There is no doubt that the world is out of balance. You can daily see it on the news, and everybody experiences it by them self in some form or another.
When it comes to the environment, researchers around the world more or less agree that the climate changes we experience in our time are, for a larger part, created by humans. We affect the climate by burning coal, oil and gas, but also by deforestation, agriculture, emissions from transport and different industrial processes, just to mention some things. This means that the atmosphere has an increased concentration of greenhouse gasses, mainly CO2. This means that we get a more powerful greenhouse effect, heating up the earth. This again leads to more water vapor in the air, which further reinforces the effect of the greenhouse gas. It is an evil circle.
Moreover, there are much more ways in which we affect the climate. We pollute the oceans, the water and the rivers with our emissions and littering. The glaciers and the ice are melting and the oceans rise. Rainforest is cut down. Species are exterminated. There is sole degradation. In agriculture, we spread chemicals etc. The fact that we create huge problems for the planet by disturbing its finely tuned systems backfires. When the earth has problems, we have problems. People living in Beijing, China, knows this, as they have to cope with strongly polluted air. Many wear a mask as everyday protection. Extreme weather is more and more common all around the globe, something many has experienced.
It’s not only that we humans are tampering with the environment. We are also creating dysfunctional systems for ourselves. We have created economic systems with extreme inequality in much of the world. This helps to create suffering among people, inhibits development and at the same time, it gives rise to conflicts.
Other areas are not better off. We can mention huge health problems, with everything from lifestyle diseases in the rich part of the world to malnutrition and outbreaks of diseases in the developing world. Much of the food we eat, as well as what we drink, is unhealthy and has questionable additives. On the political arena, we still have dictators and in some countries, we face absurd corruption. The economical, unhealthy influence reaches far into the political circles, where it should never have been. Women and people that are different are, in some places, still regarded as something of lesser value. Further, we can highlight test explosions with nuclear weapons, which we, fortunately, have reduced after realizing the serious implications. We can mention wars, the destruction it leaves behind and the unimaginable suffering it causes. The list of all the problems we have created for ourselves is long.
We have to turn our dysfunctional behavior around as soon as possible. It goes without saying that we cannot continue to ruin the earth. The earth is our home and it is extremely short sighted to ruin our own home. The earth consists of countless, incredibly complex ecosystems. If we mess with one system, it will affect the rest. Everything has a context and is intertwined.
Mankind is facing large problems, crises, and challenges today. But we must not forget that we humans also do a lot of good, great and fantastic things. Together we have all the assumptions needed to overcome our crises and problems. When the gravity really dawns on us, and it will as the crises and the problems only will increase in the years to come, it is only a matter of time before we break out of the vicious circles we have entangles ourselves into. We have already started to break them. It brings hope for a balanced world in the future.