In the 1760s and 1770s, we saw the spread of the Industrial Revolution. It was initiated in England, but soon spread to continental Europe. The Industrial Revolution led to the rapid development of the secondary sector, as it increased output in factories due to applications of machinery. It resulted in greater number of jobs for the working population of Europeans, who were more than happy to take up the well-paying industrial jobs. As a result, Europe prospered economically in the 18th and 19th century. The Industrial Revolution also was initiated in the United States by the turn of the 19th century. By the mid-19thcentury, European countries had begun to set up industrial manufacturing plants in colonies, primarily Asia and South America. As a result, the world saw a period of global economic growth and general prosperity. With more money in households being able to support a larger family, we see an increase in rate of growth of population in the 19th century.
The end of the 19th century brought about a revolutionary invention in the form of the steam surgical tool sterilizer, by Robert Koch. This meant that surgical tools could now be easily sterilized in hospitals, and hence it greatly reduced deaths induced due to infections caused by contaminated surgical tools. By the 1910s, hospitals worldwide had begun to adopt sterilization as an important safety measure. It resulted in larger number of successful surgeries, increasing chances of survival in the event of physical trauma caused to a person. This also contributed to the increase in the rate of growth of population.
In 1928, the world witnessed another massive discovery, this time by Alexander Fleming. He accidentally discovered the anti-biotic effects of Penicillin while researching on Staphylococci bacteria. This discovery would prove to be crucial to the later invention of anti-biotic drugs to combat bacterial and fungal diseases. Governments around the world were eager to push for the development of anti-biotic drugs, in order to increase the efficiency of their workforce, which was being impacted by workers having to take leave from work due to illnesses. And sure enough, by 1944, Penicillin began to be mass produced by Merck & Company and Pfizer.
Around the same time, the Second World War was also coming to an end. Countries involved in the war were under immense pressure to rebuild and recuperate their resources. As a result, there was once again an increase in demand for labor, especially in the secondary sector. By the early 1950s, the world economy had recovered from the effects of the war, and strong economic growth was seen in North America, Europe and Asia and the growth of the tertiary sector had begun. Combined with the global spread of anti-biotics and advancements in the field of healthcare, the population shot up, causing a phenomenon termed as the “Population Explosion”. Between 1900 and 1960, the world population had doubled as a result of the aforementioned factors.
This was a drastic change to our global economic and ecological scenario. A century back, no one would have predicted such a change to our population. While the global economy struggled to keep pace with the growing needs of a large population, agriculturalists took aim at the elephant in the room: the food crisis.
Put simply, the amount of food required increases with increase in population. In a span of 60 years, there had been a drastic change in the population, but we were still using conventional methods of food production. To counter the problem at hand, a team led by Norman Borlaug started working on analyzing inefficiencies in conventional agriculture and plugging the holes in the system with advancements in science. Under his leadership, there were revolutionizing changes introduced in food production. The introduction of high yielding variety seeds, hybrid seeds and widespread usage of pesticides and fertilizers were just a few of the introduced changes. This modernization of agriculture to meet the fast growing population and their increasing food resource requirements is referred to as the Green Revolution.
However, I like to believe that a lot of changes that were initiated as a part of the Green Revolution were short sighted. They failed to account for the ecological imbalances that would be introduced as a direct result of these changes. High Yielding Varieties of crops, for example, required far more water than their naturally occurring relatives, affecting water supply and the water cycle. Pesticides, besides killing unwanted pests, also killed off useful organisms like ladybugs and earthworms, which were integral to replenishing natural fertility of the soil. Fertilizers were non bio-degradable and un-absorbed fertilizer ended up seeping into ground water, while surface run off resulted in collection in water bodies, affecting aquatic life and hence causing further ecological repercussions.
