GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF XXI century

For the last fifty years, we have taken from Nature 2,5 – 3 times more spaces or territories for fields under crops, residential and public buildings, railways and highways, airports and seaports, kitchen gardens and dumps.

Scientific and technical revolution has given mankind the power of atomic energy that in addition to some positive changes has brought radioactive pollution of vast territories. There has appeared high-speed jet aircraft that destroys ozone layer of the atmosphere. There are 10 times more cars, polluting urban atmosphere with exhaust gases. In agriculture in addition to fertilizers we have started using various poisons – pesticides; the wash-off of these toxic substances has polluted the surface water of the whole World Ocean, now we can observe global changes of climate.

All these factors led to many serious ecological problems. According to the data presented in the report of the world summit of UNO, at present we’re facing such ecological problems:

-        40% of the world’s population suffer from water deficiency;

-        The level of the sea is coming up all around the world, which is an evident consequence of global warming ;   

-        Many species of plants and animals will soon become extinct;

-        During 1990-ies 2,4% of the world forest tracts had been done away;

-        Annually, more than 3 million people die of consequences of environmental pollution.

-         Power engineering.

During 1990-ies consumption of fossil fuel and discarding of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere had kept on growing, especially in Asia and Northern America. Besides, there had become still more obvious signs of climatic changes, connected with global warming, for instance, in some regions of Asia and Africa drought became more frequent and severe.

They predict that global warming of the climate will have reached its dangerous bounds by the year 2026.

Biological diversity and ecosystems. 

As it was evaluated, during 1999ies there’d been done away with 90 million hectares of forest, which exceeds the area of Venezuela. Such losses of forest tracts can be a serious threat to biological diversity on the whole, as two thirds of land species live in forests. Besides, 9% of species of trees, existing in the world are about to become extinct, which creates risk of potential loss of the benefit that can be received while using botanic resources for medical purposes.