9. The depletion and pollution of the world's resources (middle to late 1900's)

A great strain was placed on the world's natural resources because of the great growth of population and the increased reliance upon technologies that use huge amounts of mechanical, chemical, electrical, and nuclear power. The growth of population and of technology increased the need for air, water, land, food, fossil fuels, minerals, and wood, and consequently depleted the reserves in these areas.

Both population growth and technology also increased our tendency to pollute, or otherwise destroy without using, the very resources we so desperately need. At the millennium, the world faced both short-term and long-term problems about the exhaustion and destruction of the environment and resources, and the sustainability of further population growth and resource-devouring technology.

 

Ivan Soll is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His Top 10 list also focuses on large-scale, far-reaching developments. He sounds a note of caution based on rapid world population growth and technological development, referring to our "tendency to pollute, or otherwise destroy without using, the very resources we so desperately need."

1.

Advances in physical theory (early 1900's)

2. The development of nuclear energy (mid-1900's)
3. The rise of the Information Age (middle to late 1900's)
4.

The worldwide revolution in transportation (throughout the 1900's)

5. The development of antibiotics and other medical therapies (mid-1900's)
6. The development of genetics and molecular biology (mid-1900's)
7. The rise and fall of Communism in Europe (1917-1990's)
8. The explosion and concentration of the world's population (throughout the 1900's)
9. The depletion and pollution of the world's resources (middle to late 1900's)
10. The impact of globalization (middle to late 1900's)