ИСТИНА

Scientific and cultural heritage in the field of environmental protection plays an important role in properly understanding and solving contemporary environmental problems. One of those who have made a significant contribution to the solution of this problem was a distinguished Russian scientist and philosopher V. I. Vernadsky. In March 2015 it was 152 years from the date of his birth. The scale of this person is so great that even without this date would deserve attention as an outstanding scientist, scholar, major thinker and scientist-theoretician. Today, when environmental problems are becoming more acute, it's time to turn to the rich creative heritage of V. I. Vernadsky, who was significantly ahead of his time in terms of a number of theoretical positions. These innovative ideas, far not obvious to his contemporaries, but fully manifesting their relevance decades after, should be accounted for as his arguments on the increasingly transformation nature of the human activities, comparable in power with the natrual geological processes. These ideas voiced by V.I. Vernadsky coupled with his original concept of the "noosphere" have a significance for understadnign and correct perception of the trends and prospects of the development of the overal system formed by the interactions between the nature and socieity in light of the modern globalization processes.