Who Else Knows How Widespread the Current Crisis Is?
The world is feeling the effects of a seemingly unsolvable global crisis, affecting all levels of human activity. Since 2008 tens of millions of people throughout the world have lost their jobs, their savings, their homes, but most importantly—their hopes for the future.
Our health, it seems, is not more wholesome than our wealth. Modern medicine, the pride and joy of Western civilization, is grappling with resurfacing diseases previously believed to be extinct. According to a report published by the Global Health Council,
“Diseases once believed to be under control have re-emerged as major global threats. The emergence of drug-resistant strains of bacteria, viruses and other parasites poses new challenges in controlling infectious diseases. Co- infection with multiple diseases creates obstacles to preventing and treating infections.”
Earth, too, is not as hospitable as before. Books such as James Lovelock’s The Revenge of Gaia, Ervin Laszlo’s The Chaos Point, and films such as Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth are just three examples of a cavalcade of alarming reports on Earth’s deteriorating climate.
As global warming melts the ice caps in the poles, sea levels rise. This has already caused dramatic shifts and tragic events. A report by Stephan Faris in Scientific American lists some of the places already affected by climate change.
In March, 2009, Peter Popham, a writer for The Independent, provided another angle to the climate predicament: “Global warming is dissolving the Alpine glaciers so rapidly that Italy and Switzerland have decided they must re-draw their national borders to take account of the new realities.”
A more tragic result of climate change is hunger, caused by extended droughts in some areas and constant flooding in others. According to the World Food Program, nearly a billion (1,000,000,000) people worldwide are constantly hungry. Worse yet, in excess of nine million (9,000,000) people die every year from hunger and related causes, more than half of whom are children. This means that today, in the most technologically advanced era in the history of humankind, a child dies every six seconds due to lack of food and water.
In our homes, problems abound, as well. The New York Times announced that according to a census released by the American Community Survey, divorce rates have risen to the point that today there are more unmarried couples in America than married ones. It is the first time in history that single-parent families are the norm, and double-parent ones are the exception.
Many scientists, politicians, NGOs, and UN related organizations warn that humanity is facing a risk of unprecedented catastrophes on a global scale. Anything from mutated avian flu through nuclear war, to a massive earthquake could wipe out millions and drive billions into destitution.
What Everybody Ought to Know about Interdependence
Yet, crises have been occurring throughout history. Our era is not the first in which humanity has been at risk. The Black Death pandemic of the 14th century and the two World Wars easily outweigh the peril that our current plight presents. Nevertheless, what distinguishes the current crisis from those previous is the tension characterizing the current state of humanity. Our society has gone to the extreme in two directions that seem to conflict with one another—globalization and the interdependence it entails on the one hand, and increasing alienation and personal, social, and political narcissism on the other. And that is a recipe for a disaster such as the world has never seen, whether in the financial sector or beyond.
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