Lecture 1. Global Ecological Crisis

A crisis is one of the states of the environment, of nature, or of the biosphere as a whole. It is preceded or followed by other states and accompanying environmental situations.

By an ecological crisis is meant a change in the biosphere or its parts over a significant area, accompanied by a transformation of the environment and of systems as a whole into a new quality. At present the term «crisis» is used just as often as the terms «environmental pollution» and resource shortage.

The biosphere has repeatedly experienced acute crisis periods caused by purely natural phenomena. The best known crisis occurred at the end of the Cretaceous period (70-100 million years ago), when, over a geologically short span of time, five orders of reptiles (dinosaurs, pterosaurs, ichthyosaurs, and others), comprising no fewer than 35 families and a large number of species, became extinct.

Crisis phenomena have repeatedly been caused by climate change and the accompanying glaciations or desertification. Thus, during the glaciation that occurred 30-40 thousand years ago (Upper Paleolithic), such large animals as mammoths, the woolly rhinoceros, and many predators became extinct.

Since its very appearance, human activity has repeatedly come into conflict with nature, giving rise to crises of various scales. However, owing to the small size of the population and its weak technical equipment, these never took on global proportions. Using the methods available to him, man could exhaust some resource or destroy nature and ecosystems only over areas of limited size.

What is common to all anthropogenic crises is that the way out of them was, as a rule, accompanied by a decline in population, its migration, and social upheavals. In a number of cases the crises ended with a change of social system. Thus, the first anthropogenic crisis caused the dispersal of hunters, or the «great migration of peoples»; the crisis of agricultural-product shortage (the second anthropogenic crisis) caused the emigration of population from Europe overseas. The transition to agriculture and animal husbandry was accompanied by the disintegration of the primitive-communal system and the emergence of the slave-owning system, and the latter was accompanied by desertification and depletion of land resources and by the transition to the feudal system.

1. 1. TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS

It has now been established that the fossil ancestors of man appeared approximately 4.5 million years ago and began using tools 2.5 million years BC.

The final formation of «homo sapiens» was completed 40 thousand years BC in the Middle East.

During the Paleolithic and Mesolithic (10—12 thousand years BC), people engaged in hunting and gathering of fruits and soon exhausted the possibilities of their ecological niche. As the number of people grew, food became scarce and famine began. The number of settlements at the start of the Neolithic (10 thousand years BC) is 8—10 times fewer than during the Paleolithic. To avoid starving to death, people invented new technologies for obtaining food: agriculture and animal husbandry. Thus began the f i r s t technological revolution. This revolution is also called the Neolithic, or agricultural revolution.

The development of agriculture was accompanied by an advance upon nature. Before man took up agriculture, there existed on the globe vast expanses of forest, with a total area of approximately 62 million km² (6.2 billion hectares). However, over the course of many centuries, as a result of clearing land for arable fields, pastures, and timber harvesting, the area of forest ecosystems shrank to 42 million km², i.e. by almost a third. Because of the salinization of irrigated lands, the Sumerian civilization in Lower Mesopotamia perished 2 thousand years BC, when agriculture there became impossible. This was the first ecological catastrophe known to us.

The second technological revolution, called the industrial revolution, began in the 18th century in England. This technological revolution made it possible to sharply increase the volume and nature of production. England, which was the first to master the mechanical spinning wheel, the power loom, and the steam engine, quickly moved from craft production to machine production. This gave it enormous advantages over other countries. Already by the mid-19th century it was producing more than half of the world's industrial output.

The modern scientific-technical revolution (STR) — the third technological revolution in the history of mankind — began on August 6, 1945, when an American atomic bomb was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. From that moment the atomic age began, accompanied both by the development of nuclear weapons and their testing in the atmosphere and underground, and by the creation of nuclear power. At the same time (in the second half of the 1940s) the first electronic computer was created. Computers, and later personal computers, have now conquered the world, becoming an integral part of new technological processes.

The scale of the ecological crisis

The scale of humanity's present-day activity has no parallel in the history of the planet. Over 80 years (since the beginning of the 20th century), more mineral resources have been extracted from the depths of the Earth than during the entire history of civilization since the Paleolithic. More than half of the iron ore, over 2/3 of the oil, natural gas, potassium salts, and phosphorites, and 3/4 of the bauxite mined during these years was taken from the Earth in just 20 years (from 1960 to 1980).

By plowing the soil, man annually moves a mass of earth (with a volume of 4 thousand km³) approximately 3 times greater than the mass of all volcanic products rising from the planet's depths over the same period, and 200 times more than is carried into the seas and oceans by flowing water. He withdraws 13% of the world's river flow (3.8 thousand km³) for household and economic needs; burns 13.2 billion tons of standard fuel, consuming in the process 22 billion tons of atmospheric oxygen (1993 data); smelts 2.5 billion tons of various metals (fig. 6.1); produces more than 60 million tons of synthetic materials unknown in nature; and scatters over fields more than 500 million tons of various pesticides, a third of which is washed by rain into bodies of water and retained in the atmosphere.

At present the area of land developed by man has reached 60% of the land surface. Built-up land now occupies about 300 million hectares.

However, the planet's riches are used unevenly. The countries of the Group of Seven (USA, Great Britain, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Canada) are home to 15% of the planet's population, yet they use 53% of energy, 33% of fertilizers, 70% of commercial timber, and generate 81% of the most hazardous waste and 90% of the chlorofluorocarbons that destroy the ozone layer (fig. 6.4).

2. Global problems of humanity

2.1. The problem of overpopulation

1. Basic concepts of demography

Demography (Greek demos - people) is the science that studies population, its structure, composition, dynamics, and reproduction (birth rate, death rate, life expectancy) in their overall socio-historical conditionality.

In this section we will use the following generally accepted concepts:

The «total fertility rate» (TFR) is the average number of children a woman bears over her lifetime.

The «crude birth rate» (CBR) is the average number of children born per year per 1000 people of the population.

The «crude death rate» (CDR) is the average number of people who die per year per 1000 people of the population.

«Natural population growth» is the difference between the CBR and the CDR. To express natural growth as a percentage, its value must be divided by 10.

The «demographic transition» is a period of population increase in a country or in the world caused by a high birth rate combined with a sharp decline in mortality, especially child mortality.

Population dynamics in historical perspective.

The uniqueness of the scale of the present-day population explosion is evident from the data given below.

At the start of the agricultural revolution, 10,000 years BC, 10 million people lived on our planet, and at the beginning of the new era — 100-250 million.

In 1830 the Earth's population reached 1 billion; in 1930 — 2 billion, i.e. it took 100 years for the population to double. The Earth's population reached 3 billion already in 1960; 4 billion people lived on Earth in 1974; the five-billionth inhabitant of Earth was born on July 11, 1987.

Over the last millennium the Earth's population has increased 18-fold.

The acceleration of the growth rate of the world's population in the second half of the 20th century is often called the population explosion.

Every second the population increases by 3 people. In the second half of the 1990s the increase amounted to 80 million per year (1.4%) (see fig. 7.2).

For the Earth's future, trends in population growth in the 21st century and the possibility of stabilizing the population are exceptionally important. Forecasts are published every year, and in 1990 it was assumed that by 2000 there would be 6.25 billion people on Earth, by 2025 — 8.5 billion, by 2100 — 11.3 billion (1988 forecast) or 10.2—14.2 billion (1984 forecast) (fig. 7.3).

1. Growth of cities. In recent decades the growth rate of the urban population in developing countries has exceeded the rate of natural population increase. In 2000 half of humanity lived in cities. The largest cities in the world in 1994 were Tokyo (Japan, 26.5 million people), New York (USA, 16.3 million), Sao Paulo (Brazil, 16.1 million), Mexico City (Mexico, 15.5 million), Shanghai (China, 14.7 million), Bombay (India, 14.5 million), Los Angeles (USA, 12.2 million), Beijing (China, 12.0 million), Calcutta (India, 11.5 million), Seoul (South Korea, 11.5 million).

Population density in cities is extremely high: in Moscow — 90 thousand people per 1 km2, in New York — 10 thousand, in Paris — 12 thousand, in Tokyo — 14 thousand.

At the same time, in the cities of developing countries the number of homes lacking clean drinking water and sewerage is increasing, as is the number of camps and slums.

2. Aging of the population. In 1996 the World Health Organization published a report stating that the number of people of retirement age will increase by 88% over the next 25 years, which will lead to an imbalance in the labor resources of our planet. The working-age population will have to work much more in order to pay taxes into pension funds. Whereas now two working people support one pensioner, by 2025 one working person will have to support two pensioners. By 2025 every tenth person in the world will be over 66 years old. The planet's elderly population will reach 800 million people (in 1998 — 390 million people).

3. Demographic situation

At the start of 2002, 144 million people lived in Russia (103 million in cities and 39 million in villages). By 2010 the number of Russians will decrease by 5 million people. According to UN experts' estimates, Russia's population will decline to 121 million by 2050, and Ukraine's — from 51 to 39 million.

Women's average life expectancy in 2001 was 72 years, men's — 60 years. Today only one 20-year-old Russian out of two has a chance of living to 60. (In the countries of the European Union, men's average life expectancy is 73.8 years, and women's — 80.6.) This situation in Russia is explained by declining living standards and medical care, and by drunkenness and smoking among a significant part of the population. It should be noted, however, that the decline in the birth rate and the increase in the death rate of Russia's population have been observed since 1960. The number of births and deaths per 1000 people of Russia's population became equal in 1991, and since then the death rate has exceeded the birth rate.

3. Problems related to overpopulation

High rates of population growth create major material and social problems: providing the population with water, food, housing, and jobs, and expanding the education system.

In the economically developed countries of Europe (including the republics of the former Soviet Union), North America, and Japan, whose population makes up 23% of the world's population, its growth reaches only 6%.

Thus, most of the planet's new inhabitants will appear in the poorest countries, those least equipped to meet the needs of their citizens. The number of poor, hungry, and illiterate people will increase. Although the share of the undernourished fell from 27% of the population of developing countries in 1969—1971 to 21.5% in 1983—1985, with the overall growth of the world's population the number of undernourished people increased from 460 to 512 million, and by the end of the 20th century rose to 532 million people.

Approximately every tenth inhabitant of Earth is now undernourished, and about 40 thousand children die of hunger every day (data as of June 1992). Every third death is caused by starvation or by causes related to malnutrition.

Because of population growth the employment problem has sharply worsened. The introduction of new labor-saving technologies only makes solving the unemployment problem more difficult.

The share of the population lacking basic sanitary facilities has remained practically unchanged.

The total number of people living below the poverty line has increased over the last two decades to 1 billion people. In South Asia there are 350 million such people, followed by Africa — 300 million, whose share of Africa's total population (383 million people) is very high. The number of people living in conditions of extreme poverty continues to increase. The scale of poverty is steadily growing. In 1985, the poorest 20% of the world's population accounted for 4% of the world's wealth, while the richest 20% accounted for 58%.

According to UNESCO data, by 2050 the planet will have 1 billion starving people, 1 billion illiterate people, 1 billion unemployed people, and 1.5 billion people below the poverty line.

The growth of population in the poorest countries has begun to have an irreversible impact on the environment. In the 1990s these changes reached critical proportions. They include the unabating growth of cities, the degradation of land and water resources, intensive deforestation, and the development of the greenhouse effect. Decisive action is needed to limit population growth, combat poverty, and protect nature.

2.2. Earth's resources

By natural resources, as is well known, are meant natural bodies, phenomena, and processes that man uses in productive activity. Natural resources can be divided into two large groups: exhaustible and inexhaustible. Exhaustible resources, in turn, are subdivided into non-renewable and renewable.

Non-renewable resources include the riches of the subsoil. Renewable resources include soil, vegetation, the living world, as well as certain mineral resources, for example salts deposited in lakes and sea lagoons.

It is widely accepted to divide natural resources into real (proven) and potential ones. The literature discusses in de-

tail the use of water, soil, and plant resources, including food resources, wildlife resources, climatic resources (wind, solar, and others), and mineral resources. Below we will examine food, water, and mineral resources.

1. Food resources

Will our planet be able to feed all its inhabitants in the future?

For many years, food production grew significantly faster than the world's population. For example, wheat production grew by almost 250% from 1950 to 1980, while the population grew by only 170%. In the period 1950—1985, grain production increased from 700 to more than 1800 million tons. This helped meet the growing demand for grain caused by population and income growth in developing countries, as well as by increased demand for livestock feed in developed countries.

In Europe, from 1950 to 1984, meat production tripled and milk production doubled. The volume of world meat exports grew from 2 million tons in 1950—1952 to more than 11 million tons in 1984, and the production of fish products also increased. Such an unprecedented growth in food production is called the green revolution

Population growth was accompanied by a reduction in cultivated area per capita in most countries of the world, primarily in Africa. Since the area of available arable land had shrunk, planning bodies and farmers focused their attention on raising productivity.

From 1950 to 1985 this was achieved through:

• the use of new seed varieties aimed at maximizing yields, obtaining several harvests per year, and greater resistance of plants to disease (fig. 7.7);

• wider use of chemical fertilizers, consumption of which increased more than 9-fold (fig. 7.8);

• wider use of pesticides and other agrochemicals, the use of which increased 32-fold;

• an increase in irrigated areas, which more than doubled.

• In the countries of Europe and North America, 15% of the population is overweight. In the USA, excess weight is recorded in 60% of the population, and 27% of US residents suffer from obesity.

The area of arable land in developing countries increased in the 1980s by an average of 0.26% per year. At the same time, the amount of land per person decreased annually by 1.9%.

According to 1990 data, enough food is produced in the world to feed everyone, but 800 million people (out of 5.4 billion) suffer from malnutrition. Every third death is caused by starvation or by causes related to malnutrition.

Thus, it can be concluded that the world's population as a whole can be supplied with food. However, this requires an adequate water supply, soil cultivation, the use of elite seed grain for sowing, and the preservation of ecological balance.

2. Water resources

Water is one of the most important types of natural resources. Not all areas of the globe are rich in natural drinking water sufficient to support the population living there. To regulate proper metabolism in the body, a person must consume 2 to 3 liters of water daily. Water is also necessary for maintaining body hygiene, cooking, cleaning premises, etc.

According to average statistical estimates, a person consumes about 25 liters of water daily from sources near the home. In apartments with running water but no bath, it is 40 to 70 liters, and in apartments with all amenities, 250 to 400 liters.

The total daily water consumption in London is 300 liters per person, and in Moscow — 380 liters (however, 20% of the water in Moscow does not reach the consumer due to leaks). Fresh water is widely used in industry and agriculture.

In many countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America there is an acute shortage of water. Here, meeting even the most minimal human needs for drinking water is a major problem. At the same time, its quality is not sufficiently high.

Over 1 billion people on the planet lack access to clean water.

As a result of consuming insufficiently clean water, more than 2 million people die of disease every year, 60% of them children. Almost 75% of diseases and epidemics are caused by the consumption of hygienically unsuitable water.

3. Mineral resources

Over the past 30 years, humanity has consumed as much mineral raw material as during the entire preceding history of its existence! Demand for it is growing annually in all countries. By 2000, demand for copper (taking the 1970 level as 100%) had grown 4.8-fold; for bauxite and zinc — 4.2-fold; for nickel — 4.7-fold; for oil — 5.2-fold; for gas — 4.5-fold; and for coal — 5-fold.

According to data published in 1992, the length of time known reserves of minerals can meet world demand (at 1992 consumption levels) is as follows: iron — 63 years, aluminum — over 60—70 years, titanium — over 300 years, chromium — over 50 years, vanadium — over 300 years, manganese — 170 years, platinum — 90 years, cobalt — 25 years, nickel — 100 years, tantalum — 45 years, tungsten — 40 years. According to 1996 data [81], lead will last 22 years, copper — 28 years, zinc — 20 years, tin — 37 years, molybdenum — 44 years, gold — 17 years, silver — 19 years.

The limited nature of mineral resources poses a serious problem for creating resource-saving and energy-saving industrial technologies.