Three environmental concerns that worry me more than global warming

Bill Nye made headlines this week dropping F-bombs about global warming. (This post is a good entry into what I’ve had to say about climate change on BoWilliams.com.)

Here are three things that concern me more:

Factory farming. I have written before of the extensive animal welfare concerns embodied in the way we raise most livestock. Those methods are born of extreme efforts to maximize production to meet continually rising demand, and I’m not sure how close we are to running the clock out, but I suspect we’re in the fourth quarter. We need a paradigm shift. One tiptoe into that pond is working to overcome irrational fear of scientific advances in food production, such as cultured meat.
Microplastics. The plastic waste we can see might not even be the biggest problem. Most plastics that “degrade” don’t actually go away. The pieces just get really small. And they’re absolutely everywhere. (I’ll also take this opportunity to say that I was wrong in this post about plastics.)
Superbugs. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are already killing people, and they’re poised to kill a lot more in our children’s world. The treatments we need aren’t profitable to develop, so there’s little incentive for pharmaceutical companies to do so.