Our world stands at the brink of destruction, the rising population becomes a greater problem as time goes by, but people turn a blind eye to it and think that it is none of their business. With the very high number of people in the planet, the world suffers, the exploitation of nature so that resources could be obtained, the global warming that threatens the world due to the careless discharge of air pollutants from various sources, and the butchery of animals, even those who are on the brink of extinction, to turn them into products. All of these are the result of consumerism in the modern age.
It may not be a big problem at the start, but as more and more people demand for a product or service, it will result into greater damage to nature. Some examples to illustrate the severity of this crisis are gasoline and expansion of cities. Gasoline is a product that is desired in nearly every corner of the globe, and it is obtained by digging an oil well, which results in the devastation of the surrounding areas. Not only that, it also destroys the atmosphere when used as fuel, and since people demand this product all over the world, it results in an even greater problem as even more people use it. Expansion of cities have many possible benefits such as having more land to build industrial and residential buildings, but it pales in comparison to the problems that it provides. Higher pollution of land, air, and water, a decrease in arable and pastoral lands that feed the people, increases in traffic which results into more accidents and pollution, the destruction of the surrounding area that disturbs and can potentially destroy the ecosystem there, and many other more problems that comes as a consequence of the expansion of a city, or any settlement really.
There is a reason on why these occur and that reason is, human desire. People want to be rich, to eat a certain dish, to wear certain accessories or clothes, in short, people want to get what they want. Unfortunately, most of the time it can only be obtained after using up resources in nature and when there are many people, resources are used up in very large amounts in a very short amount of time. And so, people will ignore the effect of their actions on others to get what they want, just like how loggers will keep on chopping wood so that they could get money, the logger knows that there might be potential consequences in the actions taken, but it will be done for the sake of money. The consumers then ask the ones who deliver the products and services to give them more. This results in the aforementioned logger to chop more trees so that the consumers will be satisfied. It may not seem obvious, but when the consumers ask for a product that they want, it starts the entire chain of events above, because they want that product, people will deliver the product and use up resources from nature to exchange it for something else they want, in this case, money, without giving any though to the consequences that their actions have.
While it is true that such actions have these sort of consequences, one cannot just say, stop these. The reason is because many people will have problems, namely employment and a sudden decrease in quality of life. The various industries, despite destroying nature, is very useful for the human society. It provides employment for people, makes new discoveries that makes lives easier, mass produces products that people need in their daily lives, it improves the economy of the country, and many other more benefits. That is why people can wilfully ignore the state of the world, it is for their own sake. An example of a problem when industry is being stopped is making vehicles. True, air pollution will certainly take a sharp decrease because of this, but what about the people who will be affected by this? Many people in car related businesses will lose their jobs, many facilities such as parking lots will become useless, and many more, but the main issue will be transportation. If transportation becomes difficult, the following problems will occur: How can people get to work in time? How can this product be delivered? How can people go to this location now that there are no vehicles? Many other more problems are present, but let us stop at that. This simply shows that humanity, unlike before, is now so extremely reliant on the industrial part of the economy that removing it can collapse the entire country.
With these, I conclude that the chance of the planet surviving is pretty much non-existent. Unless humanity is willing to give up the scientific and industrial advances that they developed, the planet will not last. Only a miracle can save the planet now, such as a sudden decrease in the human population, or all of humanity suddenly deciding that they want to restore the planet.

Now, let us take a look at today’s society, just as I stated above, I believe that the world is filled with consumerists, with certain exceptions like those who live together with nature and those that actively help the planet, that disregard the planet, regardless of country of origin. I will try to identify how their society works, although I may be subjective in this regard.
In this society, climbing up the social ladder is difficult, but not impossible like in the past. Even though this is true, most of the time the ones in power remain in power, while the powerless stay just like that. Those in positions of power are very likely to exploit the people or proliferate corruption since they are likely to get out intact.
In this day and age, the portrayal of the government body, or any person or companies with considerable power are evil and self-serving characters. This may be due to the media wanting demonize or make a scapegoat out of somebody to destroy their reputation, simple false news to raise intrigue, or speculation made according to the data that they have gathered. A good example of corruption is the Yolanda fund. The fund for Yolanda victims were hundreds of millions in dollars, and yet not even after six years has there been any development to restore the city or help the victims. Unfortunately, even now, the culprit or possibly culprits responsible for this incident is not yet captured.
This kind of ideology, the common good for the people and the evilness of the ones in power, is called populism. An example of a person who uses populism is President Rodrigo Duterte, he declares that the people are a force of good and that he will help them eradicate drugs in the country, while he says that there is corruption in the government that protects drug rings. He portrayed them evil, even though he is a part of them himself. Here, he gained the support of the people by appealing that they are the good ones and that they should join him in both purging the evil in the government and the drug rings. After this, even if he made some questionable moves, the people still supported him because he is a part of the people as he has established, for that reason he must be part of those who desire to do good.
Although, the direction that he is treading seems point that he is using fascism instead of populism. Fascism is the idea that the government is led by a dictatorial power that forcibly supresses opposition and subjects the people and economy to regimentation, the strict control of every action that one does. Not all of the characteristics of fascism are checked, but he is arbitrarily allowing police forces the killing of people who may even be innocent without sufficient evidence. Not only that, he is also very submissive to China even when he told the people that he would protect the country from China and that he would definitely obtain Scarborough Shoal. This shows that he has a tight leash on the opposition, since he suppressed the people who did not want China to obtain the islands mentioned. He is also very controlling of the public, he wants people to think that he is good and antagonizes those people that rebuke him. These show that he is slowly using fascism instead of populism.
In conclusion, it seems that the common folk are still exploited by the ones in power, though not always. I also concluded that there will always be corruption in organizations with great power such as the government, no matter how small. Altering the view of the common folk about oneself seems to be very effective in making them trust you even if you have done questionable acts afterwards. Society allows people to rise in standing, but the corruption will make it difficult to make it due to the naivety that most people seem to have, and even if they do rise, they might fall quickly.