Month: November 2016

A New York Times article from today discusses the biggest risks and dangers that face humanity, and how the political discourse of our candidates focuses on dangers that are overblown and unlikely.

21 risk experts were asked to analyze what are the five biggest threats to the world. They stated:

1. Climate Change (overwhelmingly)
2. Use of nuclear weapons
3. Pandemics – growing resistance to anti-bodies
4. Cyberattacks
5. Problems with high Technology – crippling results if world loses its electronic and internet connectivity as we have “created a machine we cannot live without”

**These results matched a larger risk analysis of 750 experts from this year’s World Economic Forum

Experts criticize Trump who discusses the United States’ biggest dangers as immigration, terrorism, and crime, and Hilary who discusses financial insecurity and gun violence as her biggest dangers for the U.S. Their campaigns are missing the very real risks that face us. In fact, “Extreme Weather has killed more than twice as many people in the United States in the past 15 years, even including September 11th.” 

With our presidential candidates focusing their campaigns on issues that easily trigger emotional responses, instead of issues that may appear more abstract but are very real, serious danger can be waiting for us in our near future. We need to shift our country’s priorities.

In the face of Climate Change skepticism, I would simply ask someone to look at the world around us. Across the United States and the world, water supplies continue to be at risk and disputed.

• In Charleston West Virginia, 224,000 area residents, more than 7,300 business owners and an undetermined number of hourly wage earners are currently waiting for the pay out of $151 million dollar settlement because of a chemical spill that tainted local water
• Currently, the Nile River is yellow/brown, murky, and filled with silt because of days of heavy rain causing soil runoff. The flood’s pollution forced Water Treatment Plants to close and tap water is advised against.
• Recent Reports state Lake Chad in Nigeria that supplies water to millions of people has shrunk to a twentieth of its size.
• Villages along the West Bank are experiencing water shortages with as rainfall continues to decrease and groundwater levels drop. Tensions arise between West Bank villages and Isreal regarding share of water supplies in the region.
• Imja, a glacial lake in Nepal, has been continuously rising in level over the years. It rose to a dangerous level that threatened harmful flooding to several villages. Melting Snow Caps from the Himalayan Mountains are causing the lake’s rise. Soldiers and villagers dug through rocks to drain out 141 million cubic feet of water from the lake

These incidents were all reported from news articles published TODAY. This is alarming in and of itself.