Humans have interacted with and influenced their environment since the beginning of their species. However, this influence only reached a truly tangible scale in the eighteenth century, with the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. At this point, man stepped out of the natural cycle of life and began to dictate his own rules to the planet.
The planet began to change, but we did not notice it immediately-our civilization was preoccupied with other things: the extraction of fuel (coal, gas, shale, oil), metal, and other minerals. All these substances, removed naturally by nature and taken away by man, returned to nature, but in a different form. It has turned into a global pollution of soil, water and air and has caused the ecological crisis. And the intensity of this process continues to grow at a catastrophic rate, and mankind will have to deal with the serious consequences of the ecological crisis in the near future.
The uneasy political background of the twentieth century (the split of the world community and world wars) did not help humanity much to focus on ecological problems. Add to this the arms race (the Cold War), social inequality within countries, and the incredible speed of technological progress. All these factors resulted in the end of the twentieth century when humanity had to settle down, look around and realize the damage it had done to its home.