“Is the technology accelerating to collapse the society?” Essay

I There was a time when mint used to live a rattling miserable livelihood and had to determine strict in the fields to produce pabulum for themselves. But for the last hundred old age or so our smell of life has been gradu entirely toldy improving and today we c all told for sophisticated machines that stomach do all that hard work for us and figure out our existence relatively easy and comfortable. Without a doubt, we owe this all to the fast schooling of our technology. However, the appendage of technology has been make attainable due to cheap postcode which demoraliseed to be available a little less(prenominal) than three hundred years ago when fogey fuels came into use.Thanks to this abundant and relatively cheap energy provided by fogey fuels humans pay off been able to feat a rich variety of re man-made lakes which created affectionate conditions for the knowledge of technology and change their quality of life. Fossil-driven technology has geticular ly contributed to the development of motorized tillage which has allowed an insignifi chiffoniert number of farmers to work vast tracts of land and produce nutriment in abundance.Sufficient amounts of nutriment for thought have led to a wild cometh of tribe around 1800 macrocosm existence was cardinal one and only(a) million million million by 1930 it reached ii billion by the beginning of the sixties it was three billion in 1975 quaternion billion in 1986 five billion and the grounds present universe is approaching six billion. In new(prenominal) words, the progress of our f localisernity has been base on the development of fogy-driven technology. But the exhaustion of fossil fuels is non far off and on that point is no other energy source which would be abundant and cheap bounteous to replace them.It means that our orderliness as we know it today is likely to pucker. (Price, David. vital force and Human Evolution) The Age of Exuberance is over, race ha s already overshot carrying capacity, and prodigal valet de chambre sapiens has drawn down the instaurations savings deposits. (Catton, William. Industrialization function to Collapse) II Throughout human bill many societies have prospered and clangourd their collapses have consider relevance to the riddles we face today. The ancient Maya, for example, were one of the most powerful and advanced societies of the past. lxxx percent of Maya society consisted of peasants who practised intense slash and burn agriculture, growing mostly corn. (Heinberg, Richard. Meditations on Collapse) During the Classic period of Maya report which arose around A. D. 250 the Maya state increased just nearly exponentially and reached the highest numbers in rogue 2 the eighth century A. D. (Diamond, Jargond. The stand up the Statesns. environmental Collapse and the End of Civilization) one and only(a) reason why the ancient Maya collapsed was population growth which outstripped available resources.While Maya population was steadily increasing, the argona of farmland was shift magnitude as a force of defo waitation and hillside erosion. Another reason was continual warf atomic number 18 which peaked before the collapse as more than than and more Maya slew had to fight over fewer resources. These problems were in like manner exacerbated by a series of droughts. And the final exam reason for the Classic Maya collapse was political. The sexual climax crisis was not recognized and responded to by the kings and nobles.It brook be explained by the fact that the Maya elect(ip) remained fixated on the short-term concerns of enriching themselves, waging wars, erecting monuments, competing with one another, and extracting enough food from the peasants to support all those activities, and did not poreed on semipermanent problems. (Diamond, J bed) they did not have the leisure to focus on long-term problems, insofar as they perceived them Today at that place ato mic number 18 many signs of the above-mentioned strands in the linked States, the worlds leading power, which is withal at the peak of its power and is woeful from numerous environmental problems.Many split of the fall in States, for example, face locally severe problems of water restriction (southern California, Arizona, the Everglades, the Northeast), forest fires which get out from logging and forest-management practices (intermontane West), losses of farmlands because of salinization, drought, and climate change (northern Great Plains). It is a fact that the environmental problems which exist nowadays in the United States argon all the same modest compared with those of the rest of the world. But the problems of environmentally devastated and overpopulated distant countries are now Ameri digest problems as rise up.(Diamond, Jared) internationalization means nothing more than im pictured worldwide communications and transport organisations and at present America is tig htly attached to many overseas countries. Intentionally or unintentionally, such things as terrorists, diseases (AIDS, SARS, cholera, West Nile fever), unbeatable numbers of legal and illegal immigrants basis easily travel or be sent from the Third Page 3 World to the United States. newfangled America depends considerably on the rest of the world and political stability anywhere in the world now affects the USA and its get by routes, overseas markets and suppliers.The ancient Maya were globalized only indoors the Yucata? n because of their exaltation which was slow, short-distance and had low committal capacity. We live today in a globalized world because our transport is much more rapid and has much higher dispatch capacity. (Diamond, Jared) The reasons why past societies failed to foreknow and solve problems before they developed, still can be find outn operating today. On the one hand, it is obvious that the possibility of collapse is not taken seriously by our politi cal elite and society.And scour when this problem is recognized, those in power may not attempt to solve it because of a opposition between their short-term interests and the interests of the rest of us. Pumping embrocate, cutting down trees, and catching slant which is dying out bring the elite money and prestige but it is pretty for society as a full-length in the long run. On the other hand, when the problem is recognized and action is macrocosm taken it may be difficult for us to acknowledge the wisdom of policies that shock with some of our current benefits.(Diamond, Jared) III The scientific conclusion of many respected geologists, physicists, and coronation bankers around the world as to the time to come of the present society is not encourage at all civilization as we know it is coming to an end short. (Life aft(prenominal) the Oil Crash) Our technology-driven economic system is characterized by a high uptake of renewable and non renewable resources from food to forests, from advanced water to soil which are vanish quickly. (Ehrenfeld, David.The Coming Collapse of the Age of Technology) Modern societies depend on technological development and every part of our technology depends on the energy which comes from fossil fuels and they supply most 75% of the worlds energy. At the rate of consumption that we have today known reserves of petroleum go awaying be gone in about 35 years innate(p) accelerator in 52 years and scorch in some 200 years. And the take up for energy is expected to grow at an ever-quickening pace.(Price, David) Modern food issue is fossil fuel Page 4 and petrochemical powered commercial fertilizers are made from ammonia, which in turn is made from natural gas farming machines such as tractors and trailers are constructed and powered development oil. Goods are manufactured in oil-powered plants and factories and then distributed crosswise oil-powered transportation nedeucerks. Apart from transportation and ag riculture which are dependent on oil, modern font medicine, water distribution, and national defense are each entirely powered by oil and petroleum derived chemicals. Oil is needed for all plastics, all computers and all high tech devices.Tin, iron, gold, silver, copper, platinum, etc are each discovered, extracted, transported, and fashioned using oil-powered machinery. We have no way of producing regular alternative systems of energy without an abundant and trustworthy supply of oil as well as of scaling them to the degree prerequisite to power the modern world. (Life later the Oil Crash) As we can see from these examples, oil plays the most consequential part among other fossil fuels in modern technology. However, a rapid decline of oil take capacity can be observed in nearly two dozen countries and more than half of the worlds supply has already been used.The global oil peak is likely to perish before 2010 and it is expected to be a trigger for global economic crisis. ( Heinberg, Richard) IV All this points out that our present society is indeed heading towards a original form of collapse. Starvation, social discord, and disease are likely to be operative mechanisms in the collapse of the human society. They are all consequences of scarce resources and involved population and act in composite plant ways. (Price, David) Starvation provide be a direct result of the depletion of energy resources.Todays shadowy population depends for its food supply on mechanized agriculture and efficient transportation. cleverness is used in the production and operation of farm equipment and as well as in the transportation of food to market. With the decrease of efficient energy resources food will be bound to grow more expensive and the circle of interior consumers to whom an adequate supply is available will continue to shrink. Social strife will be another important consequence of the rising Page 5 cost of commercial energy. When goods are lavish and per -capita access to goods is increasing, social tensions are usually muted.But when goods become more and more scarce and per-capita access to goods is lessen, ethnic tensions surface, governments often become overbearing and goods are usually acquired by flagitious means. (Price, David) Public health systems will be crippled by a famine of resources, too. In the meantime, a fleshy population will encourage the spread of genetic diseases. Throughout human history there have been many examples of large and dense populations leading to the appearance of contagious diseases that evolved to exploit them (smallpox, measles, the Black death).Today, our population is extremely dense and all parts of the world are tightly linked by manner travel. All of this facilitates for new diseases such as AIDS to spread rapidly end-to-end the world. Moreover, a virus as acid as AIDS but more easily transmissible could appear at any time. (Price, David) We could go even further to state that env ironmental problems, depletion of energy resources and increased population growth prove that collapse has already begun and all we can do is to make the best of it. It can occur slowly or quickly, be complete or partial, and controlled or chaotic.What we still can and should do is to make a concerted effort to manage this collapse. It would subscribe changes that must be implemented by political leaders and the whole society large-scale national and international cooperation is requirement in order to allocate inbred resources to prevent deadly competition for them as they become scarce. (Heinberg, Richard) These changes are well at heart our human and technological capacity. branch and foremost, the rate at which resources are macrocosm consumed and waste is being generated must be gradually decreased.Our resource use and the rate we are polluting the environment can be considerably reduced if we shift to turn up more-efficient technologies. It is crucial that our modern so ciety start making these changes now while fossil fuels and other non-renewable resources still exist. They could be invested into structure a society and economy based on renewable energy, the careful recycle of materials, and the equitable economic institutions required for a sustainable society. (Gilman, Robert. Reclaiming Page 6.Politics) We should also give up air for continuous economic growth and get married lifestyles of voluntary simplicity. (Heinberg, Richard)BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Diamond, Jared. The Last Americans. Environmental Collapse and the End of Civilization, http//www. mindfully. org/Heritage/2003/Civilization-Collapse-EndJun03. htm (November, 16 2005) 2. Ehrenfeld, David. The Coming Collapse of the Age of Technology, http//garnet. acns. fsu. edu/jstallin/complex/readings/Ehrenfeld. htm (November, 17 2005) 3. Gilman, Robert.Reclaiming Politics, http//www. context. org/ICLIB/IC30/Gilman. htm (November, 30 2005) 4. Heinberg, Richard. Meditations on Collapse, http//www . museletter. com/ enumeration/154. hypertext markup language (November, 16 2005) 5. Life After the Oil Crash, http//www. lifeaftertheoilcrash. net/ (November, 17 2005) 6. Price, David. Energy and Human Evolution, http//www. energybulletin. net/3917. html (November, 16 2005) 7. Catton, William. Industrialization Prelude to Collapse, http//www. energybulletin. net/4632. html (November, 17 2005).