Chapter summary

The whole chapter in one list.

• Within the biosphere there is naturally a good relationship between living things, physical factors and environmental conditions. This healthy relationship is called ecological balance.
• A growing population and its activities are what break ecological balance.
• The individual, the simplest natural level of organisation in the biosphere, is organised further in turn into the population, community and ecosystem, and finally the biosphere.
• To keep ecosystems in balance, energy and nutrients must flow naturally between living things.
• Energy and nutrients flow through food chains, food webs and biogeochemical cycles.
• Breaking ecological balance through the waste people release into the environment is environmental pollution.
• Among the wastes causing pollution, the main ones are agrochemicals, industrial waste, greenhouse gases, heavy metals and particulate matter (food additives, cleaning agents, medicines, germicides, disinfectants, perfumes).
• People today are suffering the direct and indirect effects of pollution.
• Traditional knowledge and technology, Ayurvedic medicine, waste management and energy management are the ways to follow for sustainable development.