Lesson 1.1 - Do you think we are at risk of societal collapse today?
Do you think we are at risk of societal collapse today?
27 Replies
i do think that our society is at risk. despite the many pluses that we get from a rich economy. our people are spending too much! we have increased our spending by 400%!!!!! that is just unbelievable how much cunsumer products we are grabbing from the shelves of stores. while in class today we discussed how some societies in the past have collapsed from exploiting the land. as a result, the people disappeared from scarcity of needs. if we continue our "rich" habits, our own society would soon experience the same thing.
Yes, I do think that we are at risk. The way that most of the human being think nowadays is profit, money, capitalism. And with that came the consequences such as what we are up against today, not only climate changes but a variety of them. Eventually, if we don't start doing something now, we will collapse. As long as the money is seen as the most important thing people won't stop destroying our nature to get it, so, we need to show the humanity that the nature needs to be in balance such as we do.
Yeah, I do think that our society is at risk too. Sometimes our actions aren't scheduled. Day by day we are destroying ourselves, the society is connected... There's a reflection in all that we do.
Our conception needs to be change, if we don't do this the world will disappear.
In my opinion, we are at risk only if we do nothing to solve the problems in our society. We should start looking more carefully to problems, such as economical crisis, global warming, and etc, and start changing ourselves to consume less, for example.
In a sense, there is truly a chance that society is heading to ruin. Societal collapse is a very grim consequence of the actions done today. The ever increasing consumption of world resources, the ever looming tensions between countries, the inequalities between the rich and poor; these are the things that foreshadow the threat of society collpasing under the weight of all its ills. But in order for us to avoid succh a disastrous future, we must strive to achieve sustainability in the environment so that we don't deplete our finite resources. We should practice greater diplomacy not aggression. And we should provide better services for the poor in order to bridge the gap between the affluent and the impoverished. It may seem hard, but all it takes is cooperation, understanding and a very strong will.
If we compare what the society was like in the past and our society today, it is very likely to say that we a re at risk of societal collapse. As the world's population increases, the chance of a societal collapse increses as well. I know that this can be called progress but if we think about it we are not really gaining anything from it. We as consumers demand products, because of this we use up alot of our resources. But as we can see the planet cant back us up anymore, during the past few years, many nations suffered catastophic events, events caused by nature.It is our responsibility to give what we took from our planet,because if we wont, who will?
society is at rick, the rate at which peopel are consuming is massive and many more in devoloping countries are become mroe like consumers and we will eventuly deplete our resources if we continue living like this.
Yes, I believe we are at risk of societal collaspe for the reason that there are many factors lurking in our world today to prove so. The world's major problems is population, limited resources, poverty and environment. The earth's population is growing at an extremely alarming rate, scientists say that we would need two earths to support all of earth's people. Unfortunately we only have ONE earth and we are using all the resources, and poluting the earth at the same time. China and India are the two leading countries in the world with the biggest population, imagine if they were to industrialize like us...where would all our resources go. We are absoulutely heading to destructive future.
Yes, we are definitely at risk of societal collapse today because our generation depends on only certain resources, professions, etc. because of human greed. The world needs to make more diverse decisions in our economy. For example, Canada depends on the oil industry too much that when oil is not needed in earth anymore / or if we ever run out of oil, then what else can we depend on if we have abandoned our past resources for oil? This will be very difficult for us in the future because if the majority of the population works for the oil industry then who can the people depend on to run the other jobs in the country?
I'm Chris, I am one of the graduate student mentors here. First off, I have to say I am very impressed with the level of commentary here. You recognise the dangers of collapse and have a clear understanding of the need for human societies to change their ways. This was not something we talked about when I was in high school.
Some of you mention capitalism and greed, and the need to stop over-consuming our resource base. This is all good, but I have some questions:
1. How do we get enough people to make the changes we need?
2. What does your life and lifestyle look like in a world where we do not pollute, burn fossil fuels, and over-consume resources?
I am really interested in reading your answers.
This post was edited on: 2009-12-04 at 04:47 PM by: ChrisGradMentor
Yes, I believe that today's society is about to collapse because of the government's main focus is on the amount of digits that they gain from taxes, not on it's people. Our society is driven by greed for money that they turned a blind eye to the people in need of finaincial aid. The government even allow TNCs to gain a monoply of most of the the free market. These power houses are able to expand their corperations into other countries and continue their conquest of dominating most of the economy. But it's not only the governement and the TNCs who are at fault, but it is also us, as consumers who has power over these TNCs' marketing through the use of consumerism. As consumers, if we wanted to, we can strive for a more safe, ecofriendly and justified manner.
Yes, I do believe we are at risk for a societal collapse today, even though many would not this we are at such risk. Not only is our Earth slowing writhing away by our selfish actions, we are also causing ourselves harm by destroying many of our resources, most of which can never be used again.
Yesterday was UNESCO Human Rights Day, and I was part of a discussion on Environment as a Human Right. This 'soft' right is under great debate, and it is quite interesting that as human beings we are not independent of our environment, yet we cannot come to agreement that it needs to be protected for our well being.
International environmental laws are represented by more than 300 multilateral and 900 bilateral treaties on environmental protection. Clearly the environment is of global concern, but this mess of documents makes it difficult to ensure allignment between documents, how to proceed legally, and so forth.
Also interesting is that the 1994 Universal Declaration of Future Generation Rights grants future generations the right to a clean environment. However, a legally binding convention can grant rights only to living persons.
Thoughts?
With all the crisis occuring recently, it is safe to say the we are at risk of societal collapse. Our growing consumption and population will eventually push through the nature's limits, meaning that our planet may not be able to support our greed for resources. As people become desperate for the depleting resources, the more they hunger for these goods because of the fear of not being able to support themselves in the future. The peaking prices of oil and food due to overpopulation are likely to happen in the future thus triggering an increase in death out of starvation. The hunger for oil will eventually drive oil companies to raise their prices causing inability to pay for one's electricity bills. The chances of unemployment growing is likely to happen. With this occuring, families won't be able to give all the basic needs to their families. This is all because of human greed. If our actions continue for today continue, our society will collapse rather than evolve for the benefit of everone. It is possible to keep our Earth running only if we have acquired the determination and the will to sacrifice.
Absolutely! It has been shown over the past decades how people are too concerned with their paychecks and greedy lifestyles to even consider the consequences at hand. As this continues, which it will, complete collapse of all we know and love is inevitable.
I don't think we are at social risk. We may be at risk in the future. There are a lot of things happening during the climate change. Earthquakes, tsunami,or diseases spreads because of climate change. We need to take actions before risk happen.
Thats the thing, it already has begun! We are in the crisis mode but are acting as if the idea of climate change has just been discovered, it's time to get a move on.
Our world is certainly is at risk right now, despite the people that are trying to ignore it, to get the better chance in consuming good that went through many stage toward the consumer want.It already happen all round us so just wake up and face it, not letting it by for one day. Because then it will already be too late for us to stop the problem.
Bingo, prokrastination along with ignorance is looking to be the pathetic downfall of our race. It's not the world that will collapse, but the humans. It is up to us to get the job done, and immediately.
Everything has been seen in our society except the action of doing "nothing". We really could have societal collapse with the way we are living our lives. So focused on consumerism and spending we will soon have no diversity within our society. Also, with the US leading media production and selling it globally, diversity around the globe will be reduced and American culture will reign as king. Where would our society go from there?
I do think that we might be at risk of societal collapse today because of the effects we've already had on the planet. It might be possible to recover from them but only with drastic changes. Our economy is overpowering our environment and this prevents us from succeeding with many global resolutions for the environment. It's hard to imagine change for the economy in order to preserve our more of our planet and unemployment would be a major factor but these are definite factors that must be at least taken into consideration if we want things to change.
We are in a recession so spending a lot of money is how we bring ourselves out of a recession
I think that if we dont be careful from here on out, our society and everything we have worked for will be destroyed. We have a very rich economy yet we dont know how to spend our money wisely
FOr example, a previous speaker said that our spendings have gone up 400% and rising still. Something like this will through us into disarray and eventually destroy our history.
WE have to take actions together because what we do affects one another either world-wide or locally.
The first steps i believe that we have to take is that we have to reduce our ecological footprints and start from there.
I think that if we dont be careful from here on out, our society and everything we have worked for will be destroyed. We have a very rich economy yet we dont know how to spend our money wisely
FOr example, a previous speaker said that our spendings have gone up 400% and rising still. Something like this will through us into disarray and eventually destroy our history.
WE have to take actions together because what we do affects one another either world-wide or locally.
The first steps i believe that we have to take is that we have to reduce our ecological footprints and start from there.
economy is alway the big thing when we talk about climate change, especially for the places depend on oil industry. Alberta is under such condition.
we still have chance to improve our economy by developing a new green industry, such as building a hybrid car industry. The problem is how can we transfer the labor from old industry to new industry. Or we can say how can we train the labor for new industry and share the labors in different places.
So, how do you think the role of international or inter-regional cooperation plays under the context of global change and economy?
yes i think that we are are at a risk because of how careless we are when it comes to social matters. Everybody cares about getting money instead of focusing on their social lives. Economy is important but so is society. Without society, there is no economy, Most people fail to realize this and will stab them in the back later on. That is why we must focus on the importance of socialism, instead of focusing on economy and money and such.
Vy
Dec 1, 2009 at 1:40 PM