Prehistory of social ecology. The reasons for the emergence of social ecology as an independent scientific discipline

Social ecology is a branch of science that studies the interaction of the human community and nature. At the moment, this science is being formed into an independent discipline, has its own field of research, subject and object of study. It should be said that social ecology studies various groups of the population who are engaged in activities that directly affect the state of nature, using the resources of the planet. In addition, various measures to address environmental issues are being explored. A significant place is occupied by environmental protection methods that are used by different segments of the population.

In turn, social ecology has the following subspecies and sections:

- economic;
- legal;
- urbanistic;
- demographic ecology.

The main problems of social ecology

This discipline primarily considers what mechanisms people use to influence the environment and the world around them. Among the main problems, the following should be listed:

- global forecasting of the use of natural resources by people;
- study of certain ecosystems at the level of small locations;
- study of urban ecology and human life in various localities;
- ways of development of human civilization.

Social ecology subject

Today, social ecology is only gaining momentum in popularity. Vernadsky's work "Biosphere", which the world saw in 1928, has a significant impact on the development and formation of this scientific field. This monograph sets out the problems of social ecology. Further research by scientists is considering such problems as, the circulation of chemical elements and the use of the planet's natural resources by man.

Human ecology occupies a special place in this scientific specialization. In this context, the direct relationship between people and the environment is studied. This scientific direction considers humans as a biological species.

Development of social ecology

Thus, social. ecology is developing, becoming the most important area of knowledge that studies a person against the background of the environment. This helps to understand not only the development of nature, but also of man in general. By bringing the values of this discipline to the general public, people will be able to understand what place they occupy on earth, what harm they cause to nature and what needs to be done to preserve it.

SOCIAL ECOLOGY IN THE GLOBAL WORLD

“The childhood of mankind is over, when Mother Nature went and cleaned after us. The period of maturity has come. Now we need to clean ourselves, or rather learn to live so as not to litter. From now on, the entire responsibility for the preservation of life on Earth falls on us ”(Oldak, 1979).

Currently, humanity is experiencing perhaps the most critical moment in the entire history of its existence. Modern society is in a deep crisis, although this cannot be said, if we limit ourselves to some external manifestations. We see that the economies of developed countries continue to grow, even if not at such a rapid pace as it was quite recently. Accordingly, the volume of mining continues to increase, which is stimulated by the growth of consumer demand. This is most noticeable, again, in developed countries. At the same time, social contrasts in the modern world between economically developed and developing countries are becoming more pronounced and in some cases reach a 60-fold gap in the size of the incomes of the population of these countries.

Rapid industrialization and urbanization, a sharp increase in the world's population, intensive chemicalization of agriculture, and other types of anthropogenic pressure on nature are significant disrupted the circulation of substances and natural energy processes in the biosphere damaged the mechanisms of her self-healing ... This endangered the health and life of modern and future generations of people and, in general, the further existence of civilization.

Analyzing the current situation, many experts come to the conclusion that currently humanity is threatened two deadly dangers:

1) comparatively fast death in the fire of a global nuclear missile war and

2) slow extinction due to deterioration in the quality of the living environment, which is caused by the destruction of the biosphere due to irrational economic activities.

The second danger, apparently, is more real and more formidable, since diplomatic efforts alone are not enough to prevent it. It is necessary to revise all the traditional principles of nature management and radically restructure the entire economic mechanism in most countries of the world.

Therefore, speaking about the current situation, everyone should understand that the current crisis has engulfed not only the economy and nature. First of all, the person himself is in crisis with his centuries-old way of thinking, needs, habits, way of life and behavior. The critical situation of a person is that his whole way of life opposes nature. It is possible to get out of this crisis only if a person is transformed into a creature friendly with nature who understands her and knows how to be in agreement with her. But for this, people must learn to live in harmony with each other and take care of future generations. All this should be learned by every person, wherever he has to work and whatever tasks he has to solve.

So, in the conditions of the progressive destruction of the Earth's biosphere, in order to resolve the contradictions between society and nature, it is necessary to transform human activity on new principles. These principles provide reaching a reasonable compromise between the social and economic needs of society and the capabilities of the biosphere to satisfy them without threatening its normal functioning. Thus, the time has come for a critical revision of all areas of human activity, as well as areas of knowledge and spiritual culture that shape a person's worldview.

Humanity is now taking an exam for a genuine rationality ... It will be able to pass this exam only if it fulfills the requirements of the biosphere. These requirements are:

1) biosphere compatibility based on knowledge and use of the laws of conservation of the biosphere;

2) moderation in the consumption of natural resources, overcoming the wastefulness of the consumer structure of society;

3) mutual tolerance and peacefulness of the peoples of the planet in relations with each other;

4) adherence to universally significant, environmentally thought-out and consciously set global goals of social development.

All these requirements imply the movement of mankind towards a single global integrity based on the joint formation and maintenance of a new planetary shell, which Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky called noosphere .

The scientific basis for such activity should be a new branch of knowledge - social ecology .

Prehistory of social ecology. The reasons for the emergence of social ecology as an independent scientific discipline

The problems associated with the interaction of society and its environment are called ecological problems... Ecology was originally a branch of biology (the term was coined by Ernst Haeckel in 1866). Environmental biologists study the relationship of animals, plants and entire communities with their habitat. An ecological view of the world- such a ranking of the values and priorities of human activity, when the most important is the preservation of a human-friendly environment.

The prehistory of social ecology begins with the appearance of man on Earth. The herald of the new science is considered the English theologian Thomas Malthus. He was one of the first to point out that there are natural boundaries of economic growth, and demanded to limit population growth: food "(Malthus, 1868, p. 96); "... to improve the situation of the poor, it is necessary to reduce the relative number of births" (Malthus, 1868, p. 378). This idea is not new. In Plato's "ideal republic" the number of families must be regulated by the government. Aristotle went further and proposed to determine the number of children for each family.

Another precursor to social ecology is School of Geography in Sociology: adherents of this scientific school pointed out that the mental characteristics of people, their way of life are directly dependent on the natural conditions of a given area. Let us remember that Charles Montesquieu asserted that "the power of the climate is the first power in the world." Our compatriot L.I. Mechnikov pointed out that world civilizations developed in the basins of great rivers, on the shores of seas and oceans. K. Marx believed that a temperate climate is most suitable for the development of capitalism. K. Marx and F. Engels developed the concept of the unity of man and nature, the main idea of which was: to cognize the laws of nature and to apply them correctly.

The emergence and subsequent development of social ecology was a natural consequence of the growing interest of representatives of various humanitarian disciplines (such as sociology, economics, political science, psychology, etc.) to the problem of harmonizing the relationship between society and nature, man and the environment. And this is possible only when rational nature management .

Initially, many existing sciences - biology, geography, medicine, economics - tried to develop the scientific principles of rational nature management. Recently, ecology has become increasingly involved in these issues. The medico-biological and medico-demographic aspects of the relationship between society and nature were considered in medical geography, environmental hygiene, and later in a new field of ecology - human ecology. On the whole, many new branches of the traditional sciences have emerged. For example, engineering geology began to deal with the protection and rational use of the geological environment. Socioecological law began to take shape in jurisprudence. In economic science, there was such a section as the economics of environmental management.

Representatives of various scientific disciplines began to assert that the problem of rational use of natural resources was only their domain. But it turned out that each science, when studying the problem of rational nature management, focused its attention on those moments that are closer to it. Chemists, for example, did not care about studying a problem from a social or economic point of view, and vice versa.

It became obvious that an isolated study of all aspects of this problem - medical, biological, social, economic, etc., does not allow creating a general theory of balanced interaction between society and nature and effectively solving practical problems of rational environmental management. This required a new interdisciplinary science .

This science began to form almost simultaneously in many countries of the world. In our country, different names were used to designate it - natursociology, sozology, environmentalology, applied ecology, global ecology, socio-economic ecology, modern ecology, great ecology, etc. However, these terms are not widely used.

1.2. Stages of development of social ecology.
Social ecology subject

The very term "social ecology" appeared thanks to social psychologists - American researchers R. Park and E. Burgess. They first used this term in 1921 in their work on the theory of population behavior in the urban environment. Using the concept of "social ecology", they wanted to emphasize that in this context we are talking not about a biological, but about a social phenomenon, which, however, also has biological characteristics. Thus, in America, initially, social ecology was more a sociology of the city or urban sociology.

In 1922 g. H. Burroughs approached the American Association of Geographers with a presidential address called "Geography as human ecology » ... The main idea of this appeal: to bring ecology closer to man. The Chicago School of Human Ecology has gained worldwide fame: the study of the mutual relations of a person as an integral organism with its integral environment. It was then that ecology and sociology first came into close interaction. Environmental techniques began to be used to analyze the social system.

One of the first definitions of social ecology was given in his work in 1927. R. McKenzil, who characterized it as the science of territorial and temporal relations of people, which are influenced by selective (selective), distributive (distributive) and accommodative (adaptive) forces of the environment. This definition of the subject of social ecology was intended to become the basis for the study of the territorial division of the population within urban agglomerations.

It should be noted, however, that the term "social ecology", apparently best suited to designate a specific direction of research into the relationship of man as a social being with the environment of his existence, did not take root in Western science, in which the preference from the very beginning began to give in to the concept of "human ecology" (human ecology). This created certain difficulties for the formation of social ecology as an independent, humanitarian in its main focus, discipline. The fact is that in parallel with the development of the actual socio-ecological problems within the framework of human ecology, bioecological aspects of human life were developed in it. The long period of formation that has passed by this time and due to this having greater weight in science, having a more developed categorical and methodological apparatus, human biological ecology for a long time "overshadowed" humanitarian social ecology from the eyes of the advanced scientific community. And yet, social ecology existed for some time and developed relatively independently as the ecology (sociology) of the city.

Despite the obvious desire of representatives of the humanitarian branches of knowledge to free social ecology from the "oppression" of bioecology, it continued for many decades to experience a significant influence from the latter. As a result, social ecology borrowed most of its concepts, its categorical apparatus from the ecology of plants and animals, as well as from general ecology. At the same time, as D. Zh. Markovich notes, social ecology has gradually improved its methodological apparatus with the development of the space-time approach of social geography, the economic theory of distribution, etc.

Significant progress in the development of social ecology and the process of its isolation from bioecology took place in the 60s of the current century. The 1966 World Congress of Sociologists played a special role in this. The rapid development of social ecology in subsequent years led to the fact that at the next congress of sociologists, held in Varna in 1970, it was decided to create a Research Committee of the World Association of Sociologists on Social Ecology. Thus, as noted by D. Zh. Markovich, the existence of social ecology as an independent scientific branch was, in fact, recognized and an impetus was given to its more rapid development and a more accurate definition of its subject.

During the period under review, the list of tasks that this branch of scientific knowledge, which was gradually acquiring independence, was designed to solve, significantly expanded. If at the dawn of the formation of social ecology, the efforts of researchers were mainly reduced to searching in the behavior of a geographically localized human population for analogues of laws and ecological relations characteristic of biological communities, then from the second half of the 60s the range of issues under consideration was supplemented by the problems of determining the place and role of man in the biosphere. , development of ways to determine the optimal conditions for its life and development, harmonization of relationships with other components of the biosphere. The process of its humanitarization that has swept social ecology over the past two decades has led to the fact that, in addition to the above-mentioned tasks, the range of issues developed by it included the problems of identifying general laws of the functioning and development of social systems, studying the influence of natural factors on the processes of socio-economic development and finding ways to control action. these factors.

In our country, by the end of the 70s, conditions also emerged for the separation of socio-ecological problems into an independent direction of interdisciplinary research. A significant contribution to the development of domestic social ecology was made by E.V. Girusov, A.N. Kochergin, Yu.G. Markov, N.F. Reimers, S.N. Solomina and others.

One of the most important problems facing researchers at the present stage of the formation of social ecology is the development of a unified approach to understanding its subject. Despite the obvious progress achieved in the study of various aspects of the relationship between man, society and nature, as well as a significant number of publications on social and environmental issues that have appeared in the last two to three decades in our country and abroad, on the issue of there are still different opinions about what exactly this branch of scientific knowledge is studying. In the school reference book "Ecology" by A. P. Oshmarina and V. I. Oshmarina, two variants of the definition of social ecology are given: in the narrow sense, it is understood as the science "of the interaction of human society with the natural environment", and in the broad sense - the science of "interaction the individual and human society with natural, social and cultural environments ”. It is quite obvious that in each of the presented cases of interpretation we are talking about different sciences, claiming the right to be called "social ecology". No less indicative is the comparison between the definitions of social ecology and human ecology. According to the same source, the latter is defined as: “I) the science of the interaction of human society with nature; 2) the ecology of the human person; 3) the ecology of human populations, including the doctrine of ethnic groups. " The almost complete identity of the definition of social ecology, understood "in the narrow sense", and the first version of the interpretation of human ecology is clearly visible. The striving for the actual identification of these two branches of scientific knowledge, indeed, is still characteristic of foreign science, but it is quite often subjected to well-reasoned criticism by domestic scientists. SN Solomina, in particular, pointing out the advisability of breeding social ecology and human ecology, limits the subject to the latter by considering the socio-hygienic and medico-genetic aspects of the relationship between man, society and nature. V.A.Bukhvalov, L.V. Bogdanova and some other researchers agree with such an interpretation of the subject of human ecology, but N.A. Agadzhanyan, V.P. Kaznacheev and N.F. the discipline covers a much wider range of issues of interaction of the anthroposystem (considered at all levels of its organization - from the individual to humanity as a whole) with the biosphere, as well as with the internal biosocial organization of human society. It is easy to see that such an interpretation of the subject of human ecology actually equates it with social ecology, understood in a broad sense. This situation is largely due to the fact that at present there has been a steady tendency of convergence of these two disciplines, when there is an interpenetration of the subjects of the two sciences and their mutual enrichment due to the joint use of the empirical material accumulated in each of them, as well as methods and technologies of socio-ecological and anthropoecological research.

Today, an increasing number of researchers are inclined towards an expanded interpretation of the subject of social ecology. So, according to D.Zh. Markovich, the subject of study of modern social ecology, understood by him as a private sociology, are specific connections between man and his environment. Based on this, the main tasks of social ecology can be defined as follows: the study of the influence of the habitat as a combination of natural and social factors on humans, as well as the influence of humans on the environment, perceived as the framework of human life.

A somewhat different, but not contradicting the previous, interpretation of the subject of social ecology is given by T.A. Akimova and V.V. Khaskin. From their point of view, social ecology as a part of human ecology is a complex of scientific fields that study the connection of social structures (starting with the family and other small social groups), as well as the connection of a person with the natural and social environment of their habitat. This approach seems to us more correct, because it does not limit the subject of social ecology to the framework of sociology or any other separate humanitarian discipline, but especially emphasizes its interdisciplinary nature.

When defining the subject of social ecology, some researchers tend to emphasize the role that this young science is called upon to play in harmonizing the relationship of mankind with its environment. According to E.V. Girusova, social ecology should study, first of all, the laws of society and nature, by which he understands the laws of self-regulation of the biosphere, implemented by man in his life.

Like any other scientific discipline, social ecology has evolved gradually. There are three main stages in the development of this science.

The initial stage is empirical, associated with the accumulation of various data on the negative environmental consequences of the scientific and technological revolution. The result of this direction of environmental research was the formation of a network of global environmental monitoring of all components of the biosphere.

The second stage is "model". In 1972, a book by D. Meadows et al. "The Limits to Growth" was published. She was a huge success. For the first time, data on different aspects of human activity were included in a mathematical model and investigated using a computer. For the first time at the global level, a complex dynamic model of interaction between society and nature was investigated.

The criticism of The Limits to Growth was comprehensive and thorough. The results of criticism can be summarized in two points:

1) modeling on a computer of socio-economic systems at the global and regional levels prospectively;

2) "Models of the world" Meadows is still far from adequate to reality.

Currently, there is a significant variety of global models: Meadows's model - lace from loops of forward and backward links, Mesarovich and Pestel's model is a pyramid dissected into many relatively independent parts, J. Tinbergen's model is a "tree" of organic growth, V. Leontiev's model - also a "tree".

The beginning of the third - global-political - stage of social ecology is considered 1992, when the International Conference on Environment and Development was held in Rio de Janeiro. Heads of 179 states adopted an agreed strategy based on the concept of sustainable development.

1.3. The place of social ecology in the system of sciences.
Social ecology is a complex scientific discipline

Social ecology arose at the junction of sociology, ecology, philosophy and other branches of science, with each of which it closely interacts. In order to determine the position of social ecology in the system of sciences, it is necessary to bear in mind that the word "ecology" means in some cases one of the ecological scientific disciplines, in others - all scientific ecological disciplines. Environmental sciences should be approached in a differentiated manner (Fig. 1).

Social ecology is the link between technical sciences (hydraulic engineering, etc.) and social sciences (history, jurisprudence, etc.).

The following argumentation is given in favor of the proposed system. There is an urgent need to replace the concept of the hierarchy of sciences with the concept of the circle of sciences. The classification of sciences is usually built on the principle of hierarchy (subordination of some sciences to others) and sequential fragmentation (division, not combination of sciences). It is better to build the classification according to the type of circle (Fig. 1).

Rice. 1. The place of environmental disciplines in the integral system of sciences (Gorelov, 2002)

This scheme does not claim to be complete. Transitional sciences (geochemistry, geophysics, biophysics, biochemistry, etc.), the role of which is extremely important for solving an ecological problem, are not marked on it. These sciences contribute to the differentiation of knowledge, cement the entire system, embodying the inconsistency of the processes of "differentiation - integration" of knowledge. The diagram shows the importance of "connecting" sciences, including social ecology. Unlike centrifugal sciences (physics, etc.), they can be called centripetal. These sciences have not yet reached the proper level of development, because in the past, insufficient attention was paid to the links between the sciences, and it is very difficult to study them.

When a knowledge system is built according to the principle of hierarchy, there is a danger that some sciences will hinder the development of others, and this is dangerous from an environmental point of view. It is important that the prestige of the natural sciences is no less than the prestige of the sciences of the physicochemical and technical cycle. Biologists and ecologists have accumulated a lot of data that indicate the need for a much more careful, careful attitude to the biosphere than is the case at present. But such an argument is weighty only from the standpoint of a separate consideration of the branches of knowledge. Science is a related mechanism, the use of data from some sciences depends on others. If the data of sciences are in conflict with each other, preference is given to sciences that enjoy great prestige, i.e. currently the sciences of the physical and chemical cycle.

Science must approach the degree of a harmonious system. Such science will help to create a harmonious system of relationships between man and nature and ensure the harmonious development of man himself. Science contributes to the progress of society not in isolation, but together with other branches of culture. This synthesis is no less important than the greening of science. Value reorientation is an integral part of the reorientation of the entire society. The attitude to the natural environment as an integrity presupposes the integrity of culture, a harmonious connection between science and art, philosophy, etc. Moving in this direction, science will move away from focusing exclusively on technical progress, responding to the deepest needs of society - ethical, aesthetic, as well as those that affect the definition of the meaning of life and the goals of development of society (Gorelov, 2000).

The place of social ecology among the sciences of the ecological cycle is shown in Fig. 2.

Rice. 2. The relationship of social ecology with other sciences (Gorelov, 2002)

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MINISTRY OF BRANCHRUSSIA

Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education

"RUSSIANSTATEHUMANITARIANUNIVERSITY "(RSUH)

INSTITUTE OF ECONOMY, GOVERNANCE AND LAW

MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT

Ecology Abstract

Social ecology

2nd year students

full-time education

Potkina Tatiana Nikolaevna

Moscow 2012

Introduction

1. Social ecology, its subject

1.1 Definitions of social ecology

1.2 Subject of study

1.3 The problem of developing a common understanding of the approach to understanding the subject of social ecology

1.4 Principles of social ecology

2. Stages of development of social ecology

2.1 First stage

2.2 Second stage

2.3 Third stage

3. Environmental education

3.1 The essence of environmental education

3.2 Three components of environmental education

3.3 The main directions of environmental education

4. The technical process as a source of social and environmental problems

4.1 Conflict between technology and ecology

4.2 Socio-ecological problems of our time

4.3 Environmental content of scientific and technological revolution

Conclusion

List of source and literature

Introduction

In the 60s and 70s, it became obvious that the range of problems of modern ecology has grown unusually, that it has long no longer fit within the framework of traditional biological science - ecology, which was first mentioned back in 1868 by the German biologist E. Haeckel in his book “Natural history of origin ". It does not fit, if only because environmental tension begins in the field of technology. Consequently, both technology and technical sciences are directly related to the environmental problem. But the socio-economic beginning is an even broader position that allows one to outline the true range of interests and problems of modern ecology on a large scale and comprehensively.

The priority name has become different - social ecology. This term, introduced into scientific circulation by Soviet philosophers, has become quite widespread, both in the USSR - Russia, and in the West. It is understood as an interdisciplinary complex of environmental management, the principles of organizing human activity, taking into account objective environmental laws.

The concept of social ecology is closely linked with the essence of the teachings of V.I. Vernadsky and T. de Chardin about the noosphere - the sphere of reason - the highest stage of development of the biosphere, associated with the emergence and formation of civilized humanity in it. It is the inseparability of the latter from the biosphere that indicates, according to Vernadsky, the main goal in the construction of the noosphere. The task is to preserve the type of biosphere in which man arose and can exist as a species.

So, the question of the term "social ecology" is more or less clear. However, there is still debate about its content and structure. It is clear that social ecology must incorporate the relevant parts of the natural, social and technical sciences. The scheme of G. A. Bachinsky, an ecologist from Lvov, is based on this principle.

The links between geography and ecology are traditional and diverse. In the 1920s and 1930s, American geographers called geography human ecology, in the 1930s the famous German geographer K. Troll introduced the term "geoecology" and already in the 1960s and 1970s it became widespread in the West. Finally, in the 70s, Academician VB Sochava wrote about "human ecology as a key concept in geography." The term "geoecology" can be explained as follows: geographers deal with the structure and interaction of two main systems: ecological (uniting humans and the environment) and spatial (connecting one region to another through a complex volume of flows). The synthesis of these two approaches is the essence of geoecology. Any global problem cannot be solved without its preliminary "regionalization", without a detailed consideration of the country and regional situation, finding specific ways to solve it in a given place and in given conditions (natural, economic, social). It is no coincidence that the first global models (D. Meadows and others) were criticized precisely for the “total” globality, for the absence of “regionalization”. However, for maximum generalization, identification of general and topical environmental problems, another approach is also possible - a global one. The inextricable connection of such approaches is emphasized by the well-known slogan widely used in the modern world - “think globally, act locally”.

1. Social ecology, its subject, principles and problems

1 .1 Definitionssocialecology

Social ecology (or socioecology) is a complex of scientific disciplines that considers relationships in the “society - natural environment” system and develops the scientific foundations for optimizing the human living environment. The terminology in this area is not well established. From the point of view of some scientists, social ecology should study the relationship of society with the geographical, social and cultural environment; according to the position of others, this is a section of human ecology that considers the relationship of social groups of society with nature, etc. Moreover, in some cases socioecology includes human ecology, in others, socioecology itself is a part of human ecology. Nevertheless, social ecology is an internationally recognized scientific direction. It achieved a similar status in the system of sciences thanks to the elimination of biological determinism in defining its subject. This was facilitated by a change in the understanding that ecology is not only a natural, but also a humanitarian science.

Social ecology analyzes the attitude of a person in its inherent humanistic horizon from the point of view of its compliance with the historical needs of human development, in terms of cultural justification and perspective, through the theoretical comprehension of the world in its general definitions, which express the measure of the historical unity of man and nature. Any scientist thinks over the main concepts of the problem of interaction between society and nature through the prism of his science. The conceptual and categorical apparatus of socioecology is being formed, developed and improved. This process is diverse and covers all aspects of socioecology, not only objectively, but also subjectively, in a peculiar way reflecting scientific creativity and influencing the evolution of scientific interests and searches of both individual scientists and entire groups.

1 .2 Itemstudyingsocialecology

The subject of the study of social ecology is to identify the patterns of development of this system, value-worldview, socio-cultural, legal and other prerequisites and conditions for its sustainable development. That is, the subject of social ecology is the relation in the system “society-man-technology-natural environment”.

In this system, all elements and subsystems are homogeneous, and the connections between them determine its invariability and structure. The object of social ecology is the "society-nature" system.

1 .3 Problemworking outa singleapproachTounderstandingsubjectsocialecology

In the school reference book "Ecology" A.P. Oshmarin and V.I. Oshmarina gives two options for defining social ecology: in the narrow sense, it is understood as the science "of the interaction of human society with the natural environment", and in the broad sense of the science "of the interaction of an individual and human society with natural, social and cultural environments." It is quite obvious that in each of the presented cases of interpretation we are talking about different sciences, claiming the right to be called "social ecology". No less indicative is the comparison between the definitions of social ecology and human ecology. According to the same source, the latter is defined as: “1) the science of the interaction of human society with nature; 2) the ecology of the human person; 3) the ecology of human populations, including the doctrine of ethnic groups. " The almost complete identity of the definition of social ecology, understood "in the narrow sense", and the first version of the interpretation of human ecology is clearly visible.

The striving for the actual identification of these two branches of scientific knowledge, indeed, is still characteristic of foreign science, but it is quite often subjected to well-reasoned criticism by domestic scientists. SN Solomina, in particular, pointing out the feasibility of breeding social ecology and human ecology, limits the subject to the latter consideration of the socio-hygienic and medico-genetic aspects of the relationship between man, society and nature. With a similar interpretation of the subject of human ecology, V.A. Bukhvalov, L.V. Bogdanova and some other researchers, but strongly disagree with N.A. Aghajanyan, V.P. Kaznacheev and N.F. Reimers, in their opinion, this discipline covers a much wider range of issues of interaction of the anthroposystem (considered at all levels of its organization from the individual to humanity as a whole) with the biosphere, as well as with the internal biosocial organization of human society. It is easy to see that such an interpretation of the subject of human ecology actually equates it with social ecology, understood in a broad sense. This situation is largely due to the fact that at present there has been a steady tendency of convergence of these two disciplines, when there is an interpenetration of the subjects of the two sciences and their mutual enrichment due to the joint use of the empirical material accumulated in each of them, as well as methods and technologies of socio-ecological and anthropoecological research.

Today, an increasing number of researchers are inclined towards an expanded interpretation of the subject of social ecology. So, according to D.Zh. Markovich, the subject of study of modern social ecology, understood by him as a private sociology, is the specific connections between a person and his environment. Based on this, the main tasks of social ecology can be defined as follows: the study of the influence of the habitat as a combination of natural and social factors on humans, as well as the influence of humans on the environment, perceived as the framework of human life.

A somewhat different, but not contradicting the previous one, interpretation of the subject of social ecology is given by T.A. Akimov and V.V. Haskin. From their point of view, social ecology as a part of human ecology is a complex of scientific branches that study the relationship of social structures (starting with the family and other small social groups), as well as the relationship of a person with the natural and social environment of their habitat. This approach seems to us more correct, because it does not limit the subject of social ecology to the framework of sociology or any other separate humanitarian discipline, but especially emphasizes its interdisciplinary nature.

When defining the subject of social ecology, some researchers tend to emphasize the role that this young science is called upon to play in harmonizing the relationship of mankind with its environment. According to E.V. Girusov, social ecology should study, first of all, the laws of society and nature, by which he understands the laws of self-regulation of the biosphere, implemented by man in his life.

1 .4 Principlessocialecology

· Humanity, like any population, cannot grow indefinitely.

· Society in its development should take into account the measure of biospheric phenomena.

· Sustainable development of society depends on the timeliness of the transition to alternative resources and technologies.

Any transformative activity of society should be based on an environmental forecast

· The development of nature should not reduce the diversity of the biosphere and worsen the quality of life of people.

· Sustainable development of civilization depends on the moral qualities of people.

· Everyone is responsible for their actions to the future.

· We need to think globally, act locally.

· The unity of nature obliges humanity to cooperate.

2. Development stages of social ecology

2 .1 Firststage

The population explosion and the scientific and technological revolution have led to a colossal increase in the consumption of natural resources. So, today in the world 3.5 billion tons of oil and 4.5 billion tons of hard and brown coal are produced annually. At such a rate of consumption, it became obvious that many natural resources would be depleted in the near future. At the same time, the waste of giant industries began to increasingly pollute the environment, destroying the health of the population. In all industrialized countries, cancer, chronic pulmonary and cardiovascular diseases are widespread. Scientists were the first to sound the alarm.

The starting point of modern social ecology can be called the book by R. Karson, published in 1961, "Silent Spring", dedicated to the negative environmental consequences of DDT use. The background of the writing of this work is very revealing. The transition to the cultivation of monocultures required the use of pesticides to combat the so-called agricultural pests. The order received by the chemists was fulfilled and a potent drug with the desired properties was synthesized. The author of the invention, the Swiss scientist Müller, received the Nobel Prize in 1947, but after a very short time it became clear that DDT affects not only harmful species, but, having the ability to accumulate in living tissues, has a detrimental effect on all living things, including the human body. Freely moving over large areas and with difficulty decomposing, the drug has been found even in the liver of the penguins of Antarctica. With R. Karson's book, the stage of accumulation of data on the negative ecological consequences of scientific and technological revolution began, which showed that an ecological crisis is taking place on our planet.

The first stage of social ecology can be called empirical, since the collection of empirical data obtained through observation predominated. This direction of environmental research subsequently led to global monitoring, i.e. observation and collection of data on the ecological situation on the whole of our planet.

Beginning in 1968, the Italian economist Aurelio Peccei began annually to gather in Rome prominent experts from different countries to discuss issues of the future of civilization. These meetings were called the Club of Rome. In the first reports to the Club of Rome, simulation mathematical methods developed by MIT professor Jay Forrester were successfully applied to the study of trends in the development of socio-natural global processes. Forrester used research methods created and applied in the natural and technical sciences to study the processes of evolution, both in nature and in society, taking place on a global scale. On this basis, the concept of world dynamics was built. For the first time, the social forecast took into account the components that can be called ecological: the finite nature of mineral resources and the limited ability of natural complexes to absorb and neutralize wastes from human production activities.

If the previous forecasts, which took into account only traditional trends (production growth, consumption growth and population growth), were optimistic, then taking into account environmental parameters immediately translated the global forecast into a pessimistic version, showing the inevitability of a downward line of society development by the end of the first third of the 21st century in connection with the possibility of depletion of mineral resources and excessive pollution of the natural environment. So, for the first time in science, the problem of a possible end of civilization was posed not in the distant future, which was repeatedly warned by various prophets, but for a very specific period of time and for very specific and even prosaic reasons. There was a need for such an area of knowledge that would thoroughly investigate the discovered problem and find out the way to prevent an impending catastrophe.

2 .2 SecondthisNS

In 1972, the book "The Limits to Growth" was published, prepared by D. Medouz's group, who created the first so-called "models of the world", which marked the beginning of the second model stage of social ecology. The particular success of the book "The Limits of Growth" is determined both by its futurological orientation and sensational conclusions, there and by the fact that for the first time material concerning the most diverse aspects of human activity was collected in a formal model and studied with the help of a computer. In the “models of the world,” the five main trends of world development - rapid population growth, accelerated industrial growth, widespread undernutrition, depletion of irreplaceable resources and environmental pollution - were considered in conjunction with each other. The authors of "Limits to Growth" proposed a cardinal solution to overcome the threat of an ecological catastrophe - to stabilize the population of the planet and at the same time the capital invested in production at a constant level. Such a state of "global equilibrium", according to the Meadows group, does not mean stagnation, because human activity that does not require a large expenditure of irreplaceable resources and does not lead to environmental degradation (science, art, education, sports) can progress indefinitely. Supporters of "global equilibrium" do not take into account, however, the fact that the increasing technical power of man, which increases his ability to withstand natural disasters (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, sharp climate change, etc.), which he is not yet able to cope with, stimulated precisely by production goals, at least for the time being.

The assumption that the government of all countries can be forced or persuaded to maintain the population at a constant level is clearly unrealistic, and from this, among other things, it already follows that it is impossible to accept the proposal to stabilize industrial and agricultural production. We can talk about the limits of growth in certain directions, but not about the absolute limits. The task is to foresee the dangers of growth in any directions and to choose ways of flexible reorientation of development for the fullest possible implementation of the set goals.

2 . 3 Thirdstage

After the 1992 international conference on the problems of planet Earth in Rio de Janeiro, in which the heads of 179 states took part and at which for the first time the world community developed an agreed development strategy, we can talk about the beginning of the third global political stage of social ecology.

3. Environmental education

3 .1 The essenceecologicaleducation

Environmental education is a purposeful influence on a person at all stages of his life with the help of an expanded system of means and methods, which is aimed at the formation of environmental consciousness, environmental culture, environmental behavior, environmental responsibility. The need to educate members of society in certain attitudes of behavior in relation to nature arose in humanity at the most ancient stages of its development.

One of the most important tasks of environmental education is the formation in nature users, each citizen and in society as a whole, persistent attitudes towards rational use of natural resources, the ability to see the solution of individual problems, the environmental consequences of interference in natural processes, a sense of responsibility before present and future generations for the influence of their own actions are distant. on the ability of nature to be the environment for human existence.

Environmental education is a continuous process of study, upbringing, self-education, accumulation of experience and personal development, aimed at the formation of value orientations, norms of behavior and special knowledge regarding the preservation of the environment and nature management, implemented in environmentally competent activities. Very important for understanding the specifics of environmental education is the thesis that it should not act only as a system of prohibitions on certain actions. In addition to the calls that nature should be loved and protected, it is necessary to learn competent and professionally integrated nature management.

3 .2 Threeconstituentsecologicaleducation

A closer look in the process of environmental education can be divided into three relatively independent, both by methods and by goals, which are: environmental educational, environmental education and environmental education itself. They represent certain stages in the process of continuous environmental education in a broad sense.

Environmental education is the first degree in environmental education. It is designed to form the first, elementary knowledge about the peculiarities of the relationship between society and nature, about the suitability of the environment for human habitation, about the influence of human production activity on the world around us.

Environmental education is a psychological and pedagogical process of influencing a person, the purpose of which is to form the theoretical level of environmental consciousness, which in a systematic form reflects the various aspects of the unity of the world, the laws of the dialectical unity of society and nature, certain knowledge and practical skills of rational environmental management.

The goal of environmental education is to equip a person with knowledge in the field of natural, technical and social sciences, about the peculiarities of interaction between society and nature, to develop in it the ability to understand and evaluate specific actions and situations.

The highest stage is ecological education - a psychological and pedagogical process, the purpose of which is to form in an individual not only scientific knowledge, but also certain beliefs, moral principles that determine his life position and behavior in the field of environmental protection and rational use of natural resources, ecological culture individual citizens and society as a whole, In the process of environmental education, a certain system of environmental values is formed, which will determine the thrifty attitude of man to nature, will encourage it to solve the problem of the global environmental crisis. Firstly, it provides not only the transfer of knowledge, but also the formation of beliefs, the readiness of the individual, for specific actions, and secondly, it includes knowledge and the ability to carry out, along with the protection of nature, rational use of natural resources.

The specificity of ecological education lies in the development of an outlook on the complex, integral system "society-nature", the attitude of the individual to which is impossible without effective, direct and mediated participation in its functioning. The complex nature of ecological education emerges from the specifics of the object of reflection of ecological consciousness at the level of both social and personal, its functioning.

The main principle of ecological education is the principle of the material unity of the world, which organically includes the problem of social and ecological education in the system of forming a scientific worldview. Among others, one can also highlight the principles of complexity, continuity, patriotism, a combination of personal and common interests.

3 .3 The maindirectionsecologicaleducation

In the system of environmental education, the following main directions can be distinguished:

1. Political. Its important methodological principle is the provision on the correspondence between the relations between people prevailing in society and the prevailing attitude towards nature in society, which emerges from the basic law of social ecology. This direction contributes to the formation of environmental consciousness and environmental culture and a scientific approach to assessing both specific environmental problems in different socio-political systems, and the nature of these systems themselves.

2. Naturally scientific. It is based on a scientific understanding of the indissoluble unity of society and nature. Society is inextricably linked with nature, both by its origin and existence. In social terms, society is connected with nature through production, without which it cannot exist. Nature creates potential conditions for man to meet his material and spiritual needs. These needs are realized only through purposeful activities. In the production process, a person creates his own flows of matter and energy, which have disorganized the cycles of energy and matter of exchange that exist in nature and have been polished for billions of years. Thus, there is a violation of the action of the mechanisms of self-reproduction of the main qualitative parameters of the biosphere, those objective conditions that ensure the existence of man as a biological being. These violations are generated by the limited knowledge available about the laws of the development of nature, the inability to take into account all the possible consequences of human activity.

3. Legal. Environmental knowledge, developing into conviction and action, should be closely combined with the active participation of the individual in the observance by himself and others of the norms of environmental legislation, in which public interests should be reflected. The state, as the main mechanism for regulating and harmonizing the common interests of the individual and society in their relationship with nature, has the exclusive right not only to create environmental legislation, but also to coercive actions regarding individuals or their groups aimed at observing these laws.

This direction is closely related to the formation of environmental responsibility, and not only legal, but also moral.

4. Morally aesthetic. The modern ecological situation requires from humanity a new moral orientation in relations with nature, a revision of certain norms of human behavior in the natural environment. In societies that are at the industrial stage of development, morality orients nature users towards the predatory exploitation of natural resources, towards meeting the needs of members of society, regardless of the environmental consequences of production activities. During the transition to the industrial stage of development, when there is a qualitative leap in productive forces, the formation of an ecological imperative, which should become the norm for the moral regulation of specific ways of mastering nature, is one of the most urgent requirements.

5. Worldview. Environmental education cannot be effective without properly forming the foundations of the worldview. In order for an individual to be able to take part in the elimination of the threat of an ecological crisis, in order for it to become his inner need, his ability to give scientifically substantiated answers to the question of the essence of the world, nature, man, about the goals and limits of human knowledge and the transformation of the surrounding natural the world, about the meaning of human existence.

The main goal of environmental education is the formation of an environmental culture, which should include an environmental imperative, a system of environmental values and environmental responsibility.

4. The technical process as a source of social and environmental problems

4 .1 Conflicttechnologiesandecology

If our ancestors limited their activities only to adaptation to nature and the appropriation of its finished products, then they would never have left the animal state in which they were originally. Only in opposition to nature, in a constant struggle with it and transformation in accordance with their needs and goals could a creature be formed that had passed the way from animal to man. Man was not born of nature alone, as is often claimed. The beginning of a person could only be given by such a not entirely natural form of activity as labor, the main feature of which is the production of certain objects (products) by the subject of labor with the help of other objects (tools). It was labor that became the basis of human evolution.

Labor activity, giving a person colossal advantages in the struggle for survival over other animals, at the same time put him in danger of becoming, over time, a force capable of destroying the natural environment of his own life.

It would be wrong to think that environmental crises provoked by human activity became possible only with the emergence of sophisticated technology and strong demographic growth. One of the most severe ecological crises took place already at the beginning of the Neolithic. Having learned well enough to hunt animals, especially large ones, people by their actions led to the extinction of many of them, including mammoths. As a result, the food resources of many human communities have been sharply reduced, and this, in turn, has led to mass extinctions. According to various estimates, the population then decreased by 8-10 times. It was a colossal ecological crisis that grew into a socio-ecological catastrophe. A way out of it was found on the path of transition to agriculture, and then to cattle breeding, to a sedentary lifestyle. Thus, the ecological niche of the existence and development of mankind has significantly expanded, which was decisively promoted by the agrarian and handicraft revolution, which led to the emergence of qualitatively new tools of labor, which made it possible to multiply the impact of man on the natural environment. The era of "animal life" of man was completed, he began "to actively and purposefully interfere with natural processes, to rebuild natural biogeochemical cycles."

Pollution of nature acquired significant dimensions and intensity only during the period of industrialization and urbanization, which led to significant civilizational changes and to a mismatch between economic and environmental development. This disagreement has taken on dramatic proportions since the 1950s. our century, when the rapid and still unthinkable development of the productive forces caused such changes in nature, which lead to the destruction of the biological prerequisites for human life and society. Man has created technologies that deny the forms of life in nature. The use of these technologies leads to an increase in entropy, denial of life. The conflict between technology and ecology has its source in man himself, who is both a natural being and a bearer of technological development.

4 .2 Socio-ecologicalProblemsmodernity

The environmental problems of our time in terms of their scale can be conditionally divided into local, regional and global and require different means and different scientific developments for their solution. An example of a local environmental problem is a plant that dumps its industrial waste, which is harmful to human health, into the river without cleaning. This is a violation of the law. Nature protection authorities or the public must through a court fine such a plant and, under threat of closure, force it to build a treatment plant. In this case, no special science is required.

An example of regional environmental problems is the Kuzbass - an almost closed basin in the mountains filled with gases from coke ovens and the smoke of a metallurgical giant, or the drying up Aral Sea with a sharp deterioration of the ecological situation on its entire periphery, or high radioactivity of soils in the regions adjacent to Chernobyl.

Scientific research is already needed to solve such problems. In the first case - the development of rational methods for the absorption of smoke and gas aerosols, in the second - accurate hydrological studies to develop recommendations for increasing the runoff into the Aral Sea, in the third - the elucidation of the impact on the health of the population of prolonged exposure to low doses of radiation and the development of methods for soil decontamination.

However, the anthropogenic impact on nature has reached such proportions that problems of a global nature have arisen, which no one could even suspect a few decades ago. Air pollution is occurring at a rapid pace. While the main means of obtaining energy remains the combustion of combustible fuel, therefore, oxygen consumption increases every year, and carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, as well as a huge amount of soot, dust and harmful aerosols, come in its place.

The sharp climate warming that began in the second half of the 20th century is a reliable fact. The average temperature of the surface air layer in comparison with 1956-1957, when the First International Geophysical Year was held, increased by 0.7 ° C. There is no warming at the equator, but the closer to the poles, the more noticeable it is. Above the Arctic Circle, it reaches 2 ° C. At the North Pole, the ice water warmed by 1 ° C and the ice cover began to melt from below4. Some scientists believe that warming is the result of burning a huge mass of fossil fuels and releasing large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which is a greenhouse gas, i.e. makes it difficult to transfer heat from the surface of the Earth. Others, referring to climate change in historical time, consider the anthropogenic factor of climate warming to be negligible and associate this phenomenon with increased solar activity.

The environmental problem of the ozone layer is no less complex. The depletion of the ozone layer is a much more dangerous reality for all life on Earth than the fall of some super-large meteorite. Ozone prevents dangerous cosmic radiation from reaching the Earth's surface. If not for ozone, these rays would destroy all living things. Research into the causes of the depletion of the planet's ozone layer has not yet provided definitive answers to all questions. The rapid growth of industry, accompanied by global pollution of the natural environment, has posed an unprecedentedly acute problem of raw materials. Of all types of resources, fresh water is in the first place in terms of the growth in demand for it and the increase in deficit. 71% of the entire surface of the planet is occupied by water, but fresh water makes up only 2% of the total, and almost 80% of fresh water is in the ice sheet of the Earth. In most industrial areas, water is already perceptibly lacking, and its shortage is growing every year. In the future, the situation is alarming with another natural resource that was previously considered inexhaustible - atmospheric oxygen. When burning the products of photosynthesis of past eras - fossil fuels, free oxygen is bound into compounds.

4 .3 Ecologicalcontentscientific and technicalrevolution

The basis for the interaction of the natural environment and human society in the production of material goods is the growth of mediation in the production relationship of man to nature. Step by step, a person places between himself and nature, first the substance (instruments of labor) transformed with the help of his energy, then energy transformed with the help of instruments of labor and accumulated knowledge (steam engines, electrical installations, etc.), and finally, more recently, between the third major link of mediation arises by man and nature - information transformed with the help of electronic computers. Thus, the development of civilization is ensured by the continuous expansion of the sphere of material production, which covers first the tools of labor, then energy and, finally, recently, information.

The first link of mediation (the manufacture of tools) is associated with the leap from the animal world into the social world, with the second (the use of power plants) - the leap into a higher form of class antagonistic society, with the third (the creation and use of information devices) the conditionality of the transition to society is qualitatively a new state in interhuman relations, since for the first time there appears the possibility of a sharp increase in people's free time for their full and harmonious development. In addition, the scientific and technological revolution necessitates a qualitatively new attitude to nature, since those contradictions between society and nature that previously existed in an implicit form are exacerbated to an extreme degree.

At the same time, the restriction on the part of energy sources of labor, which remained natural, began to affect more strongly. A contradiction arose between the new (artificial) means of processing matter and the old (natural) energy sources. The search for ways to resolve the arisen contradiction led to the discovery and use of artificial energy sources. But the very solution to the energy problem gave rise to a new contradiction between artificial methods of processing matter and obtaining energy, on the one hand, and the natural (with the help of the nervous system) method of processing information, on the other. The search for ways to remove this limitation was intensified, and the problem was solved with the invention of calculating machines. Now, finally, all three natural factors (matter, energy, information) have been captured by artificial means of their use by man. Thus, all natural restrictions on the development of production, inherent in this process, were removed.

Conclusion

Social ecology studies the structure, characteristics and tendencies of functioning of objects of a special kind, objects of the so-called "second nature", i.e. objects of an artificially created by man subject environment interacting with the natural environment. It is the existence of the "second nature" in the overwhelming majority of cases that gives rise to environmental problems that arise at the junction of ecological and social systems. These, socio-ecological problems in their essence, act as the object of socio-ecological research.

Social ecology as a science has its own specific tasks and functions. Its main tasks are: the study of the relationship between human communities and the surrounding geographic-spatial, social and cultural environment, the direct and side effects of industrial activities on the composition and properties of the environment. Social ecology considers the Earth's biosphere as an ecological niche of mankind, linking the environment and human activities into a single “nature-society” system, reveals the human impact on the balance of natural ecosystems, studies the management and rationalization of the relationship between man and nature. The task of social ecology as a science is also to propose such effective ways of influencing the environment, which would not only prevent catastrophic consequences, but also make it possible to significantly improve the biological and social conditions for the development of man and all life on Earth.

Studying the causes of the degradation of the human environment and measures to protect and improve it, social ecology should contribute to expanding the sphere of human freedom by creating more humane relations both to nature and to other people.

List of sources and literature

1. Bganba, V.R. Social ecology: textbook / V.R. Bganba - M .: Higher school, 2004 .-- 310 p.

2. Gorelov Anatoly Alekseevich. Social ecology / A. A. Gorelov. - M .: Mosk. Lyceum, 2005 .-- 406 p.

3. Malofeev, V.I. Social ecology: Textbook for universities / V. I. Malofeev - M .: "Dashkov and K", 2004. - 260 p.

4. Markov, Yu.G. Social ecology. Interaction between society and nature: Textbook / Yu.G. Markov - Novosibirsk: Siberian University Publishing House, 2004.- 544 p.

5. Sitarov, V.A. Social ecology: a textbook for students. higher. ped. study. institutions // V.A.Sitarov, V.V. Pustovoitov. - M .: Academy, 2000 .-- 280 p.

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Books

Geoecology. Study guide, Sturman Vladimir Itskhakovich. The manual was prepared in accordance with the state educational standard in the direction of "Ecology and environmental management" and is intended for students of higher educational institutions, ...
Germany. Linguistic and Cultural Dictionary. Over 5000 units, N. V. Muravleva, E. N. Muravleva, T. Yu. Nazarova. The dictionary contains more than 5 thousand entries from the cultural, socio-political and everyday life of Germany. Each German word or phrase is accompanied by a translation and ...

1 The concept of social ecology

2 Socio-ecological interaction

3 Socio-ecological education

4 Environmental aspects in Hughes sociology

Conclusion

List of used literature

Introduction

Social ecology is the science of harmonizing relations between society and nature.

Social ecology analyzes the attitude of a person in its inherent humanistic horizon from the point of view of its compliance with the historical needs of human development, from the perspective of cultural justification and perspective, through the theoretical comprehension of the world in its general definitions, which express the measure of the historical unity of man and nature. Any scientist thinks over the main concepts of the problem of interaction between society and nature through the prism of his science. The conceptual and categorical apparatus of socioecology is being formed, developed and improved. This process is diverse and covers all aspects of socioecology, not only objectively, but also subjectively, in a peculiar way reflecting scientific creativity and influencing the evolution of scientific interests and searches of both individual scientists and entire groups.

The social ecology approach to society and nature may seem more intellectually demanding, but it avoids the oversimplification of dualism and the immaturity of reductionism. Social ecology tries to show how nature slowly, in phases, transformed into society, without ignoring the differences between them, on the one hand, and the degree of their interpenetration, on the other. The everyday socialization of young people by the family is no less based on biology than the constant care of medicine for the elderly - on established social factors. We will never stop being mammals with our primary instincts, but we have institutionalized them and followed them through various social forms. So, the social and the natural constantly penetrate each other, without losing their particularity in this process of interaction.

The purpose of the test is to consider the environmental aspect in social work.

To achieve this goal, you need to solve a number of the following tasks:

Give a definition of social ecology;

Study social and environmental interactions;

Designate social and environmental education;

Consider environmental aspects in Hughes' sociology.

1 The concept of social ecology

One of the most important problems facing researchers at the present stage of the formation of social ecology is the development of a unified approach to understanding its subject. Despite the obvious progress achieved in the study of various aspects of the relationship between man, society and nature, as well as a significant number of publications on social and environmental issues that have appeared in the last two to three decades in our country and abroad, on the issue of there are still different opinions about what exactly this branch of scientific knowledge is studying. In the school reference book "Ecology" A.P. Oshmarin and V.I. Oshmarina gives two options for defining social ecology: in the narrow sense, it is understood as the science "of the interaction of human society with the natural environment", and in the broad sense of the science "of the interaction of an individual and human society with natural, social and cultural environments." It is quite obvious that in each of the presented cases of interpretation we are talking about different sciences, claiming the right to be called "social ecology". No less indicative is the comparison between the definitions of social ecology and human ecology. According to the same source, the latter is defined as: “1) the science of the interaction of human society with nature; 2) the ecology of the human person; 3) the ecology of human populations, including the doctrine of ethnic groups. " The almost complete identity of the definition of social ecology, understood "in the narrow sense", and the first version of the interpretation of human ecology is clearly visible. The striving for the actual identification of these two branches of scientific knowledge, indeed, is still characteristic of foreign science, but it is quite often subjected to well-reasoned criticism by domestic scientists. SN Solomina, in particular, pointing out the feasibility of breeding social ecology and human ecology, limits the subject to the latter consideration of the socio-hygienic and medico-genetic aspects of the relationship between man, society and nature. With a similar interpretation of the subject of human ecology, V.A. Bukhvalov, L.V. Bogdanova and some other researchers, but strongly disagree with N.A. Aghajanyan, V.P. Kaznacheev and N.F. Reimers, in their opinion, this discipline covers a much wider range of issues of interaction of the anthroposystem (considered at all levels of its organization from the individual to humanity as a whole) with the biosphere, as well as with the internal biosocial organization of human society. It is easy to see that such an interpretation of the subject of human ecology actually equates it with social ecology, understood in a broad sense. This situation is largely due to the fact that at present there has been a steady tendency of convergence of these two disciplines, when there is an interpenetration of the subjects of the two sciences and their mutual enrichment due to the joint use of the empirical material accumulated in each of them, as well as methods and technologies of socio-ecological and anthropoecological research.

Today, an increasing number of researchers are inclined towards an expanded interpretation of the subject of social ecology. So, according to D.Zh. Markovich, the subject of study of modern social ecology, understood by him as a private sociology, is the specific connections between a person and his environment. Based on this, the main tasks of social ecology can be defined as follows: the study of the influence of the habitat as a combination of natural and social factors on humans, as well as the influence of humans on the environment, perceived as the framework of human life.

When defining the subject of social ecology, some researchers tend to emphasize the role that this young science is called upon to play in harmonizing the relationship of mankind with its environment. According to E.V. Girusov, social ecology should study, first of all, the laws of society and nature, by which he understands the laws of self-regulation of the biosphere, implemented by man in his life.

2 Socio-ecological interaction

L.V. Maksimova identifies two main aspects in the study of human relations with the environment. First, the whole set of influences exerted on a person by the environment and various environmental factors is studied.

In modern anthropoecology and social ecology, environmental factors, to which a person is forced to adapt, are usually denoted by the term adaptive factors. These factors are usually subdivided into three large groups - biotic, abiotic and anthropogenic environmental factors. Biotic factors are direct or indirect influences from other organisms inhabiting the human environment (animals, plants, microorganisms). Abiotic factors - factors of inorganic nature (light, temperature, humidity, pressure, physical fields - gravitational, electromagnetic, ionizing and penetrating radiation, etc.). A special group is made up of anthropogenic factors generated by the activities of the person himself, the human community (pollution of the atmosphere and hydrosphere, plowing of fields, deforestation, replacement of natural complexes with artificial structures, etc.).

The second aspect of the study of the relationship between man and the environment is the study of the problem of human adaptation to the environment and its changes.

The concept of human adaptation is one of the fundamental concepts of modern social ecology, reflecting the process of human connection with the environment and its changes. Initially appearing within the framework of physiology, the term "adaptation" soon penetrated into other areas of knowledge and began to be used to describe a wide range of phenomena and processes in the natural, technical and humanitarian sciences, initiating the formation of an extensive group of concepts and terms reflecting various aspects and properties of adaptation processes a person to the conditions of his environment and its result.

The term "human adaptation" is used not only to denote the process of adaptation, but also to comprehend the property acquired by a person as a result of this process - adaptation to the conditions of existence. L.V. Maksimova believes, however, that in this case it is more appropriate to talk about adaptation.

However, even under the condition of an unambiguous interpretation of the concept of adaptation, it is felt that it is insufficient to describe the process it denotes. This is reflected in the emergence of such clarifying concepts as deadaptation and readaptation, which characterize the direction of the process (deadaptation is a gradual loss of adaptive properties and, as a consequence, a decrease in fitness; readaptation is a reverse process), and the term disadaptation (disorder of the body's adaptation to changing conditions of existence) reflecting the nature (quality) of this process.

Prehistory of social ecology. The reasons for the emergence of social ecology as an independent scientific discipline

The main problems of social ecology

Social ecology subject

Development of social ecology

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Similar documents

Books

1 The concept of social ecology

2 Socio-ecological interaction

3 Socio-ecological education

4 Environmental aspects in Hughes sociology

Conclusion

List of used literature

Introduction

Social ecology is the science of harmonizing relations between society and nature.