Our home
In the original Greek «oikos» means, «house». So ecology is «the study of the house» the place where you live, or the environment which technically includes all those factors, both nonliving and living, that affect an organism. Until recently this relationship was in balance. However, at present times we have to face such ecological problems as acid rain, global warming, loss of rare species, ozone reduction, etc. Many scientists think that it is connected with industrial boom and development of civilization in the world. Building numerous factories people have started to interfere intensively in nature. Every year world industry pollutes the atmosphere with tons of dust and other harmful things. As a result many species of animals and plants disappear forever, including fish and birds. And only in some decades, when it became hard to breathe in big cities and when acid rains started to destroy forests, man asked himself: am I to blame? Actually, yes. Man was used to taking everything from the Earth. Dazzled by its riches, he destroyed the fragile ecological balance. We live in the era of high-tech pollution. When we throw away old TV-sets, radios, computers, they just lie in piles somewhere not far from cities. They cannot dissolve, evaporate or rot. If to start to destroy them, for instance, to incinerate them, it could cause even more problems: very often these substances are poisonous. It seems to be a situation without way-out! We can’t stop producing technological devices, but when they are obsolete, we don’t know how to destroy them. I think the best solution will be to find a way to recycle these chemicals. Probably it’s impossible nowadays, but chemistry is developing, in some years it could be real. Earlier we couldn’t even imagine that it would be possible to reuse paper and glass, nowadays it’s great help. Recycling itself is a great way to save raw materials. Simply by collecting and giving away old newspapers you can save dozens of trees. All of us have to understand that the Earth is actually our «oikos» , our home and, when saving it, you are doing it for yourself, for your children, for the generations which will come after us.
