Water – the essential ingredient for life on this planet , is becoming an increasingly scarce resource. According to the World Bank and World Health Organization, 2 billion people lack access to clean water and 1 billion people do not have enough to even meet their daily needs. Every day an increasing amount of pollution seeps into rivers and lakes making them toxic to humans, and underground aquifers – our most significant sources of water – are being depleted at an alarming rate.
If current trends continue more and more useable water will be lost while the world population continues to grow larger and larger. We need to figure out a way to keep our lakes and rivers free of pollution so that they will be clean enough for us to drink.
The world is currently growing at a rate of 79, 000, 000 people per year – more than ever before – and as more time passes that number will rapidly increase. The world population is predicted to be over 10 billion in 40 years, and will become greater and greater as the ever-growing human species continues to breed. One solution is to make contraceptives more accessible, to prevent teen pregnancies.
Many people believe global warming is the preeminent danger to human civilization today. It is believed that the rising global temperature threatens to create catastrophic weather systems, crop failures, disease outbreaks, and water shortages worldwide. Global warming advocates say emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane are trapping heat within the Earths’ atmosphere, slowly increasing the overall temperature.
These emissions are the byproduct of our modern way of life, and to halt them would require a voluntary shift in the very structure of our society, a move unprecedented in human history. We need to try to reduce the amount of emissions we put in the air, by getting more fuel efficient cars like hybrids.
Despite significant reductions in income poverty in recent years, under nutrition remains widespread. Recent estimates from UNICEF (2012) are that “ one out of every four children under five – or 146 million children in the developing world – is underweight for his or her age”, and that “ each year, lack of nutrition contributes to the deaths of about 5. 6 million children under the age of five”. We can help the third world countries by making sure they have a clean water system that everyone can drink clean water, and do anything we can to help them out like celebrities do with Unicef.
The U. S., by far the world’s largest and most powerful economy is completely in debt at the individual, institutional, and governmental levels. The Dollar is at its lowest rate in years, and the fundamental driver of the US economy – the housing market – appears to be coming undone. Many experts believe we’re on the brink of global economic depression, and if the markets fail the infrastructure of modern civilization will collapse causing modern ways of living to drastically change.
Air pollution is one of the most serious problems in the world. It refers to the contamination of the atmosphere by harmful chemicals or biological materials. Air pollution causes damage to crops, animals, forests, and bodies of water. It also contributes to the depletion of the ozone layer, which protects the Earth from the sun’s UV rays. Another negative effect of air pollution is the formation of acid rain, which harms trees, soils, rivers, and wildlife. Some of the other environmental effects of air pollution are haze, eutrophication, and global climate change. One solution is the discovery or invention of cleaner energy sources as well as increased recycling programs and better recycling methods.
