and latest achievement science and technology. Among the most commonly used drugs are cocaine and heroin. The health consequences are exacerbated by the alternating use of two or more types of different drugs, as well as by particularly dangerous methods of administration. Those who inject them into a vein face a new danger - they run a huge risk of contracting acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), which can be fatal. Among the reasons for the growing craving for drugs among young people are those who do not have a job, but even those who have a job are afraid of losing it, no matter what it is. There are, of course, “personal” reasons - relationships with parents are not working out, unlucky in love. And in difficult times, thanks to the “concerns” of the drug mafia, drugs are always at hand... “White Death” is not satisfied with the positions it has gained, feeling the growing demand for its goods, the sellers of poison and death continue their offensive.
The problem of thermonuclear war.
No matter how serious the dangers for humanity are that accompany all other global problems, they are not even in the aggregate comparable to the catastrophic demographic, environmental and other consequences of a global thermonuclear war, which threatens the very existence of civilization and life on our planet. Back in the late 70s, scientists believed that a global thermonuclear war would be accompanied by the death of many hundreds of millions of people and the resolution of world civilization. Studies on the likely consequences of thermonuclear war have revealed that even 5% of the currently accumulated nuclear arsenal of the great powers will be enough to plunge our planet into an irreversible environmental catastrophe: the soot rising 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 the tropical zone there will be a long polar night. The priority of preventing a global 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.
Chapter III. Interrelation of global problems. All global problems of our time are closely related to each other and mutually conditioned, so that an isolated solution to them 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 an environmental disaster on a planetary scale in the foreseeable future. That is why both of these global problems are rightly called environmental and are even considered, with some justification, as two sides of a single environmental problem. In turn, this environmental problem can only be solved along the path of a new type of environmental development, fruitfully using the potential of the scientific and technological revolution, while simultaneously preventing its negative consequences. And although the pace of environmental growth over the past four decades, in general, in developing times this gap has increased. Statistical calculations show: 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 turn out to be comparable per capita amounts twice as high as they are now. However, this “demographic explosion” itself in developing countries, according to scientists, is due to their continued economic, social and cultural backwardness. The inability of humanity to develop at least one of the global problems will most negatively affect the ability to solve all the others. In the view of some Western scientists, the interconnection 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 is the immediate cessation of environmental growth and population growth. This approach to global problems is accompanied by various alarmist, pessimistic forecasts for the future of humanity.
Christianity
Christianity began in the 1st century in Israel in the context of the messianic movements of Judaism.
Christianity has Jewish roots. Yeshua (Jesus) was raised as a Jew, observed the Torah, attended synagogue on Shabbat, and observed holidays. The apostles, the first disciples of Yeshua, were Jews.
According to the New Testament text of the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 11:26), the noun “Χριστιανοί” - Christians, adherents (or followers) of Christ, first came into use to designate supporters of the new faith in the Syrian-Hellenistic city of Antioch in the 1st century.
Initially, Christianity spread among the Jews of Palestine and the Mediterranean diaspora, but, starting from the first decades, thanks to the preaching of the Apostle Paul, it gained more and more followers among other peoples (“pagans”). Until the 5th century, the spread of Christianity occurred mainly within the geographical boundaries of the Roman Empire, as well as in the sphere of its cultural influence (Armenia, eastern Syria, Ethiopia), later (mainly in the 2nd half of the 1st millennium) - among the Germanic and Slavic peoples, later (by the XIII-XIV centuries) - also among the Baltic and Finnish peoples. In modern and recent times, the spread of Christianity outside of Europe occurred due to colonial expansion and the activities of missionaries.
Currently, the number of adherents of Christianity around the world exceeds 1 billion [source?], of which in Europe - about 475 million, in Latin America - about 250 million, in North America - about 155 million, in Asia - about 100 million, in Africa - about 110 million; Catholics - about 660 million, Protestants - about 300 million (including 42 million Methodists and 37 million Baptists), Orthodox and adherents of “non-Chalcedonian” religions of the East (Monophysites, Nestorians, etc.) - about 120 million.
Main features of the Christian religion
1) spiritualistic monotheism, deepened by the doctrine of the trinity of Persons in the single being of the Divine. This teaching has given and continues to give rise to the deepest philosophical and religious speculations, revealing the depth of its content over the centuries from new and new sides:
2) the concept of God as an absolutely perfect Spirit, not only absolute Reason and Omnipotence, but also absolute Goodness and Love (God is love);
3) the doctrine of the absolute value of the human person as an immortal, spiritual being created by God in His image and likeness, and the doctrine of the equality of all people in their relationship to God: they are still loved by Him, like children of the Heavenly Father, all are destined for eternal blissful existence in union with God, everyone is given the means to achieve this destiny - free will and divine grace;
4) the doctrine of the ideal purpose of man, which consists in endless, comprehensive, spiritual improvement (be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect);
5) the doctrine of the complete dominance of the spiritual principle over matter: God is the unconditional Lord of matter, as its Creator: He has given man dominion over the material world in order to fulfill his ideal purpose through the material body and in the material world; Thus, Christianity, dualistic in metaphysics (since it accepts two foreign substances - spirit and matter), is monistic as a religion, for it places matter in unconditional dependence on the spirit, as a creation and medium for the activity of the spirit. Therefore it
6) equally far from metaphysical and moral materialism, and from hatred towards matter and the material world as such. Evil is not in matter and not from matter, but from the perverted free will of spiritual beings (angels and humans), from whom it passed onto matter (“cursed is the earth because of your deeds,” God says to Adam; during creation, everything was “good and evil” ").
7) the doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh and the bliss of the resurrected flesh of the righteous together with their souls in the enlightened, eternal, material world and
8) in the second cardinal dogma of Christianity - in the teaching about the God-man, about the Eternal Son of God truly incarnate and made human to save people from sin, curse and death, identified by the Christian church with its Founder, Jesus Christ. Thus, Christianity, with all its impeccable idealism, is a religion of harmony of matter and spirit; it does not curse or deny any of the spheres of human activity, but ennobles them all, inspiring us to remember that they are all only means for man to achieve spiritual, god-like perfection.
In addition to these features, the indestructibility of the Christian religion is facilitated by:
1) the essential metaphysical nature of its content, making it invulnerable to scientific and philosophical criticism and
2) for the Catholic churches of the East and West - the doctrine of the infallibility of the church in matters of dogma due to the Holy Spirit acting in it at all times - a doctrine that, in the correct understanding, protects it, in particular, from historical and historical-philosophical criticism.
These features, carried by Christianity through two millennia, despite the abyss of misunderstandings, hobbies, attacks, and sometimes unsuccessful defenses, despite all the abyss of evil that was and is being done supposedly in the name of Christianity, lead to the fact that if Christian teaching could always be accepted and not accept, believe in it or not believe, then it is impossible and will never be possible to refute it. To the indicated features of the attractiveness of the Christian religion, it is necessary to add one more and by no means the least: the incomparable Personality of its Founder. To renounce Christ is perhaps even much more difficult than to renounce Christianity.
Today in Christianity there are the following main directions:
Catholicism.
Orthodoxy
Protestantism
Catholicism or Catholicism(from the Greek καθολικός - universal; for the first time in relation to the church the term “η Καθολικη Εκκλησία” was used around 110 in a letter of St. Ignatius to the inhabitants of Smyrna and enshrined in the Nicene Creed) - the largest branch of Christians in terms of the number of adherents (more than 1 billion) stva , formed in the 1st millennium on the territory of the Western Roman Empire. The final break with Eastern Orthodoxy occurred in 1054.
Orthodoxy(tracing paper from Greek ὀρθοδοξία - “correct judgment, glorification”)
The term can be used in 3 similar but distinctly different meanings:
1. Historically, as well as in theological literature, sometimes in the expression “Orthodoxy of Jesus Christ”, denotes the teaching approved by the universal Church - as opposed to heresy. The term came into use at the end of IV and in doctrinal documents was often used as a synonym for the term “catholic” (in the Latin tradition - “Catholic”) (καθολικός).
2. In modern wide usage, it denotes a direction in Christianity that took shape in the east of the Roman Empire during the first millennium AD. e. under the leadership and with the leading role of the department of the Bishop of Constantinople - New Rome, which professes the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed and recognizes the decrees of the 7 Ecumenical Councils.
3. The set of teachings and spiritual practices that the Orthodox Church contains. The latter is understood as a community of autocephalous local Churches that have Eucharistic communion with each other (Latin: Communicatio in sacris).
It is lexicologically incorrect in Russian to use the terms “orthodoxy” or “orthodox” in any of the given meanings, although such usage is sometimes found in secular literature.
Protestantism(from lat. protestans, gen. p. protestantis - publicly proving) - one of the three, along with Catholicism (see Papacy) and Orthodoxy, the main directions of Christianity, which is a collection of numerous and independent Churches and denominations associated with their origins with the Reformation - a broad anti-Catholic movement of the 16th century in Europe.
Global problems are problems of particular importance, on the overcoming of which depends the possibility of the continuation of life on Earth. The solution to global problems is possible as a result of not only uniting the economic efforts of countries, but also taking political steps, changes in public consciousness, in the field of international law, etc. However, the economic prerequisites and global economic significance of solving these problems seem to be the most important.
Signs of global problems:
without their solution, the survival of humanity is impossible;
they are of a universal nature, i.e. affect all countries;
solutions require the combined efforts of all humanity;
they are essential, i.e. their decision cannot be postponed or transferred to the shoulders of future generations;
their appearance and development are interconnected. The listed signs require some explanation.
Without solving global problems, the survival of humanity is impossible. This means not only that their development gradually or simultaneously destroys or is capable of destroying humanity. For example, the proliferation of nuclear weapons across conflicting countries and regions of the world potentially threatens nuclear disaster and its consequences for all inhabitants of the Earth. Some problems in themselves are not a problem in negative meaning this word. Simply, in the absence or insufficiency of universal efforts in certain directions (for example, in the exploration of space or the World Ocean), it will not be possible to create the material basis for universal survival.
The universal nature of global problems means that manifestations of global problems can be seen in any country. At the same time, not every problem common to all countries is global. For example, unemployment exists in any country, but we do not call this problem global because it is internal to countries. In addition, the problem of unemployment does not meet other characteristics characteristic of global problems. Global problems affect all countries, but they affect them differently. For example, the demographic problem associated with the exponential growth of humanity has a different nature in different groups of countries.
The need to unite the efforts of all mankind in the context of the current imbalance in the economic development of the countries of the developed North and the backward South predetermines the different contributions of individual nations to the process of solving global problems. In addition, the severity of individual global problems varies for different countries and, therefore, the degree of interest and participation of countries in resolving individual global problems varies. Thus, resolving the problem of poverty in the underdeveloped countries of the African region is key to the survival of the majority of the local population. The participation of the countries of the “golden billion” in resolving this problem is determined only by moral motives and is often expressed in the form of humanitarian aid or other forms of charity.
The emergence and development of global problems is associated with human activity, and not necessarily negative, aimed at self-destruction. Moreover, almost all global problems arose as a result of the creative activity of people. They are a consequence of progress, which, as we see, has too deep negative consequences.
IN scientific publications, in international organizations there are no uniform formulations and lists of global problems. Often, individual problems are grouped into more general ones. For example, they often talk about the natural resource problem, which includes raw materials, energy and food. The most common point of view is as follows.
Global problems include:
environmental;
the problem of peace and disarmament, prevention of nuclear war;
overcoming poverty;
demographic;
raw materials;
energy;
food;
international terrorism;
exploration of space and the world's oceans.
The list and hierarchy of global problems is not constant. Despite the fact that the development of certain global problems is approaching the point beyond which they are irreversible (for example, environmental or raw materials), the significance of certain problems in recent years has decreased significantly or their nature has changed significantly (the problem of peace and disarmament). International terrorism has been added to the list of such problems in recent years.
The most pressing problem today seems to be the global environmental problem. The brief but capacious concept of “environmental problem” hides a long series of changes in the quality of the natural environment that are unfavorable for human life and health. It is no coincidence that many scientists talk about the development of several global environmental problems. They are interconnected and flow from one another. Thus, as a result of atmospheric pollution by industrial emissions, the Earth’s ozone layer decreases and the climate warms, although scientists name not only anthropogenic (as a result of human activity), but also natural (natural) causes for the development of global environmental problems. Anthropogenic factors include irrational environmental management and an increase in the amount of waste that pollutes the environment.
In each of the three components The environment today is experiencing negative changes: in the atmosphere, on land and in the aquatic environment. The changes that occur affect physical (glacial shifts, changes in air composition, etc.) and biological objects (fauna and flora) in each of the named elements and, ultimately, have a detrimental effect on human health and life (Fig. 3.2). Recently, scientists have started talking about potential threats to human life from outer space (asteroids, “space debris”, etc.).
In the atmosphere, the main negative manifestations of global environmental problems should be considered deterioration in air quality, acid rain, depletion of the ozone layer of the stratosphere, as well as temperature and other climate changes. As an example, we note that air pollution alone is the cause of 5% of all diseases in the world's population, and it complicates the consequences of many diseases. In rural areas of developing countries, about 2 million people die every year due to high concentrations of harmful particles in the air.
The limited and largely non-renewable resources of the land are no less susceptible to rapid and widespread deterioration than the atmosphere. The main problems here are soil degradation, desertification, deforestation, reduction in biological diversity (diversity of species), etc. Only the problem of desertification, i.e. The increase in the scale of desert lands in the world affects the vital interests of every third inhabitant of the Earth, since this process involves from a third to half of the land surface.
Environmental problems also affect the aquatic environment, which is reflected in an acute shortage
fresh water (40% of the world's population is water scarce), its purity and potability (1.1 billion people rely on unsafe drinking water), marine pollution, overexploitation of living marine resources, loss of coastal habitats.
For the first time, the global problem of protecting the environment from the harmful effects of humans came to the international level in 1972 at the first UN Conference on the Environment, which received the name Stockholm after its convening. Even then, it was recognized that natural resources must be protected, the Earth's ability to regenerate renewable resources must be maintained, and pollution must not exceed the environment's ability to clean itself. In the same year, the international organization United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) was created. In the 1970s and 1980s, the international community adopted a number of international conventions in the field of ecology. Among them: the World Heritage Convention, 1972; “On International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)”, 1973; “On the conservation of migratory species of wild animals”, 1979; Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, 1987; Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, 1989, etc.
The next major milestones in international cooperation in this area were the creation in 1983 of the World Commission on Environment and Development and the holding of the UN Conference of the same name in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro. The summit in Rio de Janeiro revealed unequal opportunities for countries of the North and South to transition to sustainable development and approved the document “Agenda 21”. According to calculations made during the summit, it is necessary to allocate $625 billion annually to implement the provisions of the document in developing countries. The main idea contained in this document is to find a balance between three directions of human development on the path to sustainable development: social, economic and environmental. The Framework Convention on Climate Change was also signed in Rio de Janeiro and the principle of shared and differentiated responsibility was introduced, reflecting the fact that industrialized countries make the largest contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide pollution.
In 1997, at an international conference in Kyoto (Japan), a legal instrument of the Framework Convention - the Kyoto Protocol - emerged. According to the Protocol, signatories and ratifiers must reduce their total greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5% relative to 1990 levels. The Protocol contains a new, hitherto unused market mechanism for achieving this goal, including:
the possibility of jointly fulfilling obligations to reduce emissions;
trading of greenhouse gas emissions quotas. A selling country that exceeds its emissions reduction commitments may sell certain units of already reduced emissions to another party;
the possibility of participation of legal entity-enterprises in actions to receive, transfer or purchase emission reduction units.
By December 2001, 84 countries had signed the Kyoto Protocol and a further 46 had ratified or acceded to it. The Protocol will enter into force only 90 days after its ratification by at least 55 signatory countries.
Mironov Nikita
This material contains a research paper and presentation on the topic: "Global problems of humanity."
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MBOU "Balesinsky secondary school No. 5"
Global problems of humanity
Research
Completed by a 9b grade student
Mironov Nikita
Checked by the geography teacher
First qualification category
Mironova Natalia Alekseevna
P. Balezino, 2012
1. Introduction…………………………………………………………….3
2. Main part:
- Characteristics of global problems of humanity………5
- Questionnaire……………………………………………………6
- Ecological problems
- Air pollution………………………………….8
- Ozone holes………………………………………………………10
- Acid rain……………………………………........11
- Hydrosphere pollution………………………………..13
- Terrorism…………………………………………………………….14
- Alcoholism……………………………………………………………15
- Smoking……………………………………………………..17
- Drug addiction……………………………………………………………...18
3. Conclusion………………………………………………………..19
4. Literature………………………………………………………..20
5. Appendix…………………………………………………………...................21
Introduction
The last decades of the 20th century confronted the peoples of the world with many acute and complex problems, which were called global. Such a dramatic change occurred due to two interrelated circumstances characteristic of the second half of the century: the growth of the Earth's population and the scientific and technological revolution.
The rapid growth of the Earth's population is called the population explosion. It was accompanied by the seizure of vast territories from nature for residential buildings and public institutions, roads and railways, airports and marinas, crops and pastures. Hundreds of square kilometers of tropical forests were cut down. Under the hooves of numerous herds, steppes and prairies turned into deserts.
Simultaneously with the demographic explosion, a scientific and technological revolution occurred. Man mastered nuclear energy, rocket technology and went into space. He invented the computer, created electronics and the synthetic materials industry.
The demographic explosion and the scientific and technological revolution have led to a colossal increase in the consumption of natural resources. Thus, today the world produces annually 3.5 billion tons of oil and 4.5 tons of hard and brown coal. At such rates of consumption, it has become obvious that many natural resources will be depleted in the near future. At the same time, waste from giant industries began to increasingly pollute the environment, destroying the health of the population. In all industrialized countries, cancer, chronic pulmonary and cardiovascular diseases are widespread. Scientists were the first to sound the alarm. Beginning in 1968, the Italian economist Aurelio Peccien began annually gathering prominent experts from different countries in Rome to discuss issues about the future of civilization. These meetings were called the Club of Rome. In the spring of 1972, the first book prepared by the Club of Rome was published, with the characteristic title “Limits to Growth.” And in June of the same year, the UN held the First International Conference on Environment and Development in Stockholm, which summarized materials on pollution and its harmful effects on the health of the population of many countries. The conference participants came to the conclusion that man, from being a subject who studied the ecology of animals and plants, in the new conditions must himself become an object of multilateral environmental research. They appealed to the governments of all countries of the world to create special government agencies for these purposes.
After the conference in Stockholm, ecology merged with nature conservation and began to acquire its current great importance. In different countries, ministries, departments and committees on ecology began to be created, and their main goal was monitoring the natural environment and combating its pollution to preserve public health.
The term ecology is derived from two Greek words: from the Greek “oikos” - house, dwelling, homeland and “logos” - science, meaning “the science of the house”. In a general sense, ecology is the science that studies the relationships of organisms and communities with their environment. For centuries, man has sought not to adapt to the natural environment, but to make it convenient for his existence. Now many people have realized that any human activity has an impact on the environment, and the deterioration of the biosphere is dangerous for all living beings, including humans. The problem of interaction between human society and nature has become the most important at the present stage of development of civilization. The threat of environmental disaster comes to the fore, becoming even more significant than the threat of a thermonuclear conflict. The difficult environmental situation in the world did not arise suddenly, but was the result of long-term anthropogenic impact on the natural environment, a consequence of ill-conceived decisions and actions. Global problems directly affect each of us.
Characteristics of global problems of humanity
Firstly , global problems are those problems that affect not only the interests of individual people, but can affect the fate of all humanity.
Secondly , global problems cannot be solved by themselves or even by the efforts of individual countries. They require focused and organized efforts of the entire world community. Failure to resolve global problems may lead in the future to serious, irreversible consequences for humans and their environment.
Third , global problems are closely related to one another. That is why it is so difficult even theoretically to isolate and systematize them, to develop a system of successive steps to solve them.
Global problems are, on the one hand, natural in nature, and on the other, social. In this regard, they can be considered as an influence or result of human activity that has had a negative impact on nature. The second option for the emergence of global problems is a crisis in relations between people, which affects the entire complex of relationships between members of the world community.
Global problems are grouped according to their most characteristic features. Classification allows us to establish the degree of their relevance, sequence theoretical analysis, methodology and sequence of solution.
The most widely used classification method is based on the task of determining the severity of the problem and the sequence of its solution. In connection with this approach, three global problems can be identified:
Between states and regions of the planet (preventing conflicts, establishing economic order);
Environmental (environmental protection, protection and distribution of fuel raw materials, space and ocean exploration;
Between society and people (demography, healthcare, education, etc.).
Questionnaire
In my work I want to talk about global problems of humanity, which became the goal of my work. To achieve this goal, I set myself the following tasks:
1. Identify ideas about the main problems of humanity, show what danger some of them pose.
2. Conduct a survey among students in grades 8 - 9, show the survey results in a diagram.
3. Give a complete description of the main global problems and find solutions.
I used methods such as analysis scientific literature and survey. I interviewed 80 people from eighth and ninth grades, asking them the following questions:
- How do you understand the meaning of the term “Global problems of humanity”?
Basically, the meaning of the term “Global problems of humanity” is clear to students. Most students believe that the global problems of humanity are:
1. Problems of all humanity;
2. Worldwide;
3. Problems with a great threat to humanity;
4. Problems that have affected the whole world;
5. Very important;
6. Problems that cause harm to the environment and people;
7.Extensive, covering vast territories;
8. Large-scale;
- Which of the following problems do you consider the most dangerous? Choose three problems:
A) Global warming
B) Ozone holes
B) Acid rain
D) Air pollution
D) Hydrosphere pollution
E) Terrorism
G) Raw materials problems (resource availability)
H) Demographic problem
I) The problem of peace and disarmament
K) AIDS
The diagram (see appendices, Fig. 1) shows that the main problems of humanity are:
- Ozone holes
- Air pollution
- Acid rain
- Terrorism
- Hydrosphere pollution
The main problems relate to natural pollution.
3. What measures are being taken to solve these problems in the world or country?
Students suggested the following solutions:
1. Creation of treatment facilities;
2. Respect for nature;
3. Limit the release of waste into the atmosphere;
4. Propaganda healthy image life;
5. Creation of nature reserves;
6. Strengthening the fight against terrorism;
7. Reducing the amount of exhaust gases;
8. Signing peace treaties, regulating foreign policy relations;
4. What other problems in your opinion can be classified as global?
1. Alcoholism
2. Smoking
3. Drug addiction
(See Fig. No. 2)
5. Can you contribute to solving global problems?
Many of those interviewed can contribute to solving global problems, and here is what they offer:
- Do not litter
- Do not pollute the atmosphere
- Do not pollute the hydrosphere
4. Use the latest technology
5. Do not destroy flora and fauna
(See Fig. No. 3)
Following from this, I put forward a hypothesis: there are a huge number of global problems that require immediate solutions. I would like to reveal these problems in more detail and find ways to solve them.
Air pollution
Under air pollutionone should understand any change in its composition and properties that negatively affects human and animal health, the condition of plants and ecosystems. It may be natural (natural) and anthropogenic (technogenic).
Natural is caused by natural processes. This includes volcanic activity, weathering of rocks, wind erosion, massive flowering of plants, smoke from forest and steppe fires, etc.;
Anthropogenic - emissions of various pollutants into the atmosphere during human activities. In volume it often exceeds natural pollution.
Emissions of substances into the atmosphere are classified into: gaseous (sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, etc.); liquid (acids, alkalis, salt solutions, etc.); solid (carcinogenic substances, lead and its compounds, dust, soot, resinous substances and others).
The main air pollutants are formed during industrial and other human activities; these are sulfur dioxide (SO2), carbon monoxide (CO) and particulate matter; they account for about 98% of the total emissions of harmful substances into the atmosphere. The total global emissions of these pollutants into the atmosphere in 1990 amounted to 401 million tons (in Russia - 26.2 million tons). In addition to them, more than 70 types of harmful substances are observed in the atmosphere of cities and towns.
Another form of atmospheric pollution is local excess heat input from anthropogenic sources. A sign of this are the so-calledthermal zones, for example, “heat island” in cities, warming of water bodies, etc.
Currently, the following enterprises mainly pollute the atmospheric air in Russia: thermal and nuclear power plants, vehicles, industrial and municipal boiler houses, enterprises producing ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, building materials, oil production and petrochemicals.
In developed industrial countries of the West, for example, the main amount of emissions of harmful substances comes from motor vehicles (50 - 60%), while the share of thermal power engineering is much less, only 16 - 20%.
At thermal power plants, boiler plantsDuring the combustion of solid or liquid fuels, smoke containing products of complete and incomplete combustion is released into the atmosphere. When converting installations to liquid fuel (fuel oil), ash emissions are reduced, but emissions of sulfur and nitrogen oxides are practically not reduced. The cleanest is gas fuel, which pollutes the air three times less than fuel oil and five times less than coal.
A major source of energy pollution of the atmosphere is the heating system of homes (boiler installations, see Fig. No. 6) - it emits products of incomplete combustion. Due to the low altitude chimneys Toxic substances in high concentrations are dispersed near boiler plants.
In ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgyWhen smelting one ton of steel, 0.04 tons of solid particles, 0.03 tons of sulfur oxides and up to 0.05 tons of carbon monoxide enter the atmosphere. Non-ferrous metallurgy plants discharge into the atmosphere compounds of manganese, lead, phosphorus, arsenic, mercury vapor, vapor-gas mixtures consisting of phenol, formaldehyde, benzene, ammonia and other toxic substances.
Enterprise emissionschemical productionsmall in volume (about 2% of all industrial emissions). Atmospheric air is polluted by sulfur oxides, fluorine compounds, ammonia, nitrous gases (a mixture of nitrogen oxides), chloride compounds, hydrogen sulfide, and inorganic dust.
There are several hundred million cars in the world, which, by burning huge amounts of petroleum products, significantly pollute the atmospheric air. Exhaust gases from internal combustion engines contain toxic compounds such as benzopyrene, aldehydes, nitrogen and carbon oxides and lead compounds. Correct adjustment of the fuel system of cars can reduce the amount of harmful substances by 1.5 times, and special neutralizers (catalytic afterburners) can reduce the toxicity of exhaust gases by 6 times or more.
Intense pollution also occurs during the extraction and processing of raw materials at oil and gas processing plants, during the release of dust and gases from underground mine workings, during the burning of garbage and burning rocks in dumps. In rural areas, sources of air pollution are livestock and poultry farms, industrial complexes for meat production, and spraying of pesticides.
Ozone holes
Ozone holes (See Fig. No. 5) are a phenomenon of low ozone concentration in the stratosphere, which is located in the upper atmosphere of the earth at an altitude of 10 to 50 km, where there is a layer of increased ozone concentration called the ozonosphere.
Ozone holes are located mainly in polar regions such as Antarctica. And recently it has been observed in the region of Southern Argentina and Chile.
Ozone levels in these areas are decreasing by about three percent per year, according to annual studies. Currently, the depletion of the ozone layer is about 50% of its original state.
The formation of the ozone hole is associated with human economic activity and its constant interference with the environment. Ozone is a natural filter that protects the Earth from ultraviolet radiation and compounds such as chlorofluorocarbons.
The ozone hole is formed by the decomposition of ozone into ordinary diatomic molecules of oxygen and chlorine, which rises and reaches the upper atmosphere. Where does chlorine come from? Some of it comes from gases from volcanoes, but more of the chlorine that destroys the ozone layer comes from the breakdown of CFCs, which are components of most paint, cosmetics and aerosol products.
The weakening of the ozone layer increases the flow of solar radiation to the Earth and causes an increase in the number of skin cancers in people. Plants and animals also suffer from increased levels of radiation.
Acid rain
IN fresh water rivers and lakes contain many soluble substances, including toxic ones. It may contain pathogenic microbes, so you cannot use it, much less drink it, without additional cleaning. When it's raining, drops of water (or snowflakes when it snows) capture harmful impurities from the air that have entered it from the pipes of some factory.
As a result, harmful, so-called acid rain falls in some places on Earth (See Fig. No. 8). The beneficial drops of rain have always brought joy to people, but now in many areas of the planet, rain has turned into a serious danger.
Acid precipitation (rain, fog, snow) is precipitation whose acidity is higher than normal. A measure of acidity is the pH value (hydrogen value). The pH scale goes from 02 (extremely acidic), through 7 (neutral) to 14 (alkaline), with the neutral point (pure water) having pH=7. Rainwater in clean air has a pH of 5.6. The lower the pH value, the higher the acidity. If the acidity of the water is below 5.5, then the precipitation is considered acidic. Over vast areas of the industrialized countries of the world, precipitation falls, the acidity of which exceeds normal by 10 - 1000 times (pH = 5-2.5).
Chemical analysis of acid precipitation shows the presence of sulfuric (H2SO4) and nitric (HNO3) acids. The presence of sulfur and nitrogen in these formulas indicates that the problem is related to the release of these elements into the atmosphere. These gaseous products (sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide) react with atmospheric water to form acids (nitric and sulfuric).
In aquatic ecosystems, acid precipitation causes the death of fish and other aquatic life. Acidification of river and lake water also seriously affects land animals, since many animals and birds are part of food chains that begin in aquatic ecosystems. Along with the death of lakes, forest degradation also becomes apparent. Acids destroy the protective waxy coating of leaves, making plants more vulnerable to insects, fungi and other pathogens. During drought, more moisture evaporates through damaged leaves.
The leaching of nutrients from the soil and the release of toxic elements contribute to the slowdown of tree growth and death. One can imagine what happens to wild animal species when forests die.
If the forest ecosystem is destroyed, soil erosion begins, clogging of water bodies, flooding and deterioration of water supplies become catastrophic.
As a result of acidification in the soil, nutrients vital to plants are dissolved; These substances are carried by rain into groundwater. At the same time, heavy metals are leached from the soil, which are then absorbed by plants, causing serious damage to them. Using such plants for food, a person also receives an increased dose of heavy metals with them.
When soil fauna degrades, yields decrease, the quality of agricultural products deteriorates, and this entails deterioration in public health.
When exposed to acids, rocks and minerals release aluminum, as well as mercury and lead, which then end up in surface and groundwater. Aluminum can cause Alzheimer's disease, a type of premature aging. Heavy metals found in natural waters negatively affect the kidneys, liver, and central nervous system, causing various oncological diseases. The genetic effects of heavy metal poisoning can take 20 years or more to appear, not only in those who drink dirty water, but also in their descendants.
Acid rain corrodes metals, paints, synthetic compounds, and destroys architectural monuments.
To combat acid rain, efforts must be directed toward reducing emissions of acid-forming substances from coal-fired power plants. And for this you need:
Using low-sulfur coal or removing sulfur from it
Installation of filters for purification of gaseous products
Application of alternative energy sources
Hydrosphere pollution
There are many pollutants in the hydrosphere and they are not much different from atmospheric pollutants.
On a global scale, the main pollutant of the hydrosphere is oil and oil products that enter the aquatic environment as a result of oil production, its transportation, processing and use as fuel and industrial raw materials.
Among other industrial products, detergents—very toxic synthetic detergents—occupy a special place in their negative impact on the aquatic environment. They are difficult to clean, and yet at least half of the initial amount ends up in water bodies. Detergents often form layers of foam in reservoirs, the thickness of which at sluices and thresholds reaches 1 m or more.
Industrial wastes that pollute water include heavy metals: mercury, lead, zinc, copper, chromium, tin, radioactive elements. Mercury (methylmercury fractions) poses a particular danger to the aquatic environment.
One of the most significant sources of water pollution is becoming Agriculture. This manifests itself, first of all, in the washing away of fertilizers and their entry into water bodies.
Increasingly, water resources are being polluted by herbicides and pesticides. Moreover, the degree of their accumulation and toxicity largely depends on the hydrodynamic and thermal characteristics of the water body.
Pollution of the World Ocean is growing. Every year, up to 100 million tons of various waste from the coast, from the bottom, from rivers and the atmosphere enter the ocean. The movement of water in the ocean causes pollution to spread over long distances;
The most polluted rivers include many rivers - the Rhine, Danube, Dnieper, Volga, Don, Dniester, Mississippi, Nile, Ganges, Seine, etc. Pollution of the internal and marginal seas is growing - the Mediterranean, Northern, Baltic, Black, Azov, Japanese and etc. (See Fig. No. 7)
TERRORISM
Terrorism today is a powerful weapon, a tool used not only in the fight against the Government, but very often by the Authority itself to achieve its goals. (See Fig. No. 11)
Modern terrorism comes in the form of: international terrorism (terrorist acts on an international scale); domestic political terrorism (terrorist actions directed against the government, any political groups within countries, or aimed at destabilizing the internal situation); criminal terrorism pursuing purely selfish goals.
Terrorism appears when society is experiencing a deep crisis, primarily a crisis of ideology and the state-legal system. In such a society, various opposition groups appear - political, social, national, religious - for which the legitimacy of the existing government becomes questionable. People in most countries have become unaccustomed to political violence and are afraid of it. Today, the most popular and effective methods of terror are violence not against government officials, but against peaceful, defenseless people who are not related to the “recipient” of terror, with the obligatory demonstration of the catastrophic results of terror. This is what happened in America when buildings exploded shopping center in September 2001 or the terrorist attack in Budenovsk. The target of the attack is a hospital, a maternity hospital. Or the events that occurred in Kizlyar, Pervomaisky, as well as the explosion in Moscow, etc.
The task of terrorism is to involve a large mass of people for whom either the goals of terror are so high that they justify any means, or are so unscrupulous in their means that they are ready to carry out any abomination.
Through “lofty motives” they usually involve young people who, due to mental and moral immaturity, easily fall for radical national, social or religious ideas. It is most often involved through totalitarian, religious or ideological sects. The most famous example is the Aum Shinrikyo sect.
Terrorism of any kind, no matter what motives it is determined by, no matter how politicized it may be, should be considered as a criminal phenomenon, subject to detailed criminological analysis.
After analyzing the results of the surveys, I looked at problems that in our time can also be considered global. These are alcoholism, smoking and drug addiction. I would also like to talk about them in more detail.
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a disease, a type of substance abuse, characterized by a painful addiction to alcohol (ethyl alcohol), with mental and physical dependence on it. The negative consequences of alcoholism can be expressed by mental and physical disorders, as well as disturbances in the social relationships of the person suffering from this disease. (See Fig. No. 9)
It is known that Prince Vladimir, who ruled Kievan Rus in the 10th century, decided to introduce a new religion to replace, as it seemed to him, outdated pagan gods. It is unknown why he did not like Judaism, but he did not accept Islam only because, in his words, “fun in Rus' is drinking.” Thus, it is not entirely correct to believe that along with the introduction of Christianity, Vladimir the Red Sun allegedly introduced drunkenness in Rus', although from his words it is quite clear that they drank wine in Rus' before.
In that era, our ancestors consumed mainly wine and mash, and the wine was most often imported. Since these intoxicating drinks were weak, they for a long time didn't cause any problems.
The use and production of vodka in Rus' first began to be used starting in the 14th century, and another hundred years later, i.e. During the time of Ivan the Terrible, the so-called “tsar’s taverns” first appeared, in which mainly the tsar’s close associates and his guardsmen “had fun”.
Drunkenness became widespread in Rus' with the organization of a large number of taverns for the common people during the reign of Peter I, who drank heavily himself and encouraged his nobles to do so. Starting from the 14th century, the production and distribution of all alcoholic beverages was brought under strict state control, and underground moonshine became widely popular. As a result, since the 19th century,alcoholism in Russiahas become a national tradition...
In 1985, an absolutely ill-conceived law was introduced that sharply limited alcohol consumption in our country. They did not drink less, as illegal alcohol production increased sharply. Drunkards, unable to get high-quality vodka, resorted to drinking its surrogates, as a result of which the number of poisonings, alcoholic psychoses and alcoholism itself sharply increased in our country. Unable to find and consume an alcoholic drink, some began to look for alcohol substitutes - such “products” as toothpaste, liquids for defrosting car locks, and various kinds medicines. As a result, the number of cases of substance abuse and drug addiction has increased sharply, especially among young people.
Currently, alcohol abuse is the main reason why life expectancy among men in our country is significantly lower than even in the most undeveloped countries such as Mauritania, Honduras, Yemen, Tajikistan and Bolivia. Poor food, excessive alcohol consumption and high levels of crime could reduce Russia's population to 131 million by 2025, according to UN forecasts.
How do countries fight alcoholism? There are 41 countries in the world wherealcohol problem completely solved, there is " no alcohol law » and 40 countries where production and sales alcohol so squeezed by the state that they, too, are fighting this problem very effectively. And it turns out that there are 81 (2/3 of the world's population) countries in the world where the problemalcoholism and drunkenness is somehow resolved. But the remaining 1/3 of the world's population " drunk ", these are precisely the countries wheretheory of cultural, moderate alcohol consumption. And for the last half century our country has been included in this 1/3. Meanwhile, Russia 100 years ago was the legislator of the theory of sobriety; there is a science about a sober lifestyle “ sobreology " Scientists such as Bekhterev, Pavlov, Vvedensky and others worked on this theory.
The problem of alcoholism in Russia is very acute, both the chief sanitary doctor G. Onishchenko and the president speak about this. Every year about 700 thousand of our citizens die from drinking alcohol in Russia. Just imagine, during the ten years of war in Afghanistan, about 14 thousand of our children died, and here 700 thousand citizens die from drinking alcohol in a year. And many do not take this evil seriously.
Smoking
Smoking is the inhalation of smoke from drugs, mainly of plant origin, smoldering in the flow of inhaled air, in order to saturate the body with the active substances they contain through their sublimation and subsequent absorption in the lungs and respiratory tract. As a rule, it is used for the use of smoking mixtures that have narcotic properties (tobacco, hashish, marijuana, opium, etc.) due to the rapid flow of blood saturated with psychoactive substances into the brain. (See Fig. No. 10)
The top ten countries in which tobacco smoking is most widespread include Nauru, Guinea, Namibia, Kenya, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mongolia, Yemen, Sao Tome and Principe, Turkey, Romania. Russia ranks 33rd in this series of 153 countries (37% of smokers among the adult population).
Since inhaled smoke burns mucous membranes and contains a large amount of harmful substances (benzopyrene, nitrosamines, carbon monoxide, soot particles, etc.), smoking (regardless of the drug used) increases the risk of developing cancer of the lungs, mouth and respiratory tract, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD), mental, cardiovascular and other diseases. Researchers have noted a correlation between smoking and impotence.
Currently, the most common consequences of long-term smoking are the occurrence of COPD and the development of various tumors of the respiratory system; 90% of lung cancer cases are associated with smoking. Smoking or passive inhalation of tobacco smoke can cause infertility in women. Atrophy and demyelination (destruction of the white matter of the brain and spinal cord) in multiple sclerosis are more pronounced in patients who have smoked for at least 6 months during their life compared to patients who have never smoked. Smoking addiction can be both psychological and physical.
With psychological dependence, a person reaches for a cigarette when he is in a smoking company, or in a state of stress, nervous tension, to stimulate mental activity. A certain habit is developed, a ritual of smoking, without which a person cannot live fully.
With physical addiction, the body's demand for a nicotine dose is so strong that all the smoker's attention is focused on finding a cigarette, the idea of smoking becomes so obsessive that most other needs fade into the background. It becomes impossible to concentrate on anything other than a cigarette, apathy and reluctance to do anything may set in.
Addiction
Drug addiction - A painful attraction or addiction to narcotic substances used in various ways (swallowing, inhalation, intravenous injection) in order to achieve a stupefying state or relieve pain. (See Fig. No. 9)
Drug addiction (from the Greek narke - numbness and mania - madness, enthusiasm) - in medicine, a disease characterized by a pathological attraction to drugs, leading to severe dysfunction of the body; in psychology - the need to use any medicine or chemical substances to avoid the discomfort that occurs when stopping use, i.e. chemical addiction; in sociology - a type of deviant behavior.
Drug addiction includes two forms of addiction:
Mental dependence is a state of the body characterized by a pathological need to use any drug or chemical substance to avoid mental disorders or discomfort that occurs when stopping the use of the substance that caused addiction, but without somatic withdrawal symptoms.
Physical dependence is a condition characterized by the development of withdrawal symptoms when taking the addictive substance or after the introduction of its antagonists.
Addiction displays inappropriate behavior, the drug addict is constantly depressed. In addition, drug addiction is characterized by aggressive and unstable behavior. People addicted to drugs are potentially dangerous both for the individual and for the entire society. For the sake of the next dose of drugs, they are ready to turn the world upside down, commit the most terrible crime, and at the same time not experience any feelings of guilt, confusion or shame. Drug addicts are degrading creatures to whom everything human is alien.
Consequences of drug addiction - from disability to fatal outcome. Always remember the consequences of drug addiction and talk about them to children, acquaintances, even strangers. Show sympathy and understanding for sick people, because they, as a rule, do not give an account of their actions.
Conclusion
For thousands of years, man lived, worked, developed, but he did not suspect that perhaps the day would come when it would become difficult, or perhaps impossible, to breathe clean air, drink clean water, to grow something on the ground because the air is polluted, the water is poisoned, the soil is contaminated with radiation or other chemicals. But a lot has changed since then. And in our century this is a very real threat, and not many people realize it. Another Chernobyl, if not worse.
Globalist scientists offer various options for solving global problems of our time:
- creation of waste-free production,
- creation of heat and energy resource saving technologies,
- use of alternative energy sources (sun, wind, etc.),
- creation of a new world order,
- development of a new formula for global governance of the world community on the principles of understanding the modern world as an integral and interconnected community of people,
- recognition of universal human values,
- attitude towards life, man and the world as the highest values of humanity,
- renunciation of war as a means of resolving controversial issues,
- searching for ways to peacefully resolve international problems.
One of the priority actions in solving environmental problems is the elimination of environmental illiteracy. This is a national or even global task. Already from school, young inhabitants of planet Earth need to learn to appreciate natural resources and comprehend the wisdom of their conservation. People need to be able not only to barbarically use all the best that nature can give us, but also to compensate for the damage caused. Human activities must be carried out in harmony with the environment.
Thus, I concluded that my hypothesis is correct. Every person must realize that Humanity is on the verge of destruction, and will we survive or not? The merit of each of us.
Literature
1. A. Aseevsky, “Who organizes and directs international terrorism?”, M.: Publishing House of Political Literature, 1982.
2. Akhatov A. G. Ecology. “Encyclopedic Dictionary”, Kazan: Ecopolis, 1995.
3. O.V. Kryshtanovskaya. “Illegal structures of Russia” Sociological research, 1995.
4. E.G. Lyakhov A.V. Popov Terrorism: national, regional and international control. Monograph. M.-Rostov-on-Don 1999
5. V.P. Maksakovsky, “Economic and social geography of the world,” textbook for grade 10 - M.: Education, 2004,
6. Odum, Eugene , Fundamentals of Ecology. - M., 1975
7. Encyclopedic Dictionary - Directory "ENVIRONMENT", Publishing House "Progress", M. 1993
8. http://ru.wikipedia.org
Application
Which of the following problems do you consider the most dangerous?
Fig. No. 1
What other problems in your opinion can be classified as global?
Fig. No. 2
Can you contribute to solving global problems?
Fig. No. 3
Rice. No. 4
Fig. No. 5. Ozone hole
Fig. No. 6. Atmospheric pollution
Fig. No. 7. Hydrosphere pollution
Fig. No. 8. Effects of acid rain
Fig. No. 9. Drug Addiction and Alcoholism
Fig. No. 10. Smoking