Inequality is a global impediment that creates many public problems to release the devastation of viciousness and hopelessness. Conflict can be a result of people feeling underprivileged to others through culture, area of residence, wealth, and the need to experience social mobility to a higher class of prosperity. (Tepperman & Curtis, 2011, p. 33).
This can relate to Karl Marx’s proposed Conflict Theory as the working class, known as the proletariat, constantly strive to work extremely hard, in hope for the opportunity to become the owners of production, the bourgeoisie (Tepperman & Curtis, 2011, p. 31). However, these hardworking individuals do not realize that the bourgeoisie is part of a class displaying conspicuous consumption as they proclaim their success through materialistic gain known as symbols, not fundamentals of life (Ahmed, 2011).
This growing concern of consumption is not substantial and will contribute to global destruction. As a society, participation is crucial as individuals learn to utilize the fundamentals of life through local community living, thus ensuring that international destruction will not occur. This paper examines a global collapse as a result of the human initiation of harmful issues to the globe, creating the end of modern society.
In the first section of the paper, the focus is on the consumption of oil, financial breakdown, and the deterioration of nature. The trailing portion examines the threat of terrorism and nourishment insufficiency. An analysis of international emergencies including diminishing oil provisions through consumption, economic torment, ecological catastrophe, increasing terrorism, and food scarcity, use problems and solutions outlined by Dr. Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed. His documentary “The Crisis of Civilization” among other sources will demonstrate that these merging crises will lead to a collapse of the global structure of civilization.
Consumption is a burden upon the planet since current energy resources will not be able to provide for civilization in the future. Peak oil is an ever-growing issue, whereby extraction of the fuel is an increasing hardship as it creates a decrease for generating a cheap usable source of energy (Tepperman & Curtis, 2011, p. 419; Ahmed, 2011). The use of oil in society today does not recognize the problem that oil is not being replicated naturally in the Earth since it is not renewable (Tepperman & Curtis, 2011, p. 419; Owen, Inderwildi, & King, 2010).
Using oil to fuel automobiles, create objects, and make edible food will have to change. Otherwise, as is currently occurring , oil prices will continue to rise at an alarming rate. The World Energy Organization made an approximation that by the year 2030, the price of oil per barrel in the United States will rise to two-hundred dollars, which is more than double the price today (Owen, Inderwildi, & King, 2010).
With this in mind, North America has approximately one-quarter of recoverable oil left to use for consumption (Bentley, 2002). The connection here is that oil will not bring humans into an affordable, conscientious future because products become unusable waste, resulting in annual tons of garbage each year (Tepperman & Curtis, 2011, p. 418) all created from the process of extracting oil.
Alternatives to this non-renewable resource hold potential but lack the efficiency to supply the energy needed for many people (Ahmed, 2011). Specific alternative energy providers include solar, wind, wave, geothermal and hydro-electric, all of which are technically renewable, but still require oil to set up the structures required to harness the energy.
Industrialization needs more energy than the amount of power the environmentally friendly sources can provide efficiently. In short, there needs to be a conscientious effort by all people to use less oil in their daily lifestyles. Economic inequalities are rising (Tepperman & Curtis, 2011, p. 22) and can be solved through shaming corporations who exhaust this resource.
People today flourish by living beyond their means with substantial debt, underpaying jobs, and live in an economy where there is little planning for the future, illustrating that the economic crises will surely be a detriment to the global system. The recession in 2008 that was a burden upon the United States subsequently affecting Canada, led to the financial destruction of banks (Ahmed, 2011).
The relationship between those accepting enormous mortgages and the financial institutions not prohibiting these people with considerably low wage incomes led to many residences foreclosures, evictions, and poverty. The United States government was more concerned with relieving these banks, rather than helping civilians with their own personal financial plans.
This nation cannot succeed in the future if the public taxpayers continue to be left to fend for themselves, while greedy financial organizations are permitted to take advantage for their own financial gain, creating inequality. This represents a double standard of financial aid. Financial inequality also leads to the horrible circumstance of poverty creating homelessness (Tepperman & Curtis, 2011, pp. 38-39).
In Toronto, a recent study illustrates that at least one-third of people have been homeless for the last five years (Khandor & Mason, 2007). Also important is the fact that twenty-two percent of this homeless population are youth living on the streets, who are between the ages of fifteen to twenty-four (Hwang, 2006).
Amongst this population, there is also a shortage of affordable housing for those with low income, resulting in overcrowded shelters (Tepperman & Curtis, 2011, pp. 38-40). Being homeless lends the potential to be more susceptible to unemployment, crime, violence, drug abuse and alcohol abuse (Tepperman & Curtis, 2011, pp. 45-46).
Homeless people are essentially those who suffer the result of inequality of economic mismanagement (Tepperman & Curtis, 2011, p. 22) prevailing in the crumbling global society. Thus, this population should utilize community support, government funding, and higher education to improve their virtue of life (Tepperman & Curtis, 2011, pp. 51-52).
It is essential that the concern of environmental destruction is brought forward, resulting in a global collapse of society. The dissipation of the ozone is an issue that everyone should reflect upon. In 2006, the ozone layer experienced a hole the size of North America, letting harmful ultraviolet radiation have access to many species which could exterminate them (Tepperman & Curtis, 2011, p. 412).
Climate change is also showing visible effects upon the planet as global warming continues to trap greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (Tepperman & Curtis, 2011, p. 413). Increasing global temperatures will result in disasters resembling in floods from rising sea-levels. This creates economic trouble through the destruction of land and possessions.
For example, floods cost Japan an approximated 3.4 billion dollars and the United States 0.06 billion dollars. The logging of forests leads to inadequate compensation for the process of photosynthesis (Tepperman & Curtis, 2011, p. 418). Soil destruction is also an irreversible consequence that will create unfarmable barren landscapes due to gusting air removing rich soil. A clear example of deforestation as an imminent threat to the world is the Amazon rainforest, where people in these regions are facing death and the annihilation of their societies.
Regrowth of new trees can be a tedious process as it may take anywhere from three hundred to one thousand years for a forest to recover after such a shock of foreign invasion by humans to its environment. In addition, water is a necessity that all living things need in order to prosper and grow as a species. The pollution of this vital substance comes from the industry and the use of technology (Tepperman & Curtis, 2011, p. 415).
To focus on these harmful practices, these pollutants derive from acidic precipitation, industrial wastefulness, fertilizers, and oil seepage into freshwater occur globally daily. It is disturbing to think that the modern, privileged, nation of Canada consumes water sixty-five percent more on a per capita basis compared to other nations according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
This gives Canada the title ‘water abuser’. The emergency of having nations with little or no water and their people being frustrated and concerned with this international inequality may lead to the conflict of war (Barnaby, 2009). Accordingly, the growth of human awareness for the need to live in harmony with the natural environment is the best solution to save nature from human annihilation and resentment displayed by other countries that have difficulty using their resources.
Under all these circumstances, the threat of terrorism is prevalent as the friction between ideologies and it creates violence due to governmental, societal, and monetary implications, which usually results in noncombatant individuals suffering this disturbing, brutal, clash (Tepperman & Curtis, 2011, p. 263;). Clearly stated, the United States is a benefactor to terrorism in order to solve its conflicts with other nations at hand (Tepperman & Curtis, 2011, p. 264).
To be specific, the United States utilized Taliban and Osama Bin Laden as allies to counter the longtime rival, Russia, which was encroaching on Afghanistan in the late nineteen seventies. However these ‘allies’ were disgraced as terrorist years later and now the United States is against these Middle East organizations, and the public is starting to perceive this perception (Ahmed, 2011). An indication of the United States creating conflict for its own interests are the attacks on 9/11.
This has been deemed as a result of hindering the public acknowledgement of remembering that before these terrorist attacks, the United States forcefully initiated an oil pipeline for its people despite outcry from the outraged Taliban organization who did not want to make economic agreements with the United States, and resulting in global panic for the war on terror (Ahmed, 2011). The United States has actually increased the risk of terrorism greatly as a result of their national dependence on oil.
Terrorism is not only creating crises of war, but it is also affecting the west as well, as many citizens are encouraging their governments to deregulate privacy and freedom of legislation for the public against their appropriate governments. To describe, this would permit governments to closely monitor civilians through surveillance telecommunications. This may, in turn, lead to the abuse of government authorization of spying without justification and probable grounds to do so in the first place.
In the modern age of many people having access to the internet, terrorism can also happen through information technology and add to the ongoing threat. Popular concerns that arise include radical websites that promote terrorist activity on a global scale, instructional information through media on how to contribute to terrorism, and the collaboration and education of young people on how to pursue international terrorism.
Consequently, conquering terrorism is a joint effort between many countries to control technological advancement in a way that does not deprive people of learning, understanding, and preventing international battles. These frictions between ideologies and ongoing terroristic activities continue to grow exponentially.
Another possibility for the collapse of the global system will be from another source, the universal food crisis. Food on a global scale involves the collaboration of generating, converting and delivering food to all people which is essential for life, but encompasses many problems (BeVier, 2012). The altering of the environment on the planet through climate change will affect the way in which people grow crops in certain regions due to fluctuating temperatures, more severe weather, and dwindling growing seasons.
There is also a concern of utilizing biofuels to offset the demand for oil to power the needs of many as approximately seventy percent of agriculture is for energy development. Corn for the production of ethanol has made the vegetable more costly to consumers due to its demand for food and energy in various parts of the world. In 2050, the estimation is that the need to meet the food requirement will potentially double due to the rising global population.
Another frightening observation is the approximation that 105 million people will face the problem of poverty in the near future, simply from rising food prices. For those living in developing countries, constant hunger may lead to health complications including a weak immune system, disease, a lack of learning development, damage to bodily organs, and death. (Tepperman & Curtis, 2011, p. 48).
These disadvantages are especially crucial to children as their development throughout their education, behavior, and activeness will be negatively affected. Respectively, a global response is necessary through a conscientious effort by all to reduce international disparity by inspiring more green farming practices, the growing of crops locally, and the notion to not waste food.
In final consideration, the inequalities that have been developing globally will hopefully make people reconsider their consumption patterns. The public comprehension of the seriousness at hand relating to the global situations of extremely low oil provisions, economic hardship, environmental destruction, growing terrorism, and inadequate food supplies will determine if the positive change will happen in the post-peak world for all.
Karl Marx’s conflict theory considering inequality can be avoided if people worldwide begin to understand what is truly valuable to the quality of life. Society needs to come together and participate in a movement that removes crises from the globe.
