1 Since the turn of the new millennia, one of the most frequently asked questions by humans is whether the

world is in a crisis or not. Different people will answer this question differently, but the one fact we should all agree on is that the world is going through a period of uncertainty, temperatures are on the rise, natural disasters like floods, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are increasing, the number of casualties from conflicts in the world is at an all time high and the world appears to be facing an imminent water and energy crisis. If all these problems constitute a crisis or if they are just challenges which humanity will ultimately prevail over, depends on different interpretations by different people. An uncertain future definitely constitutes a crisis, not knowing what the future holds makes us vulnerable, and vulnerability itself is a danger. Even the most optimistic of people are aware of the fact that our survival, as humans, is under threat. We have all been told of the enormous strain that we have put the earth under and how the earth cannot continue to support life if we continue living the way most of us do at the moment. The biggest problem facing the world today is overpopulation; C.S Brown points out that human footprint outstripped the carrying capacity of the earth in the 1980s.1 The earths resources, if shared equally, cannot support everyone on it. The world was not designed to cater for six billion people,2 thus the number of people on earth is a crisis in itself. What makes the situation worse is that the rate of population growth is still high and in 2025, there will be 9, 3 billion people in the world. 3If the earth is struggling to cater for six billion people at the moment what will happen if it has to cater for an extra three billion people? The only way our planet can cope with its large population is if a big proportion of the population live with undesirable living standards. However this would be grossly unfair since everyone is supposed to be equal. The overpopulation of the earth is a problem which has been taken for granted since it became apparent a few decades ago, and it is only going to get worse. The overpopulation of the earth mixed together with industrialisation and technological advances has led to perhaps the most talked problem which the world is facing today, global warming. Global warming is the increase in overall air and water temperature, and a promise that if whatever is causing this trend is not
1 2

C.S Brown, Big History: From the Big Bang to the Present (New York, 2008), p.241. This is according to UN estimates, the population of the world from October 1999. 3 C.S Brown, Big History P 232.

2 interrupted or challenged life, life on earth will dynamically be affected. 4 The increase in global temperatures (global warming), is a result of the increase in carbon emissions from things like power stations and motor vehicles. Some people might like the increase in temperatures because it might mean longer summers, but the temperature increase posses a danger because it will result in the rise of sea levels 5 and all those people who live in coastal areas might be at the risk of flooding. The possibility of all the coastal areas and low lying countries being flooded because of a human made problem is definitely a crisis, the lives of millions of people are under threat and unless we do something about it, cities like New York and Mumbai will be flooded.6 The one thing that is threatening the future of humankind is its reliance on fossil fuels. The worlds economy is so dependant on coal, natural gas and especially oil that any shortage of these would lead to the collapse of world markets and ultimately a severe crisis. Oil reserves are estimated to be enough for only forty more years, therefore the world has to come up with alternative energy resources before oil actually runs out and the world goes into a state of disaster. If, global warming or the overpopulation of the planet is not going to destroy it, then the chaos that is going to ensue when fossils run out will surely threaten the survival of mankind. The depletion of energy resources is made worse by the impeding water crisis which the world is facing. There are signs that even today there are conflicts in some parts of the world over water source, for example, some people have called the war in Darfur the first conflict over water. The United Nations estimate that today one in eight people lack access clean water.7 This number will most likely increase in the future and it posses a big problem for the world because if a significant proportion of its population are thirsty, then there is bound to be a conflict of some sort. There is a conviction that the next world war will be caused by water shortages. Humans unfortunately cannot survive for long without water therefore the survival of humankind is threatened by the possibility of a water shortage.

4 5

Global Warming at http://globalwarming.com. Temperature increases will result in the melting of glaciers therefore increasing the volume of water in the sea. 6 Flooded Cities at http://www.citymayors.com/enviroment/floodedcities.html 7 This is according to the United Nations Human Development Report, 2006.

3 The rapid rate of development currently happening in countries such as India, Brazil and especially China is also causing a lot of problems for the planet. As the industries of these countries develop further, the amount of impurities like carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere increases as well. This not only adds to the problem of global warming, but increases the problem of pollution of our air, water and even land. According to C.S Brown one billion people of the people living in cities in 1988 breathed unhealthy levels of sulphur dioxide, soot and dust. This has left millions of people in large cities like Calcutta and Mexico City at a risk of dying through respiratory disease.8 This figure has surely increased since 1988; the amount of pollution has also surely increased. The pollution which is resulting as a result of industrialisation is not only hurting humans but it is destroying plants as well. If something is not done about the pollution then a lot of human lives are going to be lost unnecessarily. To add on to the pollution problem, human beings are destroying rainforests at a rapid rate of about 150 acres a minute. 9 These forests are important in that they convert much of the carbon dioxide into oxygen which is essential for humans and animals. They are even more important in that they contain most of the worlds species and plants, used in the manufacture of a lot of different medicines. They have often been called the worlds pharmacy because there are the source of most of our medicines, quinine for example comes from the rainforests, and their destruction will ultimately undo all the medical advances which humankind has achieved. Perhaps the most worrying trend currently in the world is the number of global conflicts. An interesting observation made is that, in the last century the greatest catastrophes were directly induced by human agency. More people were killed by war and totalitarian regimes than by natural disasters.10 In the last few decades humankind has shown a real knack for destroying itself. If overpopulation or all those environmental problems we are facing do not destroy humankind, then humans will destroy themselves through these conflicts. We live in a world where we are in constant fear of being obliterated by a nuclear bomb which will have fallen into the wrong hands. Religious fundamentalists who believe in violence are another worry and they make our everyday existence risky. Existing everyday knowing that you are
8 9

Brown, Big History, p234. World biomes at http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/amazon.htp 10 M Rees, Our Final Century (London, 2003), p.26.

4 not completely safe from attack by other humans is perhaps not the best way of living and it unnecessarily compounds the host of problems we have to deal with. The world does not need to face that problem at the moment and it is the biggest danger to the worlds survival in the near future. The worlds conflicts will be hard to end because as long as humankind has existed there have always been conflict between different political, social and economic ideologies. Thus the current conflicts are not likely to come to an end anytime soon, people had a huge sigh of relief when the Cold War ended in the eighties but instead of peace coming to the world, the threat of violence has only gotten worse. The problems mentioned above show that the world is in a crisis which unfortunately most people are not aware of. Our biggest worry at the moment is the overpopulation of the earth, and unless drastic measures are taken to reduce population growth, our planet will not survive for long. The problem of global warming and pollution of the earth unfortunately will not be resolved soon because most developing countries are not willing to reduce their carbon footprint11 because they want to develop their industries and ultimately provide better lives for their citizens. If we are going to continue developing as a world at such a rapid rate then the earth has a massive price to pay for that. We must start using alternative energies to fossil fuels; these are energies like solar energy and wind energy. Not only will this save us from our reliance on fossils but it will ultimately do the planet a whole lot of benefit since these are cleaner forms of energy. The pressure on freshwater will only be eased by a smaller population or if technology advances fast enough so that we can exploit sea water in a few years time. At this point and time, it looks as if its all doom and gloom for the world, it appears as if the damage which we have already done is well beyond repair and the question we have to ask ourselves is when all of this will come to an end .It appears as if it is too late for humankind to save itself from oblivion. The crisis we find ourselves in is so big that it is most likely that we cannot get out of it, perhaps the only thing we can do is slow down the destruction of the earth thereby delaying the inevitable.

11

This is the total set of gases like carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide released into the atmosphere by any institution.

Word Count: 1665 Bibliography: Books

Brown, C.S, Big History: From the Big Bang to the Present, (New York, 2008) Rees, M, Our Final Century, (London, 2003)

Internet Journals:
United Nations Human Development Report, 2006 at hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr/2006

Internet Sites:
http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/amazon.htp http://www.citymayors.com/enviroment/floodecities.html http://globalwarming.com