WILL PLANET EARTH SURVIVE IN THE NEXT CENTURY

Earth is home to millions of species. Our cleverness, our inventiveness and our activities have modified almost every part of our planet. In fact, we are having a profound impact on it. Indeed, our cleverness, our inventiveness and our activities are now the drivers of every global problem we face. And every one of these problems is accelerating as we continue to grow towards a global population of 10 billion.

We hear the term "climate" every day, so it is worth thinking about what we actually mean by it. Obviously, "climate" is not the same as weather. The climate is one of the Earth's fundamental life support systems, one that determines whether or not we humans are able to live on this planet. It is generated by four components: the atmosphere (the air we breathe); the hydrosphere (the planet's water); the cryosphere (the ice sheets and glaciers); the biosphere (the planet's plants and animals). By now, our activities had started to modify every one of these components.

Number of reasons that will decide the downfall of the planet Earth, and they roughly fall into these categories:

Deforestation

Trees play a huge role in the carbon cycle. They convert the CO2 in the air to oxygen, through the process of photosynthesis, and in this way, they can be looked at as a natural regulator of the carbon dioxide. The more trees, the less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the more oxygen.

Since we live in an age where carbon dioxide is very abundant in the atmosphere, released through man-made inventions, such as cars, factories, and power plants, it is vital, more than ever, that trees fulfill their part in the environment and take some of the excess carbon dioxide out of the air. Unfortunately, deforestation is preventing this job to be fully accomplished, and with half of all the Earth's forests gone, and four million trees cut down each year just for paper use, the amount of carbon dioxide is rising. With more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, more of the sun's radiation is being reflected back to earth, instead of space, and this is causing our average temperature to rise

Human Activities On The Hydrosphere

Our increasing water use had started to modify our hydrosphere.The activities of modern society are having a severe impact on the hydrologic cycle. The dynamic steady state is being disturbed by the discharge of toxic chemicals, radioactive substances, and other industrial wastes and by the seepage of mineral fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides into surface and subsurface aquatic systems. Inadvertent and deliberate discharge of petroleum, improper sewage disposal, and thermal pollution also are seriously affecting the quality of the hydrosphere.

Future energy

Currently, there isn't enough energy being extracted from known sources of fossil fuels to sustain 10 billion people. This means that humans will be forced to turn to a new energy source before the end of the century. However, it's a mystery what that new source will be.

"Energy is the basic resource which underlies every other," said Klaus Lackner, director of the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy. "And actually, technology is not quite ready to solve the energy problem.

Either some new, superior form of energy extraction (such as highly efficient solar panels) will be widespread, or the technology, or its implementation, will fail, and humanity will face a major energy crisis.

Crime.

 As the population density increases, resources dwindle, inequality grows, humans attack each other.

Human Impact on Biosphere

Our increasing use of land, for agriculture, cities, roads, mining – as well as all the pollution we were creating – had started to modify our biosphere.

Conclusion

Can we feed the planet without destroying it?

“Yes. Here’s what we need to do: reduce crop waste, consumer waste and meat consumption; integrate appropriate seed technologies and management practices; engage consumers about the challenges farmers face in both the developed and the developing world; increase public funding for agricultural research and development; and focus on advancing the socioeconomic and environmental aspects of farming that characterize sustainable agriculture.”