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 earth’s 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
C.S Brown, Big History: From the Big Bang to the Present (New York, 2008), p.241.
2
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 world’s 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
Global Warming at http://globalwarming.com.
5
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
world’s species and plants, used in the manufacture of a lot of different medicines.
They have often been called the world’s 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
Brown, Big History, p234.
9
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
world’s survival in the near future. The world’s 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.
 5

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)
 6

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