From the very beginning of mankind to this day, people have been quite active in transforming the planet. Moreover, these changes in the Earth by man are basically negative. Anthropogenic impact has occurred and is happening for more than one century, and even more than one millennium. Just in previous eras, this activity was not so obvious and noticeable. Everything went gradually, depending on the pace of development of human society itself, science and technological progress, practical agriculture and industrial production. Let us and we put all the dots above the “and” in the question of how man has changed the Earth. What features of the environment as a result of this have appeared, which human activities can be considered negative, and which - positive for our planet?
Theme: how did man change the Earth?
A lot of scientific and journalistic works have been written on this subject. Among them, I would like to note Vernadsky’s doctrine of the noosphere, which tells us that our planet is a single living creature, and each person affects the Earth’s biosphere. Understanding the noosphere as the highest step in the evolution of the biosphere, in which the rational activity of people is the determining factor, imposes a certain responsibility on the enlightened representatives of society for how the person has changed the Earth. By the way, Vernadsky called one of the conditions for the reasonable and correct existence of the noosphere the complete exclusion of war from the life of countries and societies. One can argue with some of the author's messages (as well as many other scientists and social activists already modern to us), but one thing is clear: if in the near future people do not stop mercilessly using the bowels, destroying forests and turning the river back, changing climatic conditions, humanity expects a real physical collapse, up to the destruction of most of it. So it’s worth reconsidering your consumer attitude to the issue both for industrialists and for the heads of many states.
Plan: how did man change the Earth?
But events did not always develop as fast as they are now, when procrastination has already become a similar death. Several time periods can be distinguished in the context of the question: how has man changed the Earth? The first of them was, perhaps, the longest period when transformations took place slowly and gradually, without exerting a global impact on the surrounding nature.
Primitive people
About 50 thousand years ago, people learned to use natural gifts, mastered gathering and hunting. During these years, the human impact on the surrounding world was minimal and was manifested in the fact that primary natural materials were used practically without treatment, and the food collected and mined in the hunt did not affect the plant and animal populations. And there were not so many people on the planet at that time, and they simply could not have a significant impact on the general course of events. Man learned to adapt to nature, since the environment at that time represented a certain danger for him.
Farmers and livestock farmers
About 12 thousand years ago, agriculture emerged (presumably in Turkey). Wheat, and then other cereals began to be artificially grown and cultivated by humans. Many of them were obtained by breeding. It is believed that farming in the context of the question of how people changed the Earth, had the most powerful impact on the environment in those days. Special soil treatment included deforestation, drainage of wetlands, and water drainage and irrigation.
Around the same time, livestock breeding also occurs. Man tames and domesticates some wild animals. People learn to breed and cross the types that are most convenient for further use: in food (meat, milk), as clothing (skins, wool), as draft power. As a means of transportation, horses and camels had a huge impact on the development of trade between countries. Thus, people changed the world around them.
The era of material processing
Over time, the first large states appear in various parts of the world. Uniting in cities, humanity learns to process materials donated by nature: stones and wood. Then - smelting metals. Numerous palaces, temples were built, human settlements were connected by roads. Civilizations go forward by leaps and bounds. New industries are emerging. In this era in China, Egypt, America, for example, man has a huge impact on the planet, extracting minerals, harvesting wood, cultivating fields and raising pets. Then, according to scientists, there are still insignificant harmful emissions into the Earth’s atmosphere (as waste from nascent production).
New time and the era of the Great Discoveries
The time has come, characterized by high achievements in all fields of science and life, when people recognize themselves as the center of the universe, discover new worlds. Relations between continents are being established. Industrial production is expanding and the demands of mankind are increasing. And with the development of manufactories, a sharp increase in the consumption of natural resources began.
The newest time and the 21st century
In the nineteenth century, mass production arose, a cardinal change in the relationship of man to the planet, as a source of resources for industry. There is a massive and uncontrolled mining of mineral resources from the bowels. And such a barbaric attitude could not but affect the state of the environment.
Such phenomena as global warming, large-scale pollution of the atmosphere, the changed level of the oceans and river beds - these are the troubles with which mankind met the 21st century. This text is also devoted to this problem: how a person changed the Earth for the worse with his life and thoughtless waste of natural resources.