Today the United States is facing environmental, social and economic problems that are absolutely unprecedented. There is a crying need for the American people to pull together to work on these huge challenges, but instead of focusing on solutions to our problems, an increasing number of Americans are getting angrier and angrier and are looking for someone to blame. Today we are increasingly becoming a divided nation. Kindness and civility have been replaced with strife, discord, anger and hate. Finding solutions to our problems has taken a back seat to making sure that "our team" wins and that the "other team" gets blamed for what is wrong. But arguing with one another and hating one another is not going to solve the problems that America is facing.
The following are 12 huge problems that Americans need to come together on and start facing before it is too late....
#1) The Great Pacific Garbage Patch - We are literally filling the Pacific Ocean up with our garbage. In fact, there is one area of the Pacific that is so full of plastic and other garbage that it has become known as The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This area of the Pacific Ocean is literally a "toxic soup" of plastic, trash and human waste that is about twice the size of the continental United States and that stretches from Hawaii to Japan. The devastation that all of this garbage is causing to wildlife is unimaginable and we will likely never be able to completely clean up the mess that we have made so far, and yet our polluting of the oceans just keeps getting worse. How will we ever be able to look future generations in the eye and tell them what we have done?
#2) Americans use more water than anyone else in the world and now the United States finds itself on the verge of a massive water crisis. The number of states facing a water crisis is now far greater than the number of states without one. In fact, a total of 36 states are projected to face severe water shortages in the next three years.
#3) Even the water that we do have is rapidly becoming highly polluted. One stunning new study has found significant levels of both pharmaceutical drugs and illegal drugs in our water supplies despite "rigorous" efforts to remove them at water treatment facilities.
#4) By using nuclear waste (depleted uranium) to fight our wars, the United States military is causing one of the greatest environmental horrors in the history of the world. In fact, not only have the air, water and soil in many areas of Iraq and Afghanistan been highly contaminated by depleted uranium, but also it has come out that depleted uranium munitions are slowly nuking our own troops. Something must be done to address this environmental nightmare.
#5) Unemployment in some areas of the United States has spiked to alarming levels. In fact, the mayor of Detroit says that the real unemployment rate in his city is somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 to 50 percent. If people are not put back to work soon, many cities in the U.S. could find themselves overwhelmed with homelessness and crime.
#6) The economic crisis is also causing a sharp rise in the number of Americans that are going hungry. In fact, more than one out of every 10 Americans is now on food stamps and each month that number is increasing.
#7) Already, crime is at near epidemic levels in many areas of the United States. Every year there are nearly 12 million crimes committed in the U.S. - that is by far the worst in the world. But how many more people can the U.S. possibly put in prison? There are already over 2.2 million people in prison in the United States, which is the most by far in the world. In fact, the United States has just 5% of the world's population, but 25% of the world's incarcerated population. Something needs to be done to find a sustainable solution to this massive problem.
#8) Law enforcement officials now estimate that approximately 600,000 Americans are trading dirty child pictures online. In addition, there are now over 400,000 registered sex offenders in the United States. How can a nation that is as great as ours produce so many people that are so dysfunctional? Something must be done to fight this epidemic.
#9) Mortgage defaults have continued to hit record highs and housing prices have continued to fall. Now, a gigantic "second wave" of adjustable rate mortgages is scheduled to reset beginning this year. If the first wave of mortgage resets brought the U.S. housing market to a standstill, what will this second round do?
#10) A huge wave of Baby Boomers is on the verge of retirement and they are counting on collecting their pensions and drawing Social Security payments. However, most pensions throughout the United States are now massively underfunded, and the Social Security system is a ticking timebomb. In fact, many analysts are now forecasting that the Baby Boomers are going to bankrupt the entire Social Security system.
#11) This all comes at a time when the U.S. national debt is spiralling out of control. The official debt of the U.S. government is now over 12 trillion dollars and it is rising at a rate of about 3.8 billion dollars per day. So how much is a trillion dollars? Well, if you spent one dollar every single second of every single day, it would take you over 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.
#12) Lastly, one of the biggest problems is that an increasing number of Americans no longer treat their fellow citizens with civility and respect. We are being taught that if we belong to one particular group or political party that we are to automatically view those from other groups or political parties as enemies. Anger and hate is growing not only at the government but also at each other. If we choose to hate each other instead of loving one another, then we will never be able to come together and solve all of the problems listed above.
Let's make the right choice.
Let's decide that we are going to love one another.
