Environmental problems in ancient cities. Ecology in ancient countries

11.3. Cities and nature

Environmental problems of cities

It is often believed that the ecological state of cities has noticeably deteriorated in recent decades as a result of the rapid development of industrial production. But this is a delusion. The ecological problems of cities have arisen with their birth. The cities of the ancient world were distinguished by a large overcrowding of the population. For example, in Alexandria, the population density in the 1st-2nd centuries. reached 760 people, in Rome - 1500 people per 1 hectare (for comparison, let's say that in the center of modern New York there are no more than 1 thousand people per 1 hectare). The width of the streets in Rome did not exceed 1.5–4 m, in Babylon - 1.5–3 m. The sanitary improvement of the cities was at an extremely low level. All this led to frequent outbreaks of epidemics, pandemics, in which diseases covered the whole country, or even several neighboring countries. The first recorded plague pandemic (it entered the literature under the name "Justinian's plague") arose in the 6th century. in the Eastern Roman Empire and covered many countries of the world. For 50 years, the plague claimed about 100 million human lives.

Now it is difficult even to imagine how ancient cities with their thousands of population could do without public transport, without street lighting, without sewage and other elements of urban amenities. And, probably, it is no coincidence that at that time many philosophers began to have doubts about the expediency of the existence of large cities. Aristotle, Plato, Hippodamus of Miletus, and later Vitruvius repeatedly presented treatises that dealt with the optimal size of settlements and their structure, problems of planning, construction art, architecture, and even the relationship with the natural environment.

Medieval cities were already significantly inferior in size to their classical counterparts and rarely had more than several tens of thousands of inhabitants. Thus, in the XIV century. the population of the largest European cities - London and Paris - was respectively 100 and 30 thousand inhabitants. However, the environmental problems of cities have not become less acute. Epidemics remained the main scourge. The second plague pandemic - "Black Death" - broke out in the XIV century. and took away almost a third of the population of Europe.

With the development of industry, the rapidly growing capitalist cities quickly outnumbered their predecessors. In 1850 London crossed the million mark, then Paris. By the beginning of the XX century. there were already 12 cities in the world - "millionaires" (including two in Russia). The growth of large cities proceeded at an ever faster pace. And again, as the most formidable manifestation of disharmony between man and nature, outbreaks of epidemics of dysentery, cholera, typhoid fever began one after another. The rivers in the cities were monstrously polluted. The Thames in London began to be called the "black river". Fetid streams and reservoirs in other large cities became sources of gastrointestinal epidemics. So, in 1837 in London, Glasgow and Edinburgh, a tenth of the population fell ill with typhoid fever and about a third of the patients died. From 1817 to 1926, there were six cholera pandemics in Europe. In Russia, in 1848 alone, about 700 thousand people died from cholera. However, over time, thanks to advances in science and technology, advances in biology and medicine, the development of water supply and sewerage facilities, the epidemiological danger began to significantly weaken. We can say that at that stage the ecological crisis of large cities was overcome. Of course, such overcoming each time cost colossal efforts and sacrifices, but the collective intelligence, perseverance and ingenuity of people have always turned out to be stronger than the crisis situations they created themselves.

Scientific and technical achievements based on outstanding natural scientific discoveries of the XX century. contributed to the rapid development of the productive forces. These are not only huge advances in nuclear physics, molecular biology, chemistry, space exploration, but also the rapid, unceasing growth in the number of large cities and urban population. The volume of industrial production has increased hundreds and thousands of times, the power supply of mankind has increased more than 1000 times, the speed of movement - 400 times, the speed of information transfer - millions of times, etc. Such active human activity, of course, does not pass without leaving a trace for nature. , since resources are drawn directly from the biosphere

And this is just one side of the environmental problems of a big city. The other is that in addition to the consumption of natural resources and energy drawn from vast areas, a modern city with a population of millions generates a huge amount of waste. Such a city annually emits into the atmosphere at least 10-11 million tons of water vapor, 1.5-2 million tons of dust, 1.5 million tons of carbon monoxide, 0.25 million tons of sulfur dioxide, 0.3 million tons of nitrogen oxides and a large the amount of other pollution that is not indifferent to human health and the environment. In terms of the scale of its impact on the atmosphere, a modern city can be compared to a volcano.

What are the features of the current environmental problems of large cities? First of all - the multiplicity of sources of environmental impact and their scale. Industry and transport - and these are hundreds of large enterprises, hundreds of thousands or even millions of vehicles - are the main culprits in urban pollution. The nature of waste has also changed in our time. Previously, almost all waste was of natural origin (bones, wool, natural fabrics, wood, paper, manure, etc.), and they were easily included in the circulation of nature. Now a significant part of the waste is synthetic substances. Their transformation in natural conditions is extremely slow.

One of the environmental problems is associated with the intensive growth of unconventional "pollution" of a wave nature. The electromagnetic fields of high voltage power lines, radio broadcasting and television stations, as well as a large number of electric motors are increasing. The overall level of acoustic noise increases (due to high transport speeds, due to the operation of various mechanisms and machines). On the other hand, ultraviolet radiation decreases (due to air pollution). Energy consumption per unit area is growing, and, consequently, heat output and thermal pollution increase. Under the influence of huge masses of multi-storey buildings, the properties of the geological rocks on which the city stands are changing.

The consequences of such phenomena for people and the environment have not yet been sufficiently studied. But they are no less dangerous than pollution of water and air basins and soil and vegetation cover. For residents of large cities, all this in a complex turns into a large overstrain of the nervous system. The townspeople quickly get tired, are prone to various diseases and neuroses, and suffer from increased irritability. Chronic ill health of a significant part of urban residents in some Western countries is considered a specific disease. It got the name "urbanite".

Features of megacities

One of the very difficult modern environmental problems is associated with the rapid growth of cities and the expansion of their territory. Cities are changing not only quantitatively but also qualitatively. Giant metropolises, clusters of cities with a multimillion population spread over many hundreds of square kilometers, absorbing neighboring settlements and forming urban agglomerations, urbanized areas - megalopolises. In some cases, they extend for hundreds of kilometers. So, on the Atlantic coast of the United States, one might say, a huge urbanized area with a population of 80 million people has already formed. It was named Bosswash (the merged metropolitan areas of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington and other cities). By 2000. America will have two more giant urbanized areas - Chinite in the Great Lakes region (a group of cities led by Chicago and Pittsburgh) with a population of 40 million people and San San in California (San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, San Diego) with population of 20 million people. In Japan, a group of millionaire cities - Tokyo, Yokohama, Kyoto, Nagoya, Osaka - has formed one of the world's largest megacities - Tokaido, which is home to 60 million people - half the country's population. Huge populous agglomerations have developed in the Federal Republic of Germany (Ruhr), England (London and Birmingham), the Netherlands (Randstad Holland) and other countries.

The emergence of urban agglomerations can be spoken of as a qualitatively new stage in the relationship between the city and nature. The processes of interaction of a modern urban agglomeration with the natural environment are complex, multifaceted, and extremely difficult to manage.

Urban agglomerations, urbanized areas are very vast territories in which nature is deeply changed by economic activity. Moreover, radical transformations of nature take place not only within the city, but also far beyond its borders. So, for example, physical and geological changes in soil and groundwater are manifested depending on specific conditions at a depth of 800 m and within a radius of 25-30 km. These are pollution, compaction and disturbance of the structure of soils and grounds, the formation of craters, etc. At even greater distances, biogeochemical changes in the environment are felt: impoverishment of flora and fauna, degradation of forests, acidification of soils. First of all, people living in the zone of influence of a city or metropolitan area suffer from this. They breathe poisoned air, drink polluted water, and eat food stuffed with chemicals.

Experts believe that in the next decade the number of millionaire cities on Earth will probably approach 300. About half of them will number at least 3 million people each. Traditional "record holders" - New York, Tokyo, London - will be squeezed out by the largest cities in developing countries. These will be truly unprecedented monster cities. The population of the largest of them by this time will be: Mexico City - 26.3 million, Sao Paulo - 24 million, Tokyo - 17.1 million, Calcutta - 16.6 million, Bombay - 16, New York - 15.5, Shanghai - 13.8, Seoul - 13.5, Delhi and Rio de Janeiro - 13.3 each, Buenos Aires and Cairo - 13.2 million. Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Tashkent are also included or very soon will be included in the category of multi-million dollar.

Is it advisable to repeat the mistakes of Western urbanism and deliberately follow the path of creating megacities where this can still be avoided without much difficulty? With the rapid growth of cities, environmental problems are exacerbated just as quickly. Improving the urban environment is one of the most pressing social challenges. The first steps in solving it are the creation of progressive low-waste technologies, silent and environmentally friendly transport. The ecological problems of cities are closely related to the problems of urban planning. City planning, location of large industrial enterprises and other complexes, taking into account their growth and development, the choice of a transport system - all this requires a qualified environmental impact assessment.

One of the largest cities in the world is Moscow. Observations show that the state of the environment in Moscow is deteriorating, and the ecological and geological risk of human habitation is increasing. This is inherent not only in Moscow, it happens in most other large cities in the world. The structure of the giant city is extremely complex and varied. More than 2,800 industrial facilities are located on the territory of Moscow, including many enterprises of increased environmental risk, more than 40 thousand large residential buildings, 12 thermal power plants, 4 state district power stations, 53 district and quarter thermal stations, 2 thousand local boiler houses. An extensive network of urban transport operates: the length of bus, trolleybus, tram lines is 3800 km, metro lines - 240 km. Under the city there is a dense interlacing of water, heat, power supply, sewerage, gas pipelines, radio and telephone cables.

Such a hyperconcentration of structures and urban services inevitably leads to disruptions in the stability of the geological environment. Density and soil structure change, uneven subsidence of individual areas of the earth's surface occurs, deep dips, landslides, and flooding are formed. And this, in turn, causes the premature destruction of buildings and underground utilities. Emergency, often life-threatening situations are created. The city's economy is being severely damaged.

It has been established that almost half of the territory of Moscow (48%) is located in the geological risk zone. In one and a half to two decades, according to forecasts, about 12% of the city's territory will be added to this. The air basin of Moscow is also in a grave condition. In addition to individual chemical elements, another 1200 of the most diverse compounds are mixed in it. Already in the atmosphere, they react, new compounds are formed. Every year, from 1 to 1.2 million tons of harmful chemicals are released into the air of the capital. A small part of them is carried away by the winds outside the city, while the main part remains in Moscow, and each Muscovite accounts for 100–150 kg of air pollutants annually.

The beginning of the 90s was marked by a reduction in emissions of harmful substances from urban enterprises. A significant part of the cupola furnaces were closed, and other furnaces were equipped with devices that prevent harmful emissions into the air. Other measures are being taken to improve the urban environment.

11.4. Solving disposal problems

Utilization of environmentally hazardous gases

Recently, many people are more and more aware of themselves as the population of one communal apartment with a general, easily injured atmosphere. If you continue to throw nitrogen and sulfur oxides, carbon monoxide and dioxide into it, then the most sad consequences can be expected. It is known that an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere creates a greenhouse effect with the threat of melting glaciers. And if the total amount of ice decreases by only 10%, then the level of the world ocean will rise by 5.5 m.It is obvious that huge coastal areas will be flooded,

The Earth's atmosphere now contains about 2.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide, and industry and transport add billions of tons to this amount. Part of this amount is absorbed by the vegetation of the Earth, part is dissolved in the ocean. Scientists around the world are working on how to get rid of excess carbon dioxide. For example, US scientists have proposed converting carbon dioxide into dry ice or liquid, and then bringing it out of the atmosphere with rockets. However, calculations show that in order to launch carbon dioxide into orbit, it is necessary to burn so much fuel that the amount of the same gas ejected during the combustion of the fuel exceeds the amount of gas sent into space.

Swiss experts propose to transfer emissions from industrial "stokers" into dry ice, but not throw it out of the Earth, but put it somewhere in the north in storage facilities insulated with foam. Dry ice will slowly evaporate, which will at least delay the development of the greenhouse effect. However, to store only half of the carbon dioxide emitted annually by Germany alone, ten balls each 400 m in diameter would have to be made of dry ice. Other scientists hope to somehow enhance the natural processes leading to the absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. For example, to expand the area occupied by forest on the planet. However, in order to absorb emissions only from coal-fired power plants in Germany, 36 thousand km 2 will have to be planted. Environmentalists argue against the idea of ​​American oceanologists to scatter iron powder in Antarctic water to stimulate the reproduction of planktonic algae, which could absorb more carbon dioxide. In addition, experiments carried out on a small scale have shown the low efficiency of this method. The Japanese propose to develop, through genetic engineering, especially active algae species that would actively absorb carbon dioxide, converting it into biomass. However, the seas can turn into "jelly" from the multiplied algae.

The idea of ​​employees of the Shell oil company looks more practical: to pump carbon dioxide, first transferring it into a liquid phase, into depleted oil and gas reservoirs. In addition, liquid carbon dioxide will displace uncollected residues of oil and natural gas to the surface. True, the cost of electricity from a CHP, supplied with the necessary equipment for this, will increase by 40%, and the profit from additionally extracted fossil fuels will reduce this price by only 2%. Yes, in the world and there are not yet sufficiently extensive depleted gas fields for such storage. An empty seat in Tyumen or Holland will appear only in a few decades.

So far, the most promising idea seems to be to send carbon dioxide to the bottom of the seas and oceans. You can, for example, drown blocks of dry ice (it is heavier than water) in the open sea. When transported at sea no further than 200 km from the coast, the cost of electricity will increase by the same 40%. If liquid carbon dioxide is pumped to a depth of about 3000 m, the price of electricity will increase less - by 35%. In addition, there is also the danger of such measures. After all, the gas will cover hundreds of square kilometers of the ocean floor with a suffocating layer, destroying all life there. And it is possible that under the influence of deep currents, he will eventually break out of the depths of the sea, like from an uncorked bottle of champagne. In 1986, such a case was observed in Cameroon: about a billion cubic meters of carbon dioxide, accumulated at the bottom as a result of volcanic processes, escaped from the depths of Lake Nyos. In the valley surrounding the lake, hundreds of local residents and their livestock were killed. It seems that humanity has no choice but to limit the amount of fossil fuels burned.

Together with carbon dioxide, much more dangerous gases are emitted into the atmosphere - sulfur oxides. It is known that sulfur oxides are formed during the combustion of fuel - coal or oil products containing sulfur. When they are burned, sulfurous gases are formed, which pollute the atmosphere. During purification, the smoke is passed through bulky and expensive purifiers. Japanese experts have proposed a more effective method - a microbiological method for cleaning coal from sulfur.

Disposal of householdwaste

In recent decades, more than ever, people have begun to pay attention to the environment. They started talking about it in alarming tones, because in the atmosphere, soil, in everything that grows and dwells on it and in it, as well as in the aquatic environment (rivers, lakes and seas), everywhere previously not observed deviations. Increasingly, they began to talk about the fact that the environment was on the brink of a disaster and urgently needed to be rescued.

Well-equipped with various equipment and other means, a person directly affects nature: he extracts and uses and processes earthly riches in unprecedented quantities. Every year it interferes more and more tangibly in the natural environment that has naturally formed over millennia. At the same time, nature is changing beyond recognition. This process has already spread to almost the entire globe.

In many industrialized countries, measures against environmental pollution are already being taken seriously in practice and are achieving excellent results. Let us consider in more detail how environmental problems are solved, for example, in the Rhine-Westphalian industrial region of Germany. Not so long ago, this area was considered one of the most ecologically unfavorable not only in the whole of Western Europe, but also in the world. Indeed, here, north and west of the Rhine Shale Mountains, in the last century, industry and transport developed extremely rapidly, cities and workers' settlements grew rapidly. There are probably no such abundantly built up and so densely populated places even in the most populous regions of Japan and China. The standard of living in Germany has been very high for decades. Therefore, many people have their own houses and almost every house has a small plot under a garden, a vegetable garden and a flower garden, outbuildings, garages and cars. You can imagine how much household and various other waste is here, day after day, year after year, thrown into landfills, and then burned right in the field. And how many there were chimneys choking with smoke - factory, factory, brownie! What a veil of smog hung over the cities, what a fog constantly enveloped everything! What a violet-oil shine the sun shone in the waters of the Ruhr, Rhine and other, it seemed, hopelessly sick local rivers! They were already a kind of symbols of human pollution of nature.

“Three decades ago, the sky here looked more like a shaggy dirty blanket than azure,” says one recycling specialist. What is their waste recycling facility? Bluish-gray-blue buildings, two white tall thin pipes - everything looks surprisingly light and elegant. And the earth, and the sky above it, and in general everything around here has really changed beyond recognition. Even the asphalt and concrete on the driveways appear blue. Around green lawns, young trees. The site, the Herten Recycling Center, takes up a much smaller footprint than a conventional burning landfill. It was built on a vacant lot, in its workshops a lot has already been done in order to transform, plant trees, and decorate the surroundings.

In Germany, on average, up to 400 kg of household waste is accumulated per inhabitant per year. An even larger share of what has to be burned is made up of production waste - industrial, trade, craft and others, as well as trade, food and services, transport of medical institutions. The so-called urban waste is also generated in considerable quantities. All this together, per person in Germany, amounts to 4.5–4.6 tons per year.

A garbage "crematorium" is not easy to incinerate a variety of waste. The production of secondary products is also established here. After all, the name of the company is: Center for secondary mining of raw materials in Herten. Ash, formed from burnt plastic bags and various containers of this kind, is again used for their manufacture. Huge "bags" collect "residual inert products". During the day, they are recruited up to 10 tons and immediately taken to the "mountain", where they are used as soil for green spaces. For example, in Gelsenkirchen they have been making a "mountain" for more than a quarter of a century. It occupies about 100 hectares. In the past, a dull vast wasteland turns into a cultural park, a "green zone". Gradually, day after day, the soil and subsoil environment of the “Torah” is formed, “laid out”, a green world develops on it. New technological projects are being developed for processing waste from secondary raw materials extraction.

Inevitably, it is necessary to build enterprises for the secondary extraction of raw materials both near Moscow, and near St. Petersburg, and near other cities. In addition, such enterprises provide a lot of electrical energy.

Burial of nuclear waste

The life of modern society is unthinkable without powerful sources of energy. There are few of them - hydro, thermal and nuclear power plants. Using the energy of wind, sun, tides, etc. has not yet become widespread. Thermal stations emit enormous amounts of dust and gases into the air. They contain both radionuclides and sulfur, which is then returned to the ground in the form of acid precipitation. Hydro resources are limited even in our vast country, and besides, the construction of hydropower plants in most cases leads to undesirable changes in the landscape and climate. In the near future, nuclear power plants will be one of the main sources of energy. They have many advantages, including environmental ones, and the use of reliable protection can make them quite safe. But one more important question remains: what to do with radioactive waste? All radioactive waste from nuclear power plants, accumulated over the entire period of their operation, is stored mainly on the territory of the stations. In general, the waste management scheme operating at the NPP so far ensures complete safety, does not affect the environment and complies with the IAEA requirements. However, the storages are already overflowing, their expansion and reconstruction are required. In addition, the time has come to dismantle the stations that have served their time. The estimated operating time of domestic reactors is 30 years. Since 2000, the reactors will be shut down almost every year. And until a simple and cheap way of burying radioactive waste is found, it is premature to talk about serious prospects for nuclear energy.

Currently, radioactive waste is kept in special storage facilities, where steel containers are placed, in which the waste is fused together with a glass-mineral matrix. They are not yet buried, but burial projects are being actively developed. Sometimes the question is discussed: is it necessary to dispose of waste at all, maybe it should be stored in this way further - after all, it is possible that some isotope will be needed by the technology of the future? The point, however, is that the amount of waste is constantly growing and accumulating, so that in the future this source of useful elements is unlikely to run out. If necessary, the processing technology will simply be changed. The problem is different. Near-surface repositories guarantee safety only for about a hundred years, and waste will become inactive only after a few million years.

One more question. Is it possible to use the thermal energy generated by nuclear waste, for example, for heating? It is possible, but not rational. On the one hand, the waste heat is not that great, much less than the heat released in the reactor. On the other hand, the use of waste for heating would require very expensive radiation safety. In thermal power engineering, the situation is similar: there are many ways to make fuller use of the heat that goes into the chimney, but from some level it is unprofitable. Therefore, nuclear waste must be disposed of.

The well-known idea of ​​reprocessing long-lived radioactive isotopes into nuclei with a shorter lifetime is discussed using nuclear reactions occurring in the reactors themselves when they are operated in a special mode. It would seem that what is simpler, and no additional equipment is needed. Unfortunately, the difference in the rates of production of new and processing of already formed long-lived isotopes is small, and, as calculations show, a positive balance will come only after about 500 years. Until that time, humanity will "drown" in the mountains of radioactive waste. In other words, the reactors are unlikely to be able to cure themselves of radioactivity.

Radioactive slags can be isolated in special thick-walled burial grounds. The only trouble is that such burials must be designed for at least a hundred thousand years of safe storage. How to predict what might happen over such a long period? Be that as it may, storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel should be located in places where earthquakes, displacement or fracture of soil layers, etc., are deliberately excluded ... If stored incorrectly, overheating and even an explosion of hot slags can occur.

In some countries, storage facilities for long-lived isotopes, especially dangerous in slags, are located underground at a depth of several hundred meters, surrounded by rocks. Slag containers are supplied with thick anti-corrosion shells, multi-meter layers of clay, preventing groundwater seepage. One of these storage facilities is being built in Sweden at a depth of half a kilometer. This complex engineering structure is supplied with a variety of control equipment. Experts are confident in the reliability of this ultra-deep radioactive repository. Such confidence is inspired by the natural ore formation discovered in Canada at a depth of 430 m with a volume of over a million cubic meters with a huge uranium content - up to 55% (ordinary ores contain percentages or even fractions of a percent of this element). This unique formation, which arose as a result of sedimentary processes about 1.3 million years ago, is surrounded by a layer of clay from 5 to 30 m thick in different places, which really tightly isolated uranium and its decay products. No signs of an increase in radioactivity or an increase in temperature were found on the surface above the ore formation and in its vicinity. However, how will it be in other places and under different conditions?

In some places, radioactive slags are vitrified, turning into solid monolithic blocks. The storages are equipped with special systems for control and heat removal. To confirm the reliability of this method, we can again refer to a natural phenomenon. In Equatorial Africa, in Gabon, about 2 million years ago, it happened that water and uranium ore gathered in a stone bowl created by nature itself inside rocks and in such proportion that a natural, "without any human participation", atomic reactor, and there for some time, until the accumulated uranium burned out, a fission chain reaction took place. Plutonium was formed and the same radioactive fragments as in our artificially created atomic boilers. Isotopic analysis of water, soil and surrounding rocks showed that radioactivity remained walled up and over the 2 million years that have passed since then its diffusion has been insignificant. This allows us to hope that vitrified sources of radioactivity in the next hundred thousand years will also remain tightly isolated.

Sometimes slags are walled up in blocks of especially strong concrete, which are dumped into the ocean depths, although this is far from the best gift for our descendants. Recently, the possibility of throwing containers with long-lived isotopes with rockets on the invisible far side of the moon has been seriously discussed. But how to provide a 100% guarantee that all launches will be successful, none of the launch vehicles will explode in the earth's atmosphere and cover it with deadly ash? The risk is very high. And in general, we do not know why our descendants will need the far side of the Moon.

A lot of radioactive slags are generated at nuclear power plants. For example, in Sweden, the energy of which is 50% nuclear, by 2010. about 200 thousand m 3 of radioactive waste requiring disposal will accumulate, of which 15% contain long-lived isotopes - the remains of concentrated nuclear fuel, requiring particularly reliable disposal. This volume is comparable to the volume of a concert hall and only for one small Sweden!

Many experts come to the conclusion: the most rational place of burial is the bowels of the Earth. To guarantee the radiation burial depth should be at least half a kilometer. For greater safety, it is better to place the waste even deeper, but alas, the cost of mining is increasing faster than the square of the depth. Relatively recently, the idea of ​​burying high-level nuclear waste in deep wells filled with a low-melting, inert, waterproof medium was put forward. Natural sulfur may be the most successful filling of wells. Sealed capsules with high-level waste are submerged to the bottom of the well, melting sulfur by their own heat release. Other methods of radioactive waste disposal are also proposed.

What does the history of religions teach us? That they fanned the flames of intolerance everywhere, covered the plains with corpses, watered the earth with blood, burned cities, devastated states; but they never made people better.

Ancient civilizations that existed thousands of years ago determined the cultural and scientific development of mankind. Examining the details of ancient civilizations, one can see the development and decline of various cultures, moral values ​​and scientific achievements of antiquity, which influenced the development of all mankind.

The earliest settlements along the Tiber River in an area that later became a city Rome was most likely ruled by a chief or military leader with the support of the heads of leading families within or near the settlement. Virgil and other epic writers tell us that the city of Rome was founded by Romulus, and that he killed his brother Remus in order to ridicule his pomerium, or the sacred border of the city he founded. This city was named after its legendary founder, Rome, and we have a correspondingly heroic beginning for the city that once ruled the entire Western world. Environmental problems of ancient agricultural civilizations. Authors of later eras, including many Romans, would deduce quite a bit from the legendary part of the founding history of the city where Romulus kills his brother, and said that since Rome was founded in an act of bloodshed, the bloodshed would thus become part of the Roman legacy.

During the Dark Ages, Greek settlements spread from the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula to the western coast of Asia Minor (present-day Turkey), covering the islands of the Aegean Sea. By the beginning of the VIII century BC. NS. the Greeks began to restore trade relations with other peoples by exporting olive oil, wine, pottery and metal products. Thanks to the recent invention of the alphabet by the Phoenicians, the writing that was lost during the Dark Ages began to revive. However, the established peace and prosperity led to a dramatic increase in the population, and it became increasingly difficult to feed it due to the limited agricultural base.

Ancient China arose on the basis of Neolithic cultures that developed in the 5th - 3th millennia BC. NS. in the middle reaches of the Yellow River. The Yellow River basin became the main territory for the formation of the ancient civilization of China, which for a long time developed in conditions of relative isolation. Only from the middle of the 1st millennium BC. NS. the process of expansion of the territory begins, in a southern direction, first to the area of ​​the Yanza basin, and then further south. On the verge of our era, the state of Ancient China extends far beyond the Yellow He basin, although the northern border of the ethnic territory of the ancient Chinese remains almost unchanged.

During its two thousand year history, the ancient city Babylon twice became the capital of a great empire, fabulous in its splendor. The Babylonians also managed to achieve significant scientific and intellectual progress. Compared to the first Mesopotamian cities in Sumer and Akkad, Babylon was young: the first mentions of it date back to the XXIII century BC. NS. Environmental problems of ancient agricultural civilizations. It acquired political significance only after 1900 BC. e., when the Amorites, the union of the Semitic tribes captured Sumer. In a few years, Babylon became the capital of a small but constantly growing Amorite kingdom, which, under the reign of King Hammurabi (1792-50 BC), became an empire that absorbed all of southern Mesopotamia, as well as part of Assyria in the north.

Civilization Ancient egypt existed for almost 3000 years, leaving the descendants with magnificent monuments and fabulous treasures. Egypt became the cradle of the second (after the Sumerian) great civilization in world history. It originated in the Nile Valley several centuries later than the Sumerian civilization in Mesopotamia, which undoubtedly influenced the early development of Ancient Egypt.

Passions are the enemies of peace, but without them there would be no art or sciences in this world, and each would doze naked on a heap of his own dung.

The significance of the environmental problem

There are regions on Earth that, due to a number of natural and ecological features, were most favorable for the development of ancient civilizations - these are plains suitable for processing, rivers, lakes and other places. They are a kind of platforms of attraction for primitive people. Five such favorable places can be distinguished: the Nile and Mesopotamia with Egypt and Sumer, the valleys of the Ganges and Indus rivers with the civilizations of India, the Yellow River basin (Yellow River) with the Chinese civilization and, finally, Central America that appeared later with the Mayan civilization, the islands of the Pacific and Indian oceans with the Polynesian civilization, while each ethnic group has experienced periods of its most active activity. Under pressure from more powerful ethnic groups, small civilizations receded into the background or disappeared altogether. This is how the civilizations of Central Africa, Easter Island and others disappeared. A more stable path of development was preserved only in European civilization, which was rooted in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Rome, and Hellas. For a long time, Europeans perceived the religious and philosophical teachings of China and India as a way to foster passivity, detachment, and contemplation. However, at the end of the XX century. Western civilization began to rethink the spiritual guidelines of its development. From the point of view of ecological ethics, Judeo-Christian dogmas that assert the human right to dominate nature are inferior to the ideas of Buddhism, Taoism and other Eastern teachings that preach the inextricable connection between man and nature. The history of urban life is no less significant than the development of agriculture and the production of certain goods. The way of life in the cities of antiquity was not much different from the modern one. However, mankind has retained the memory of the seven wonders of the ancient world: the Egyptian pyramids in Giza, the hanging gardens of Babylon, the statue of Zeus in Olympia, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus and the Lighthouse of Alexandria. The river valleys were oases of blossom among the surrounding desert landscapes. Man, having mastered the river valleys, created man-made agricultural landscapes, the functioning of which was supported by constant creative activity. The close dependence of people's lives on the regime of rivers, for example, the Nile, ensured a longer existence of the Egyptian state. The magnificent pyramids and temples serve as an excellent symbol of this stability. Babylon, which was the capital of the Middle East for one and a half thousand years, existed from the 19th to the 6th century. BC NS. The death of the Babylonian kingdom was the result of inept management. The Egyptians, who had rich experience in the construction of irrigation facilities for irrigating land in the Nile Valley, proposed to build a canal and increase the area of ​​irrigated land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Water irrigated the lands underlain by saline soils. Secondary soil salinization began. Water in the Euphrates, from where it was taken into the new canal, began to flow more slowly, which caused sedimentation in the old irrigation network. She began to fail. Thus, the consequences of yet another "victory over nature", wrote LN Gumilev (1912-1992), "ruined the great city." By the beginning of the new era, only ruins remained of it. Techniques for cultivating and irrigating the land, breeding plants - all these achievements of the most ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and the Nile were used by subsequent peoples, which ensured their rapid development. And here's what's interesting. On the pyramid of Cheops it was written as a warning to descendants: "People will die from inability to use the forces of nature and from ignorance of the true world." The ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean, as we know from history, have not once been subjected to major tectonic catastrophes, which led to the death of the existing civilization. In the first case, a rift fracture of the earth's crust occurred in the Atlantic Ocean, which may have destroyed the legendary Atlantis. The second event was associated with the eruption of the Santorini volcano, as a result of which the Cretan civilization perished, and with the massive resettlement of the Phoenicians to the western Mediterranean Sea and beyond. The emergence of the Ol-Mec civilization on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico dates back to this period. The Maya called themselves the descendants of seafarers who came from the East. It is quite possible that grandiose tectonic catastrophes could lead not only to local, but also to global migrations of peoples. It should be noted that already in ancient times, great people possessed knowledge and understanding of those problems that we now call ecological (the ancient Greek philosophers Plato (427-348 BC), Aristotle (384 - 322 BC). An ecological crisis was characteristic of the civilization of Ancient Greece. Forests were forced out by fields, orchards, vineyards. Deforestation led to soil erosion, especially on the slopes. Soil washout from mountain slopes radically changed the appearance of efficient landscapes. According to the testimony of the ancient Greek natural scientist Feof-Rasta (372 - 287 BC), the ship forest grew only in mountainous Arcadia and outside Greece.In turn, the conquest of nature in ancient Rome turned into an aggravation of environmental problems. Mostly forests, arable lands, mountain slopes were affected. The harvests from the fields were getting smaller. In August 1998, a catastrophic flood occurred in China, which flooded the northern provinces of Inner Mongolia and areas of the Chinese Amur region, the central parts of China in the provinces of Hubei and Jiangxi, killing more than 10 thousand residents. The flood affected nearly 20% of China's population and affected the national economy. The tragedy raised the questions: what to do and who is to blame? Scientists point out not only natural, but also man-made causes of the disaster: deforestation along the Yangtze led to soil erosion, soil washout into the river and an increase in the height of the river bottom. The Renaissance era with its medieval period is called in history the era of the "great uprooting". By the beginning of the XI century. the peoples inhabiting Western Europe were influenced by the Roman Catholic Church: the feudal system was established. In the XI - XIII centuries. there was a massive deforestation for agriculture. Castles, monasteries, cities were built, the mining industry developed. At this stage, the ecological situation in Europe has become much more complicated. Defensive walls still limited the growth of cities to some extent. However, the lack of sanitation has led to the pollution of ground and surface waters. And because of the tightness of the building, fires, which were not uncommon, had devastating consequences. Overcrowding and unsanitary conditions contributed to the spread of epidemics. Thus, in the middle of the XIV century. according to various estimates, up to 50% of the entire population of Europe died out from the plague epidemic. Arab culture has been represented by many scholars. First of all, it should be noted the legendary physician Ibn Sina (Avicena) (c. 980-1037), who wrote in the chapter "About things that arise from a cause belonging to common causes" about the effect on the body of the surrounding air, about the seasons and natural phenomena. Ibn Sina also dealt with the problems of the origin of the animal world, the formation of the relief of the earth's surface. At the turn of the VIII - IX centuries. Kievan Rus arose. With the adoption of Christianity in 988, relations between the Russians and the Greeks, and then with other European countries, were revived. Before the baptism of Russia, the enlighteners Cyril (c. 827 - 869) and Methodius (c. 815 - 855), brothers from Solunya created the Slavic alphabet, translated the scriptures from Greek. In the XII century. the most ancient chronicle "The Tale of Bygone Years" was compiled. This chronicle mentions not only historical events, but also remarkable natural phenomena. In the Age of Enlightenment, observation and experiment began to play an important role in the natural sciences. The body of knowledge from the field of natural sciences (in the explanation of nature) was called natural philosophy - the philosophy of nature. Natural philosophers include: Rene Descartes (1596-1650), Voltaire (1694-1778), Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), Buffon (1707-1788), Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). The Age of Enlightenment in Russia (XVIII) is inextricably linked with the name of M.V. Lomonosov (1711-1765). In his writings and research "On the layers of the earth", where he formulated the tasks of geology and other tasks, Lomonosov supported the position of transformism, spreading the idea of ​​the development of not only the earth's crust, but the entire world. Thus, M.V. Lomonosov was the first Russian transforming natural philosopher who paved the way for the evolutionary idea. The successes of enlightenment and the rise of creative thought were a prerequisite for the renewal of the ancient science of geography, and within its framework, in the era of natural science, for the emergence of a new science - ecology. The scientific foundations of natural science, as well as ecology, were formed in the mainstream of natural philosophy, but with some contradiction: on the one hand, the materiality and cognizability of the laws of the environment was asserted, on the other, the initial act of the creation of the world by God was explicitly or implicitly recognized. At the same time, it became obvious that philosophy without natural science is as impossible as natural science without philosophy (AI Herzen (1812-1870) "Letters on the Study of Nature"). In the era of natural science, the world around us in all its diversity as a living nature attracted the attention of many representatives of science, naturalists and biologists who made a huge invaluable contribution to the foundations of natural science and knowledge of the environment: Jean Baptiste Lamarck, Wolfgang Goethe, Alexander Humboldt and Charles Darwin. Among Russian researchers, the geographer and geologist, honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences Pyotr Aleksandrovich Chikhachev (1808-1890), who outlined the problems of interaction between man and nature, stood out. Leading a geological expedition to Eastern Altai and adjacent regions of Siberia, he saw how forest vegetation was dying. PA Chikhachev described the means to which the hunters resorted to find and track down the beast, while destroying the wonderful forests. Using the Zmeinogorsk deposits as an example, Chikhachev showed the damage caused to nature by polymetallic and silver mines. He wrote: “The place of processing is filled up with wood, which ignites and heats the rock for a long time, after which it is poured over with cold water and cracked. This is considered a cheaper way than using gunpowder, although the forests have already retreated 125 km from Zmeinogorsk. Human habitation is also disappearing around the mines. For Russia, the scientific works of A. Humboldt (1769 - 1859), a German naturalist, a foreign honorary member of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1818), a geographer and a traveler were of great importance. Alexander Humboldt received an invitation from Emperor Nicholas I to come to Russia "in view of the great benefits that could result from this for science and the state." In addition to the Urals and Siberia, A. Humboldt studied the nature of various countries in Europe, Central and South America. He was one of the founders of plant geography and the doctrine of life forms. A. Humboldt substantiated the idea of ​​vertical zoning, laid the foundations of general geography and climatology, prepared the main work "Cosmos", which sets out the foundations of his natural philosophical outlook on nature, for example, 7 shows the history of thinking about the unity of phenomena and interactions -N ^ the forces in the universe. It should be noted that the work "Cosmos" NN was a work that awakened in the broad layers of the population of different countries interest and striving for knowledge of the laws of nature. The works of A. Humboldt had a great influence on the development of evolutionary ideas and the comparative method in natural science. A supporter of Humboldt, who had a passion for distant wanderings and for the nature of his native places, was the professor of Moscow University K.F. Roulye (1814-1858), who was not only a scientist, but also a popularizer of natural science and evolutionary ideas in Russia, a predecessor of Charles Darwin. In the classic work General Zoology, Roulier argued that nature is eternal; all its phenomena are interconnected and constitute a single whole. Any living thing depends on external conditions, i.e. from air, water, soil, climate, plants and, finally, from humans. Jean Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) was one of the most prominent representatives of French science in the first third of the 19th century. In 1802 Lamarck published his work "Hydrogeology". It examined the natural processes leading to changes on the surface of the globe. (Now you can, of course, add not only natural forces, but also anthropogenic influences.) Lamarck in his work noted the importance of living organisms in natural processes, emphasized the fundamental difference between the organic and inorganic world. Lamarck first coined the term "biology". He came close to the concept of "biosphere". In 1809, the classic work "Philosophy of Zoology" was published, which brought Lamarck a lot of suffering during his lifetime, especially from the generally recognized authority in science of the French zoologist J. Cuvier (1769-1832), and was only recognized after his death. What are Lamarck's evolutionary views? He proved that individuals of one species, changing their place of residence, lifestyle or habits and being influenced, change composition, proportions and even organization, i.e. individuals who belonged to the same species by origin, in the end turn out to be transformed into a new species, different from the original, under the influence of environmental factors. Before Lamarck, no one had developed the doctrine of the origin of some species from others and of evolution in the world of animals and plants. His views were evolutionary and ecological. Another great humanist was Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) from Germany. Zoology and botany, anatomy and physiology, geology and paleontology, physics and mineralogy - all these sciences were equally interested in Goethe. He created a science, calling it "morphology" or "the science of the formation and transformation of organic bodies." Goethe's hobbies are diverse, but love for the world of wildlife was a powerful stimulus for Goethe in his poetic, philosophical and scientific research. Ecological concepts can be called his statements about the growth and development of plants, about the modification of leaves under the influence of light, heat and moisture. Goethe lived and worked in the heyday of the philosophy of I. Kant, F. Schelling (1754-1854), F. Hegel (1770-1831). However, Goethe's natural philosophical worldview was deeply original. He was characterized by a deep faith in the power of natural science, capable of penetrating the most intimate secrets of nature. The English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-1882), like Alexander Humboldt, was the forerunner of modern geography and ecology. According to Darwin, each organism has constant connections not only with the conditions of its habitats, but also with all the creatures around it. It is as if the imprint of the entire environment falls on it. This double dependence of organisms results in two types of adaptation: to abiotic conditions (the nature of the soil, climate and other factors) and biotic (coexistence with other organisms). The doctrine had a deep evolutionary meaning, indicating the possibility of the origin of organisms and plants from the simplest forms. This approach to Darwin's research gave rise to the German scientist E. Haeckel (1834-1919) to declare the expediency of separating a new science - ecology - the science of the relationship of living organisms and the communities formed by them with each other and with the environment. As an independent science, ecology was formed by the beginning of the 20th century, when in 1901. Danish botanist J. Warming (1841 -1924) first used this term in the modern sense in the publication "Oncological Geography of Plants". Among biologists and geographers of Russia in the pre-revolutionary years, one can name such outstanding scientists as I.P. Pavlov (1849-1936), K.A. Timiryazev (1843-1920), A.N. Severtsov (1866-1936), V. .L. Komarov (1869-1945), N. M. Knipovich (1862-1939), V. N. Sukachev (1880-1967), L. S. Berg (1876-1950), G. F. Morozov (1867-1920) , GN Vysotsky (1865-1940) and others. Among them is the natural scientist VI Vernadsky (1863 - 1945), who plays a special role in the development of the theory of the biosphere - the shell of the Earth. According to him, the biosphere is a planetary phenomenon of a cosmic nature. The entire biosphere is permeated with the interaction of not only terrestrial, but also cosmic bodies and phenomena. And the main role among them is played by living organisms, "living substances" of the planet. “The biosphere,” noted Vernadsky, “can be viewed as an area of ​​the earth's crust occupied by transformers that convert cosmic radiation into earthly energy; the rays of the sun determine the main features of the biosphere mechanism ”. Thus, defining the biosphere, Vernadsky introduces the concept of "living matter" - this is the totality of all living organisms. The area of ​​distribution of living matter includes the lower part of the air shell (atmosphere), the entire water shell (hydrosphere) and the upper part of the hard shell (lithosphere). The understanding of V.I. Vernadsky's ideas came only in the 1960s. It seemed to grow stronger as mankind became aware of the threat of an ecological crisis. Therefore, the solution of global environmental problems is impossible without knowledge of the laws governing living organisms in the biosphere. In his works V.I. Vernadsky singled out the dominant role of the human factor in the development and preservation of the biosphere, which is confirmed (in recent decades) by the emergence of a number of environmental problems of a global scale. The words of the founder of the doctrine of the biosphere sound like a reminder: “The biosphere is the environment of our life, it is that“ nature ”that surrounds us, about which we speak in colloquial language. A person, first of all, by his breathing and the manifestation of his functions is inextricably linked with this "nature", even if he lived in a city or in a secluded house ”. A huge contribution to the improvement and development of environmental problems in the last decade of the XX century. introduced by the organic chemist Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Valentin Afanasevich Koptyug (1931 - 1997). He was also vice-president of the USSR Academy of Sciences since 1979 (then the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1991. ), since 1980 the chairman of the Siberian branch of the Academy of Sciences. And after his death he left a huge legacy, including works on environmental issues. V.A.Koptyug focused his main attention on the preservation of the unique natural lake Baikal, participated in the examination of a number of projects, including the project for the construction of the Katunskaya hydroelectric power station in Altai. Let us recall the Russian thinker of the late XX century. - L.M. Leonova (1899-1994), what does it have to do with the protection of nature and the environment. Leonov, the famous classic of Russian literature, spoke of a catastrophe threatening humanity. About that catastrophe, whose approach had long worried him, and his presentiment dictated the last obsession novel "The Pyramid". The depth of social and moral-philosophical issues led Leonov to the conclusion that “our current situation in Russia and other countries, caused by the claims of senseless national pride, and flaring up on a sixth part of the land, which literally has always been a single country, should be instructive for those who are still prosperous. while individual nations ... a seemingly brilliant, but in reality, infinitely fragile spiritual and material civilization today is too reminiscent of Belshazzar's feast ”1. And the ominous incomprehensible words that predicted death in due time: “me, tekel, uparsil! are already on fire ”; it is a fatal warning to our inhabited community, a warning against impending catastrophe. L. Leonov named these signs. The scientific forecast promises that in 2200, if the demographic process continues as it is now, the population on planet Earth will be 260 billion people, "which could be more dangerous than mutual bitterness and explosive enmity between them." Let's add also uncontrollability and non-observance of ecological laws of environmental protection. The environmental problem in Russia is being dealt with not only by scientists and specialists of relevant organizations (for example, the Ecograd Scientific Research Center, the RAS Environmental Safety Research Center, the RF Atmospheric Air Protection Research Institute, etc.), but also by trade unions and regional ( city) authorities.

Most of the world's population lives in cities, due to which urban areas are overloaded. At the moment, it is worth noting the following trends for urban residents:

• deterioration in living conditions;
• the growth of diseases;
• drop in the productivity of human activity;
• decrease in life expectancy;
• climate change.

If you put together all the problems of modern cities, the list will be endless. Let's designate the most critical cities.

Terrain change

As a result of urbanization, there is significant pressure on the lithosphere. This leads to a change in the relief, the formation of karst voids, and the disturbance of river basins. In addition, there is desertification of territories that become unsuitable for the life of plants, animals and people.

Degradation of natural landscape

An intensive destruction of flora and fauna takes place, their diversity decreases, a kind of "urban" nature arises. The number of natural and recreational zones and green spaces is decreasing. The negative impact comes from cars that overwhelm urban and suburban transport highways.

Water supply problems

Rivers and lakes are polluted by industrial and domestic wastewater. All this leads to a reduction in water areas, the extinction of river plants and animals. All water resources of the planet are polluted: groundwater, inland hydro systems, the World Ocean as a whole. One of the consequences is a shortage of drinking water, which leads to the death of thousands of people on the planet.

This is one of the first environmental problems to be discovered by humanity. The atmosphere is polluted by exhaust gases from automobiles and industrial emissions. All this leads to a dusty atmosphere,. In the future, dirty air becomes the cause of diseases of people and animals. Since forests are being cut down intensively, the number of plants that process carbon dioxide is decreasing on the planet.

Household waste problem

Garbage is another source of soil, water and air pollution. Various materials are recycled over a long time. The decay of individual elements takes 200-500 years. In the meantime, the processing process is underway, harmful substances are released that cause diseases.

There are also other ecological problems of cities. No less relevant are the problems of functioning of urban networks. The elimination of these problems should be dealt with at the highest level, but people themselves can take small steps. For example, throwing trash in a trash can, saving water, using reusable dishes, planting plants.

Introduction 3

§ 1. The essence of environmental problems in the Ancient World 6

§ 2. Environmental problems in Ancient Egypt 14

§ 3. The relationship between man and nature in Ancient Rome. Major environmental issues 21

Conclusion 33

List of used literature 35

Introduction

The problem of the relationship between man and nature over the centuries has caused clashes of opposing points of view, one of which is associated with the idea of ​​the dominance of the natural environment over man, the other with the idea of ​​the superiority of man over nature. For us here it is of interest to find out whether the ancients already thought about their relationship to nature and whether they experienced it in a conflictual way (and to what extent). Since ancient times, the problem of the relationship between man and the natural environment has been approached in a completely different way compared to our principled today's formulation of the question: attention was paid only to the impact of natural conditions on a person, and a direct relationship was established between the natural environment, climate, resources - on the one hand, and features appearance and behavior of different peoples - on the other. On the contrary, they did not pay attention to the inevitable interaction and interdependence of the population and its own ecosystem, and the direct anthropogenic impact of man of the ancient world on nature was not the subject of research.

In accordance with the above, the problem of the relationship between man and nature in the ancient world seems to us quite interesting. Interest in the problem of research is largely due to the fact that in modern domestic historical science, a small amount of research is devoted to environmental problems that arose in the ancient world.

So, recently, this problem has been actively developed by such domestic researchers as D.B. Prusakov, Yu.Ya. Perepelkin, V.V. Klimenko, E.N. Chernykh and some others. In the works of these historians, some aspects of the problem of interest to us are investigated. In the works of E.N. Chernykh poses the problem of the connection between anthropogenic environmental disasters and ancient mining and metallurgical production. The researcher points to the undoubted global significance of such disasters, reveals the dynamics and degree of human influence on the nature of the ancient world. In the works of V.V. Klimenko and D.B. Prusakov investigates the dynamics of climatic conditions in Ancient Egypt, reveals the relationship between social and climatic shocks.

The problem of interest to us in foreign historical science has received much greater development. Abroad, environmental problems in the ancient world were covered in the works of B. Bell, R. Sallares, P. Fideli, A. Gardiner, V. Zeith, D. O'Connor, K. Batzer, R. Fabridge, S. Nicholson, J. White, J. Flenley and many others.

Sources on the research problem are numerous and varied. Among them, it should be noted the literary monuments of that time. However, here we are limited by the irreparable loss of many ancient texts. Nevertheless, a significant part of the written sources that have come down to us are of interest for the study of such a promising problem as the idea of ​​ancient man about nature and his relationship to it.

The huge amount of archaeological finds is invaluable material for historical analysis.

In connection with the above, the urgent task of historians is to combine all types of historical sources (literary, documentary, archaeological, natural science) to write a comprehensive history of the ecology of the ancient world.

Thus, we have defined the topic of our research as follows: "Environmental problems in the Ancient world."

The purpose of this work is to characterize the essence of the relationship between man and nature in the Ancient World and environmental problems arising from the interaction of man and nature.

The object of our research is the natural and climatic conditions of the Ancient World.

The subject of the research is the ecological problems of this period.

To achieve this goal, we set and solved the following tasks:

Describe the essence of environmental problems that arose in the Ancient World;

Describe the main environmental problems that arose in Ancient Egypt;

Reveal the nature of the relationship between man and nature in Ancient Rome.

Describe the most important environmental problems of Ancient Rome.

To solve the set tasks, we used the following methods of historical research: study and analysis of all available historical literature on this issue, analysis of archaeological data, study of historical sources, etc.

Study structure. This work consists of an introduction, three chapters, a conclusion, a bibliography.

§ 1. The essence of environmental problems in the Ancient World.

Ecology is a relatively recent concept. It was introduced into circulation by E. Haeckel, a student of Charles Darwin, in 1866. However, if you take into account the Greek etymology of the term derived from oikos - "household", then you can come to the conclusion about the existence of concepts related to this term in the ancient era ... Many subjects that fall into the field of vision of modern ecology served as the subject of reflection for the ancient man as well. Ancient people, like us, were sensitive to the complexity and diversity of natural phenomena (20, p. 19).

Climate change is one of the global problems of modern ecology. In the system of ancient views on nature, climate was assigned an equally important role; it was often thought of as the dominant of the way of life of entire peoples and the cause of differences in ethnic behavior. Empedocles formulated the theory of the four primary elements. It formed the basis of the teachings of Anaxagoras and Alcmeon about opposites, which in turn influenced the emergence of ideas about the four primary fluids (blood, phlegm, yellow and black bile). We find the beginnings of these ideas in Hippocrates. They received their complete expression in the works of Galen (20, p. 39).

Deepening our knowledge of the climate of the past will sooner or later resolve some controversial issues of ancient history. In this regard, it is necessary to say a few words about the "three catastrophic droughts" hypothesis. There is an opinion that around 1200. BC. the Eastern Mediterranean was hit by a severe drought that lasted for several years. This assumption serves as an argument with the help of which they try to explain the reasons for the almost simultaneous decline and disappearance at the end of the Late Bronze Age of the old political centers of the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia (Mycenaean Greece, the Hittite state, the Egyptian New Kingdom, etc.). Supporters of this hypothesis usually associate the beginning of the Great Greek colonization with drought. Finally, some researchers believe that in the second half of the 4th century. BC. Attica experienced another severe drought that lasted for several decades.

The slightest change in climate led to the fact that the worst agricultural areas became completely unsuitable for agriculture, and the exploitation of the best lands increased significantly.

Changes in climatic conditions are not the only environmental problem in the Ancient World. So, from the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. in a number of places in the Mediterranean, there was a reduction in forests. At the same time, the composition of forests was changing: evergreen vegetation came to replace deciduous trees. It is now clear that forest retreat was mainly the result of global climate change, although human activities should not be disregarded. This process continued in the next millennia, and its further stages require a more detailed explanation (8, p. 4).

Some areas of southern Greece lost their forest cover back in the Early Bronze Age, when a climate unfavorable for year-round vegetation was established here. As for the northern part of Greece, in those areas that are outside the zone of a typical Mediterranean climate, forests remained until the second half of the 1st millennium BC. and even later. In other words, the process of the disappearance of forests here continued in the classical era, as mentioned by ancient authors. So, in one passage from Plato, it is said about the disappearance of forests in Attica. The ancient Greeks constantly needed a large amount of wood, which was used to construct buildings and smelt metals, such as silver in Attica or copper in Cyprus. In the V-IV centuries. BC. the Athenians were forced to export ship timber from remote regions to build their fleet. It is no coincidence that their northern colony Amphipolis was of strategic importance to them. The need for forest and the classical era was so great that, according to some modern historians, it was during this era that the predatory extermination of forests led to the present bare landscapes in many places of the Mediterranean, without doubt ancient man was responsible for the disappearance of forests in certain areas of the Mediterranean. for example, in the mountains of Lebanon, which supplied Egypt and other states with cedar for several millennia, or in Crete, which was once famous for its cypress trees (10, p. 72).

Recently, however, studies have appeared, the authors of which are revising the thesis of the destructive human impact on Mediterranean forests. O. Rackham, the most famous representative of this trend, believes that in a number of places in the Mediterranean, such as Attica, where thick limestone strata do not retain moisture, the forests were initially doomed to extinction. According to the researcher, descriptions of landscapes by ancient Greek authors corresponded to their contemporary reality. True, by the "forest" of the ancient Greek texts, we must understand shrubs and other small vegetation, since the authors of these texts have never seen a real forest with giant trees like northern forests. The complexity of the "forest problem" increases when one takes into account the fact that many Mediterranean forests are secondary, since they appeared on the site of former wastelands. A typical example is the Aleppo pine. This tree is found everywhere in Greece today, whereas in the Neolithic and Bronze Age it was rare in the Balkans. Pine spread here at a later time mainly due to the fact that its seeds germinate well in places of wastelands and fires (8, p. 5).

The history of environmental problems of the Ancient World cannot be limited only by the framework of long-term processes. Often, episodic events have far-reaching environmental consequences. These events include volcanic eruptions. The question of how the volcanic eruption on the island of Fera in the 17th century influenced the world climate is still controversial. BC. Probably, the consequences of this disaster were significant and in scale no less than the consequences of the recent eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. The Sicilian volcano Etna is known today as a source of colossal amounts of carbon dioxide and sulfurous gases, the emissions of which into the atmosphere affect the modern climate.

It is possible that the eruption of this volcano in 44 - 42 years. BC. significantly influenced the Mediterranean climate during the Roman era. Various cataclysms of the biosphere can have no less ecological consequences. It is appropriate here to recall the outbreaks of epidemics of infectious diseases observed in antiquity: the "pestilence" in Athens in 430 BC, the "plague" (rather, it was smallpox) that struck the Roman Empire under the Antonines, or a real plague that struck Constantinople in the VI century. The origins of these infectious epidemics can be traced back to the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age, when population densities in some areas reached levels sufficient for the rapid spread of diseases such as smallpox, typhoid, influenza and measles. Malaria, a source of high mortality in the Mediterranean population in antiquity and later eras, occupied a special place in this series. Some researchers go too far, attributing malaria to the reasons for the disappearance of the Etruscan civilization or the decline of Hellenistic Greece. At the same time, no one still can say with certainty when this disease appeared in the Mediterranean: in the prehistoric period, in the V-1V centuries. BC. or in the era of Hellenism (8, p. 8).

Another ecological problem of the Ancient World is the overpopulation of the centers of this or that civilization. Among the consequences of the pressure of the "excess human mass" on nature, in addition to the reduction of forests, the first ever cases of environmental pollution should be noted. Studies of Greenland glaciers and lake sediments in Sweden have shown a sharp increase in lead content in them since about the 6th century. BC. The increase in lead content in the atmosphere was the result of mining and metallurgy during the Greco-Roman era. The dispute about the nature of the ancient economy continues, despite the harsh verdict of M. Finley, who argued that the ancient Greeks and Romans had no idea about the economy as such and that the organization of their economic activity was primitive, not going beyond the framework of handicraft production. However, the scale of this production was capable of causing air pollution over Sweden and Greenland. We know from historians that at the expense of the Lavrion silver mines the Athenian fleet was maintained - a guarantee of the sea power of the Athenian empire. However, historians do not mention one unpleasant fact - the Avrion mines, whose byproduct was lead, were a powerful source of environmental pollution. The Mediterranean Sea today is one of the dirtiest seas on our planet, it urgently needs to be cleansed. But it would be wrong to believe that it has become so in our century - even in the pre-industrial era, the dirty imprint of human activity was imposed on the Mediterranean.

Already since the time of Ancient Egypt, there has been a further increase in the impact of man on the biosphere. In some cases, this led to the expansion of the population ranges of various animal species, in others - to their reduction. First of all, the range of domestic animals was expanding. During Greek colonization, a highly productive woolly breed of sheep spread throughout the Mediterranean. It is possible that the Greeks were the first to learn to breed fine-fleeced sheep. Since late antiquity, the draft Longhorn breed of cows, which existed in Europe since the Neolithic era, is gradually being replaced by the dairy Shorthorn breed. However, this did not lead to an increase in the consumption of dairy products (with the exception of cheese) in the Mediterranean countries, where the goat continued to be the main dairy animal. In the course of a long selection process, the Greeks and Romans managed to breed larger breeds of livestock and poultry. During the Roman era, they spread to a number of provinces, such as Gaul and the Danube. Along with the increase in crop yields in agriculture during the period of antiquity, the productivity of animal husbandry increased.

In ancient times, porcupines, ferrets, mongooses and guinea fowls came to southern Europe from North Africa. The penetration of the domestic cat into Europe from Egypt also took place in the 1st millennium BC. Thanks to the Romans, the population of the provinces learned about the rabbit, whose homeland was Spain.

The ancient Greeks and Romans were well aware of some large animals, which have now practically disappeared in the Mediterranean basin due to the hostile attitude towards them on the part of ancient man. In ancient times, lions were found in North Africa and Western Asia. The finds of lion skeletons at the Neolithic sites of Ukraine allow us to say that these animals managed to survive in post-glacial Europe. The skeleton of a lion, probably performed in a circus, was found in Olbia. Recently, the remains of a lion have been discovered in Delphi, dating back to the middle of the 6th century. BC. On the existence in Greece in the IV century. BC. tame lions are reported by Isocrates. Earlier information about lions in Greece includes data from excavations of the Mycenaean palace in Tiryns, where archaeologists have found the bones of a lion, probably not so rare an animal in the Aegeid in the Bronze Age. It is no coincidence that his appearance is captured in such monuments of art as a dagger and stelae with scenes of a lion's hunt from the mine tomb IV in Mycenae. G. Milonas suggested that a pair of lions, decorating the column that crowns the Mycenaean Lion Gate, was the coat of arms of the dynasty of the Mycenaean rulers of the 13th century. BC, i.e., perhaps, Agamemnon himself. The sensational discovery in Vergina of the tomb of Philip II of Macedon with images of a lion hunting scene confirms the words of Herodotus and Aristotle that in their time lions were found in northern Greece (12, p. 100).

The king of beasts became the most visible victim of the ancient man's attack on nature. The type of lion, which was known in ancient times to the inhabitants of Hellas, today in the wild is extremely rare in India. They had much less opportunity to get acquainted with the East African lion breed, a frequent inhabitant of modern zoos. The Carthaginians and Romans probably knew the North African lion, which has disappeared without a trace today. As for another species of this animal, exterminated by man, the South African lion, the ancient inhabitants of the Mediterranean hardly suspected its existence.

Today in Greece, bears are found in one or two remote places in the north of the country. In ancient times, they were much more common. Pausanias reports on bears living on Mount Parnassus in Attica, on the slopes of the Taygeti Range in Laconia, as well as in Arcadia and Thrace. Bears have been hunted since ancient times, with the result that their numbers in the Mediterranean have declined sharply.

The largest land animal also suffered from humans in ancient times. Indian elephants came to Southwest Asia in the 4th-3rd centuries. BC. At that time in North Africa there was a local, not so large in comparison with the Asian, breed of elephants, now completely extinct. North African elephants were caught and tried to tame for use in war, albeit without much success. The peak of demand for these "tanks" of antiquity coincided with the III century. BC, in connection with which one cannot but recall the battle of Raffia in 217 BC. between the Ptolemies and Seleucids. Like lions, North African elephants were exterminated by the inhabitants of Carthage and the Romans who subjugated it. At the beginning of our era, no one remembered about these animals. Strabo wrote that the shepherds and farmers of Numidia should be grateful to the Romans, who, having exterminated wild animals, made their work in the fields safe. This remark well illustrates the attitude of ancient people towards wild animals. If by his activity ancient man contributed to the growth of populations of domestic animals and small pests, then large wild animals inevitably lost from contact with him.

Another equally famous example is the Egyptian papyrus. The plant was so widely used in the ancient world that it brought it to the brink of extinction in the Nile Valley in the distant past. By the beginning of the spread of modern irrigation systems in Egypt, which have a detrimental effect on papyrus, he already belonged to the number of rare plants. Today, the only place in the Nile Valley of Egypt is known where several dozen specimens of this plant have survived. Fortunately, papyrus is still common in Central Africa. Thus, the scale of the ancient man's intervention in the natural environment was significant enough to lead to changes in its biological universe. There is no need to remind about the relevance of this problem for modern ecology.

Destroying the habitat, the ancient peoples doomed themselves to extinction. One of the most compelling examples is Easter Island. Pollen analysis showed that Polynesian colonists destroyed all the trees on this once abundant island. As a result, soil erosion has increased, leading to the degradation of agriculture and the decline of culture, which has left mysterious megalithic statues. Lost in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, the island turned out to be a trap for its inhabitants, doomed to extinction in ecological conditions that had become unsuitable for life. On the continent, the way out of the ecological crisis was migration - whether we are talking about repeated outbursts of Greek colonization or about the migrations of the peoples of Eurasia.

§ 2. Environmental problems in Ancient Egypt.

An analysis of the history of Ancient Egypt allowed some domestic researchers to put forward a working hypothesis, according to which its historical evolution was characterized by three socio-ecological crises - the largest turning points in the life of society. The second crisis was the most severe. It covered the 1st Transitional Period and the Middle Kingdom (XXIII - XVIII centuries BC). Now there is no doubt that its most important natural conditions were a significant decrease in the level of the Nile floods and a severe drought, which apparently affected at the end of the 3rd millennium BC. not only Egypt, but also a number of other countries of the Mediterranean and the Middle East. In other words, climate change played a huge role in the history of ancient Egypt at this stage. However, there is still a fair amount of uncertainty about the nature, chronology and causes of the climatic fluctuations of interest to us.

B. Bell wrote in detail about the drought and low floods of the Nile as the direct natural causes of the collapse of the 6th Dynasty and the Old Kingdom in general, based on the paleoclimatic data at her disposal with the involvement (in translation) of a large corpus of written sources of the 1st Transitional Period and the Middle Kingdom ... At the same time, the researcher did not at all deny the significance of the socio-political factors of the collapse of the old Egyptian centralized state, insisting only on the fact that ecologically conditioned economic crises can take place in history, which no social system is able to overcome. The findings of B. Bell formed the basis for the later rather widely accepted idea that the death of the Old Kingdom was directly related to a sharp deterioration of natural conditions in Northeast Africa (8, p. 6).

Socio-natural analysis suggests that the deterioration of the ecological situation on the banks of the Nile at the end of the Old Kingdom not only led to the complication of people's living conditions, which contributed to the weakening of the state during the VI Dynasty and its subsequent disintegration, but to a certain extent predetermined all further qualitative technological, administrative economic and socio-political reorganization in ancient Egypt at the epoch-making historical transition to the New Kingdom.

Among the significant social prerequisites for the Second socio-ecological crisis, it is probably worth highlighting the demographic growth and the strengthening of nominee administrations to the detriment of the capital's nobility, which must have become the reason for the confrontation between the parties. The gradual deterioration of environmental conditions undoubtedly aggravated the political situation in Egypt, contributing to the irreversibility of the centrifugal process of the decline of the Old Kingdom. In turn, the collapse of the centralized state and the onset of a period of social unrest and internecine wars caused the destruction or division of the unified irrigation system! - the basics of agricultural production in the country. The texts of the 1st Transitional Period, practically throughout its entire length, inform about grain failures, which led to famine at times so cruel that it even pushed the population of certain regions of Egypt to cannibalism.

It should be noted that the cause of the drought at the end of the 3rd millennium BC. Previously, it was considered an increase in solar activity in accordance with its 1800-1900-year cycle, but the latest research has denied its existence. Nevertheless, thanks to the same studies, it became possible to give a different natural-scientific explanation of the increased aridity of the climate of the Nile Valley during the 1st Transitional Period and at the initial stage of the Middle Kingdom. The fact is that the end of the III millennium BC. characterized by the peak of a strong global cooling, which began, apparently, no later than the XXIV century. BC.

Research results confirm that in the 19th century BC. there was not just a significant, but unprecedented in all historical time increase in the Nile runoff to a value of 160 million cubic meters. m / year, which is almost twice the level of the XXII century. BC. Such an increase in runoff could be provided only due to an even more significant increase in the amount of precipitation (8, p. 9).

Following a short climatic optimum in the second half of the 19th century. BC. a new wave of cold snap came, and an extremely rapid one. In order to imagine the scale of this cooling, we note that it exactly corresponds to the magnitude and rate of modern warming, which, of course, is one of the most significant in world history and causes serious concern to the world community in connection with the observed and potential environmental consequences.

The reason for the cooling in the era of the Middle Kingdom, in our opinion, lies in the unfavorable coincidence of the declining solar activity with the low content of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and one of the most powerful explosive volcanic eruptions in the last 5000 years at the beginning of the 17th century. BC. Researchers estimate that as a result of this colossal volcanic explosion, the global average temperature should have dropped by more than 0.5 ° C within two to three years after the eruption.

This should have resulted in one or more catastrophic droughts and crop failures, such as had not been seen in Egypt for at least the preceding 400 years. This can be confirmed by the results of studying the composition of bottom sediments of Lake Merida in the Fayum depression, where in layers dating from about 1920 - 1560. BC, the sand content sharply increases, which indicates the activation of sand dunes and aeolian transport accompanying dry periods. Thus, the rapid cooling, which reached its minimum already at the beginning of the 17th century. BC, undoubtedly, should have seriously reduced the amount of river flow and introduced significant difficulties in the operation of new irrigation facilities, created in the era of excessive moisture. It is hardly possible to consider the correspondence of this cooling to the appearance of evidence of the degradation of the Egyptian irrigation system and the return of hunger times after the end of the XII dynasty, the final collapse of the Middle Kingdom and the conquest of Lower Egypt by the Asian tribes of the Hyksos.

Egyptian sources of the 1st Transitional Period (XXII-XXI centuries BC) report the extreme shallowness of the Nile: in some places the river, the average width of which in valley Egypt before the construction of the high-rise Aswan Dam was approx. 1.22 km, allegedly ford. In favor of this kind of ancient evidence is the information about what happened at the same time, which amounted to several tens of meters, lowering the mirror of Lake Merida in the Fayum oasis, which was fed by Nile water. It seems that the fall in the level of the Nile during the interregnum reached a catastrophic degree, which was reflected in the documents of that era.

The decrease in the height of the Nile floods was one of the most dangerous environmental disasters in ancient Egypt, because entailed a reduction in the area of ​​the most fertile flooded lands, which already in the second half of the Old Kingdom, before the separation and decline of the irrigation network, should have resulted in a drop in grain yields. In addition, the shallowing of the Nile was most likely accompanied by a decrease in the level of groundwater in the alluvial valley of the river, fraught with disaster for those orchards of the common people who used water from wells. The situation was aggravated by the fact that in about the XXIV century. BC. the offensive of the sands began on the Nile floodplain from the west, due to the formation of deserts and the intensification of aeolian activity. The most dangerous was the invasion of sand dunes into Middle Egypt, where it absorbed a significant part of the floodplain and, possibly, led to a deterioration in the quality of alluvial soils.

An analysis of the content of the sources of the second half of the Old Kingdom, taking into account environmental data, suggests that an economic crisis was deepening in Egypt during this period. Indicative, for example, are the mass impoverishment of the country's population, the development of debt slavery, the widespread use of corporal punishment, noted by Egyptologists, including high-ranking officials who managed production on the estates of noblemen. In general, we can conclude that during the 6th dynasty, the prerequisites for the Second socio-ecological crisis of ancient Egyptian civilization were already formed.

The second socio-ecological crisis was marked by a radical administrative and technological reorganization of agriculture in ancient Egypt. By the beginning of the Middle Kingdom, the non-specialized "workers' detachments" that prevailed in the fields in the Old Egyptian era were supplanted by professional cultivators who were obliged to fulfill the individual labor norm by mastering standard plots. The prototype of these allotments can be seen already in the sources of the 6th dynasty, and there is reason to believe that such areas did not arise everywhere, but in the floodplain of the Nile as the flood border retreated in the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. Thus, the reduction of spills, apparently, was one of the immediate prerequisites for reforming the Old Egyptian system of land use and taxation; the reduction in the area of ​​the most productive, naturally irrigated lands must have put society, represented by the dignitaries, with the need to improve the quality of their processing and a stricter fiscal accounting, which entailed the state standard rationing in the first place of grain production, which is also characteristic of the New Kingdom. The "individualization" of the labor of farmers, obviously, was in close connection with the emergence of the tradition of holding regular inspections of the labor force in order to distribute it according to social and professional categories and the liquidation of large noble farms, which ended in the Middle Egyptian era (12, p. 101).

We consider the appearance of large channels in the 1st Transitional Period as a direct consequence of the fall of the Nile floods, which were intended to water the so-called "high fields" lying outside the floodplain. Apparently, with the help of such artificial channels, the regional rulers sought to compensate for the loss of naturally irrigated lands - a practice that then became firmly established in Egypt for millennia. Just as in the era of the First socio-ecological crisis, on the basis of local basin systems, a single irrigation network was created, which in fact marked a revolution in the development of irrigation in the Nile Valley, in the conditions of the Second Crisis another qualitative revolution in irrigation construction took place.

The canals for supplying water to the "high fields" became a reliable means of overcoming the food and social crisis and the growth of their economic and military power by individual regions, and it is natural to assume that the nomes located upstream of the river had advantages in taking water from the shallow Nile in while the economy of the lower regions, on the contrary, as a result of the irrigation activities of the southerners, suffered additional damage. It is possible that all this served as an additional reason for civil strife and to some extent predetermined the victory of Thebes in the wars against Heracleopolis in the 1st Transitional Period and hegemony in the era of the Middle Kingdom of rulers who came from Upper Egypt.

After the formation of the Middle Egyptian state, irrigation innovations reached grandiose proportions. During the XII dynasty, a large hydroelectric complex was built in the Fayum oasis, which made it possible to artificially regulate the water balance of the vast agricultural region created here: Nile water accumulated in Lake Merid, which entered it from the Bahr-Yusuf branch and then through a special system of canals, if necessary, was supplied to the cultivated fields.This outstanding hydrotechnical achievement is quite consistent with the realities of the Second Socio-ecological Crisis, probably being directly related to them: drought and low floods of the Nile, apparently, pushed the Egyptian population to realize the need for radical action that would dramatically reduce its dependence on the state, and primarily from catastrophic changes in the external environment. In this case, being the product of the socio-ecological crisis, the new organization of the irrigation economy, which significantly increased the efficiency of agriculture in general, at the same time became an important condition for the ancient Egyptian civilization to get out of it. The construction of the Fayum complex interrupted a series of economic crises that shook Egypt from the end of the Old Kingdom, and created the basis for a relative socio-political stabilization of the Middle Egyptian state (8, p. 14).

The acquisition by the Egyptians of the skills of creating diversion canals throughout the country, which made it possible, as necessary, to artificially expand the area of ​​the lands irrigated by the Nile, and the construction of the Fayum hydroelectric complex, we regard as an epoch-making revolution in the development of agricultural technologies in the Nile Valley. The basin irrigation system, inherited by the Old Kingdom from the early Dynastic era, was in an elementary way adapted to the previous regime of the river. A less arid climate and high floods made the surrounding landscape in the pre-crisis era relatively comfortable for people, which saved them from the need to significantly modify it. With the onset of the Second socio-ecological crisis, the Egyptian population was forced to start actively transforming its living space in order to preserve itself. At the same time, the assumption seems quite plausible that the emerging need to adapt to qualitatively new conditions of existence, up to meaningful intervention in the natural, "God-given" appearance of the surrounding world, should have contributed to a revolution in the worldview and, as a consequence, in the ideology of the ancient Egyptians.