Now that everyone (or at least everyone that counts) recognizes that humans are causing global warming the next question is how high of a priority should this be? We already have a full plate with disease, war, bigotry (racial,religious, gender, sexual orientation, xenophobia, etc) , poverty (1,000,000,000 people don't have access to clean drinking water), low availability of high quality education, homelessness, slavery and all those other things that make the world a less than ideal place, and now we add environmental instability to the list. All these issues are big problems that the world needs to address and fighting any and all of them is a noble cause. But because of scarcity of resources (like time, energy and materials) we can't fix all of them at the same time. We can fight all of them at the same time and they are linked in several ways so by fighting one you fight many, but there are times when they are at loggerheads (as a friend pointed out to me in an comment on my Tata Nano blog post) so progress on one noble cause can come at the expense of another. So which problem is the most important to solve?
Global Warming.
Global Warming will spread disease, destroy cities with flooding and stronger hurricanes, increase unemployment and poverty, increase international tensions because of refugee issues, increase bigotry as inequality grows between those who can adapt and those who cannot, increase hunger as it increases flooding, droughts and alters growing seasons and patterns, and I wouldn't be surprised if a war or two broke out in all that chaos.
Global Warming is the most important issue as it alters our fundamental ability to live on this planet, the other issues (on a species scale) are issues of the quality of life. The other issues are human societal ills Global Warming is a Planetary ill. Unless we get our global house in order and ensure an acceptable degree of environmental stability, we can lose all the progress we have made fighting against the other ills of society. The other issues have their various causes but they are also symptoms of a diseased world. As Dr. Horrible/Billie points out you can't treat a symptom while the disease rages on. Fighting global hunger through revamping food policies is a great thing to do, but if Global Warming continues unchecked the global food crisis will be exacerbated. What good is a needle exchange program in New Orleans if the city gets destroyed in another hurricane?
All the other issues have been a part of human society forever and they will probably be with us for a while longer. Humanity can survive with these problems as they are not going to result in our mass extinction (ignoring Nuclear war and a crazy super virus...which are serious issues too). Global Warming is an existential crisis. The other issues kill humans Global Warming can kill humankind. It is the largest and most imminent threat to our species and should be solved immediately before we cause a global collapse.
(of course if there were a massive meteor heading to Earth that could kill us all that'd take priority over everything else)
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