Człowiek i biosfera - u progu nowego stulecia

Symonides, Ewa

doi:0013-2969

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Title: Człowiek i biosfera - u progu nowego stulecia

Abstract:

Life on the Earth, sińce its onset about 3.75 billions years ago, was freąuently disturbed by great cataclysms, but the ratę of environmental changes was never as violent as in the past century and never before such changes were caused by a species living on the Earth. The devastation of natural environment and the modern extinction of many plant and animal species had no precedent in the earlier history of the Earth and it is indubitably caused by humans - the most intelligent mammal species. The common history of Earth and humans counts only about 150 thousands years, and sińce then humans devastated the wildlife and naturę wherever they settled. However, the global environmental crisis took place only recently, in XX century, as the result of demographic explosion of human population.Among the most spectacular humans-caused transformations of natural environment the major are: global deforestation, the overall expansion of the deserts, soil degradation, species extinction or drastic decline of many populations of wild plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms. Human activity on the Earth drove the natural, both terrestrial and aąuatic, ecosystems into almost total extinction. The ozone layer is seriously damaged and global warming of the earth climate became the reality. Both phenomena may herald the sixth great extinction in the history of life on the Earth.The perspective of the global catastrophe urged the governments of nearly all countries to undertake the international cooperation to stop the further degradation and to improve the State of the environment. Last years of the past century brought about many conventions and international agreements aimed to regulate the access to the natural resources and to control their exploitation. The states-signatories are obliged to undertake all possible means to preserve the natural resources for present and futurę needs. First outcomes of this awakening were already visible at the end of the century - in many countries, the emission of green house gases was considerably reduced, the input of pollutants to freshwaters, sees and oceans was lowered, the forests surface increased, the habitats of many endangered species were restituted. These actions, though they do not entirely prevent the further environmentai deterioration. at least slow it considerably down. To save the life on our planet, the profound change of our attitude towards environment is needed - from anthropocentric doctrine considering ourselves as the supreme beings to the creed that representing only one of many species inhabiting the planet, we constitute merely the part of biosphere.