The Dilemmas of the 21st Century

Abstract

In 1950 the Earth housed 2.52 billion people. Today we have reached over 7.5 billion and we are fast becoming 8 billion. According to the United Nations forecasts, in 2050 human beings could number 9.7 billion. Ecology scholars point out to us with increasing emphasis that this number is unsustainable for the Earth’s ecosystem. In fact, compared to about 90 million new individuals per year, the extinction of living species has unfortunately reached a rate equal to or greater than 1000 times that present in nature. Furthermore, each year about 100,000 square kilometers of forests disappear, mainly in the southern hemisphere. We are now confronted daily with problems related to human overpopulation in vast areas of the planet, which seems to be inextricably linked to the loss of biodiversity and irreversible destruction of ecosystems. This situation is already dire without mentioning the energy problem and the climate changes induced by man which see a persistent drought in some areas accompanied by advancing desertification.