Causes of the ecological crisis. The main trends of the modern ecological crisis

Ecological crisis - this is a tense state of relations between society and nature, characterized by a discrepancy between development productive forces and production relations in society to the resource-ecological possibilities of the biosphere. As a result, the biosphere begins to threaten life itself on Earth.

Causes of the ecological crisis

Among the causes of depletion, pollution and destruction of the natural environment, emanating from human anthropogenic activities, one can single out objective and subjective ones.

To the objective include the following:

1. Limiting abilities of earthly nature for self-purification and self-regulation;

2. Physical limitation of the land area within one planet;

3. Waste-free production in nature and waste of human production;

4. Incomplete knowledge and use by man of the laws of development of nature.

To subjective Causes of the environmental crisis include:

1. Disadvantages of the organizational, legal and economic activities of the state for the protection environment;

2. Defects in environmental upbringing and education;

3. Ecological ignorance - unwillingness to study the laws of the relationship between man and the environment;

4. Ecological nihilism - unwillingness to be guided by these laws, neglect of these laws.

Degradation of the natural environment- this is the destruction or significant violation of ecological ties in nature, ensuring the exchange of substances and energy within nature, between nature and man, caused by human activity, carried out without taking into account the laws of nature development.

Criteria for an ecological crisis and approaching environmental catastrophe:

Biosocial Criteria:

As a result of increased radioactivity, chemical pollution of the environment, the number of pathologies of intrauterine development, malignant tumors, mental disorders, etc. increases. Mutagens of the environment in the form of chemical compounds, ionizing radiation, viruses penetrate cells and affect their genetic program - causing mutations. Mutations are sudden, natural (spontaneous) or caused, artificial (induced) inherited changes in the genetic material that lead to a change in certain signs of the organism.

Biospheric Criteria:

1. The transition of renewable resources to non-renewable:

Soil condition. Due to weathering and anthropogenic pollution, 30-40% of the chernozem has already died.

The water supply of the planet. Mankind annually discharges up to 1.5 thousand cubic kilometers of wastewater. For their purification of water, more is needed than in the rivers of the entire globe. As a result of acid rains, the pH in water bodies decreases, microorganisms and fish die. The supply of fresh water suitable for drinking is sharply reduced.

self-sustaining biota. For example, the forest: everything is balanced in it. The extinction of one species entails the death of others. And since forests are severely cut down, species diversity dies (hence the Red Book). At one time, 60-75% of the surface of Germany was covered with forests, now less than 25%.

Maintain oxygen regime. normal oxygen atmospheric air restored (photosynthesis). However, its supply on Earth is gradually decreasing. Tropical forests - the main supplier of oxygen to the Earth's atmosphere - are cut down by 50%, temperate forests - by 40%. From 60 to 80% of the plankton of the world's oceans died as a result of the spill of the oil film. And these are the “lungs” of our planet.

2. Global biospheric environmental problems:

« the greenhouse effect ». The accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is one of the main causes of the greenhouse effect, which increases from the heating of the Earth by the sun's rays. This gas does not allow solar heat to pass back into space. Consequences for Russia: redistribution of precipitation throughout the country; an increase in droughts; change in the regime of river flow and the operation of hydroelectric power plants; will melt upper layer permafrost (and this is 60% of the territory of Russia), the stability of the foundations of engineering structures will suffer; the level of the World Ocean will rise, which will lead to the flooding of low-lying coasts.

« Ozone holes » . Ozone - triatomic oxygen molecules - is scattered above the Earth at an altitude of 15 to 50 km. If you hypothetically compress this shell at normal atmospheric pressure, you get a layer of 2 mm, but life on the planet is impossible without it. The stratospheric ozone layer protects people and wildlife from the harsh ultraviolet and soft X-rays in the ultraviolet part of the solar spectrum. Every percent of ozone lost globally causes up to 150,000 additional cases of cataract blindness and a 2.6% increase in skin cancers. UVR suppresses the body's immune system.

The main factors that destroy the Earth's ozone layer are:

1) the use of freons in technology, perfumery and chemical products,

2) launching powerful rockets,

3) flights of jet aircraft in high layers of the atmosphere,

4) testing of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons,

5) destruction of the natural ozonizer - forests.

The ecological crisis is characterized by Reimers,(1992) not so much by increasing human impact on nature as by a sharp increase in the impact of human-modified nature on community development(boomerang effect).

Ecological boomerang - an expression for a difficult situation caused by poor consideration of environmental laws, as a result of which man's actions on nature turn against him.

The boomerang effect comes in two forms:

1) in the form of acute impact - drying up of forests from acid rain, thinning of the ozonosphere from the impact of ozone-depleting substances, etc.;

2) in the form of permanent, chronic processes such as gradual climate change (including the "greenhouse effect").

The problem of global warming

Climate change based on increased thermal effect as a result of anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. Our planet is like a giant greenhouse, which has a thick gas layer of the atmosphere instead of glass. It freely passes solar radiation to the Earth, but delays the thermal radiation reflected from the Earth, which heats the atmosphere and the surface of the planet. As a result of this phenomenon, called the greenhouse effect, the temperature of the Earth's surface is sufficient for life to exist and develop on it (if it were not for the greenhouse effect, the Earth would be a cold and lifeless planet with an average temperature of -18 °). However, in the last century, scientists have noticed a gradual increase in the temperature of the Earth. There is a violation of the heat balance that has developed over millennia. Man is considered the culprit of warming, and this phenomenon is called the problem of global climate change. In pre-industrial times, carbon dioxide was the main regulator of the "atmospheric greenhouse" temperature, and in our time, other greenhouse gases play an equally important role. It is assumed that a further increase in their concentration in the atmosphere will be equivalent to doubling the concentration of carbon dioxide by 2030. This may lead to an increase in the temperature of the earth's surface by 1.5 - 5.5° and cause certain adverse consequences.

The problem of deforestation

Forests occupy the largest area among all terrestrial ecosystems (about 40%). Forests are one of the main sources of oxygen on the planet. Forests are repositories of species and genetic diversity (2/3 of animal and plant species live in forests). Forests contain a huge amount of carbon and provide its global balance. Forests play one of the main roles in determining the hydrological regimes of entire continents. The forest zone gives shelter to most of humanity. Before agriculture appeared, the area of ​​forests was approximately 6 billion hectares (more than 3/5 of the land area). Now there are 4 billion hectares left, of which only 1.5 billion are intact, virgin forests.

Human impact on the environment

Impact Agriculture

The main difference between agricultural impacts and the considered industrial impacts lies primarily in their distribution over vast territories. As a rule, the use of large areas for agricultural needs causes a radical restructuring of all components of natural complexes. At the same time, the destruction of nature does not necessarily occur; quite often, it is agricultural landscapes that are classified as “cultural”. The whole range of agricultural impacts can be divided into two groups: the impact of agriculture and animal husbandry.

Agriculture. The impact of agriculture on the natural complex begins with the destruction of large areas of the community of natural vegetation and its replacement with cultivated species. The next component that is undergoing significant changes is the soil. Under natural conditions, soil fertility is constantly maintained by the fact that the substances taken by plants return to it again with plant litter. In agricultural complexes, the main part of the soil elements is removed along with the harvest, which is especially typical for annual crops. A similar situation is repeated every year, so there is a possibility that in a few decades the supply of basic soil elements will be exhausted. To replenish the withdrawn substances, mineral fertilizers are mainly applied to the soil: nitrogen, phosphorus, potash. This has both positive consequences - replenishment of nutrient reserves in the soil, and negative - pollution of soil, water and air. When fertilizers are applied, so-called ballast elements enter the soil, which are not needed by either plants or soil microorganisms. For example, when using potash fertilizers, along with the necessary potassium, useless, and in some cases harmful chlorine is introduced; a lot of sulfur gets in with superphosphate, etc. The amount of the element for which mineral fertilizer is applied to the soil can also reach a toxic level. First of all, this refers to the nitrate form of nitrogen. Excess nitrates accumulate in plants, pollute underground and surface waters (due to good solubility, nitrates are easily washed out of the soil). In addition, with an excess of nitrates in the soil, bacteria multiply, which restore them to nitrogen entering the atmosphere. In addition to mineral fertilizers, various chemicals are introduced into the soil to control insects (insecticides), weeds (pesticides), to prepare plants for harvesting, in particular defoliants, which accelerate the shedding of leaves from cotton for its machine harvesting. Most of these substances are very toxic, have no analogues among natural compounds, and are very slowly decomposed by microorganisms, so the consequences of their use are difficult to predict. The common name of the introduced pesticides is xenobiotics (strangers for life). The culture of agriculture is necessary, since the unreasonable plowing of the soil significantly changes its structure, and under certain conditions can contribute to processes such as water and wind erosion.

Livestock. The impact of animal husbandry on the natural landscape is characterized by a number of specific features. The first is that livestock landscapes are made up of heterogeneous but closely related parts such as pastures, pastures, farms, waste disposal areas, and so on. Each part makes a special contribution to the overall flow of impact on natural complexes. The second feature is the smaller territorial distribution in comparison with agriculture. Animal grazing primarily affects the vegetation cover of pastures: the biomass of plants decreases and changes occur in the species composition of the plant community. With especially long or excessive (per animal) grazing, the soil is compacted, the pasture surface is exposed, which increases evaporation and leads to soil salinization in the continental sectors of the temperate zone, and contributes to waterlogging in humid areas. The use of land for pastures is also associated with the removal of nutrients from the soil in the composition of pasture and hay. To compensate for the loss of nutrients, fertilizers are applied to pasture lands, the duality of the effects of which is described in the section on agriculture. The livestock industry is a significant consumer of water, accounting for about 70 km3 of the total agricultural water withdrawal per year.

Transport impacts

Automobile transport.
Road transport occupies an important place in the unified transport system of the country. It carries more than 80% of national economic cargo, due to its high maneuverability road transport, the possibility of delivering goods "from door to door" without additional transshipments on the way, and, consequently, high speed of delivery and safety of goods. Great length highways provides the possibility of their widespread operation with a significant carrying capacity. High mobility, the ability to quickly respond to changes in passenger traffic put road transport "out of competition" in the organization of local passenger transportation. It accounts for almost half of the passenger turnover. Road transport has played a huge role in shaping modern character resettlement of people, in the spread of long-distance tourism, in the territorial decentralization of industry and sulfur services. At the same time, it also caused many negative phenomena: hundreds of millions of tons of exhaust gases enter the atmosphere every year. harmful substances; car is one of the main factors of noise pollution; the road network, especially near urban agglomerations, “eats up” valuable agricultural land. Under the influence of the harmful effects of road transport, human health is deteriorating, soils and water bodies are being poisoned, flora and fauna are suffering. The car park, which is one of the main sources of environmental pollution, is concentrated mainly in cities. If on average there are five cars per 1 square kilometer of territory in the world, then their density in the largest cities of developed countries is 200-300 times higher. Currently, there are 300 million cars, 80 million trucks and about 1 million trucks in the world. city ​​buses. Significant areas of roads, parking lots, motor depots, covered with asphalt and concrete, prevent the normal absorption of rainwater by the soil, upset the balance ground water. Due to the active use of salt to combat icing of urban roads, long-term salinization of soils on roadsides occurs, leading to the death of vegetation, part of the salt is washed away by surface runoff and pollutes large spaces. Motor transport is one of the largest consumers of water used for various technical purposes.
Among the pollutants, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons are in the lead, the proportion of which increases sharply when the engine is running at low speeds, when starting or increasing speed, which is observed during traffic jams and at traffic lights. Very dangerous component car exhaust gases - lead compounds, which are used as an additive to gasoline. Pollution is also great with other heavy metals - zinc, nickel, cadmium. They are found not only in exhaust, but also in waste. car tires: on some highways in Europe, the mass of rubber dust reaches 250 kg per kilometer of the road (per year). Water pollution includes runoff from car depots, car washes, gas stations, roads, containing large amounts of oil products, detergents, heavy metals, etc. Naturally, air emissions and runoff pollute other components of natural complexes. Railway transport. Although rail transport has an impact on the general condition of the landscape, its intensity is much less than that of road transport. This is due to the economical use of fuel and wide electrification. railways. Rail transport also requires the allocation of significant areas for its needs, although smaller than road transport. The railroad track itself occupies a strip of 10–30 m, but the need to place ditches and reserve lanes, as well as snow protection devices, increases the width of the allotment to 100–150 m. Significant areas are occupied by stations, train stations, and railway interchanges. The water consumption of railway transport did not decrease with the replacement of steam locomotives with diesel locomotives and electric locomotives. This is mainly due to the increase in the length of the network and the volume of traffic. Pollution of the environment by rail transport is most felt in areas where diesel locomotives are operated. Their exhaust gases contain up to 97% of all toxic substances emitted by this mode of transport. In addition, the area near the railways is polluted with metal dust as a result of the abrasion of cast-iron brake pads. During industrial transportation, coal and ore dust, salt, oil products, etc. become pollutants, because. they are blown away by the wind and leak due to the poor quality of the wagons and tanks.
Water transport.
Despite the fact that the main environment experiencing the pressures of water transport are rivers, lakes, seas, its impact is also felt on land. First of all, land is being withdrawn for river and sea ports. Their territories are polluted during loading and unloading operations and ship repair. With heavy vessel traffic, the danger of destruction is real coastline. But, of course, the aquatic environment suffers the most. Marine engines are the main sources of pollution. The water used in their operation is discharged into water bodies, causing thermal and chemical pollution. In addition, some of the toxic substances from the exhaust gases are also dissolved in water.
Air Transport. Withdrawal of land for the needs of air transport occurs during the construction of airfields and airports, and if in the 30s. the average airport occupied an area of ​​3 km2, then modern airports with several runways 3–4 km long, aircraft parking areas, office buildings, etc. located on the territory of 25–50 km2. Naturally, these areas are covered with asphalt and concrete, and disturbances of natural cycles extend for many kilometers around. The noise impact on people and animals is also extremely unfavorable. The main impacts of air transport are on the atmosphere. Calculations show that one aircraft, when flying over a distance of 1000 km, uses the amount of oxygen consumed by one person during the year. Among the toxic substances emitted during flights, carbon monoxide, unburned hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides and soot predominate. Peculiarity atmospheric pollution in that toxic substances spread over very large spaces.
Pipeline transport. The impact of pipeline transport on the environment, compared with other types of impacts, can be characterized as insignificant. The main element - pipelines - are mostly placed in closed trenches and with competent (!) construction and operation, they practically do not violate the structure of landscapes. But the construction of pipelines requires a large alienation of land, and in permafrost conditions, in order to avoid thawing of soils, pipes are laid over vast expanses of the surface. The impact of this type of transport acquires catastrophic proportions when pipes are depressurized and burst, when oil or liquefied gas is spilled over large areas. Concluding our brief review of the main anthropogenic impacts on the environment, let us focus on two extremely topical problems: waste and accidents. Both of them relate to almost any type of activity, and the most powerful stream of negative impacts on nature is associated with them. Waste is classified according to different properties: liquid, gaseous and solid; organic and inorganic; toxic and less toxic, etc. Waste is stored, occupying large areas. They get into natural complexes with effluents, air emissions during dusting. Among others, radioactive waste poses a particular danger to the environment. They accumulate in various scientific institutions (medical, biochemical, physical), special production, nuclear testing, the work of nuclear industry and nuclear energy enterprises. Distinctive feature of these wastes - the preservation of radioactivity for many hundreds of years. The isolation of such waste remains a difficult task. The causes and consequences of accidents in specific types of activities were discussed in the relevant sections (accidents at nuclear power plants, pipelines, water transport). As a general conclusion, we emphasize that when assessing any anthropogenic impacts, the possibilities emergencies and their consequences

Environmental crisis on a planetary scale - myth or reality? Problems with ecology arise, from time to time, for many centuries in a row, each time becoming more and more threatening. But since the second half of the nineteenth century, thanks to the total industrialization of society, they have become aggravated many times over. Over the past hundred years, about two-thirds of all the forests growing on our planet have been cut down, about a quarter of the fertile lands have become unusable. And today, thanks to the mismanagement of huge agricultural holdings, growing for several years in a row in one place such depleting crops as corn, and indiscriminately poisoning the fields of peasants and surrounding forests, this process has accelerated significantly.

Every ten years, the world loses seven percent of its fertile soil area. Up to twenty-six billion tons of fertile layer are annually removed from the fields of our planet. There are all signs that a global environmental crisis is coming. In fact, this problem has acquired such a character since the late fifties and early sixties of the last, twentieth century.

The modern ecological crisis is developing at a rapid pace in every country of the world, on every continent. The scale of human impact on nature is so great that there is a real threat of imbalance of large biogeocenoses, which can lead in the future to serious problems both for the species diversity of nature and for the existence of mankind in the form we have become accustomed to recently. In fact, the ecological crisis means the transition of all mankind to new level its dependence on the gradually but steadily impoverishing environment.

How will events presumably unfold in the near future?

Traditional directions in which the ecological crisis develops:

1. Withdrawal of an increasing area of ​​land from agricultural land use due to significant overuse of chemical fertilizers, water and wind erosion and soil salinity.
2. The increasing chemical impact on water, livestock and crop products, the very environment in which a person lives, the destruction of forests and the like - all this cannot but affect human health, and even human life itself, not to mention the direct threat of loss of the ability to self-reproduce environmental
3. Increasing emissions of various pollutants into the atmosphere - hundreds of thousands of tons of sulfur dioxide, hydrocarbons, and the like. These substances are gradually destroying the protective layer around the planet, and the prospects for the elimination of this layer are unpredictable.
4. Significant areas of land are being turned into landfills for household and industrial waste, which means that not only the area of ​​land suitable for agriculture is decreasing, but also hotbeds of increased danger of chemical pollution of both soils, the atmosphere, and groundwater are formed.
5. New nuclear power plants are being built. And although their creators assure people of the safety of their offspring, we have already seen the scenario for the development of events at such an object using the example of the Chernobyl disaster. Many people died, two cities were completely deserted, forests, waters, lands were contaminated with radioactive isotopes, radiation rains fell on villages and cities located thousands of kilometers from the accident site.

The ecological crisis and local military conflicts are aggravating. Laos, Afghanistan, Kampuchea, Vietnam, Central America, Africa - as a result of these wars, gigantic expanses of forests that had stood untouched for centuries were scorched, thousands of warships, training and fighting, dropped a variety of ammunition into the ocean and poured a huge amount of oil products. Mankind urgently needs to reconsider its attitude to nature, otherwise its answer will be all-destroying and sweep away most people from the face of the Earth.

At present, many contradictions, conflicts, problems outgrow the local framework and acquire a global global character.

The main causes of the crisis:

• 1. Changes in the Earth's climate as a result of natural geological processes, enhanced by the greenhouse effect caused by changes in the optical properties of the atmosphere by emissions of mainly CO, CO2 and other gases into it.
• 2. Reducing the power of the stratospheric ozone screen with the formation of the so-called "ozone holes", which reduce the protective capabilities of the atmosphere against the entry of hard short-wave ultraviolet radiation dangerous for living organisms to the Earth's surface.
• 3. Chemical pollution of the atmosphere with substances that contribute to the formation of acid precipitation, photochemical smog and other compounds that are dangerous for biosphere objects, including humans.
• 4. Pollution of the ocean and changes in the properties of ocean waters due to oil products, their saturation with carbon dioxide of the atmosphere, which in turn is polluted by vehicles and thermal power plants, burial of highly toxic chemical and radioactive substances in ocean waters, pollution from river runoff, disturbance of the water balance of coastal areas due to with the regulation of rivers;
• 5. Depletion and pollution of land waters.
• 6. Radioactive contamination of the environment.
• 7. Soil pollution due to polluted precipitation, the use of pesticides and mineral fertilizers.
• 8. Changes in the geochemistry of landscapes due to the redistribution of elements between the bowels and the surface of the Earth.
• 9. Continued accumulation on the Earth's surface of all kinds of solid waste.
• 10. Violation of the global and regional ecological balance.
• 11. Increasing desertification of the planet.
• 12. Reducing the area of ​​tropical forests and northern taiga - the main sources of maintaining the oxygen balance of the planet.
• 13. Absolute overpopulation of the Earth and relative demographic overpopulation of certain regions, extreme differentiation of poverty and wealth.
• 14. Deterioration of the living environment in overpopulated cities.
• 15. Exhaustion of many mineral deposits.
• 16. Strengthening social instability as a result of the growing differentiation of the rich and poor part of the population of many countries, the increase in the level of armament of their population, criminalization.
• 17. Decline in the immune status and health status of the population in many countries of the world, repeated repetition of epidemics, which are becoming more massive and severe in their consequences. One of the main global problems is the preservation of the environment. Its beginning lies in the distant past. About 10,000 years ago, the agricultural culture of the Neolithic arose. The expansion of the area of ​​cultivated land, the felling of trees for economic purposes, the spread of slash-and-burn agriculture - all this led to the replacement of the natural landscape with a cultural one, and increased human influence on the environment. A rapid population growth began - a population explosion - a sharp increase in population associated with an improvement in socio-economic or general historical living conditions. The population of the Earth is growing exponentially: if since 8000 BC. before the beginning of the new chronology, the population increased from 5 million to 130 million, that is, by 125 million people in 8 thousand years, then from 1930 to 1960, that is, in just 30 years, the population of the Earth increased by 1 billion people (from 2 billion to 3 billion people). Currently, it is more than 6 billion people. From 1830 to 1930, the population of Europe and North America grew, and in last years The population explosion is observed in the countries of Asia and Latin America.

The Industrial Revolution began about 200 years ago and over the past 100-150 years the face of Europe and North America has completely changed. There was an inextricable connection between nature and society, which is mutual. On the one side, natural environment, geographical and climatic features have a significant impact on social development. These factors can accelerate or slow down the pace of development of countries and peoples, and influence the social development of labor. On the other hand, society affects the natural environment of man. The history of mankind testifies both to the beneficial effect of human activities on the natural habitat, and to its detrimental consequences. Man made such chemical reactions that did not exist before on Earth. Iron, tin, lead, aluminum, nickel and many others were isolated in pure form. chemical elements. The amount of metals mined and smelted by man reaches colossal proportions and increases every year. The extraction of combustible minerals is even more significant. When burning hard coal and other fuels, oxides of carbon, nitrogen, sulfur and other products are formed. The earth's surface turns into cities and cultivated land and dramatically changes its chemical properties.

Atmospheric air pollution has exceeded all permissible limits. The concentration of substances harmful to health in the air exceeds medical standards in many cities by dozens of times. Acid rain containing sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, which is a consequence of the functioning of thermal power plants, transport and factories, is the death of lakes and forests. The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant showed the environmental threat posed by accidents at nuclear power plants, which are operated in 26 countries around the world.

The principles of the natural structure, which are violated by man and lead to an ecological crisis:

• 1. The use by man in his economic activity of energy sources internal to the biosphere (organic fuel). This leads to an increase in the entropy of the biosphere, disruption of the ecological cycles of carbon dioxide, sulfur and nitrogen oxides, and thermal pollution.
• 2. The openness of business cycles leads to a large number of waste polluting the environment. The use of many artificially synthesized substances along with natural ones causes a violation of the ecological balance, leads to an increase in environmental toxicity.
• 3. With the direct participation of man, the destruction of the structural diversity of the biosphere and the death of many species occur. There is an excessive increase in pressure on the human biosphere, which leads to serious violations of environmental stability and a decrease in the stability of the biosphere.

Surf

Almost every day, scientists bring new horrific data that testify to a global environmental crisis. And if in the coming years humanity does not change its priorities, its thinking and way of life, it will turn into a real disaster for all living things. In this article we will try to understand what is an environmental crisis? What are the main ones and how to help nature?

An ecological crisis is a gross change in natural processes in the biosphere, as a result of which almost irreversible changes occur in the environment. To date, the environmental crisis is considered one of the most complex problems that affect all spheres of human activity.

Among the main causes of the environmental crisis are demographic situation. According to official information from the UN, today the world's population is more than 6.5 billion people. According to experts, by 2050 this figure will increase to 13 billion. The main cause of the crisis in the situation with overpopulation of the planet is the lack of natural resources which are necessary for a normal existence. In addition, due to the high birth rate, as well as advances in medicine, which has reduced the death rate on planet Earth, and an overpopulation problem has formed. If you look at the statistics, the annual population growth of 77 million people is mainly observed in the poor countries of Asia and Africa. In order to stabilize the demographic situation, it is necessary to raise the standard of living throughout the world.

Causes of the ecological crisis in abundance transport. Cars with petrol and diesel engines are the main sources of environmental pollution. When fuels are burned in a vehicle, carbon monoxide. This is a very dangerous substance that affects the cerebral cortex. In addition, almost all cars are emitted into the atmosphere particulate matter, which adversely affect the planet's eco-system and are the main cause of the ecological crisis. Dust from solid particles settles on water bodies, killing all living plants. hydrogen sulfide is a toxic gas that affects the vascular and nervous system. Prolonged human contact with this asphyxiating gas can cause serious poisoning. One of the most harmful substances that are the cause of the ecological crisis are unused elements of the combustion of petroleum products. The consequences of this sad phenomenon are a sharp jump in cancer patients, since this substance has the ability to accumulate in the body, and there are no ways to remove it. 17% of greenhouse gases enter the world from vehicles.

Causes of the ecological crisis uncontrollable deforestation. One hectare of forest absorbs up to 300 kilograms of carbon dioxide per day, and releases up to 200 kilograms of oxygen. According to UN experts, if deforestation continues, then in 40 years the main bioresource of the planet will disappear. One of the main causes of the ecological crisis, deforestation disrupts the water balance on the planet. After all, trees are not only a source of air, they release moisture from the soil into the atmosphere.

Causes of the ecological crisis global warming. Due to global warming, temperatures across the planet have increased and rainfall has decreased. In the coming years, scientists predict that annual precipitation will be reduced by 40%, as a result of which there will be a failure at the hydroelectric power station. Due to global warming, the grain harvest will be reduced by 45% in the coming decades. As a result, food prices will rise. In addition, global warming will bring a large number of hurricanes and floods to the most vulnerable regions and coastal zones.

Causes of the ecological crisis destruction of the ozone layer. The main cause of ozone depletion is human activity. Over the past 20 years, scientists have observed the most severe destruction of the ozone layer, which comes from ultraviolet radiation, space flights and toxic emissions. One small particle of chlorine, after entering the atmosphere, destroys a huge number of ozone molecules. And life on Earth, as you know, is not possible without the ozone layer. The depletion of the ozone layer negatively affects people, plants and the underwater world. Each 1% decrease in ozone leads to an increase of 10,000 cancer patients and approximately 100,000 cataract patients.

How to help nature?

Each of us has a chance with little effort to help nature:

Try to use disposable plastic utensils as little as possible. After use, do not be lazy and throw it into a special container. Clean up after yourself when outdoors.

When buying products in the store, pay attention to loose ones, which are sold without packaging. Use the purchased bags for garbage.

Try to avoid toxic detergents. There are many environmental remedies that will perfectly cope with any problem.

Reduce your water consumption, avoid driving too much, plant a tree, and turn off all appliances at night.