Humanity has never encountered a crisis as profound as we now face. This problem threatens to end the world as we have known it and we are now beginning to realize that we are responsible for the sixth mass extinction in the history of our planet. Elizabeth Colbert did the best job reporting on the subject and I can't praise her work, The Sixth Extinction, enough. Scientific American, the Washington Post, the New York Times (with cool interactive features) and others have all published articles about this, but it's not a subject familiar to nearly enough people.
That may be the biggest and most profound problem, but I don't recommend spending too much time educating yourself and others about it because it's truly horrific and you could loose a lot of sleep or fall into despair. Yes, we have many other important issues to address as well, some more and some less related such as; climate change, ocean acidification, nuclear proliferation and safety, financial and economic security, resource depletion, human overpopulation, political corruption and more. Yes, they are all related, conflated and tangled into a horrible mess. It's enough to drive anyone and everyone mad in every sense of the word. It may be more useful to concentrate on the solutions to this problem. Unfortunately, implementing the solutions comes with its own set of problems.
Political- To solve or mitigate big problems requires governments to enact laws, set policies and implement enforcement bodies. We did this before in a global effort to mitigate the depletion of the ozone layer of our atmosphere. We stopped rivers from burning with pollutants and saved the Bald Eagle and other species from extinction by banning DDT. We can do great things again, but the American political body is seriously diseased and captured by powerful factions. Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders properly and repeatedly explains that a political revolution, a mass movement will be required to restore political integrity in the USA. I couldn't agree more, but there are powerful forces, millions of brainwashed, misinformed and ignorant people along with too much apathy to make that an easy reality.
That may be the biggest and most profound problem, but I don't recommend spending too much time educating yourself and others about it because it's truly horrific and you could loose a lot of sleep or fall into despair. Yes, we have many other important issues to address as well, some more and some less related such as; climate change, ocean acidification, nuclear proliferation and safety, financial and economic security, resource depletion, human overpopulation, political corruption and more. Yes, they are all related, conflated and tangled into a horrible mess. It's enough to drive anyone and everyone mad in every sense of the word. It may be more useful to concentrate on the solutions to this problem. Unfortunately, implementing the solutions comes with its own set of problems.
Political- To solve or mitigate big problems requires governments to enact laws, set policies and implement enforcement bodies. We did this before in a global effort to mitigate the depletion of the ozone layer of our atmosphere. We stopped rivers from burning with pollutants and saved the Bald Eagle and other species from extinction by banning DDT. We can do great things again, but the American political body is seriously diseased and captured by powerful factions. Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders properly and repeatedly explains that a political revolution, a mass movement will be required to restore political integrity in the USA. I couldn't agree more, but there are powerful forces, millions of brainwashed, misinformed and ignorant people along with too much apathy to make that an easy reality.
