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Lecture 7-Man and Environment

Man and environment are interdependent, with each influencing the other. Throughout history, human social structures like industry and agriculture have developed in relationship with the natural environment. However, issues like pollution, resource depletion, and ecological imbalance now threaten the environment due to factors like industrialization, unchecked economic growth, and overexploitation of resources. Improving environmental conditions requires addressing challenges such as population growth, sustainable agriculture and resource use, pollution prevention, and restoration of forests and water resources through public awareness campaigns and eco-friendly technologies and policies. The relationship between society and the environment, as well as their approaches to these problems, differs between capitalist and socialist systems.

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haydar şimşek
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141 views

Lecture 7-Man and Environment

Man and environment are interdependent, with each influencing the other. Throughout history, human social structures like industry and agriculture have developed in relationship with the natural environment. However, issues like pollution, resource depletion, and ecological imbalance now threaten the environment due to factors like industrialization, unchecked economic growth, and overexploitation of resources. Improving environmental conditions requires addressing challenges such as population growth, sustainable agriculture and resource use, pollution prevention, and restoration of forests and water resources through public awareness campaigns and eco-friendly technologies and policies. The relationship between society and the environment, as well as their approaches to these problems, differs between capitalist and socialist systems.

Uploaded by

haydar şimşek
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Man and Environment

Man and environment are interrelated. The environment influences the life of human beings and
human beings modify their environment as a result of their growth, dispersal, activities, death and
decay etc. Thus, all living beings including man and their environment are mutually reactive
affecting each other in several ways and a dynamic equilibrium is possible in between the two, i.e.
human beings (society) and environment are interdependent.

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 considering the consequences of ‘environmental improvement program’ on the entire society
and society’s response towards the improvement program. 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,


industrialization, technological growth, unplanned urbanization 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 organize 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
organization 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.

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.

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 programs.

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 greenhouse 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:
• Taking effective measures for population control.
• Optimum use of natural resources.
• Conserving and protecting biodiversity.
• Creating public awareness about the benefits and implications of environment.
• Giving top priority for environmental protection.
• Developing ecofriendly technological processes.
• Promoting sustainable agriculture which will not harm the environment.
• Using bio-fertilizer or ecofriendly fertilizers.
• Using minimum amount of pesticides and insecticides.
• Developing waste land by adopting afforestation programs.
• Developing suitable biotechnology to clean up hazardous wastes in the environment.
• Choosing suitable technique to treat the pollutants before their discharge into environment.

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