What are the most pressing environmental problems that we face today? Many of us know of these problems, but struggle to connect them to our daily lives. We see environmental destruction and know that it’s bad, but when we try to express what’s bad about it to our friends, families, and colleagues we can’t seem to get our point across. Perhaps we don’t have facts at the tip of our tongue. Perhaps we get too passionate, raise our voices, and our audience turns off. Or perhaps even we haven’t yet seen the problem fully, and haven’t yet convinced ourselves, making it challenging to affect positive change in daily life.

By clicking on the environmental topics above you can read a brief summary of the major environmental challenges to our global civilization. The summaries are by no means comprehensive; rather the information is meant to help you grasp the basics. It is oversimplified to say the least, but it gives you some talking points and a foundation to build upon. Next to each summary, you can click on a link and browse some books on the topic to learn more. Also, our green links page is more comprehensive and can direct you to websites devoted to a certain issue.

People often ask "What is the most important environmental issue?" or "What should we solve first?" The only reasonable answer is “All of them,” because they are all connected. While exploring the symptoms of our mistreatment of the earth, you will notice that each one is the cause and the effect of another. For example, global warming contributes to soil erosion and soil erosion contributes to global warming. Ignoring a single, damaged ecological system – the oceans, the ozone, the watersheds – exacerbates the damage to all. If one ecological system were to collapse entirely, so would they all. But if we heal one of these ecological systems, we begin to heal the entire earth.

We have also included a list of common one-liner objections to the facts of our dangerous situation. These objections are usually rash, short-sighted, and infuriating, and we have provided some intelligent responses as alternatives to stooping to that level of debate. (Many of these come from Jared Diamond's “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed,” a must read). Feel free to submit any objections for which you seek a more effective response.

As always, if you come across any books, resources, or information that will help make this page (or website) more beneficial, we would love to hear from you. Send an e-mail to environment@greenshopper.com and we will promptly review your submission.