[Back to Physical Challenges]

Introduction

These seem to be the major Issues.

• Climate Change: the average temperature is higher now than at any time in the history of human civilization, and it will continue to the point of mass extinctions unless we make massive, radical and immediate changes - much of which needs to happen in the next decade.
• Pollution: both chemicals and plastics - we can find toxic metals in the Himalayan peaks, and plastic fibres in the deepest reaches of the ocean; air pollution is killing more people than the Covid 19 pandemic did.
• Water: there are several distinct problems, especially relating to the increasing demand and decreasing supply of fresh water.

 On the next rung of issues...

• Waste disposal: we are generating massive amounts of waste, quite apart from the chemicals and plastics identified above.  As available land decreases, the cost of burying the waste increases and the amount of flytipping also increases.  But it is possible to do better than just bury the stuff we don't want: Tilos, a small island in Greece, has recently (September 2026) become zero waste, which seems to be a world first.  60% of the waste is recyclable, 30% is organic, processed and provided to the farmers as fertilizer, and the remaining 10% goes as fuel to cement factories.