Colegio los Nogales Current Event

Sebastián Abello Don’t Panic Essay

Aaron Rumpsa 30/01/2020

Don’t Panic; Solve

The XXI century has arrived and comes with many challenges that humanity must face in

order to survive and advance. This challenges include overpopulation, climate change,

technological advancement and social inequality. All this challenges generate a feeling of

uncertainty within our race since some of these problems are very difficult to solve yet not

impossible. We need to start thinking of their solution, starting today, so we can assure the future

generations a bright and healthy future. Humanity must not panic because of these problems,

however we must be aware of them and take quick actions to solve them.

One of the biggest challenges we face nowadays is undoubtedly the damage that we are

doing to the environment. In the last year, we’ve seen some effects of the environmental damage

we've done to the planet. In August, 2019, we saw how the world’s largest rainforest started

burning because of the deforestation that we, humans, performed on that area. In January of this

year, Australia, one of the most diverse countries in the world burned in front of us while we

couldn’t do anything to solve this. 6.3 million hectares were affected by this phenomenon and

over 100,000 animals died (BBC). These problems are caused, in their majority, by climate

change and our emissions of greenhouse gasses such as carbon dioxide. The solution to this

problem is very difficult since the majority of these emissions come from burning fuels which is

what powers our world so we need a radical change to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions and

control climate change. This is a big challenge for humanity since burning fossil fuels have

created a big, lucrative business and the powerful people that are in control are mostly opposed to

making these changes. In my opinion we should not panic because of this problem even though

it’s getting worse everyday. We need to work on it right now and make a big change in the way

we live in order to control it.

 The technological advancement is another challenge that we will need to solve in a near

future. The development of AI can generate a lot of problems such as lack of jobs, lack of privacy

and safety, all the way to world domination. This last one can sound extreme, however not

impossible since if we develop AI to a point where they can advance by their own, they will soon

overcome. This seems somehow impossible but if we think of the non-extreme consequences,

they are still terrifying. The simple fact that AI and robots will take over our conventional jobs is

a great challenge and I considere we should panic for it. We need to start thinking about our

future and how we are going to generate enough jobs for all the population of the Earth. Once

again, we need to see this challenge as one of the biggest ones we will face in our history. We

need to start thinking of it today and not panic, we need precautions to avoid all these problems.

One of the worlds biggest social and economic problems nowadays is economic

inequality. According to the data given by the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and

Development, The United States, one of the world’s most powerful countries, ranked 10th out of

31 countries in 2014 (Pew Research Center). At first this seems not to be terrible but it started a

trend that seems like it's becoming worse and worse every year and doesn’t gives us some great

expectations for the future. We’ve seen how more millionaires and billionaires have emerged

while more people have stayed in the extreme poverty. The wealthiest 1% of the world has as

much resources as almost 6.9 billion people (OXFAM). This problem needs a solution, and fast.

As we saw in the problems before, we should not panic but it is very important we worry about it

and unite to have less people in the extreme poverty everyday.

The last problem, one that people panic the most, is overpopulation. This problem

emerged at the end of the 20th century as we saw a population growth of 2% in average which is

a lot considering the big amount of people that live in our planet. If this increase rate of

population were to continue we would suffer of lack of food, resources, space and basic things
humans need to survive. The good news in this subject is that in the last few years, we’ve seen

this rate get lower and stabilise to nearly 1.2% (The World Bank). This statistic may give us some

calmness as we think that this problem may not be as serious however scientists expect that

human population will stabilise at 11 billion. This number cover all the carrying capacity of our

planet which means that we will have to take care of the resources of our planet in order to

maintain this number of people.

In conclusion, all this problems represent big challenges for humanity that we need to

start solving now in order to solve these problems for the future. We must not panic

because of these problems, the opposite, we must be calmed and resourceful in order to be aware

of what we will be facing in the next years or decades. We need to raise awareness of the most

powerful men, with the most ambitious objectives that mostly think in their wealth and objectives

but not in planet’s future and health.

Works Cited

● “How Did Australia Fires Start and What Is Being Done? A Very Simple

Guide.” BBC News, BBC, 7 Jan. 2020, www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-

50980386.
● “5 Shocking Facts about Extreme Global Inequality and How to Even It Up.”

Oxfam International, 20 Jan. 2020, www.oxfam.org/en/5-shocking-facts-

about-extreme-global-inequality-and-how-even-it.

● “Population Growth (Annual %).” Data,

data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.GROW?

end=2018&start=1960&view=chart.

● Amadeo, Kimberly. “How the OECD Can Help You.” The Balance, The

Balance, 8 Apr. 2019, www.thebalance.com/organization-economic-

cooperation-development-3305871.