Kate Hackett
Oh man, get ready to be WORRIED.
In the next 20 years, several pressing issues are likely to arise that are being ignored or understated at present. These include the rapid depletion of natural resources, the increasing income gap and social inequality, the aging population and its effect on the workforce and economy, and the expanding global geopolitical tensions.
Thanks SO MUCH to u/PacmanTheHitman, who asked Reddit “What’s going to be a problem 20 years from now that people are choosing to ignore?” we can gather together and collectively panic!
1. Water
Water rights and supply where I live. Developers just keep building houses and apartments anywhere they can, and people keep flocking here. There really isn’t enough water, and im waiting to see what happens before I buy a house here.
2. Deep fakes
Deep fakes. It might become good enough that it will be hard to check quickly if a video is real or fake.
3. Renting
What happens to “generation rent” come retirement.
4. Antibiotics
Antibiotic resistance
5. Algal bloom
Harmful algal blooms. First off, toxic blue-green algae does better in warmer water. There’s also concern about marine algae invading freshwater lakes due to the increase in salinity that can result from droughts. On the flip side, floods can also cause HABs because nutrient runoff tends to increase during heavy rainfall events.
6. Solar flares
Solar flare that fries tons of electronics
7. RIP, olds
The inevitable end of social security. We’re already running through the funds like crazy because of the ever increasing average lifespan and population of retired, elderly people
8. Plants
Invasive plants. I’ve worked on prairie restoration projects in the past and one of our major problems was woody invasives like Callery pear (aka Bradford), tree of heaven, and bush honeysuckle. I’ve seen old field sites follow a successional pattern from bare soil to 100% invasive shrub thickets that outcompete any natives due to their early leaf-out and allelopathy. The last time I went to a park in my hometown the entire understory was honeysuckle and winter creeper.
9. Spines
Our spinal health. Take care of yourselves people. Exercise, hydrate, eat healthy and be concious of your posture. We are not young forever.
10. Trees
Mesophication. Lesser known but still important – basically our forests in the eastern US used to be oak dominated and fire dependent, but they’re now in a positive feedback loop of mesophytic species becoming more prevalent and changing the environment to better suit their own offspring. My concern here is mainly the impact on wildlife that eat mast from species like oaks and hickories who will now be in forests dominated by maples and sweet gums.
11. Fake worlds
Fake life becoming more compelling than real life
12. More water scarcity
Big corporations purchasing rights to fresh water.
13. Screen time
Giving toddlers and young children unlimited screen time. Medical professionals have been warning about this for years.
14. Plastics
The use of plastics. Hopefully we figure it out sooner than 20 years though
15. Just a whole bunch
Artificial intelligence, rapid decreases in biodiversity across the globe, fresh water shortages. I could go all day. We’re screwed if humanity’s ingenuity fails to solve any of these countless problems.
16. Infrastructure
This is mostly American, but our ageing infrastructure, I’m just waiting for the year where each week a dam will break, a bridge will break, or some important infrastructure will collapse, hundreds will die, and we will continue to bitch and fight over if it’s a democrat of republican fault when it’s all of us being greedy fucks and not willing to update our fucking infrastructure.
17. Mental Health
The mental health crisis isn’t getting any better so 20 years from now it’s going to be a whole lot worse.
18. Wealth inequality
Growing wealth inequality. The middle class is dying out and soon normal people can’t afford to buy houses, for example. We’ll own nothing and work ourselves to death just to afford the essentials
19. No accountability
The Lack of Accountability epidemic. So many parents raise their kids nowadays without teaching accountability and responsibility. It’s already affecting us somewhat.
20. Trash
ALL of the great garbage patches in the ocean.
