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Taiwan at the Crossroads
It is quite obvious that every Third World country wants to develop, wants to be competitive and wants to catch up with the western world.  Malaysia set a goal that in 2020, she would be among the developed countries in the world.  As Third World countries are trying to catch up, the developed countries are also working very hard to maintain their competitive edge.  That seems to be the way the entire world develops, all engaged in a fierce competition to stay ahead.  As the end of the 20th century coming nearer, and as we prepare to celebrate the arrival of the 21st century, that is only some 30 days from now, are we sure what lies ahead of us?

Well, was an important landmark. Around that time, actually Taiwan was connected to Mainland China. However, in the following years, although there was a noticeable population increase, things did not change very rapidly. It was not until 250 years ago when industrial revolution started with the invention of steam engine by James Watt in this country, the development of human society accelerated to such a level that the changes which took place during the last century in some areas are often more substantial than those changes which took place during the last millennium.

     from one form to another, from chemical and mechanical to electrical, and invented various machines What happened during the last 250 years is simply remarkable.  As we learned to transform energy which could perform works thousand times more powerful, more precise, and more reliable than what could be afforded by human and animal labor, the productivity increased immensely, and unprecedented improvement of living standard was accomplished.  Along with the rapid advancement of science and technology, the population on earth increased drastically.  Just in this century alone, the population has increased by four times.  And by 2025, it is expected that there will be somewhere around 8 billion people living on earth.  At the present time, we have 6 billion people living on earth.

     Right, before we glorify the tremendously rapid development of the human society brought about by the industrial revolution, let us pay attention to two important facts.  First, as the consumption of energy increases, we depend more and more on the fossil fuels, which have been accumulated on earth for millions of years.  The depletion of all those fossil fuels on earth in just a matter of a couple of centuries is just irresponsible, not to mention the problems caused by the emission of greenhouse gases, acid rain, particulate matter and other problems which are intimately related to the excessive wasteful usage of fossil fuels.

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