How do global warming, ozone depletion, and loss of biodiversity compare with other environmental and social problems that the world faces today?

Question

You may wish to list the major problems, as you see them, in decreasing order of importance. Justify your answer with an explanation.
What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

As in the first problem there are different views on this question.

Global warming, ozone depletion, and loss of biodiversity are more important than the other environmental and social problems because:

• They are too large in scale to consider secondary to any other problems. These three affect the entire planet and could alter the future of human life on Earth and Earth itself.
• We could all die or suffer because of global warming, ozone depletion, and loss of biodiversity, but disease and homelessness could all be prevented, in theory at least.

Global warming, ozone depletion, and loss of biodiversity are less important than the other environmental and social problems because:

• They are not as immediately pressing as other social problems
• The biggest problems are poverty and war
• The Earth as a system has ways of healing and evolving to support life and will continue to do so as long as it exists. (But don't count on this to solve problems like ozone depletion and global warming!) However, society has no system of checks and balances.