- 16 hours ago
Behind the headlines and breaking news, silent catastrophes are reshaping our world. Join us as we examine the overlooked crises happening right under our noses! Our countdown includes coastal erosion, microplastics pollution, Yemen's humanitarian crisis, and more. Which of these underreported disasters do you think deserves immediate global attention? Let us know in the comments below!
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00:00Nearly half of the nation's drinking water contains potentially harmful forever chemicals.
00:06Substances have been linked to several serious health problems.
00:10Welcome to WatchMojo.
00:12And today, we're looking at various crises hidden behind bigger headlines and unfolding right under our noses.
00:18This is extremely shallow soil. There's not much left.
00:22We can see hardly anything is growing.
00:25Erosion of coastal communities due to sea level rise.
00:28It's not just the ice caps that are disappearing.
00:32Coastal erosion is also washing people's homes away.
00:35All of our infrastructure, all of our everything we own is on a coastline.
00:39Fueled by rising sea levels, strong wave action, tides, and currents,
00:43it has led to the loss of land and infrastructure worldwide.
00:47From Louisiana's vanishing bayous to the Pacific's sinking atolls,
00:51entire towns are being displaced, sometimes permanently.
00:54The human cost of coastal erosion is enormous.
00:5710% of the world's population lives on a coastline that's less than 10 meters above sea level.
01:03For these coastal inhabitants, a three-degree world would spell disaster.
01:07As land disappears, it is accompanied by a loss of history, livelihood, and in some cases, entire cultures.
01:14Adapting to these changes isn't easy or cheap.
01:17Moving infrastructure, reinforcing shorelines, and relocating populations cost billions.
01:22Many at-risk areas lack the necessary resources.
01:25It's not just pretty beaches disappearing, but the map of the world itself is changing.
01:30Climate disasters may exacerbate reasons people cross borders.
01:34Within countries, more people will move to cities.
01:37Microplastic pollution in oceans.
01:39Plastic in the ocean is one thing, but plastic inside us is a whole other issue.
01:43Not only are these fragments being ingested from food and water, but those teeny tiny nanoplastics are in the air we breathe,
01:51and even entering directly through our skin via wounds, sweat glands, and hair follicles.
01:58Microplastics are tiny fragments of plastics from degraded products that have been found on local beaches
02:03to the deepest parts of the world's oceans.
02:06Marine life swallows them.
02:08Work your way up the food chain, and you realize who else is eating the fish.
02:11These toxins disrupt reproduction and wildlife, and have now infiltrated our drinking water.
02:17Everything from on land into the ocean comes back to humans, and it's just all a kind of a circular, interconnected world.
02:24Most of this is invisible to the naked eye, and near impossible to remove.
02:28Ignorance is bliss, but that is not the case here.
02:31Microplastics don't make headlines like an oil spill.
02:34Instead, they quietly continue building up in our clothing, grocery bags, and soda bottles.
02:40And the scariest part of all of this, as if it's not been scary thus far, I'm going to give it to you straight.
02:47We don't yet understand the implications of these invaders.
02:51Desert locust outbreaks in East Africa.
02:53The idea of billions of hungry insects descending like a living storm sounds quite biblical.
02:59Huge swarms of locusts are devastating crops.
03:02But this is exactly what happened in East Africa between 2019 and 2021.
03:06Desert locust swarms the size of major cities devoured crops and vegetation.
03:12The outbreak spread across a wide swath of territory, including Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, and beyond.
03:18The invasion poses a serious threat to food security in a region where up to 25 million people are already struggling to get enough to eat.
03:26Fueled by unusual weather conditions that made it favorable for locust breeding, the swarms devastated communities.
03:34Entire harvests vanished within hours.
03:36Alongside rising food insecurities, the locusts have been a plague.
03:40The crisis was eventually brought under control, but the conditions that caused it remain.
03:45Given the right mix of rain, temperature, and wind, the next swarm could be in the making.
03:50And we know that cyclones trigger locust plagues.
03:53So if that increase does continue, then there's a chance, a very high probability,
03:59that the Horn of Africa, Arabia, and other countries will face desert locust upsurges and outbreaks like we have now.
04:06Amphibian extinction crisis.
04:08Polar bears and honeybees have been the media darlings for animals in trouble.
04:12Now we have frogs and salamanders to add to the list.
04:15This was appreciated as a global phenomenon in the mid-1980s when herpetologists from all different parts of the world independently had noticed
04:26that species or populations which were once very abundant are now very rare.
04:34Amphibians are disappearing at a faster rate than any other group of vertebrates,
04:38largely due to habitat destruction, pollution, climate change, and a deadly fungal disease called chytritiomycosis.
04:46And suddenly in the 20th century, the fungus changed a bit and amphibians' populations,
04:54maybe because of climate change, or pesticides or herbicides were put under greater stress
05:00and they succumbed to the fungus that hadn't bothered them previously.
05:04Amphibians serve as a key indicator of ecosystem health, play a crucial role as pest controllers,
05:10and are essential links in food chains.
05:13Losing them would destabilize the entire ecosystem.
05:16With over 90 species in decline, scientists are warning that we may be facing mass extinctions in our lifetime.
05:23Unfortunately, frogs don't have the same PR appeal as others, so their crisis is rarely a trending topic.
05:29There are estimates that upwards of 40% of the world's species, and we're talking about many thousands of species,
05:37may go extinct within the next 50 years.
05:42There's even a species named after me, which is likely to go extinct in the next 25 to 50 years.
05:48Loss of traditional ecological knowledge.
05:51Knowledge may be power, but that power is fading.
05:53Sometimes scientists are too quick to assume that the best way to conserve nature is to keep people out.
06:02And that approach doesn't recognize the integral nature between human communities and their ecosystems.
06:11Unlike a natural disaster, this isn't a storm or a plague, but an erosion of traditional ecological knowledge.
06:18It is the understanding of our environment that has been built over several generations by the indigenous communities.
06:24That recognition, that kind of changes the conversation from kind of an old-school view of conservation,
06:31and that is, you know, how do we protect nature from people,
06:35to a much more open conversation about how do we conserve nature for people.
06:40From managing land, water, and resources,
06:43to providing sustainable methods for farming, fishing, and conservation,
06:46traditional ecological knowledge is a wisdom that modern science is only just beginning to appreciate.
06:52It is now in danger of being lost to the annals of time.
06:56As these systems of knowledge gradually vanish,
06:58we approach the very real possibility of losing a key piece of humanity's survival toolkit.
07:04Traditional knowledge is knowledge that we've gathered over thousands of years
07:09through observation, through practicing, through this kind of adaptive management process.
07:14Eutrophication of water bodies.
07:17What happens when a lake takes in too many nutrients?
07:20It's when nutrients get into lakes and oceans.
07:22Remember, what's waste to humans can be food to plants and other creatures.
07:27It becomes covered in a thick green slime on its surface.
07:30This is called eutrophication.
07:32It is a process where excess nutrients overload a water body.
07:36This triggers the growth of algae that blocks the sunlight,
07:39chokes out plants, and depletes oxygen levels.
07:41The lake becomes a dead zone where almost nothing can survive.
07:45It is bad news for the fish and for local economies.
07:48In some cases, when algae releases toxins, a public health issue arises.
07:52The alarming aspect is that eutrophication is becoming increasingly prevalent
07:56in rivers, lakes, and coastal waters worldwide.
07:59Solving it means rethinking a large part of how we grow food and manage our waste.
08:04But it doesn't have to be this way.
08:08Protecting marine resources starts with sound agricultural and waste management practices.
08:13Rise in antimicrobial resistance.
08:16In just over a century, antibiotics have rewritten the field of modern medicine
08:20and extended the average human lifespan by 23 years.
08:24Antimicrobial resistance affects us all because anyone could at some point be infected by potentially
08:30deadly common microbes that no longer respond to the medicines we use to treat them.
08:35Now imagine what would happen if antibiotics stopped working.
08:39The scary thing is that it's already happening.
08:42Antimicrobial resistance is becoming increasingly common as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites
08:48continue to evolve and develop resistance to treatment.
08:51If we don't do anything now, we will have a post-antibacterial era by 2050.
08:58With antibiotics being as popular as they are, their increased use has accelerated the problem.
09:04Infections that were once easily treatable can now become deadly.
09:07Labeled as one of the top global health threats of the 21st century,
09:10antimicrobial resistance threatens us with a world where even a minor cut can become life-threatening.
09:16It's a natural evolutionary process, and this is accelerated by the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials.
09:23We can't stop it, but we can slow it down.
09:25Yemen's humanitarian crisis.
09:27While the world's attention is focused on other conflicts,
09:30Yemen has been enduring one of the worst humanitarian crises of our time.
09:34In this war, it's not just the fighting that's causing all the suffering.
09:38Even aid is being used as a weapon.
09:40Prolonged conflict since 2015 has laid waste to the nation's infrastructure,
09:45destabilized the economy, and left over 21 million people facing famine and needing assistance.
09:51Don't know how to paint a picture of how difficult the daily life of Yemenis are.
09:56Even the lucky ones are facing things that we can't even imagine.
10:00With essential services impacted, limited access to basic health care,
10:04and an upsurge of diseases like cholera, the nation's plight has been an overwhelmingly uphill battle.
10:10Despite the urgency of the situation, the crisis has received limited global media coverage and awareness.
10:16With ongoing political instability and limited international aid,
10:20recovery for the millions of people in Yemen remains a distant hope.
10:24It is really necessary to talk about accountability.
10:29This is the only thing that will make warning parties think about the sufferer of the civilians.
10:37The global soil crisis.
10:39To grow healthy food, you need healthy soil.
10:42Sounds simple, but it may not be that easy any longer.
10:45So the world's soil is dying, but why should we care?
10:48Well, first, it feeds us.
10:5095% of our food comes from soil, but one-third of the world's topsoil has already been degraded.
10:58Overfarming, deforestation, erosion, pollution, and climate change
11:02are collectively contributing to soil degradation worldwide.
11:05Nutrient-rich topsoil takes centuries to form,
11:08but it can be lost in just a few seasons of bad management.
11:11This impacts water quality, carbon storage, agriculture, and biodiversity.
11:15If the current trend holds, 95% of the earth could be degraded by 2050.
11:21A regular season of harvest and gain could easily turn into the loss of an entire harvest's worth
11:26of fertile land if this trend continues.
11:29It is the type of disaster that the media finds boring.
11:32However, without an immediate response, the global soil crisis will force humanity
11:36to face massive shifts in how and where food can be grown.
11:40To put it simply, without it, the earth dies.
11:43Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel
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11:57Impacts of PFAS forever chemicals on public health.
12:03PFASs are like the glitter of the chemical universe.
12:06Once they are out there, good luck getting rid of them.
12:09These so-called forever chemicals are man-made,
12:11used in Teflon, firefighting foam, even facial makeup,
12:15and previously, indestructible.
12:18Also called forever chemicals, PFASs don't break down in the environment,
12:22and like gum on the bottom of a shoe, cling on.
12:25They're also ubiquitous, found in everything from non-stick pans and waterproof jackets
12:30to firefighting foam and even in our bloodstream.
12:33They're known as forever chemicals because it really takes a long time
12:37for them to break down in the environment.
12:40And they're present in the environment, and they're also present in our human bodies.
12:44That last part is not good, because PFAS's exposure is links to cancers,
12:48immune system issues, and developmental problems.
12:52Cleaning up PFASs is enormously expensive and technically challenging.
12:56So what has been done about it?
12:58Absolutely nothing.
12:59Unfortunately, this isn't just a chemical spill.
13:02It's a global contamination issue that will affect generations, unless something is done.
13:07I won't live to see it get any better in all likelihood.
13:10And my son, if he has the strength to get into the business,
13:14will he live to see any improvements?
13:17I don't have much hope.
13:18These disasters might not dominate the news cycle,
13:21but they still shape the future in ways we can't ignore.
13:24Which of these do you think should be getting way more attention?
13:27Let us know in the comments.
13:29And as always, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo for more eye-opening lists.
13:34We're looking at at least sea level rises of tens of centimeters over the next decades.
13:40Sea level rise only makes the erosion issue worse.
13:48See you then.
13:49See you then.
13:53Bye-bye.
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