High tech vs. nature
The period of the second half of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century was marked by rapid growth of scientific and technical progress.
Before this time people lived in harmony with nature, they had to count on its mercy and were afraid of its severe manifestations. Primeval people worshiped nature and tried to placate evil spirits, which as they thought provoked hurricanes, storms and poor crops. Later they became more pragmatic, gave up obsolete beliefs and their attitude to nature became more practical. Radical turn of human consciousness happened. Before this turn people tried to cognize nature and its laws in order to adjust to them, because they thought that it was impossible to fly in the face of nature.
Gradually people's attitude to nature changed and they became to bend nature to their will. Centuries-old battle with nature ended with victory of mankind. The results of this victory are clearly discernable nowadays. We don't count on nature's mercy any more. We don't ask it when make each next experiment and verify nature's firmness and survival potential. Deforestation, draining, building of canals and many other harsh actions against nature are still practiced today.
In the beginning of scientific and technical progress people undervalued the nature's ability to regenerate its power and paid no attention to damage which was caused to it. Mankind faced the future with enthusiasm and didn't think about environmental problems it was going to come across. Triumph over nature inspired its humiliation and annihilation. People became so alienated from nature, that they didn't understand that they were part of it and that by means of its destruction they slowly killed themselves. Scientific thought developed technologies, directed to benefit from nature and it was not nature-friendly at all. All these negative factors influenced our health greatly. People began to suffer form various diseases, caused by pollution and reduction of immunity. Bending nature to our will we become dependable on our health problems and deprive ourselves from future ahead.
At last we have understood that we have won "kind" nature but we can't protect ourselves from its aggressive manifestations. Fortunately today science and technology is developed in another direction. We understand that we can't exploit nature thoughtlessly any more. The emergence of ecological science is a good sign but isn't it too late to improve the situation? Ecologists say that nature's capacity is not fully exhausted but we have to make radical changes in our use of natural resources and must learn to live in harmony with nature as mush as it is possible. Of course, we can't return to primeval state of development, but we must try our best to facilitate our aggressive influence on nature.