I think the problems in the world are directly related to the rate of growth of mankind on earth - and this is the main reason. Man destroys nature from that and all these cataclysms described in National Geographic. Just think about these numbers.
During the first 500 years of the second Millennium, The world's population has increased by about 1.5 times, the second - 12 times, and only in the last - the 20th century - almost 4 times. The acceleration in population growth is well reflected in the number of years in which the World's population has increased by 1 billion inhabitants. Such C show that the population of the Earth has reached the population:
in 1 billion people - in 1820, i.e. in the history of its development;
2 billion people in 1927 - after 107 years,
3 billion people in 1960 - 33 years later,
4 billion people in 1974 - after 14 years,
5 billion people in 1987 after 13 years,
6 billion people in 1999 - 12 years later.
As you can see, the accumulation of the first billion inhabitants of the Earth took several tens of thousands of years, while the 6th billion of them appeared in the last 12 years.
Thus, the 20th century was the period of the fastest growth of the world population. The General accumulation of the human mass was pushed by the entry of an increasing number of countries into the period of sharply expanded reproduction of the population-the demographic revolution
Yes, a lot of these problems have been exaggerated due to the population growth. I would just like to point out though that birthrates are going down. The growth is slowing down. We hit 7 billion in 2011, so another 12 years passed. The world population is not actually growing exponentially. The growth will continue to slow. We'll actually have some problems of underpopulation in some places. I think we're gradually becoming more responsible for how we're treating the Earth and we're getting better at it.