Environmental crisis?
Warnings that the Earth faces a ‘crisis’ or is already in crisis have blossomed since the
1960s, some predicting disaster before 2000 (Ehrlich, 1970; Eckholm, 1976; White,
1993). ‘Crisis’ is a turning point, a last chance to avoid, mitigate or adapt. The cause
is usually identified as one or a combination of the following: people’s cavalier use of
nature; over-population; misapplication of technology; faulty development ethics. What
is perceived to be a crisis is subject to changing beliefs, fashion, technological ability
and so on. One may recognise several categories of perceived crisis (the following are
not arranged in order of importance, do not represent a comprehensive list, nor are they
all wholly separate and discrete):
1 renewable resource depletion and degradation (especially shortfall in food production,
problems with water, and energy supplies);
2 global environmental change;
3 pollution;
4 nuclear or biological warfare;
5 biodiversity loss;
6 increasing hunger and poverty;
7 increasing human repression, marginalisation and disempowerment;
8 rapid, often poorly planned, urban growth;
9 increasing population – this caused more concern in the 1970s than now;
10 debt burden – some regions may have problems due to debt repayment or structural
adjustment measures introduced to counter it.