U.S. Soldiers boarding a CH-47 Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan

A Brief Introduction To The 2000's

The 2000s have been dominated by wide-ranging topics, including international trade and a growing concern over energy supplies, the explosion in telecommunications, concerns with international terrorism and war, an escalation of the social issues of the 1990s, and the debate over global warming.

Economic developments in the 2000s have focused on the explosion of Asia's economic and political potential, and its impact on the world market. India’s economy has become technologically integrated with those of the world’s more developed nations.

China has experienced immense economic growth, and has obtained the status of a world power. The growing Chinese economy has been a major factor in the rapidly increasing demand for fossil fuels, which along with less new petroleum discoveries, greater extraction costs, and political turmoil forced two other trends; a soar in the price of petroleum products and a subsequent push by governments and businesses to promote the development of "green" technology.

Kuwait's Al Burqan Oil Field, the world's second largest oil field, will be depleted within 40 years.

In contrast to the decades from 1920 to 1999, which are called "the Twenties", "the Sixties", and the like, the 2000s have no universally-accepted name. Some refer to the decade as the "twenty hundreds" while others may refer to it as the "two thousands". In written form this could appear as "the '00s" or "the 2000s". But writing "the 2000s" or simply saying "the two-thousands" can cause confusion, since this could refer to the entire 21st century or even the entire millennium.

Determining a name for the decade has been problematic, especially in the United States. In 1999, anticipating the upcoming awkwardness, a US group calling itself "Project Naughtie" ran a viral campaign in an attempt to popularize "the Naughties" as the decade's name. The term involves a clear play on words, stemming both from the idea that "naught" means "nothing" or "zero" as well as the fact that "naughties" sounds both like "nineties" and "naughty".

In television the reality TV show format that was starting to grow in popularity toward the end of the nineties went into overdrive with popular shows like Big Brother, Survivor, Pop Idol and The Osbournes becoming so successful that a whole industry of reality format shows bombarded our screens for the rest of the decade.

High Definition television (HDTV) became the norm in the late 2000s and broadband Internet access was more widespread than ever. Wireless connection to the Internet through wi-fi connections also became popular, initially for laptop users, then in mobile phones.