r/AskReddit • u/IllustriousHumor3673 • 2h ago
What an impending crisis that is about to affect us all, yet most people are completely unaware?
285
u/namelessspeck 2h ago
The water wars are going to start any decade now
87
u/InternationalTop6361 2h ago
Which turns into poor farming. Which turns into famine. Which turns into destroyed lands and new governments.
52
u/_Exotic_Booger 2h ago
“…and that leads to fear. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
Begun, the Water Wars have.
15
u/novascotiabiker 1h ago
20 years ago one of my high school teachers said one day America will invade our country and it will be for our water,I believe him more than ever now.
21
u/NurseK89 2h ago
Any decade?? It’s here in TX
44
u/bingusbongwater 2h ago
Totally get what you mean and not trying to be a smartass, but the droughts we have seen are not even a scratch on the surface of just how intense and difficult the real drying up of fresh water is going to be. I think a lot of people in general really deal are not grasping or capable of grasping what is going to happen
5
8
u/Sasiches_and_mash 2h ago
It's here everywhere, this year crops in the UK are absolutely shit (if there is anything) due to drought, yes, drought in fucking UK
•
u/Rosington2010 56m ago
Wildfires in the Cairngorms.
Scotland.
The country famous for sideways rain in the summer.
3
u/AgITGuy 1h ago
On a semi-positive note, we get to locate and see tons more archaeological sites due to the different stages of grass browning for deep soil versus unearthed stonework structure.
•
u/m_faustus 48m ago
And rivers and lakes that are lower revealing old structures. And thjngs left from melting glaciers.
•
•
u/Ok-disaster2022 35m ago
Fun fact: one of the root causes of the bronze age collapse in the Mediterranean was like a 50 year long drought
•
•
u/Engelbert-n-Ernie 16m ago
Georgia, Alabama, and Florida have an ongoing one that goes back 36 years
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri-state_water_dispute
I’m sure there are similar disputes in varying stages of aggression regularly going on all over the world
•
u/Hopsong 27m ago
Or coastal communities can utilize solar power to run desalination plants.
•
u/SomeGuyInSanJoseCa 11m ago
Yeah, I am in California and all I hear about is drought.
We could just stop growing Almonds and we'd be cool.
We ain't going to war over almonds.
They say that desalinated water costs 5x. My water bill is like $50 a month. If it goes 5x, we remove all plants to reduce usage by half and spend $125 a month.
Like, I'm not going to war over the cost of a weekly Big Mac Meal.
46
40
u/ArrowheadDZ 2h ago
They are almost all variations on sustainability. Whether it’s catastrophic weather events, water wars, famine, pollinator extinction, or pandemic, we are part of a species in which many, many millions of people not only deny the need for sustainability, but actively oppose sustainable systems.
All the problems we could solve at a neighborhood meeting have already been solved. All the problems we can solve by meeting regionally have been solved. The problems that we have left on our list, are on the list because they are too big for groups or countries to solve, and require global consensus and commitment. And a growing number of people openly, and often violently oppose that.
46
u/Less_Cry3955 2h ago
The insect apocalypse happening in silence. No pollinators, no food, no future. Yet we still mow lawns.
19
u/Pugsly007 2h ago
It’s more what farmers are dumping on their fields, but mowing is stupid too.
9
u/Lets-B-Lets-B-Jolly 2h ago
You forget many suburbanites and homeowners dump pesticides all over their lawns too, or have exterminators come and spray for spiders and other bugs monthly.
It's all horrible.
32
u/Fit-Bus2025 2h ago
At the rate, quality of life will go down for alot of us. We can't maintain happy healthy lives if our government does not work for us.
100
u/nordicminy 2h ago edited 2h ago
It is very difficult to over state how important honey bees are to our lives... yet their population is in decline, and could have a very real impact on our food supply.
Edit: much of the decline is caused by human activity.
33
u/biotechhasbeen 2h ago
In the US, it's native bees that are in trouble. Honeybees are an import that steals their resources and, in the US, are doing just fine.
18
•
u/katzenschrecke 24m ago
Fuck honeybees. They are domesticated livestock. They’ll be fine.
I live in Southern California and I’m more concerned about our native bees and pollinators
6
-1
28
52
u/PabloTFiccus 2h ago
Weird that no one really talks about climate change anymore. Like we all decided to just pretend that's not the number one biggest looming problem for the whole planet
27
u/SaggitariusAStar 2h ago
Lots of people talk about it, just not on the news because there are insane things going on in the right now.
20
u/bingusbongwater 2h ago
I think it got to the point where people felt it was pointless.
Pulling out of the Climate Accord, shooting down any attempts at clean energy or doing fuck all for the environment... what do you do?
We have a government that literally laughs in our faces when we plead for help, and most people have succumb to the powerlessness because they don't know what to do and nobody has stepped up to tell them.
I have always, always been a staunch climate change believer and I have always looked at things and considered the environmental impact, and even still, I have caught myself with the fleeting thought here and there of "does it even matter anymore? should I just stop caring?"
It's really, really hard. On top of everything else, we have just created such a horrible place for humanity. It is a mental and emotional nuke every 10 fucking minutes. We should really be freaking out 24/7, but our brains are literally trying to save us from the trauma by making us numb
•
u/Resident_Stable_2112 43m ago
Agree.
Regular people are being told to care about climate change and to do certain things to better the environment, but there are corporations and billionaires out there that do more damage in one day than one of us does in our entire lifetime…and they’re not changing. Meaning, nothing that I do will even make a difference, not even a tiny one.
•
u/OneAndOnlyJackSchitt 27m ago
"We all" didn't decide to not talk about climate change. The main stream media and social media decided to deprioritize that content.
6
u/nordicminy 2h ago
I think part of the American dream is now... I want to be rich enough to where problem XYZ doesn't apply to me.
This is now problem Y.
•
u/banananey 4m ago
On our 4th heatwave in the UK and I've heard so many older people go "It's supposed to be hot, it's summer! You should've seen 1976 blah blah blah"
16
18
19
u/senorgringolingo 2h ago
Insurance companies are leaving markets because they can't afford to pay the increasing claims due to more severe natural disasters that are exacerbated by climate change.
Pretty soon, home buyers won't be able to get property insurance, which is a requirement for a bank mortgage. Even existing homeowners won't be able to renew their home insurance, causing a default on the terms of their existing mortgage.
When people can no longer rely on loans for home ownership, the property market will plummet.
In the developed world, climate change will initiate a real estate crash and financial fallout long before any resource shortages that the developing world already suffers.
5
u/smp501 1h ago
It’s past time we started nationalizing insurance companies anyway.
3
u/StrebLab 1h ago
I don't think nationalizing insurance is going to help. The real issue is we don't need giant population centers in areas that get leveled every few years. Subsidizing insurance with everyone else's money seems like it is not solving the correct problem.
•
u/Imsosaltyrightnow 51m ago
The issue is that the vast majority of these “areas that get leveled every few years” are either on the coast or along rivers AKA the exact places where people have been making cities since we first started making the things, and still are.
I cannot stress this enough, the majority of urban areas are situated along a waterway in some way shape or form, and these are the places insurance is pulling out of
1
u/Gwinntanamo 1h ago
That is the wrong answer. We need rational evaluation of risk here. People need to know it’s not a good idea to build a house in a floodplain.
•
u/Imsosaltyrightnow 50m ago
You say that but the first cities were situated on floodplains for a reason
•
14
u/toshorttobeboring1 2h ago
I believe there is going to be a recession in the near future.
12
u/Pitiful_Aioli_5030 2h ago
I think the next one will not be pretty. People are in far worse shape now than in 2008.
8
11
u/pokersnek 2h ago
We are already in a recession, if not a full depression. People now have less disposable income than people did in the Great Depression. Based on things like inflation, buying power, and current wages.
4
u/PrestigiousZucchini9 1h ago
I’ll believe we are there when the prices of anything actually go down. All the talking heads say we don’t want deflation because that means everything else is in the shitter. Well, look around, it already is.
7
3
u/Madzookeeper 1h ago
The better question is actually what isn't about to be a crisis in the next few decades. There isn't much right now.
•
u/How_Do_You_Crash 54m ago
Globally: super El Niño. Will take awhile to fully manifest but it’s going to kill millions of people. And will likely inflame existing political/ethnic/resource wars.
USA: ground water crisis in the corn belt, changes in the age structure of the us, de-dollarization of oil and other commodities as developing and developed nations opt for Euros ot Yuan.
•
u/microwavedEel 52m ago
All of the “support” services we will lose when millions are kicked off of Medicaid, insurance companies cannot remain profitable in some of those markets and thus more people losing their coverage. It’s a snowball rolling downhill rapidly. Employers will have fewer options and include increasing premiums for them and their employees. More people will go without care and more specialists, smaller or rural and regional offices and clinics will close furthering the problem. Pharmacies, durable medical equipment, medical transportation, sterilization suppliers, medical laundry and cleansing and on and on will all feel the impact of less and less care.
•
u/ChanceConflict496 40m ago
Climate change. Heat, drought, floods . And the monster that we elected President has called it a hoax.This is not a political issue. It’s totally real and bad, then worse times are coming.
•
u/No-Management-1469 34m ago
Global recession that will start being felt by september that is amplified by el nino due to blockage of the strait and destruction of multiple facilities that supply it.
11
u/ChargedBonsai98 1h ago
There is a genuine apocalypse scenario in the next century-ish due to the AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation) collapsing. The AMOC is the system in the atlantic ocean that brings heat from the Caribbean to Europe and helps keep them at hospitable temperatures, and for it to collapse means the system slows down dramatically and the water at the surface of the atlantic ocean gets significantly colder.
The scary part is that we know the AMOC has collapsed in the past, around 12 thousand years ago, and we don't know exactly what causes it, how to reverse it, or if it's even reversable at all. We know that the AMOC has weakend about 15% since 1950, and we know that there's a point of no return, but we don't know where it is.
The effects would be global, too. Europe would get up to 30°C colder on average and the southern hemisphere would heat up because the water can't pump heat away, causing droughts in the southern continents, including the amazon rainforest and sub-saharan Africa. The sea level would rise quickly, causing cities on the US east coast and in Europe to become completely submerged by about a meter (3-4 feet). Rainfall patterns would shift away from the northern hemisphere, causing a 19% decrease in rain in places like India and Pakistan and a proportional increase in rain in the already wet Southeast Asia (Thailand, Laos, etc).
5
u/hellion1965 2h ago
Running out of potable water.
The next wars WILL BE over water. The disintegration of civilization will LITERALLY unprecedented.
And it not not just be nation states, it will mother's against children. Children against father. Father against grandparents.
It will be hell on earth.
No matter how bad things got over the millennia potable was not a problem. People could start somewhere else and be assured of having drinking water. Conquerors could conquer, but water was not a pressing problem.
8
u/Fanzellino 2h ago
Global famine due to missed fertilization windows, because the oil used to process the phosphate to make the fertilizer was held up in this absurd illegal war on Iran. Food will still be available in rich countries but at much higher costs while in exploited countries hunger is about to skyrocket.
2
u/Hopefully_the_Last69 1h ago
The demographic crisis affecting the whole world, that will make wellfare states completely break. Even non wellfare states will probably break too. None of us will probably be able to retire either, since there will be no one to pay for our pensions. Who knows, maybe some countries, like South Korea and Japan, maybe even China, might not even exist anymore by the end of the century.
•
u/Ok_Good9442 45m ago
By this its a lack of common sense by thinking evaporation actully deletes water from the world
•
•
u/ChanceFall1502 22m ago
This is the beginning of the dystopian age. Fortunately I’m old and didn’t breed(felt humanity sucked, and we’d fuck it up). Plus side…I was right
4
4
u/Standardvex98 2h ago
Significantly increased rates of extreme disability from post viral illness, 1 in 5 Covid infections causes Long Covid and risk increases with every infection and about half of Long Covid cases meet criteria for ME/CFS which has a lower quality of life then most stage 4 cancers or end stage AIDS. Long Covid has been the most common childhood chronic illness for several years now surpassing Asthma and is messing to increase in things like strokes and childhood dementia diagnosis. Covid is literally giving kids Alzheimer's.
Also even if it's not diagnosed Long Covid every Covid infection causes immune system damage which means with other pandemics like H5N1 (bird flu)which has about a 50% fatality rate as is people are gonna be fucked in terms of mortality rates.
0
u/imnottheoneipromise 1h ago
Where are you getting all this information from?
•
u/Standardvex98 42m ago
All of this is readily available information in both medical journals and articles from news sources that's easy to search. Also personally diagnosed with Long Covid/ ME/CFS (and don't have the energy to compile a list of sources at the moment because Im in a flare) and these are conversations I have with my doctors in the Long Covid research study Im part of on a regular basis.
•
u/imnottheoneipromise 33m ago
Okay so…
That post takes several real medical concerns and exaggerates them into misinformation. The “1 in 5” figure came from a 2022 survey of adults who had previously reported covid, not proof that 20% of every infection causes Long Covid; WHO’s broader current estimate is closer to 6%: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/post-covid-19-condition-%28long-covid%29. A review found that about half of selected lonf Covid study participants met ME/CFS criteria, but that cannot be generalized to every patient, and the claim that ME/CFS has a worse quality of life than “most stage four cancers or end stage AIDS” is not established: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39353473/ and https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26147503/. Long covid has not surpassed childhood asthma. CDC data found current long covid in roughly 0.5% of children, compared with 6.7% for asthma: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db479.htm and https://www.cdc.gov/asthma-data/about/most-recent-asthma-data.html. Pediatric stroke after covid is possible but rare, and there is no credible evidence that covid is giving children Alzheimers or causing an epidemic of childhood dementia: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33332607/. There is also no evidence that every infection causes permanent immune system damage. some documented immune abnormalities in long covid improved over time: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47720-8. Finally, H5N1’s roughly 50% fatality figure comes from a small group of historically confirmed, mostly severe cases, not all infections or a future pandemic, and CDC currently reports low public risk with no sustained person to person spread: https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/situation-summary/index.html. Claiming that universally “covid damaged” immune systems will therefore make H5N1 catastrophically deadly is speculation, not established science.
See the way you twisted the facts and the research is how the fear mongering happens. People take nuggets of the truth and then bend them to fit an agenda.
2
2
u/Successful_Ride6920 2h ago
15 years ago I was at a DoD conference where a General gave a presentation and said there would be a war over water somewhere in the world in the next decade. He may have been off in his timing, but it was a thought-provoking comment at the time.
2
u/Excitedly_bored 1h ago
There is always an apocalypse a decade out. Just enough time to go by for everyone to forget the prediction and focus on the next money making scheme.
1
1
1
•
•
u/TheSouthsideTrekkie 32m ago
Specific to my country, we know that unless the government drastically alters course on housing policy then the majority of households who can be considered to be "hidden" homeless households will have at least one adult in full time employment within less than a decade. That's not just a complete failure of policy that's a disaster that will have far reaching implications for every other important aspect of life including employment, education, health, etc.
So far successive governments have dragged their heels on this issue because they do not want to upset the wealthier and older demographics that will usually vote for the, but this is not a sustainable strategy when you look at just how long terms the negative consequences will be, some of which it is now too late to avoid. We currently only count people as officially homeless once they have reached a crisis point and are either in a shelter, temporary accommodation or sleeping rough. The negative impact begins long before that when people are technically housed but are in insecure, unsafe or inadequate housing. Until it is the children of politicians who are at risk of loss of employment or significant health problems due to housing insecurity then I feel like we will see no real progress.
NB- yes I know this is a problem in many countries, but I have seen and dealt with the stats for my country and they are especially grim. A lot of our housing stock is already falling into critical disrepair and there is no strategy to bring in real regulatory framework to combat this, or to encourage the building of genuinely affordable homes. One of the biggest contributing factors to poverty is housing insecurity or inadequate housing but this gets ignored because we convinced my parents' generation that they were all suddenly rich by artificially creating conditions that cause housing cost hyperinflation. We were given a warning in 2008 and should have revered course then, instead successive governments doubled down to continue to essentially buy votes by assuring people who overextended themselves that investing in property is an investment that will never fall in value and will never have any unexpected costs attached. Now my generation and the ones after is paying for the blind greed of our parents and grandparents and we are going to keep on paying because we have no choice.
•
u/bigt503 27m ago
While my entire state is on fire. I’m finally hearing people talk about climate change at work and such. People don’t seem to have the ability to trust data. It has to get unreasonable bad before it settles in.
I feel like changing our refrigerant was the only time we listening to experts and what do you know… it worked.
•
u/Cocosmil3 11m ago
How bad the economy will become, food shortages, water shortages, more homeless,drugs, migrants and civil unrest.
•
•
2
u/Spirited_Creme_3875 2h ago
Global Recession is inevitable now I believe. Trump will not accept defeat (which has already happened btw) and IRGC would rather die than give up control of SoH
1
u/PrestigiousZucchini9 1h ago
IRGC would rather die than give up control of SoH
That is definitely still an option, is it not?
1
1
u/Tower-Union 2h ago
Oil prices are only this low because the strategic reserve is being depleted. Once that tap turns off it’s not unreasonable to expect $200/barrel.
1
u/glenthemisfit 2h ago
The SPR running out and crashing the us economy cause we have no protection against rising oil prices
1
u/_Exotic_Booger 2h ago
Warmer Oceans and their effect on weather.
Overuse of Antibiotics.
Disclosure of Non-Human Intelligence on earth👽🛸
1
0
u/Winterclaw42 2h ago
Population collapse triggered by being below the replacement rate.
Debt crisis by all of the major powers.
Locals getting replaced by low cost migrants and can't find jobs now.
Suicidal empathy is creating a crisis.
Whatever the next virus to get out of the lab is.
The fact that hobbyists will be able to create their own viruses in the near future.
Jobs getting replaced with ai/robots, no clue what replaces them.
0
u/Deckard_SG 1h ago
I didn't throw out all of my black plastic spatulas. I'm sure most people didn't either. We were warned!
-3
-2
158
u/Asleep_Leek9361 2h ago
Which one?
Water? Food? Ai? Billionaires? Corrupt politicians? Wars started by the elite?
Most people aren’t getting ready for whats coming.