There are many environmental issues today that are of great consequence to the future of our lives. From deforestation to run-off to global climate change. It is difficult to rank some of these in order of importance, especially since it is important to work on all of them at least to some degree. I think the three most pressing issues are global warming, deforestation, and eutrophication. All of them are tied together and often reinforce each other. It might be better to tackle them as one rather than fighting each individual concern separately. Of the three, I think that eutrophication will have the most immediate impact. The growing population will increase our use of agriculture and the globalization of industries continues to increase. This will lead to increased use of fertilizers, which is already the leading manufactured chemical on the planet. This is also not highly publicized, making the problem grow without pushback to slow the problem. Over use of fertilization leads to toxic algae blooms as well as anoxic or death zones. Just a year or two ago, there was a 1 week media blitz over the growing red algae problem in Florida. It did not last long on national media, yet the over-fertilization continues. A major challenge in tackling this issue is that it directly conflicts with growing more food to ease the food security issues of the world. Unless we address that issue simultaneously, there will be no quick solution to the problem.
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