Page 115 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

this fleeting world / our world: the modern era tfw-55

If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
• T.S. ELLIOT (1888–1965)

death of the peasantry, the class to which most humans India, Africa, and much of Latin America, and as more
had belonged throughout the agrarian era.The collapse and more consumers begin to expect the material living
of Communism has created Third World conditions in standards currently enjoyed in Europe and North Amer-
much of the former Communist world as well. For many ica, human pressure on the environment will increase
people, even at the beginning of the twenty-first century, even as population growth slows. Environmental strains
the modern revolution must still seem like a distant take many forms. Habitats invaded by humans are no
dream. Directly or indirectly, the deep economic, politi- longer available to other species; thus, current rates of
cal, and cultural inequalities of the modern world likely extinction may be as high as during the most rapid
will continue to fuel bloody guerrilla conflicts in which extinction episodes of the last 600 million years.
small groups with modern weapons attempt to resist the Some resources are already being used at dangerously
cultural, economic, and military power of the wealthiest high levels; this is particularly true of fisheries and clean
capitalist states. water. However, the most dangerous of all these threats
may be the impact on the atmosphere of burning large
Burning the Candle quantities of fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide is one of several
Whereas many people have seen the dire conditions in the greenhouse gases—gases that hold in the sun’s heat and
world’s poorest countries as a sign of those countries’ therefore tend to raise the average temperature of the
backwardness, others have seen such conditions as a atmosphere. Deforestation may have increased global
warning of future dangers. During the second half of the carbon dioxide levels during the agrarian era, but the
twentieth century people were increasingly aware that the burning of fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution has
rapid population growth and increasing consumption of greatly increased these levels, from approximately 280
the modern era had put new pressures on the whole bio- parts per million in 1800 to approximately 350 in 2000,
sphere (the part of the earth’s surface, seas and atmos- and levels could reach 550–660 parts per million by
phere inhabited by living things). Indeed, in Something 2150.The exact consequences of this human manipula-
New Under the Sun, John McNeill argued that, in the long tion of the atmosphere are not yet clear, but they are likely
perspective, the changing human relationship with the to cause significant and perhaps rapid changes in global
environment may turn out to be the most important of all climatic patterns—changes as great as those that occurred
the changes that occurred during the twentieth century. at the end of the last ice age.
Population growth accounts for much of the impact as
cities have gobbled up farmland and forest land, as roads Modern Era in
and highways have paved over more land, and as Third World History
World farmers have cleared forest lands to eke out a liv- In 1969, by landing on the moon, human beings took
ing. However, late during the twentieth century people the first, hesitant steps toward leaving their home planet.
realized that rates of population growth were slowing These steps brought into focus some of the major
throughout the world as urbanization, increasing educa- changes of the modern revolution, reminding humans
tion, and improved services simultaneously reduced the that the increasing power and complexity of human
pressure to have large families and raised their cost. At societies were bought at a price and came with dangers.
present, it seems likely that global populations will level Humans now have the power to destroy themselves and
out at 9 to 10 billion toward the end of the twenty-first to do much damage to the planet. Our increased power
century. clearly has brought responsibilities for which we are ill
On the other hand, consumption levels are rising in prepared, and the great complexity of the modern global
much of the world.As industrialization spreads to China, community has created new forms of vulnerability and