We are the part of a new historical epoch. Let’s try to paint its portrait.
The face of the 21st century is our environment. When talking about environmental problems, ecological issues cannot be separated from their effect on mankind, nor can human actions be separate from their effect on the ecology. The condition of our life, our daily actions, and the state of the global environment are interdependent, yet often this interdependence is overlooked.
For many people, the most alarming of all human assaults on the environment is the contamination of air, earth, and water from dumping. Evidence of dumping can be found everywhere, done by individuals and large corporations alike. Hong Kong for example dumps more than 1,000 tons of plastic a day. Americans throw away 16 billion disposable diapers each year. Open sewage drains and festering landfills are common sites in many parts of the world. In a small Malaysian village, babies born deformed and children die of rare illnesses, which their doctors claim are caused by exposure to radiation from a multinational company that set up business in this small community.
Creatures of the sea are also vulnerable to pollutants that enter the rivers, lakes, and oceans of the world. They are being polluted by sewage, industrial waste water, and runoff from cities and farms. Half of the fish in these areas polluted by toxic chemicals and many die. Those that are fished may pass on high levels of cancer-causing chemicals to the consumer. It appears that humans are polluting at the expense of their own lives.
The other part of a gloomy picture of environment suffering is the worldwide endangerment of animals and plants. It is a product of the continuing use of more and more natural recourses for a constantly growing human population. Thus, many wildlife species become endangered because there is less wild space for them to inhabit.
Unfortunately, we are witnessing great wave extinctions. The current rate may be as nigh as several species per day. Hunting and air, water, and land pollution are responsible for reducing species numbers. So, directly or indirectly, species are becoming threatened because of increasing human population.
To preserve our present environment requires more commitment and money. Fortunately, ecologists are using the Internet and television to educate and inform people about environmental issues. Several arguments encourage people countries to adopt conservation methods and pass laws to protect the environment. Our survival depends greatly upon a healthy global ecosystem. The present rate of destruction cannot continue without the eventual collapse of ecosystem and human populations. We all are the children of Earth. I wish we didn’t forget about it. We need to be concerned with the environment not just now, but for future generations. The time has come for doing rather than saying.
And maybe if we understood it and didn’t close our eyes, ears and mouths like three monkeys - we would make our world beautiful and wouldn’t be afraid for the future of our (yet prospect, but…) children.
From the earliest time, people have always been afraid of everything unknown and incomprehensible. First, they didn’t know simple things about nature and just prayed to the Sun, Rain, Fire to make their lives better; than, in the Middle Ages, they burned scientists for their works and achievements; today they are still afraid to make one more step to the future.
Cloning is sure to be one of the main human fears. This is the 21st century’s mind.
Why do people think cloning is not natural? Why is it supposed to be something wrong? Perhaps, opposing to the progress in biotechnology, people just forget that there are dozens of awful illnesses taking away their lives. Millions of people suffer greatly from cancer, AIDS, leukemia. Every day they wake up with one hope: to be cured. And, fortunately today the progress in curing illnesses throughout the twentieth century are truly remarkable. Many terrible illnesses are being successfully healed. Today it is difficult to imagine living in a world where transplant operation is not available. And I am sure: some time later we will not be able to imagine living in a world where growing a new organ from a cell is not obtainable.
Of course, the human fear of cloning is not really about stem cell research and finding cures for disease. People are afraid of uncontrolled progress in future. It is the fear that we will have the power to produce human clones and use them like producing material or work-people, for example. That is quite possible and it even has been proved with the experiment on Dolly the sheep.
Maybe clones will become usual citizens of the world. However, not soon, I suppose. Our society is not ready for such scientific revolution.
Cloning is sure to be one of the greatest human achievements, which may change our world for better. I am sure that careful monitoring (not interference) the benefits of cloning to humankind will be revolutionary. If it happened, we would win the long war not only on numerous illnesses but on death too.
I can’t but say about the great danger of terrorism today - the stigmata of the 21st century…
People have always looked for righteousness in their lives. All of them are sure to have their own vision of happiness, good life, justice. However, sometimes their standpoints are deeply different. Here is the problem of misunderstanding between them. People are still building the Babylon tower and speaking different languages: somebody finds the world to be beautiful and somebody thinks that it is wrong, full of hate and injustice. Therefore, the main matter for such persons is to change and modify it globally. Not for better, unfortunately. They are ready to ruin, kill, and make others suffer greatly. They are cruel and angry with the government, officers and just people. They want the world to repay for their unluckiness, loneliness, nothingness. That’s why they commit awful crimes, trying to make people to be afraid of life. They try to destroy the stability of mankind with the help of terror. Sometimes they fight for their own religious ideals… They imagine they are the arms of God to punish and to change the world. Their ill psyche – not their motherland or compatriots - are sure to be the main problem. That’s why the way to get rid of fear, to save our world from the darkness of terrorism is not the distribution of cruelty and war. We must learn to struggle not with nations but with the dangerous elements of society.
Gandhi believed that the politics of passive resistance nonviolence should be effective in any situation, at any time, even against a force as malign as Nazi Germany. He was sure “a simple life in a simple society” without wars, hate and pain would be the greatest result of human evolution.
The work by Eric Fromm “Escape from Freedom” in which he deviates the opinion that mankind fights to be free, illustrates the problem of a dual nature of security. In this work, the author states that many people are not looking for freedom, but for someone to take care of them and tell them what to do and think. Freedom carries too many risks and requires us to be dependable for ourselves.
Often people need to hand over their freedom. To be in safe and to prevent terror acts we must be calm and discreet. In order to get on an airplane today we must remove watches, belts, and shoes. We drop our lighters, telephones in the box by the security checkpoint. We do it for our safety and for our future. If we didn’t, we could not see the tomorrow sun, perhaps. We want to be safe. We do what we are told, but sometimes it seems like a government manipulation. Generally, it appears as though we trust them to do what is best for us. Foreigners often see American administration to be hypocritical.
Wearing a beautiful light dress of freedom people should not forget about the importance of armor hidden in the wardrobe.
To finish with I would like to say we all are painters drawing the portrait of the 21st century. We should choose light colors to make its face beautiful.