Handout in Environmental Science

3.1 Human’s Intervention with Nature

 Explain the progress in agriculture, engineering, and medicine because of man’s intervention with
nature.
 Cite adverse effects of people’s activities to the environment.

Agriculture:
 Domestication process in agriculture started over 7000 years ago.
 By selecting a few seemingly more useful or edible species, these ancient agriculturists began the
selection process which still continues today as farmers, researchers and companies look for more
productive plants and animals.
 The selection process necessarily involves a reduction and simplification of the immense biological
diversity of nature, at both the species and genetic level.
Medicine:
 Before the advent of modern medicine, people used to be superstitious.
 The common belief was that diseases were caused by evil spirits.
 Western medicine borrowed a lot from ancient Greek Medicine.
Ancient Times
The ancient Chinese, Indians, Egyptians, Babylonians, and Native Americans were all herbalists. The oldest
known list of medicinal herbs is Shen Nung’s Pen Ts’ao or Shennong Ben Cao Jing (c. 3000 B.C.), a Chinese herbal
that is probably a compilation of an even older oral tradition.
In the time of Hippocrates
The diseases were from that moment attributed to natural causes, without the intervention of magic and the
divine. The approach of the patient was clinical, it was done at the bedside: observation was essential, as was the
use of reason, which allowed the doctor to make a prognosis for the outcome of the disease.
2000 BC: Acupuncture
This method is theorized in the oldest treatise of Chinese medicine, the “Nei Jing”, written partly four thousand
years ago.
550 BC: Surgery
The oldest textbook of surgery was the “Sushruta Samhita”, which recorded the interventions of Sushruta, a
Hindu doctor of the sixth century BC and the father of this practice. He invented the removal of the prostate, the
treatment of ocular cataracts, the drainage of abscesses or a technique of nasal reconstruction (at the time, the
nose of criminals was cut off) consisting of taking skin on the forehead of the prostate patient.
1796: Vaccination
English doctor Edward Jenner (1749-1823) performed the first real vaccination.
1895: The radiology
German physicist Wilhelm Conrad von Röntgen worked in his laboratory on cathode rays, highlighted recently,
using a light tube. Today, X-rays are still used for medical examinations.
1901: Blood transfusion
It was not until the nineteenth century that some scientists stressed the need to use human and non-animal blood,
and 1901 for Austrian biologist and physician Karl Landsteiner to discover the existence of blood groups and thus
safely render blood transfusion.
1967: Heart transplant
The first heart operation, performed by the South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard, raises considerable
emotion and moral and ethical controversy.
Recent technologies for health include:
 Smart inhalers
 Robotic surgery
 Wireless brain sensors
 Artificial organs
 Health wearables, etc.
 Handout in Environmental Science

Engineering:
Ancient Era
The Acropolis and the Parthenon in Greece, the Roman Roman aqueducts, Via Appia and the Colosseum,
the ziggurats of Mesopotamia, the Pharos of Alexandria, the pyramids in Egypt, Teotihuacán and the cities and
pyramids of the Mayan, Inca and Aztec Empires, cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, the Great Wall of China,
among many others, stand as a testament to the ingenuity and skill of the ancient civil and military engineers.
Middle Era
Al-Jazari built five machines to pump water for the kings of the Turkish Artuqid dynasty and their palaces.
Besides over 50 ingenious mechanical devices, Al-Jazari also developed and made innovations to segmental
gears, mechanical controls, escapement mechanisms, clocks, robotics, and protocols for designing and
manufacturing methods.
Renaissance Era
The first steam engine was built in 1698 by mechanical engineer Thomas Savery. The development of this device
gave rise to the industrial revolution in the coming decades, allowing for the beginnings of mass production.
Modern
In 1990, with the rise of computer technology, the first search engine was built by computer engineer Alan
Emtage.

Adverse Effects:
The human impact on the environment is substantial and adverse. These include land degradation
(deforestation), air pollution, water contamination and climate change.

Land Degradation
Deforestation occurs when humans clear forests to use the land either for agriculture or for habitation.
Consequences are:
 Forest cover dwindles significantly, leading to soil erosion and extinction of plant species.
 Land animals also decline in numbers and even face extinction due to human expansion that encroaches
on their natural habitat and limits their ability to spread geographically.
 Treatments applied to land such as liming, fertilizers, manure and other organic materials, tillage
practices, the use of pesticides and so forth, all change the physical and chemical environment.
Air Pollution
One of the biggest environmental impacts of human activities is air quality. The transportation sector contributes
heavily to air pollution because most forms of transportation, including cars, planes and ocean vessels, use fossil
fuels. When burned, fossil fuels release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the environment.
In addition, the manufacturing industry grows exponentially with the expansion of the human population.
Manufacturing plants emit carbons and sulfurs that do not occur naturally in the environment, causing an
imbalance in the quality and composition of air. Some air pollutants deplete the ozone layer and expose the Earth
to dangerous radiation from the sun.
Water Contamination
Human intervention in the environment also jeopardizes the supply and flow of clean drinking water. Activities
like waste disposal from residential, commercial and industrial areas, oil spills and runoff from agriculture all
contaminate bodies of water. The direct deposit of pollutants into lakes, rivers, seas and streams and indirect
runoff of hazardous substances during the rainy seasons both impact water sources. Another environmental issue
impacting water systems is overfishing, which causes a reduction in diversity of marine life.
Climate Change
Human activities in the environment interfere with the planet's natural balance, making the Earth’s climate less
stable and predictable. Climate change brings abnormal occurrences such as unprecedented flooding; increased
numbers of storms, hurricanes and typhoons; fiercer brush fires; and most notably tsunamis, which are
uncommon in the Earth’s recent history. Phenomena such as rising sea levels, unseasonably high temperatures
and drought hint toward an environment that cannot take much more negative human impact.