It’s particularly trendy among all of us to be worried about climate change. Obama spoke before the crowd of Berlin, “climate change is the global threat of our time”. But that’s not true. In fact, it wouldn’t even make into the top-10-about-to-kill-our-planet list.
The single greatest threat humanity is facing is poverty. About 1.3 billion people don’t have electricity. A poignant article in Times portraits this cruel life. Picture this: There are no televisions, video games, or internet. You are lonely and disconnected from the rest of the world. Even if you want to read books, firewood will be your only light source. And guess what, that same firewood is used to cook dinner, throwing off smoke that is far more toxic than air pollution in cities. You’re extremely poor, but don’t be wishing people will come to your aid, because no one had really considered this problem seriously. As a consequence, you’re all on your own.
The lack of adequate healthcare explains why the world’s poorest countries, most of the leading cause of death are infectious diseases, including lower respiratory infections (about 3.2 million in a year), diarrhea (about 1.4 million deaths in a year), and malaria. In fact, microbiologists’ biggest fear may well be the terrifying rise of multi-drug resistant bacteria, as well as the deadly viruses such as MERS.
If we have a live video of Earth for 24 hours, here’s the devastating view you’ll see.
214,000 acres of tropical forest will disappear forever.
We are losing Earth’s greatest treasure just as we are beginning to appreciate their true value. Rainforests once covered 14% of the earth’s land surface; now they cover a mere 6% and experts estimate that the last remaining rainforests could be consumed in less than 40 years.
2 billion gallons of human sewage will be dumped into the world’s ocean.
We’re turning our seas into sewers, affecting marine population to the brink of extinction. Plastic waste, become common food for large marine animals. Corals are slowly dissolving into white skeletons and ashes. And all these trash are choking oxygen out of the sea, turning it into a lifeless underwater desert.
10,800 children will die from drought to the lack of clean drinking water.
Speaking of the ocean, an even rarer resource is fresh water. Of all the water on earth, less than three percent is fresh. And the 70 percent is locked in glaciers and polar ice. As you can see, our survival depends on the tiny bits left. One obvious way we can replace shrinking freshwater supplies is by desalinating sea water. However, our source of freshwater is currently getting worse by the second. (we just came full circle)
Last but not least, we’ll be 85 million barrels closer to the end of the Petroleum Age.
There have been few major discoveries of conventional oil in the past decade, and those existing fields only have limited supply left. Look around you right now and think about all the petroleum products that you use everyday, plastic, comb, clothes, pillow, dishes, soap, shoes… (no kidding, there’s petroleum in every one of them) And all these things will eventually go away — with no replacement for them. Our lives will all change dramatically without petroleum, long before the poles melt.
Of course, there’s always ‘war’ waiting to be triggered. Out of sight, out of mind, we like to think the end of the Cold War stuffed all nuclear-related stuff back into the bottle. However, there remain approximately 20,000 active nuclear weapons, slumbering away in the bunkers, missiles, and submarines governments hide around the world. It’s like a sword that’s been hanging above us all for so long, that we’ve mistaken it as the sky. Just a little political crisis, may force humanity to face their last insult to the planet.
Granted, climate change indeed is a significant issue. However, it will be measured on a scale of decades or centuries, where else, more pressing matters have already threatened to upend our everyday lives. As the old saying goes, the future is unwritten. Humanity is a versatile species, capable of great resourcefulness in the face of challenge. We have more than sufficient capacity to address the challenge of the new century.
“2.1 Billion People Lack Safe Drinking Water At Home, More Than Twice As Many Lack Safe Sanitation.” World Health Organization. N. p., 2017. Web.
“Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews – TIME.Com.” TIME.com. N. p., 2011. Web.
“Human Waste Dumped Into Oceans Harms Coral, New Study Reveals.” TreeHugger. N. p., 2017. Web.
“Lack Of Safe Water, Sanitation And Soap “An Embarrassment” Says WHO | Lucy Lamble.” the Guardian. N. p., 2015.
“Nuclear Weapons: Who Has What At A Glance.” Armscontrol.org. N. p., 2017. Web.
“Russian Nukes Hidden In USA During The Cold War.” Secretsofsurvival.com. N. p., 2017. Web.
“Saving The Rainforest.” Srl.caltech.edu. N. p., 2017. Web.
“The Top 10 Causes Of Death.” World Health Organization. N. p., 2017. Web.
“WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE RUN OUT OF PETROLEUM?.” Ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu. N. p., 2017. Web.