ABSTRACT
Since the era of the hunter-collector society, man’s technological inventions have been changing his life drastically and have usually caused some amount of environmental degradation. Humans have acquired the power to change the environment and to improve their standard of life. Technology has a great ability to reduce the emissions of these pollutants, but some other environmental problems, as, for example, the complex degradation that ends up in desertification or in the loss of biodiversity, cannot effectively be dealt with through technological means. Scientific research has offered an abundance of data that show increasing environmental degradation. Environmental protection is an increasingly important scientific and technological goal; social interest in the environment is rapidly increasing and the environmental dimension is penetrating deeply into economy and the various policies.
