12 Critical Environmental Issues Humanity Faces

Adapted from Jared Diamond’s book Collapse, Homoro outlines 12 issues that we need to address together to avoid steering our society towards an undesirable future.

1. Destruction of Natural Habitats: Forests, wetlands, coral reefs, and other natural habitats are home to many species. These habitats are being severely damaged or converted into artificial environments for human use. The shrinking of these natural habitats means losing ecological benefits: forests protect water sources, prevent soil erosion, and play critical roles in the water cycle, creating much of our rainfall; pristine wetlands protect water sources. Economically, damaged forests result in losses of timber and raw fuel; the loss of wetlands and coral reefs affects the habitats of many aquatic species that provide us with food.
2. Declining Wild Food Resources: Wild food resources, especially fish and crustaceans, are decreasing. Many poor people globally rely on this affordable source of protein. However, these food resources are difficult to manage and protect, often neglected because they belong to everyone and therefore to no one. If left unchecked, these resources will continue to decline, posing greater threats to food security.
3. Decline in Wildlife Numbers and Genetic Diversity: Each species plays a specific role in the ecosystem, so a decline in one species affects related organisms, causing loss of benefits they provide: worms aerate the soil, birds, and insects pollinate plants for free. Each species is like a rivet in an airplane. Though small, if each rivet falls off, the plane will eventually crash.
4. Increasing Population Needs More Arable Land: As the population grows, we need more arable land, but this land is being lost due to human activities. Land can be lost due to erosion, salinization, nutrient depletion (nutrients are lost faster than they can be replenished), acidification, and alkalization. This adds another pressure to food security.
5. Depleting Energy Sources: Major energy sources like oil, natural gas, and coal are dwindling. Even when surface reserves are exhausted, deeper and harder-to-extract reserves remain, but extracting them will be more costly and environmentally damaging.
6. Depleting Freshwater Resources: Freshwater reserves are dwindling globally. We use this water for irrigation, domestic use, industry, aquaculture, transportation, and recreation. The rate at which freshwater aquifers are depleting is faster than their natural replenishment. Desalinating seawater is possible but costly and energy-intensive on a global scale.
7. Reduced Sunlight for Photosynthesis: Plants worldwide are getting less sunlight for photosynthesis. To grow, plants need nutrients, water, and sunlight. Human constructions and activities consume sunlight: for example, a tall building or road absorbs sunlight that plants could otherwise use for photosynthesis. Less and less sunlight will be available for natural plant communities to thrive.
8. Chemical Pollution: The chemical industry and many other sectors release toxic substances into the environment. These include both artificial chemicals and naturally occurring ones at much higher levels. These pollutants cause environmental contamination, diseases, and suffering for humans and other species. Many chemicals do not degrade or degrade very slowly, making cleanup costly.
9. Invasive Species Threats: Globalization increases the risk of invasive species destroying local ecosystems. For example, Australia’s rabbit population explosion. In humans, pathogens can move from immune communities to vulnerable ones, causing severe impacts.
10. Atmospheric Pollution: Human activities release gases that deplete the ozone layer, which protects Earth from UV radiation, or form greenhouse gases that trap heat, causing global warming. Rising temperatures lead to severe consequences, like increased drought in already warm and dry regions, melting snow caps reducing water availability for domestic and agricultural use, and polar ice melt raising sea levels, causing coastal erosion and submerging land that may need large dikes to protect. Numerous secondary impacts are hard to predict.
11. Rising Population: A growing population increases demand for food, space, water, energy, and other resources. Besides environmental issues, increased population exacerbates social conflicts, intensifies competition, and raises the risk of international conflicts.
12. Third World Aspires for First World Living Standards: Simply put, poorer countries want to develop like richer countries, and the poor want to live as comfortably as the wealthy. Higher living standards mean more resource use and greater environmental impact. The collective impact on the environment will increase. This leads to political and demographic instability, as people from the Third World seek to immigrate, legally or illegally, to First World countries for better living standards.