I wouldn’t call the water crisis a subset of climate change, though I would call both of them subsets of unsustainable resource usage. Even if we weren’t burning one gram of fossil fuels (the primary driver of climate change), it’d still be the case that we’re using “fossil water” for our agriculture faster than it’s being replaced.
That’s a good point.
Biggest problem? The left end of the economic potential bell curve being squeezed by automation, immigration, and global trade.
- The deficit/national debt.
- Entitlement spending, especially underfunded public pensions.
Regards,
Shodan
Best ones have already been mentioned, but…
Autism continues to grow and requires significant resources, no cause known.
No significant political will to address mental health issues in either civilians or veterans.
Colony collapse disorder, honey is disgusting but fruit pollination is kinda a big deal.
China’s One Belt, One Road will be a problem for US interests.
The OP hits it in a nutshell, what you consider a “real” problem may not be to may. And what you consider a trivial problem, illegal voting, I considered a real one.
When I can name 20 people that are not citizens and have no business voting, who went and voted, I would say yes we have a problem with that. If I can name that many, how many others are doing it?
I also see, the Wests water shortage, antibiotic resistance and healthcare as problems I see every day and are being taken seriously and something IS being done about it. It needs to come from other places than the government.
I work for a non-profit helping people get off pubic aid, and after a long career, I can say the private sector does a far better job of it. It’s off topic to this thread, but I think the frustration the OP feels is you project your view as one of the general population when it probably is at best a local view.
Working with poor people in an urban area, the three biggest problems they face is:
Lack of dental care (not medical care), lack of self worth and a lack of responsibility.
Those three things, I run across now and have for the last 20 years, and in that time it’s gotten progressively worse.
It seems like those are more symptomatic of the more fundamental problem of “finding a way to not be poor”.
I am surprised more people didn’t mention this.
Many of the other things can be fixed via technology (e.g. the water crisis), education, or by tweaking the laws. But our $21T debt can’t be fixed; it is going to eat our lunch.
Of all the problems mentioned in the OP, global climate change will be the one to reckon with, and it will become obvious probably within the next few years. Obvious not just in terms of the changing climate but also in terms of how that’s going to fundamentally reshape everything we assume about global economic and political stability. In short, global climate change will wreak havoc, and it will do so in our lifetimes - and most likely, it will happen before we’re prepared for it. That’s pretty much certain considering the United States is probably one of the few countries in a position to lead on this issue and yet maintains what’s essentially a flat-earth, geocentric universe view on the subject.
It’s easy to fix; you raise taxes and selectively pare spending. It’s one of the easiest problems to fix. It just seems hard because voters can’t get out of their own way and vote for people who’d actually fix the problem.
What’s going to be much harder to fix is climate. THAT will eat our lunch, and if you think 21T in debt is bad, wait until countries start going to war over clean water and agriculture. Wait until there’s ecological collapse and widespread starvation. Climate change has wiped out civilizations, and it has wiped out species. It probably played a role in our own evolution. We’re causing the environment to change in ways we’re not designed to handle.
The rise of Randian Objectivism, & its damaging effects.
Infrastructure decay.
The end of earmarks, & thus the loss of incentive to compromise.
And do you think that this is a good thing or a bad thing? I’m curious given your views that America is for Americans and Africa is for Africans, and that the US would be better off without minorities, since it wouldn’t have to spend so much money fighting black criminals and keeping them in prison.