Question

I want an essay on biggest issue facing mankind

Answer 1

If you were asked what the greatest problem facing mankind is, what would you answer? Terrorism? War? The economy? Corruption? These are the topics on the lips of our politicians. But I would contend that our most vital concern is for the environment that nurtures us. In fact, we should probably celebrate Earth Day every day, thinking globally as one people on one Earth in one biosphere with one future. We're all in this together! Crucial environmental issues concern ozone depletion, global warming, species extinction, marine habitat destruction and deforestation to name just a few. Overwhelming scientific evidence points to human activities as the primary cause of all of these problems. They imperil our very existence. At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, just 200 years ago, our population went into rapid exponential growth. Now at 6.3 billion, we are experiencing a global increase of 250,000 more people (births over deaths) every day! It's the equivalent of adding a San Diego to the world population in less than a week, all of Mexico in a year, and the entire North American population every three years. As our numbers increase, the numbers of many other species decline. Our population now exceeds that of any other primate species by over 10,000 fold; we are causing their extinction, literally by crowding them off the surface of the Earth. All living organisms, from simple bacteria to complex animals, are subject to the laws of Nature. Populations experience exponential growth when resources are plentiful but crash when a single essential resource disappears. Before a population crashes, there is usually an overshoot; the greater the overshoot the greater the crash, and the greater the crash the greater the suffering. Because the human population is not living sustainably, most experts agree that we are currently in the overshoot phase. The question is not whether disaster will hit but when. Throughout history, civilizations have risen to prominence and then declined into obscurity. The Egyptians who built the great pyramids, the Greeks who became our early philosophers, scientists and poets, and the Romans who dominated over 50% of the human population for several centuries, all fell into obscurity after overexploiting their environments. While the history books suggest that wars and conflict were largely responsible for societal collapse, numerous anthropological studies point to environmental destruction as the primary cause. Peace usually reigns as long as there is plenty, but conflicts arise when there isn't. Thus, war is a consequence of need; it contributes to the demise of civilizations, but only secondarily. What measures can we take to avoid the pending disaster that stares us in the face? There are just two answers: reduce our population, and reduce resource consumption. If we are to reduce the population, to what level must it be reduced in order to achieve sustainability? The answer depends on our rates of resource consumption. The more resources we use up per person, the fewer people the Earth can continue to support. Little is currently being done to reduce the human population and create a sustainable world society. Since the deleterious consequences of overpopulation are so obvious, why have we not done something about it? A few countries like China have, but most, including ours, have not. Ignorance, denial and irrationality are to blame. We live in a most challenging time. Never before has the need for population reduction been more apparent, but never before have the forces arrayed against rational progressive approaches been stronger. Our government doesn't acknowledge that almost all of our global problems are a consequence of human activities. It actively opposes local, national and international birth control practices. Scientific knowledge is not used as a guide. Irrationality has the upper hand. The question is not whether there is intelligent life in outer space, but whether there's intelligent life on Earth. Can we act rationally? Can we control our population? Can we fit into nature without destroying her? These are the questions that count.