8.3 Evolution and environmental crises

The concept of biosphere was introduced into science at the end of the last century and is connected with the study of the Earth’s envelopes, the upper one of which is the biosphere. At the beginning of the twentieth century. In the works of Academician V.I. Vernadsky, the doctrine of the biosphere emerged as a dynamic system (considered in geochemistry, biogeochemistry) involved in the development of living matter and its interaction with the earth's shell. The biosphere includes the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, and that part of the solid surface of the Earth in which living matter lives and are the products of its vital activity.

The Earth as a cosmic body arose 4.6 * 10 ⁹ years ago, and about 4 * 10 ⁹ years ago a biosphere appeared, oxygen appeared in the atmosphere about 2.5 billion years ago, and it was constantly saturated with this gas. About 1.2 * 10 ⁹ years ago, the concentration of O ₂ was one thousandth of the current concentration, and 600 million years ago, the Earth's atmosphere passed through the so-called Pasteur point. This is such a concentration of free oxygen, in which oxygen respiration becomes the main way of using the external energy of the Sun. Then there was a biological explosion, that is, there were numerous types of animals. 400 million years ago, the oxygen concentration was already 10% modern, the ozone layer protecting the living matter arose from hard radiation, life from the ocean reached land, the intensity of the photosynthesis reaction increased, and the oxygen concentration reached a modern level over 100 million years. The concentration of carbon dioxide all this time decreased - he went into the food of plants, the production of biomass. However, human activity led to the fact that a significant amount of carbon dioxide began to enter the atmosphere, and its concentration by the end of the 20th century. began to increase markedly: over the past 100 years, it has increased by more than 20%.

So, throughout the entire history of the planet, the complexity of the biosphere as a system has continuously increased. Note that not all components of the biosphere are continuously evolving, some ecosystems (biocenoses) stop developing, and then degrade and die, not being able to withstand the competition. Other forms of life develop instead. The biosphere in its development is practically an unstable system. It is very important to find criteria for some degree of sustainable development of a particular biocenosis, although sustainable development, based on the rules formulated above, cannot be in principle.

The history of anthropogenesis passed through catastrophic restructuring, bifurcations, which are sometimes called revolutions. These processes do not occur instantaneously - there is a period of bifurcation restructuring, when the previous state of the system loses stability, and random factors prevail in the behavior of the system. Below will be considered two such system states, namely: the Mesolithic and Neolithic revolutions.

The first of them began in the Paleolithic era, stretched for tens of thousands of years and ended on the eve of the Neolithic. Recall that the Paleolithic belongs to the ancient Stone Age, the chronological boundaries of the Paleolithic 800000-13000 years ago. This epoch is subdivided into the ancient (lower), middle (Mesolithic) and late (Neolithic) Paleolithic, in which human society passed from the primitive herd to the matriarchal-clan community. In the Neolithic era, pottery first appeared, and agriculture and cattle breeding began to appear. In the epoch of the Mesolithic, a radical restructuring of the process of the evolution of Man took place: he passed from an ordinary representative of the animal world to a certain social organization; The concept of morality appeared. The development of stone and bone processing techniques and the mastery of fire isolated human beings from a herd of animals. There was a need for a higher form of learning and the formation of collective behavior and the so-called collective memory. In the herd there is a collective memory and a learning mechanism built on the principle of "do as I do." This principle allows you to keep a limited set of information, and more is needed to the emerging society, namely: to keep the craftsmen, experts and transfer knowledge to other generations. The mechanism of natural selection, solving immediate problems, could sweep away these craftsmen and teachers, since they did not possess most of their fighting qualities. At this stage of anthropogenesis, therefore, a taboo began to appear on the destruction of such persons in the struggle, since this could violate the preservation of knowledge, the intellectual beginning of the population. Among these taboos a special place was taken by the principle “Thou shalt not kill!”, I.e. society (family, primitive flock) began to take under the protection of craftsmen, teachers, etc. Such a ban entered the life standards of all tribes and nations, i.e. The intraspecific struggle practically began to disappear, and a leap occurred: the attenuation of the intraspecific struggle translated Man's evolution to new rails, the organismic selection seemed to give way to the superorganismal one. Those tribes that could not be rebuilt were wiped off the face of the earth, for the Market is merciless. The further evolution of the species homo sapiens lay in the plane of the social organization of the tribes. Adoption of the principle "Thou shalt not kill!" led to a new form of collective memory capable of memorizing and transmitting to the descendants large amounts of information. As a result, an institute emerged which Academician N. N. Moiseev calls the "Teacher"; he played a special role in the history of the human race. Thus, the creation of a collective memory, a complexly organized collective intelligence, the development of communication between individuals is a revolutionary step in the evolution of homo sapiens, the key point of which was the establishment of the foundations of morality. The phenomenon that we call spiritual life was born in this era. If evolution had not followed this path, then man would have exhausted himself in the intraspecific struggle. However, he "preferred" purely biological development to go the way of the development of social forms of existence, that is, the formation of collective intelligence in the development of individuality. But having stood out from the living world with the character of his evolution, otherwise Man belongs to the animal kingdom, since he has not changed the circulation of substances in Nature.

The Neolithic revolution occurred at the beginning of the Neolithic and many times strengthened the development of society. At that time, bows, spears, more advanced stone weapons appeared, methods of collective hunting were developed. Hunting passion led to the destruction of the herd of mammoths and large ungulates, which formed the basis of the diet of people. They killed more than was necessary for food, the "Malthus problem" first arose, and the first global environmental crisis appeared that swept many continents. Humanity was again on the verge of disaster. People came out victorious from this ecological crisis, inventing agriculture and cattle breeding. But this further led to the emergence of private property, which was previously unknown in the living world. Private property proved to be a powerful stimulus in the development of civilization.

Possessing land and cattle, it became easier for Man to ensure his survival, in addition, he had an additional product, and this led to new goals and interests. A new type of production relationship has emerged. With the advent of private property, new needs arise and a powerful incentive to satisfy them, instruments of labor are improved, and their diversity is accelerating more and more - humanity is taking the path of the scientific and technological revolution. The Neolithic revolution - it was a bifurcation process with an unpredictable result, humanity could have taken a different path, it could have disappeared.

With the advent of agriculture and cattle breeding, Man begins to rebuild the biosphere more and more actively to fit his needs. Before this, Man, like the entire animal world, fit into the biosphere, now - subordinates the biosphere to his needs. In Nature, humanity saw a reservoir of unlimited possibilities, the "Strategy of Nature" and the "Strategy of Man" were not coordinated, and this led to the fact that we were again on the verge of a terrible ecological crisis, and therefore a new bifurcation. Many scientists warned about this phenomenon, it is now clear that it cannot be avoided. It became obvious that it was necessary to coordinate the "Strategy of Nature" and the "Strategy of Man", that is, to arrive at a common development strategy, called co-evolution.

We emphasize that the inevitability of a new environmental crisis is increasingly recognized by people, public organizations and governments, but unfortunately it has come to an understanding of this too late, and the problem now is how to mitigate the course and consequences of this crisis. The development of a technogenic civilization, apparently, ends with the aforementioned threat, now we are on the threshold of a new period of history - the transition to a common strategy of Man and Nature, i.e., to the era of co-evolutionary development.

Having become a monopolist in his niche in the Neolithic era, man took the path of its destruction, the "conquest" of Nature and brought it to its present state. The biosphere does not manage to cope with the results of the grandiose, comparable with the geological, activity of Man. There are many signs confirming this thought.

Greenhouse effect. Anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, aerosols lead to an increase in the average temperature of the Earth's surface. The works of many researchers have shown that in one or two generations (by the middle of the twenty-first century), as a result of the greenhouse effect, the temperature in the polar regions of our Planet will noticeably increase, ice cover, behavior of areas with permafrost, tundra and forest borders will change. The temperature difference between the polar and equatorial zones will decrease, and this will lead to a change in the structure of the atmospheric circulation. Omitting a number of intermediate phenomena, let us dwell on the result of these global processes: the areas of deserts and semi-deserts will dramatically expand, the productivity of the main granary of the Planet — the steppes of Eurasia, the Mediterranean, the corn belt of North America — will noticeably decrease (approximately by 20-25%). One should expect a rise in the level of the World Ocean. These changes affect almost the entire northern hemisphere of the Planet.

The growth of the genetic inferiority of mankind . Today, every 700 children due to natural mutations, which are additionally imposed by the pressure of social factors (alcohol and drug addiction), overpopulation of cities, air and water pollution, population migration, etc., are born with noticeable deviations from the norm. Previously, these children died, but the success of modern medicine allows them not only to survive, but also to give offspring, which leads to erosion of the gene pool, that is, to an increase in the percentage of inferior individuals.

It is assumed that by the end of the twenty-first century. humanity can approach the dangerous threshold of such erosion of the gene pool.

Pollution of the Ocean leads to the inhibition of oceanic biota, therefore, to a reduction in food resources. Then there is a reduction in evaporation from the sea surface, which leads to a change in energy exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere.

Reducing the area of ​​tropical forests and taiga - light planets that produce the bulk of oxygen.

Reducing the density of the ozone layer can lead to an increase in hard ultraviolet radiation falling on the surface of the Earth, cancer and other diseases of people.

Malthus problem . There was a problem of discrepancy between the growing needs of humanity and the decrease in the resource of the Planet. At the time of Malthus, the talk was about the disparity between population growth and food production growth. But now this problem has expanded and become more formidable. There is a devastation of hydrocarbon fuel storerooms, a decrease in soil fertility and their decommissioning - the degradation of the natural environment takes on the character of a catastrophe. The Earth receives energy from the Sun, this leads to the circulation of substances in nature, to natural geochemical cycles. Humanity litters the Planet with the waste of vital activity, and the biosphere must maintain balance in the process of self-organization, otherwise a catastrophe will occur.

Renewable energy sources provide only about 10% of current needs. So it is necessary either to reduce the needs, or to reduce the population of the Earth by a factor of 10.

The distribution and use of earthly goods is uneven, and it is impossible to raise the level of the population of all countries to the level of industrial states.

Loss of stability of the biosphere . The biosphere is an integral system of which humanity is a part, the biosphere is a self-adjusting system. Until recently, it still withstood the load, now man has become the main danger for the stability of the biosphere. Compensation capabilities of the biosphere are either already violated or are at the limit. Apparently, the mismatch has already arisen, and it will grow further, and this, in turn, sooner or later will lead to a catastrophic failure, which will arise unexpectedly and irreversibly. The biosphere may move to a new state, the parameters of which may not be suitable for human life.

The described crisis phenomena can appear even during the lifetime of the current generation. We are on the threshold of a new period in the history of civilization.

From the previous section it follows that mankind faced such complex problems and they need to be solved in such a short period of time that it is appropriate to introduce the concept of an “environmental imperative” - a set of restrictions on the activities of people whose violation could lead to a catastrophe.

We have seen that the ecological imperative comes down to ensuring the possibility of co-evolution, that is, the joint development of man and the biosphere, and this development takes place in a changing dynamic environment.

But this task with many unknowns, for example, is still not clear whether the joint development of Nature and Man is possible at all. Is mankind capable of self-restraint, is it possible to implement the regulation of people's behavior, their implementation of prohibitions, i.e., ultimately, the observance of the rules of new morality. These restrictions will be called the "moral imperative." If so, new taboos should appear, like the principle "Thou shalt not kill!" in the Mesolithic era. It is clear that it will be necessary to subordinate your individuality to social necessity. Moreover, even if such rules are worked out, it is not clear how much it will be possible to subordinate its activities to the new canons. After all, first of all, Man must abandon the dangerous illusion of primacy over Nature and learn to live according to the laws of Nature. A person must also realize his belonging not only to science, the state, but also to the entire planetary community. But for awareness of all this time, almost no more, because we can not afford the evolutionary or "market" ways out of the crisis, as it was at the dawn of civilization. Only Collective Mind can save humanity. It is very important religious and philosophical beliefs, their diversity in different continents.

Note that the main provisions of the new morality have long been known to mankind. Take, for example, the principles of the "Sermon on the Mount" or the philosophical maxims of the East. Apparently, they should form the basis of a new morality, and something should be added to them about the relationship between Man and Nature, scientific data, etc. Next, we should build a system of education so that these principles are included in the flesh and blood of people.

From the general evolutionary point of view, the upcoming stage of the history of mankind means a further increase in the role of Reason and the formation of the Collective Intelligence of the planetary scale.