Probing the 21st century [2]

The age of shortages

By Mohamed Sid-Ahmed

While I would not like my subjective feelings to colour my perception of the future, I fear that although the coming century, marking as it does the advent of the third millennium, should hold out the promise of an open system, it will, for objective reasons and not only because of subjective impressions, be more likely to acquire the traits of a closed system.

In comparison with the critical bottlenecks that are expected to mark the coming century, the present situation, for all its shortcomings, appears moderate and tolerable. On the whole, resources are still reasonably available. We are suffering neither from excessive demand nor from excessive scarcity in supply. But the negative side-effects of technological progress threaten to expose the coming generations to nightmarish bottlenecks.

Let us first consider predictions that demand is expected to far outstrip supply in the foreseeable future. Quantitatively speaking, the demographic curve is rising exponentially. It took many thousands of years for the global population to hit the one billion mark; it took only 123 years to pass from the first billion to the second and only 11 years to pass from the fifth to the sixth. In the first half of the next century, the population of the planet is expected to reach unprecedented heights: 8.4 billion by 2030, to stabilise later at a plateau of 10 billion. A further factor contributing to population increase is that life expectancy has risen. Qualitatively speaking, human beings in every corner of the world consider themselves entitled to better living standards. How can their expectations be met? How can the necessary resources be made available?

Contemporary lifestyles are drawing heavily on many of the vital non-renewable resources necessary for human life. Already, even before the 21th century has drawn to a close, there are warning signs that potable water is becoming critically scarce. Only three per cent of the water on the surface of our planet is sweet water derived not from the oceans and seas, but from rivers, rain, lakes and melting ice. And that three per cent is very unevenly distributed, with most of it located at the North Pole and in Greenland. Less than 10 countries possess 60 per cent of all available potable water; 80 countries, 24 of which are in the Middle East, are the poorest in fresh water supply. When it comes to access to drinking water, 1.2 billion people live below the poverty line.

Because of industrial pollution, CFC emissions, ozone depletion and the ever-increasing consumption of fossil fuels in big cities, air pollution is fast becoming as big a threat to human survival as water scarcity, making fresh air, and not only potable water, a commodity that is bound to become increasingly expensive. However, a serious effort to cut back on the practices responsible for air pollution will come up against some of the norms on which the present model of civilisation and progress is based, such as the private motor car, for example. What is certain, in any case, is that having to pay for water and air would be catastrophic for the entire underdeveloped world where the majority of humankind lives.

Then there is the question of global warming. So far, a certain equilibrium has been maintained in respect of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. But now because of a number of man-made ecological disturbances, including widespread deforestation by farmers and loggers in tropical areas, this delicate equilibrium is being seriously disrupted. Ominous signs of climatic disturbances abound. This summer, the temperature in many parts of the world, including Egypt, has hit record highs. El Niño is wreaking havoc not only in the Pacific basin where it originates but throughout the world. The floods in China, now officially blamed on deforestation, are exacting a heavy toll.

Another manifestation of a situation that is rapidly spinning out of control is our losing battle against the AIDS virus. The figures last year were appalling: 20 million infected in sub-Saharan Africa, 6 million in south-East Asia, 1.3 million in Latin America. The incidence of infection may be receding in developed countries, where preemptive measures have been relatively successful. But the situation is deteriorating rapidly in the non-developed world and is not expected to improve in any foreseeable future.

In a way, the AIDS situation is a metaphor for an age in which deadly phenomena are growing in defiance of all our efforts to control them, not only in the area of man's relations with his fellow man (as represented in unpredictable economic crises, in the growing threat of terrorism, in the spread of sectarian strife, etc.) but also in the area of his relationship with nature. All of which does not bode well for the future of the human species as it stands at the portals of a new century and a new millennium.