Ecocide – global consequences (pesticides, radionuclides, petroleum products)

Abstract

The problem of environmental pollution is becoming increasingly important on a global scale. Man has oversaturated the environment of his habitat with harmful and most often toxic waste. It is difficult to describe all the toxic substances, as a separate book can be written for each group. The term “ecocide” has been introduced, which reflects large-scale destruction of the natural environment. We will focus only on three classes of pollutants that are of particular concern, creating environmental conflicts. These are: • Pesticides are extremely toxic and create large amounts of non-degradable waste. It accumulates in tissues and organs of target organisms, becoming toxic and causing serious pathological changes in the body, mainly at the cellular and subcellular levels, causing various diseases and as a result, serious changes in the structure and functions of the populations and the whole ecosystem are increasingly observed. • Waste from the nuclear industry and radioactive fallout from nuclear explosions. It is especially dangerous that radioactive elements can be concentrated in certain organs. • Petroleum products-often large quantities end up in the seas and oceans, along with industrial waste of various kinds, impossible to compensate for by nature and they pose a serious threat to ecosystems, many of which have already been destroyed. At the submolecular level, chemical and physical effects can lead to genetic rearrangements (muta-tions); destructive ionization in the tissues of every living being, sometimes with completely unexpected consequences for humans.