Man as a biosocial species
General ecological patterns determine the relationship with the outside world of all living beings on Earth, including humans.
Man is one of the 3 million currently known biological species on Earth. Its place in the system of the animal kingdom has been determined: the class of mammals, the order of primates, the family of hominids, the genus of man, in which only one species has survived to this day - Homo sapiens ( Homo sapiens).
From an ecological point of view, humanity is a global population of a biological species, an integral part of the Earth's ecosystem. But it is obvious that this species is special, significantly different from all other inhabitants of the planet. Therefore, difficult environmental issues arise. Does humanity obey the laws of fundamental ecology? If yes, then completely or partially? If partially, then by how much?
The second part of the textbook is entirely devoted to the peculiarities of the manifestation of general ecological patterns in the relationship with the outside world of only one species - humans. Modern ecological problems challenges facing humanity require urgent consideration and resolution. Only on the basis of a deep and comprehensive understanding of the relationships between humanity and nature is their rational, optimal regulation possible. And this is necessary in order to prevent crisis and self-destruction, ensure the sustainable development of nature and society, preserve the integrity of the global ecosystem and guarantee the existence of humanity in the future.
The biological nature of man is manifested in the inherent desire of all living things to preserve their life and continue it in time and space through reproduction, to ensure maximum safety and comfort. These natural aspirations are achieved through humanity's constant interactions with its environment. All people consume food and excrete products of physiological metabolism, protect themselves from enemies and avoid other dangers, participate in competition for life resources and promote species that are beneficial to themselves. In other words, humanity is characterized by a full range of ecological connections. This is the main ecological similarity of humanity with the populations of all other biological species.
In the philosophical literature, two positions have emerged on this issue. According to one, human nature is entirely social. According to another, it is not only social, but also biologically loaded. At the same time, we are not talking about the fact that human life activity also has biological determinants that determine a person’s dependence on a set of genes, the balance of hormones produced, metabolism and infinite number other factors.
The existence of these factors is recognized by everyone. It's about about whether there are biologically programmed proto-social patterns of human behavior.
Despite the significance of the social essence of man, it cannot be separated or contrasted with the natural, biological principle. Man is a complex natural formation, a living organism with biological needs, functions, higher intellectual and other forms of the psyche. He is in complex biological relationships with other people as biological beings, with animals and plant world and inorganic nature. The biological nature of man constitutes the necessary level of human essence. To be a social being, a person must first be a living being, possessing the most complex biology among living beings. Today, in the era of scientific and technological revolution, the biological foundations of the human being are subject to powerful deforming effects. Neuropsychological stress, pollution environment etc. made one of global problems preservation of humans as a biological species. This makes you rethink a lot of things the problem of the relationship between the biological and the social in man.
How biological species the person is extremely flexible. Unlike animals of other species, the biological organization of man allows him to adapt to very wide range external conditions. However, its possibilities are not limitless - now we are close to the thresholds, beyond which the biological organization of a human being undergoes irreversible changes that destroy it. Never before has the human environment been so saturated ionizing radiation and is contaminated with chemicals that are harmful to its very existence and extremely dangerous to its future, since the mutation process has intensified and its negative impact on human heredity has increased. What makes the current situation particularly complicated is that the harmful effects of many factors (for example, radiation) are not directly felt by people and will only affect them in the future. All this makes a dismissive attitude towards human biology unacceptable. Moreover, the biological organization of a human being is something valuable in itself, and no social goals can justify violence against it.
On the other hand, it should be emphasized that success modern science in the study of biology, genetics and the human psyche open up opportunities for him to better adapt to new factors of the natural and artificial environment and even, to a certain extent, transform his biological nature in relation to new tasks in the field of knowledge and practice. This, in turn, raises a number of questions: will the appearance of a person change and in what direction? Will there be some new forms of human existence connected to cybernetic devices? Isn’t humanity entering a new stage of its evolution with the direct participation genetic engineering and biocybernetics? etc. These questions concerning the biology, genetics and psyche of the future person are actively discussed in modern science.
So, man is both a natural and a social being
2. Biosocial nature of man and ecology
Rice. 4. The uniqueness of man as a biosocial species (Khabarova E.I., Panova S.A., 2001)
Man is the highest stage of development of living organisms on Earth. He, according to I.T. Frolov (1985), “a biosocial creature, genetically related to other forms of life, but separated from them due to the ability to produce tools, possessing articulate speech and consciousness, creative activity and moral self-awareness.”
Biosocial nature of man is expressed in the fact that his life includes both biological and social elements. This necessitates not only its biological, but also social adaptation, i.e. bringing inter-individual and group behavior into conformity with the prevailing norms and values in a given society by acquiring knowledge about this society. Biological adaptation of a person strives to preserve not only his biological, but also social functions with increasing value social factor. The latter circumstance has important environmental significance and is reflected in the ecological approach to the definition of the concept Human .
Man is one of the species of the animal kingdom with a complex social organization and labor activity, which largely “removes” (makes it less noticeable) the biological, including ethological (primary behavioral) properties of the organism (N.F. Reimers, 1990).
Chapter 4
Human ecological connections
§ 23-24. Man as a biosocial species.Features of food and informationhuman connections
381
Homo sapiens - one in three million known to science biological species.
Homo sapiens is not integral part Earth's ecosystems.
The biological essence of man is manifested in the desire to preserve his life and continue it through reproduction.
competitive exclusion and others.
5. Ecological differences between humanity and populations of other species lie in the scale of ecological connections and the features of their implementation.
382. Choose the correct statement. To maintain life, a person needs approximately:
A) 2500 cal; c) 250 kcal;
B) 2500 kcal; d) 1000 cal.
Answer, due to what types of energy the energy intensity of food production increases from primitive
society to slave society and from pre-industrial to industrial.
Choose the correct statements. The main features of food connections of modern humanity are:
B) simplification;
c) shortening;
D) elongation;
D) an increase in the energy cost of producing each calorie of food products;
E) a fall in the energy cost of producing each calorie of food products.
385 . Choose the correct statements.
Animals, unlike humans, are not able to exchange information with their own kind.
The trophic capacity of the habitat of modern humanity has increased compared to primitive society.
Information communications of modern humanity cannot be addressed to future generations.
The coordinated actions of organisms increase the impact on the environment.
387
. Draw two graphs. The first estimates the increase in the number of people able to feed themselves on a territory of 500 hectares during different social formations (in primitive society- 1 person, in slaveholding - 100, in feudal -
200, in industrial - 3000). The second shows the dependence of the energy invested in obtaining food on an area of 500 hectares on the type of society (energy is measured in conventional units (cu) of human muscular energy). In primitive society - 1.00. e., in slaveholding - 20 USD. e., in feudal - 40 USD. e., in industrial - 30,000 USD. f. Compare the slope of the two graphs. Explain the differences. Knowing the growth trend in food production and the energy spent on it, evaluate the prospects for these processes in the future. Give your prediction. How should humanity develop to avoid environmental problems in food production?
§ 25-26. Use of tools and energy.History of the development of environmental relationshumanity. Ancient hominids
Place the names of the ancestors modern man
(homo sapiens) one after another in the order of their origin; Homo habilis, Cro-Magnon, Homo erectus (Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus), Australopithecus, Neanderthal.
From the listed names of people, choose the one that belongs to the species Homo sapiens:
B) homo erectus; e) Australopithecus;
c) Pithecanthropus; e) synanthropus.
390
. Choose the correct statement. For the first time, the ancestors of modern people began to use primitive tools -
bones, stones, sticks:
IN) nervous stress; e) plenty of food.
D) predators;
Name environmental factors, limiting in modern conditions the potentially endless growth of human populations.
From the listed factors, select those that no longer have a significant impact on demography, and those that are suppressed, but are capable of reducing the population. Fill the table.
Environmental factors and demography of human society
Suggest additional factors and write them in the table in a different color.
- List the diseases that most often lead to
Why do cancer have a less pronounced impact on human demography than cholera or
AIDS? Choose the correct answer:
premature death of people in our country.
(post-reproductive generation);
B) relatively few people die from these diseases;
C) modern medicine can deal with them more easily.
Statistics show that more than 80% of cancers are caused by environmental factors. The proportional distribution of causes of human cancer is as follows: smoking - 30%, chemical substances food - 35%, unfavorable working conditions - 5%, alcoholic beverages - 3%, radiation - 3%, air and water pollution - 2%, other reasons - 5%, reasons not related to environmental influences - 17%.
Every year, 5.9 million new cases of cancer are registered worldwide and 3.4 million patients die. Calculate how many people in the world die each year from cancer caused by smoking.
List preventative measures against the disease
AIDS.
413
. List the actions by which man has increased the ecological capacity of his environment. Imagine and offer your own examples of ways to increase the ecological capacity of the environment in the future.
§ 31. Growthhuman population
414
. Choose the correct statement. Explosive growth of the world population in the second half of the 20th century. occurred due to:
A) increasing the birth rate;
B) reducing the mortality rate due to improved nutrition and sanitary and hygienic living conditions;
c) industrial revolution;
D) use of new energy sources;
D) improving women's education.
415 . List the reasons why, starting from the middle of the 19th century. The world's population began to grow exponentially. Choose the correct answers:
A) improving nutrition;
B) improvement of sanitary conditions;
B) environmental pollution;
D) favorable climate changes;
D) improving healthcare.
416.
Plot a graph of population growth for globe. Until the 19th century she grew slowly. In 1700 the population was 0.6 billion people. The milestone of the first billion was overcome in 1830; the second - in 1939; the third - in 1960; fourth - in 1975; fifth - in 1987 In 1994, the number of people on Earth reached 5.5 billion, and in 1998 -
5.9 billion
417 . The number of city residents in this year was 550 thousand people. 8 thousand were born during the year. Calculate what the relative birth rate was when converted to 1000 people.
418 . In one of the cities of the Volga region since the early 1990s. The birth rate (the number of newborns per year per 1000 women of reproductive age) decreased, but the mortality rate remained at the same level. The population continues to grow, however. Suggest a reason why this might be happening.
419
. One of the latest UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) information booklets reported that in the 1980s. The world population increased by three people per second. How many children were born daily? in a year?
A. How many descendants did α have at the time of her death?
B. How many descendants did β have at the time of her death?
IN. Plot a graph of the increase in the number of each of these two families over 120 years, plotting the number of descendants on the ordinate axis, and time on the abscissa axis.
§ 32. Socio-geographical features
human demographics
Decipher the abbreviations: UN, FAO, UNESCO,
WHO, AIDS.
Select from the list below countries in which the demographic situation at the end of the 20th century. relatively stable, with a slight decline in population
(mortality slightly exceeds low birth rate); stable (low birth rate and low death rate approximately
balanced) and unstable, with a rapidly growing population (high birth rate):
Fill the table.
| Countrieswith demographicsituation that hastrendto reduceindigenous people | Countrieswith relativelystabledemographic situation, withoutnatural increase | Countries with fastgrowing population |
423 . Construct two age pyramids reflecting the age composition of the population of Russia (150 million inhabitants) and Indonesia (190 million inhabitants), using the data given in the table.
| Age group | Russia | Indonesia | |||
| From 0 to 10 years | 21 million | 48 million |
|||
| From 1 1 to 20 years | 23 million | 37 million |
|||
| From 21 to 30 years old | 22 million | 32 million |
|||
| From 31 to 40 years old | 22 million | 25 million |
|||
| From 41 to 50 years | 22 million | 19 million |
|||
| From 51 to 60 pets | 14 million | 13 million |
|||
| From 61 to 70 years | 8 million |
||||
| From 71 to 80 pets | 8 million | 6 million |
|||
| 81 and older | 2 million | 2 million |
|||
Compare the pyramids built and answer the questions.
Which country's population is growing?
Which country's population is stable, with a downward trend?
Why is the group in the age pyramid of the Russian population
from 51 to 60 years old has a smaller population than neighboring groups?
Calculate the share (in %) of youth (age from 0 to 30 years) in Russia and Indonesia.
Which country has the highest demographic potential?
425
. In Delhi, there are five giant clocks connected to a computer that show India's population growth minute by minute. In 1989, the country had 830 million inhabitants. Every 1-2 seconds a new Indian citizen is born, about 50 people per minute. Calculate how many children are born daily; in a year; per decade while maintaining the birth rate. Calculate the share (in %) of those born in 1990. relative to the total population in the same year.
§ 33. Demographic prospects
426.
Which demographic situation is most favorable for humanity and does not bring great environmental disasters to the planet? Choose the correct answer:
A) the birth rate and death rate are high and balanced;
B) birth rate and death rate are low, balanced;
C) the birth rate and mortality rate are low, with a predominance of mortality;
D) birth and death rates are low, with a predominance of birth rates;
D) the birth rate is high and the death rate is low, unbalanced;
E) the birth rate is low and the death rate is high, unbalanced.
427. Indicate which group of countries should use population reduction strategies (A), and which group should try to maintain the existing population parameters (B) for humanity to transition to a state of stable demographic situation:
1) Angola, Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Indonesia, China, Libya, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria, Tanzania;
2) Hungary, Great Britain, Germany, Russia, USA.
428 . Explain why scientists believe that a population explosion in the south could lead to catastrophic environmental consequences for the entire planet.
429 . There is an opinion that there are already more people living on Earth than it can feed for an indefinitely long time. Do you agree with this opinion? Why?
430 . Some people disagree with the idea that population growth will create serious problems in the future. So, they believe that the real problem is this:
In the unfair distribution of resources. There are enough material resources and technical knowledge in the world to feed, clothe, provide shelter, and provide transportation for much more more people than currently live on the planet, but we have population and development problems due to our unwillingness to share resources equally. Industrial resident developed country consumes in one month as much as will last a poor man in unindustrialized countries for a lifetime;
In the system of consumerism. As society develops, people consume more and more, and thus deplete valuable resources for the production of things that are not essential;
In the way resources are used. Although industry and specialization have increased productivity, they have also caused great harm to the environment and require energy reserves such as oil, which can become depleted.
Do you share this point of view? Give your comments on this situation.
PartIII
Protection of Nature
1. Man as a biosocial species. Until now, we have talked more about ecology as a science that studies the relationships of living organisms with their environment. Thus, they touched upon those problems that relate to the purely biological essence of this discipline. At the same time, we have repeatedly drawn attention to the fact that man is increasingly influencing the modern environment, thereby expanding the problems of the science of ecology, introducing into it the social element of relationships.
The general ecological patterns we have considered determine the relationship with the outside world of all living beings on Earth, including humans.
Humans are one of the 3 million currently known biological species on Earth. Its place in the system of the animal kingdom has been determined: the class of mammals, the order of primates, the family of hominids, the genus - humans ( Homo ), in which only one species has survived to this day - Homo sapiens.
From an ecological point of view, humanity is a global population of a biological species, an integral part of the Earth's ecosystem. But it is obvious that this species is special, significantly different from all other inhabitants of the planet.
The biological nature of man is manifested in the inherent desire of all living things to preserve their life and continue it in time and space through reproduction, to ensure maximum safety and comfort. These natural aspirations are achieved through humanity's constant interactions with its environment. All people consume food and excrete products of physiological metabolism, protect themselves from enemies and avoid other dangers, participate in competition for life resources and promote species that are beneficial to themselves. In other words, humanity is characterized by a full range of ecological connections. This is the main ecological similarity of humanity with the populations of all other biological species.
2. Features of human populations. Ecological differences between humanity and populations of other species are manifested at the level of development of many ecological connections and in the particular forms of their implementation. Taken together, these differences are most clearly expressed in the strength and scale of human influence on the environment. As a population of any species, humanity has a certain impact on the environment, in turn experiencing its response resistance. But the pressure of humanity is incommensurate in its power and the speed of its increase with the influence on the environment of other species. In its scale, it significantly exceeds the resistance of the environment and suppresses it over a significant part of the planet. The distinct imbalance of the forces of human pressure on the environment and its response resistance lies one of the most significant ecological features of man.
Another fundamental difference The difference between humans and all other animal species is that modern people cannot exist without exchanging the results of their activities with their own kind. They can no longer live outside the artificial habitat they created, without using the generalized experience accumulated by previous generations, without a huge number of direct and especially indirect social connections. In other words, a person is not able to maintain his existence for a long time outside of spiritual and material culture, outside of civilization, outside of society - human society.
The ecological similarity of man with other species is explained by his biological origin, his belonging to the world of living nature, where biological laws apply.
And its environmental differences are also determined by its belonging to human society, where social laws apply, i.e. social. This duality is inherent only to man, who is the only biosocial species on our planet.
3. Dynamics and energetics of human populations. Humans as a biological species have food and information connections in ecosystems. They are very dynamic and have undergone major changes during human evolution. As in ancient times, modern man requires a physiological norm of approximately 2500 kcal per day to maintain life. In this regard, its biological essence has not changed over many millennia. Naturally, the ancient ancestors of man - gatherers and hunters - could not spend more energy on obtaining food than they received by eating prey. Food (trophic) connections were simple and direct: he spent his muscular energy on getting food, ate what he got and restored his energy expenditure. But it must be in excess, so that it remains for vital processes and warming the body. In addition, the prey should have been enough for the weaker members of the tribe who did not participate in the hunt: children, women and the elderly.
In the production of modern food, people have the opportunity to invest powerful additional energy resources: fuel for machine tillage, transportation and processing of agricultural products, energy for the production of fertilizers. These energy investments are many times greater than human muscular strength. Thanks to this, the productivity of cultivated lands has increased many times over. This means that from an area where in ancient times only one food gatherer could feed himself, it is now possible to harvest a harvest sufficient for many thousands of people. Food connections have changed significantly, become complex, and include many energy-consuming intermediaries. With the physiological norm of 2500 kcal preserved since ancient times, modern man already needs 25,000 kcal for its production. But it can be obtained from an area thousands of times smaller than in prehistoric times.
Thus, main feature food connections of modern man - their complication, lengthening and approximately tenfold increase in the energy cost of producing each calorie of final food products with a thousandfold decrease in the area required for this. As a result, the total ecological capacity of humanity's habitat has increased many thousands of times.
4. Information communications. All living beings are capable of exchanging information with their own kind to coordinate their actions and responses to the manifestation of environmental factors. At the same time, firstly, the signals they use are, as a rule, simple and specific: a warning about danger, a message about food, an appeal to a sexual partner or offspring, etc. Secondly, their range of action is limited: from direct physical contact to hundreds of meters or several kilometers. Thirdly, informative signals are recorded extremely rarely and in simplest form(“I was here” - through scent marks). The accumulation of such information, its direct transmission and direct use by second and subsequent generations is impossible.
In the vast majority of species, information connections ensure coordinated actions of only a relatively small number of individuals - a few, tens, rarely hundreds. The exception is social insects: wasps, bees, ants, etc.
State of the art information links in human society is qualitatively different. Firstly, man has created a system of complex signals - words and phrases in which any information is encoded. Secondly, man invented technical means, thanks to which the range of information signals within the Earth became almost limitless, and the transmission speed was almost instantaneous. Thirdly, man has learned to record information (drawings, writing, magnetic and electronic memory), accumulate it (books, archives, audio and video libraries, information banks) and transfer it for use to all subsequent generations.
It is obvious that this level of development of information connections ensures coordinated social actions of a large number of people, including those unrelated to each other. These are production, educational, military and other groups, residents of cities and towns, and the population of states.
Another human feature. The vast majority of animal species influence the environment only through their individual qualities(strength, speed, agility) using “personal weapons”: teeth, beak, claws, etc.
Man has lengthened and strengthened his personal natural “weapon” - the hand - with the help of various hunting and labor tools.
AND Finally, all species on Earth adapt - adapt to their environment, to changing living conditions. They derive energy to maintain life from food, sometimes by warming themselves under the rays of the sun. Accordingly, the work they perform is carried out due to their natural power - muscular strength. The work performed by animals can be aimed at some transformation of the habitat: building nests, digging holes, constructing dams. Therefore, the environment-transforming activity of animals is insignificant and limited only to local areas. And only man, with the help of the energy resources he has mastered (wood, coal, oil, gas, nuclear energy), adapts (adapts) his habitat to his needs, radically and in short terms transforms the nature of the Earth.
5. Anthropogenesis– the historical process of the emergence and development of man. The most ancient ancestors of humans - hominids, or proto-humans - arose 5-8 million years ago. This happened in the south (probably in East Africa). Therefore, the first of the currently known hominids were called australopithecines (from the Latin australis - southern). Among them, 2–3 million years ago, a genus emerged – man (Homo). Its first representatives are ancient people, including Homo habilis and Homo erectus, which includes Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus (300 thousand - 2 million years ago). They were replaced by ancient people - Neanderthals (Homo neandertaliensis), who disappeared relatively recently - about 40 thousand years ago. At the same time (40–50 thousand years ago), Cro-Magnons appeared - the direct ancestors of modern people, together with whom they form a single species - Homo sapiens.
Before the appearance of the first people, late proto-humans (Australopithecus) acquired ecologically important skills about 3 million years ago - they began to use stones, bones and sticks as primitive tools. The first people took a fundamentally new step about 2 million years ago, when they learned to specially make the simplest tools for labor and hunting from stone, bone and wood. These very first craftsmen on earth received a name - a skilled man.
The Neanderthals who replaced them were even more skillful in making a wide variety of labor and hunting tools. These acquisitions changed the previous relative balance in the established trophic and competitive relationships of hominids. The winners were “armed” consumers and competitors. The first tools were also used for cutting up the carcasses of killed animals. There is an opportunity to qualitatively improve the diet using animal protein and, what is especially important, to provide food for several families at the same time. Places for butchering killed animals and dividing up the spoils became unique centers for the formation of groups of meat consumers, which introduced elements of social organization into their behavior. Thanks to the efficiency of hunting primitive people appeared free time to communicate with each other.
The next ecologically important achievement of ancient people was the ability to maintain fire. About half a million years ago or even earlier, Sinanthropus already regularly used fire. For the first time in the history of the development of life on Earth, a constant source of additional energy appeared. Dwellings heated by fire became more attractive for life and communication, facilitated the exchange of information, and served to strengthen social ties.
At the time of 50 thousand years ago, the Cro-Magnons and modern people appeared. At this stage of human evolution, a new form of intra-population communication arose - articulate speech and accompanying figurative, abstract thinking. It is impossible to determine the time of the appearance of speech, but it is generally accepted that 30–40 thousand years ago it was well developed among the Cro-Magnons. The main advantage of speech was its information capacity. Tribe members exchanged experiences of their individual activities, planned upcoming joint actions, discussed their results, and taught skills to their children.
The development of such a quality as altruism, i.e., played a positive role. selfless concern for other people. Physically weak, but wise old people created and passed on to their descendants “banks of oral information”, the knowledge and skills they had accumulated, which contributed to the formation of a simple education system.
All this ensured coordinated actions, increased the efficiency of trophic connections, and, consequently, the survival of people.
The drawings created by Cro-Magnons 15–35 thousand years ago can be considered the beginning of the era of recording information.
Human speech, the accumulation of oral information and information recorded in rock paintings, increasing the effectiveness of coordinated actions, led to the emergence of social heredity and culture.
The decisive event in the development of mankind on the path of gaining greater independence from the environment was the emergence of agriculture 10-12 thousand years back. Agriculture arose, which led to sedentarism. Permanent settlements appeared. The food connections of people have changed qualitatively, moving from the forms of food acquisition characteristic of all animals to its production. Such a leap is sometimes viewed as a socio-ecological revolution. It became possible to increase the productivity of agricultural crops through additional energy: first, only muscular strength (your own and that of domestic animals), and subsequently through the operation of machines, irrigation systems, the use of chemical fertilizers, etc.
Human development accelerated. Interpopulation connections expanded due to the formation of regular transport flows, and the exchange of representatives accelerated different continents, regions, territories. One of the biological consequences of increasing gene exchange is the impossibility in the future of the separate evolution of individual races, which in principle excludes the appearance on Earth of different systematic categories of humans.
Writing became a powerful stimulus for the accumulation of information, which led to the accelerated development of culture.
The development of all forms of fossil fuels and the release of solar energy conserved in them through the operation of various machines and mechanisms have acquired a special scope in the last 200–300 years. This process, called the industrial revolution, caused unprecedented human pressure on the nature of the Earth.
Thus, the very appearance of man on Earth predetermined the inevitability of the emergence of a new state of the biosphere - its transition to the noosphere (from the Greek noesis - thinking, mind), the shell of the mind, covered by purposeful human activity.
6. Ecocentrism and anthropocentrism. Already at the end of the last century V.I. Vernadsky, assessing the scale of human technical activity in extracting various minerals and ores from the bowels of the Earth, processing them, and producing new chemical compounds, came to the conclusion that the scale of this activity is rapidly increasing and is no longer comparable to the scale of natural geological phenomena. He came to the conclusion that the biosphere, in terms of the mass of living matter, its energy and the degree of organization in the geological history of the Earth, was constantly evolving and changing, that the influence of activity was a natural stage of this evolution, and that under this influence the biosphere must inevitably change.
Thus, the emergence of man and his scientific thought is a natural stage in the evolution of the biosphere. As a result of human activity, it must move into a new state, which Vernadsky called the noosphere - a sphere formed under the influence of the human mind.
Man has such an active impact on the environment that in recent decades, people have increasingly begun to talk about the threat of a global environmental crisis. Ecology as a science has not remained aloof from these processes. There has been a rapid expansion of scientific problems of ecology. It began to invade disciplines related to biology, the earth sciences, physics, chemistry, various engineering branches, and even economics, politics, ethics, and sociology. Ecology is becoming a hyperscience. This process of penetration of ideas and problems of ecology into other areas of knowledge is called greening.
Ecology has transformed from a private branch of biology, familiar to a narrow circle of specialists, into an extensive and not yet fully formed complex of fundamental and applied disciplines, which N.F. Reimers (1992) called it megaecology.
Main sections of megaecology: general ecology, bioecology, geoecology, human ecology, social ecology, applied ecology.
7. Ecodevelopment. Two main opposing directions exist in modern megaecology: anthropocentrism - when humanity is seen as a force capable of controlling and changing nature, and ecocentrism - when humanity is seen as essential element noosphere, which must be in homeostatic relationships with other living and nonliving elements. The first direction is somehow connected with the pressing relationship between man and nature, when the will of man is above natural connections, the second is connected with the harmonious development of humanity and its productive forces with nature.
338. Choose the correct statements.
a) Homo sapiens is one of the three million biological species known to science.
b) Homo sapiens is not an integral part of the Earth's ecosystem.
c) The biological essence of man is manifested in the desire to preserve his life and continue it through reproduction.
d) At the present stage, humans and the human population are not subject to environmental laws, for example the law of optimum, the law of limiting factor, competitive exclusion and others.
e) Ecological differences between humanity and populations of other species lie in the scale of ecological connections and the features of their implementation.
339. Choose the name of the species corresponding to Homo sapiens:
a) Homo errectus; b) Homo sapiens; c) Homo habilis.
340. Choose the correct statement. To maintain life, a person needs approximately:
a) 2500 cal; b) 2500 kcal; c) 250 kcal; d) 1000 cal.
341. Answer, due to what types of energy the energy intensity of food production increases from primitive to slave society and from pre-industrial to industrial.
342. Ecologists are convinced that the use of more productive varieties of agricultural plants and animal breeds solves not only economic, but also environmental problems. Explain why.
343. Draw two graphs. The first estimates the increase in the number of people able to feed themselves on a territory of 500 hectares during different social formations (in a primitive society - 1 person, in a slave society - 100, in a feudal society - 200, in an industrial society - 3000). The second shows the dependence of the energy invested in obtaining food on an area of 500 hectares on the type of society (energy is measured in conventional units (cu) of human muscular energy). In a primitive society – 1 USD.” in slaveholding - 20 USD, in feudal - 40 USD, in industrial - 30,000 USD.
Compare the slope of the two graphs. Explain the differences. Knowing the growth trend in food production and the energy spent on it, evaluate the prospects for these processes in the future. Give your prediction. How should humanity develop to avoid environmental problems in food production?
344. Place the names of the ancestors of modern man (Homo sapiens) one after another in the order of their origin: Homo habilis, Cro-Magnon, Homo erectus (Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus), Australopithecus, Neanderthal.
345. Why do scientists believe that caring for the elderly in ancient society led humanity to progress?
346. Two modern tribe live in different, but climatically similar places, without communicating with each other. One tribe is engaged in hunting, the other in agriculture and cattle breeding. Guess which tribe has relatively more stable living conditions. What environmental management problems do these tribes face?
347. Explain the words of the French writer F. Chateaubriand: “Forests preceded man - deserts followed him.”
348. Why is it impossible in our time to form new human races or subspecies? Choose the correct answer:
a) no genetic material;
b) there is no (or very weak) insulation;
c) climate warming;
d) population growth.
Justify your position.
349. Choose the correct statement. Urbanization is a process:
a) population growth;
b) growth in the share of the urban population;
c) pollution of the environment with waste;
d) increasing human pressure on the environment.
350. List environmental problems that can be considered global for humanity.
351. Explain what the industrial revolution is. Give examples of inventions that have changed the world over the past 100–200 years.
Socio-ecological features of human demography
352. Name which diseases that claimed millions of lives in the past are now almost completely defeated in our country and, if they occur, they are extremely rare.
353. Choose the correct statements. The main risk factors for cancer are:
a) smoking; b) malnutrition; c) nervous stress; d) predators; e) consumption of food containing carcinogenic substances; e) plenty of food.
354. Name the environmental factors that limit the potentially endless growth of human populations in modern conditions.
355. From the listed factors, select those that currently no longer have a significant impact on demography, and those that are suppressed, but are capable of reducing the population:
356. List the diseases that most often lead to premature death of people in our country.
357. Statistics show that more than 80% of cancers are caused by environmental factors. The proportional distribution of the causes of human cancer is as follows: smoking - 30%, food chemicals - 35%, unfavorable working conditions - 5%, alcoholic beverages - 3%, radiation - 3%, air and water pollution - 2%, other reasons – 5%, reasons not related to environmental influences – 17%. Every year, 5.9 million new cases of cancer are registered worldwide and 3.4 million patients die. Calculate how many people in the world die each year from cancer caused by smoking.
358. List preventive measures against AIDS.
359. List the reasons why, starting from the mid-19th century. The world's population began to grow exponentially. Choose the correct answers:
a) improved nutrition;
b) improvement of sanitary conditions;
c) environmental pollution;
d) favorable climate changes;
e) improving healthcare.
360. Draw a graph of population growth on the globe. Until the 19th century she grew slowly. In 1700 the population was 0.6 billion people. The first billion milestone was crossed in 1830; the second - in 1939; the third - in 1960; fourth - in 1975; fifth - in 1987. In 2000, the number of people on Earth reached 6 billion.
361. The number of city residents in this year was 550 thousand people. 8 thousand were born during the year. Calculate what the relative birth rate was when converted to 1000 people.
362. In one of the cities of the Volga region since the early 1990s. The birth rate (the number of newborns per year per 1000 women of reproductive age) decreased, but the mortality rate remained at the same level. The population continues to grow, however. Suggest a reason why this might be happening.
363. One of the latest UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) information booklets reported that in the 1980s. The world population increased by three people per second. How many children were born daily? in a year?
Socio-geographical features of human demography.
Demographic prospects
364. Decipher the abbreviations: UN, FAO, UNESCO, WHO, AIDS.
365. Select from the list below countries in which the demographic situation at the end of the 20th century. relatively stable, with a slight decline in population (mortality slightly exceeds low birth rate); stable (low birth rate and low death rate are approximately balanced) and unstable, with a rapidly growing population (high birth rate):
Angola, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Brazil, Hungary, Great Britain, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Canada, China, Libya, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, USA, Tanzania, Ukraine, France, Japan.
366. Name the factors that encourage people in agricultural societies to have more children and in industrial societies to have fewer.
367. In Delhi, there are five giant clocks connected to a computer that show India's population growth minute by minute. Every 1.2 seconds a new Indian citizen is born, about 50 people every minute. Calculate how many children are born daily; in a year; per decade while maintaining the birth rate.
368. Which demographic situation is most favorable for humanity and does not bring major environmental disasters to the planet? Choose the correct answer:
a) the birth rate and death rate are high and balanced;
b) birth and death rates are low and balanced;
c) birth and death rates are low, with a predominance of mortality;
d) birth and death rates are low, with a predominance of birth rates;
e) the birth rate is high and the death rate is low, unbalanced;
f) the birth rate is low and the death rate is high, unbalanced.
369. Indicate which group of countries should use population reduction strategies (A), and which should try to maintain existing population parameters (B) for humanity to transition to a state of stable demographic situation:
1) Angola, Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Indonesia, China, Libya, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria, Tanzania;
2) Hungary, Great Britain, Germany, Russia, USA.
370. Explain why scientists believe that a population explosion in the south could lead to catastrophic environmental consequences for the entire planet.
371. There is an opinion that there are already more people living on Earth than it can feed for an indefinitely long time. Do you agree with this opinion? Why?
