Abstract: Not Available.
As we all know that the major problems, the human beings are facing and further going to face in the twenty first century are: The tremendous growth in the population, unemployment and poverty, changing global environment and loss in the ethical values.
The tremendous growth in population: According to a report, the global population of the world was one billion in 1804 and then took 127 years to become 2 billion in 1927, it took another 122 years before it reached two billion in 1927 but it took only 33 years to reach three billion in 1960, then after 14 years reached to four billion in 1974. The global population reached to five billion in 1987, six billion in 1999. If we continue with the current pace reproduction, the global population expected to reach between 7.5 and 10.5 billion by 2050 (UN, 2009; US Census Bureau, 2010). So, at that time the demand of natural resources will become double to sustain this number of inhabitants. Today, there is a high demand of food and recycling of waste materials. The people are consuming the natural resources with a high speed and turn into residues or wastes and nature is not able to convert these wastes or residual material with the same speed and lagging behind, thus it creates a huge gap in the availability of natural resources. This distribution of natural resources is not equal. Scientists have warned that 16% of the world’s population is consuming some 80% of its natural resources.
Unemployment: The global unemployment problem is also increasing with the increase in the population and in an estimate the total number of unemployed persons in the ten most populous nations of the world is 1.1 billion. According to CIA, the unemployment rate is 8.7% in 2010 (CIA, 2010).
Poverty: Though, the proportion of the developing world’s population living in extreme economic poverty fell from 28% in 1990 to 21% in 2001. World Bank report “Global Economic Prospects”, 2007 predicts that in 2030 the number living on less than the equivalent of $1 a day will fall by half, to about 550 million from 1.1 billion today (http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/ EXTDEC/EXTDECPROSPECTS/GEPEXT/0, content MDK: 21021075~ menuPK:51087945~pagePK:51087946~piPK:51087916~theSitePK:538110,00.html). But there are some criticisms suggesting that although “a clear trend decline in the percentage age of people who are absolutely poor is evident ... with uneven progress across regions...the developing world outside China and India has seen little or no sustained progress in reducing the number of poor”.
Changing global environment: Due to the growth in population, human activity is increasing and accelerating the changes in the environment globally. Processes such as destructive changes in temperature, rainfall and agriculture that usually occur in 45,000 years or more are now forecast to occur several decades earlier than thought. For example there is severe decrease in wheat production in India before the expected time. Same condition is also going to happen in China. Due to climate change, southern Africa could lose more than 30% of its main crop, maize, by 2030. In South Asia losses of many regional staples, such as rice, millet and maize could top 10% Lobell et al. (2008). By this the old and poor people would be the worst affected. Factors such as global warming, decrease in forest area, increase in ozone hole, pollution of air, water and soil, loss in ecology are increasing the threat of ecological crises and emerging diseases. Now we have two choices; either live with a damaged world or a severely damaged world.
Loss in the ethical values: In the last few decades, we are losing the moral responsibilities, becoming more self-centered, deciding the rights in own ways without caring for others. An increase in tendency to become stronger than the other made a lot of negative changes in the moral values of human beings.
By understanding these future needs, we, the veterinarian, with our knowledge related to sciences and nature have to be ready to face these challenges of future. We should aware of the need to food supply that can be completed by providing the foods of animal origin, methods to increase their production to fight against hunger and poverty, reducing the risk to human as well as animals and balancing the ecosystem. We have to change the unhygienic habits of the people to decrease the contamination of the environment.
Since a veterinarian is committed professionally and morally with urban and rural community, he has to come forward as an educator to improve the health of inhabitants and nature, thus quality of life. Finally, we have to save our earth drowning in the space.