Temporal Approach to an Ecological Problem

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15421/272003

Abstract

The article suggests a temporal approach for understanding the environmental problem. Temporality is a temporal organization and temporal characteristics of nature, including the social nature. Nature is qualitatively diverse and hierarchically organized. Each level of nature is characterized by specific time characteristics. They need to be studied and used to explain social and natural processes, including Natural Resource Management, Recycling and waste management. A hindrance to the application of the temporal approach is a mechanistic worldview with a Newtonian view of time. Therefore, it is necessary to change the scientific paradigm, in which time is considered not as the background of ongoing processes, but as their essential characteristic. This methodology is used in synergetics and in the theory of complex systems, and it is useful to apply it to the study of socio-natural processes, to understand the concept of process, evolution, irreversibility, ecological balance, sustainable development, socio-natural chronotope, etc.

Using the example of chemical technology is showed the human impact on the environment and were identified three factors that disrupt natural processes: scale, intensity, and artificial materials. All three factors change the temporal characteristics of natural processes and lead to a conflict between nature and society. The substance circulates more slowly in natural cycles than in technological ones. Also, a people sometimes consciously, sometimes unintentionally creates conditions under which the process of returning substances to natural cycles slows down. The accelerated removal of a substance from nature and its slow return to nature is also a cause of conflict. Therefore, to resolve it, it is necessary to technologize of recycling, which is successfully done for paper, glass, and metals, but remains a problem for plastic and composite materials. It is also important to understand that it is also impossible to reduce the negative impact on nature to zero, since any technological activity requires energy, which means that it increases entropy.

Published

2021-02-04