The World Summed Up In A Paragraph

It would be a difficult task to describe the world in just one short paragraph. The CIA World Factbook threw their hat into the ring:

“World: Background

Globally, the 20th century was marked by: (a) two devastating world wars; (b) the Great Depression of the 1930s; (c) the end of vast colonial empires; (d) rapid advances in science and technology, from the first airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina (US) to the landing on the moon; (e) the Cold War between the Western alliance and the Warsaw Pact nations; (f) a sharp rise in living standards in North America, Europe, and Japan; (g) increased concerns about the environment, including loss of forests, shortages of energy and water, the decline in biological diversity, and air pollution; (h) the onset of the AIDS epidemic; and (i) the ultimate emergence of the US as the only world superpower. The planet’s population continues to explode: from 1 billion in 1820, to 2 billion in 1930, 3 billion in 1960, 4 billion in 1974, 5 billion in 1988, and 6 billion in 2000. For the 21st century, the continued exponential growth in science and technology raises both hopes (e.g., advances in medicine) and fears (e.g., development of even more lethal weapons of war).”

It’s a pretty solid primer on the 20th century, and we can take much from reading it.

What jumped out at me was the environmental movement vs. irresponsible overpopulation. Environmental concerns have come about largely due to the population explosion along with man’s increased use of technology to increase our usage of scarce resources. Mankind’s footprint on planet earth has been at no time greater than it is presently. What are we going to do about this double-blow that threatens our planet?