Essay on man and environment
Answers
The different social structures like industrial, agricultural, religious, aesthetic etc. have developed during various stages of human civilization and these structures represent human being’s accumulated cultural resources based on natural environment.
If the natural environment helped in the development of different structures of the society on the one hand, the existence and quality of environment now rests on the responses of these social structures to the environment on the other hand.
The burning issues like quality of environment, disruption of earth’s natural ecosystem, environmental degradation and pollution, ecological imbalances, depletion of resources etc. can be approached and solved only after considering the value judgments which may be determined by taking into account the consequences of ‘environmental improvement programme’ on the entire society and society’s response towards the improvement programme. Actually all these depend on the interest and desire of the society in improving the quality of environment.
The interaction between environment and society depends largely on the social and political system. Even the capitalistic and socialistic systems perceptions and reactions to the environment are quite different. The differential interactions are due to uneven distribution of natural resources, uneven economic and social development, dissimilarity of demographic factors, varying view points of the governments and individuals towards environment etc.
Continuous and exceedingly increasing rate of rapacious exploitation of natural resources, industrialisation, technological growth, unplanned urbanisation and profit oriented capitalism by the developed western world are responsible for grave environmental crisis and ecological imbalance not confined to their own countries but to the whole world.
The socialistic system of government gives more emphasis on the social importance of natural resources and environmental problems and the urgent need to tackle, these problems. Marxism preaches to organise society’s control over the rapacious exploitation of natural resources and to develop harmony between man and nature. The emphasis on rational exploitation of natural resources and ecological balance was in the constitution of USSR.
The changes in the relationship between man and environment depend upon the change in organisation and attitude of society. To improve environmental standard and to maintain ecological balance, the followings are some issues before the present civilized society.
1. Rapid population explosion:
Puts tremendous pressure on the natural resources and environmental quality. This is due to the fact that population growth leads to poverty which directly or indirectly declines the environmental standard.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
2. Rational use of non polluted water resources:
The restoration of water quality of our water bodies and their optimum uses are the challenges before the present society.
3. To sustain and increase agricultural growth:
Without damaging environment. The over cultivation of soil, results in nutrient deficiency, lack of organic matter, soil salinity and damage to physical structure of the soil.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
4. To check soil erosion:
The soil erosion can be prevented by the restoration of land or soil resources which are directly or indirectly related to strategies for the management of land, water and forest.
5. Restoration of forest resources:
The forest resources are depleting at a very faster rate in order to meet growing need of timber and farmland for the increased population. Vast forest areas have been converted into barren waste lands. So it is the need of the present society to restore our forest resources possibly through social forestry and afforestation programmes.
6. To check pollution:
The overexploitation of natural resources, intervention of bio-geochemical cycles and trace element cycle, extraneous release of matter and energy etc. cause serious environmental hazards.
In addition, continuous green house gas emission, hazardous chemicals of industry and agriculture, nuclear arsenals; radioactive wastes and biotechnological misuse lead to global catastrophism. So the prevention of pollution is of prime importance for the present society. Considering the above issues, it is clear that the fate of human being depends on how he is managing and overcoming the above problems.
Some possible ways of tackling the problems and maintaining environmental standard are:
(a) Taking effective measures for population control.
(b) Optimum use of natural resources.
(c) Conserving and protecting biodiversity.
(d) Creating public awareness about the benefits and implications of environment.
Answer:
Man and environment
The word environment is made up of two words “Environ and Ment or Cover”, in which Environ means around us, that is,around us, and ‘cover’ that surrounds us. The environment is the total unit of all the physical, chemical and biological factors that affect an organism or ecological population and determine their form, life, and life.
This day declared by the United Nations is celebrated to bring political and social awakening towards the environment globally. It began in 1972 at the World Environment Conference organized by the United Nations General Assembly from 5 June to 16 June. The first World Environment Day was observed on 5 June 1973.
The biological components of the environment include everything from microorganisms to insects, insects, animals and plants and all the biological activities and processes associated with them. While the inorganic components of the environment contain non-living elements and their associated processes, such as mountains, rocks, river, wind and climate elements, etc.
In general terms, it is a unit consisting of all biological and abiotic elements, facts, processes and events that affect our lives. It pervades all of us and every event in our lives depends on it and is edited. All actions performed by humans, directly and indirectly, affect the environment. Thus, there is also a relation between an organism and the environment, which is interdependent.
On the basis of human intervention, the environment can be divided into two parts, the first is the natural or natural environment and man-made environment. This division is in accordance with the excess and decrease of the amount of human intervention in natural processes and conditions.
Environmental problems such as pollution, climate change, etc. are motivating humans to rethink their lifestyle and now the need for environmental protection and environmental management is important. Today, what we need most is to make the general public and educated readers aware of the issue of environmental crisis.