What are the major environmental problems and challenges? How do they rank in importance?
Many of the highly visible public concerns, such as chemical exposures leading to illness, are not ranked as the most pressing problems by environmental experts. From a Western/first world perspective, global warming and biodiversity protection are major concerns. From a third world perspective, where billions of people do not have clean drinking water or wastewater treatment systems, and indoor cooking smoke presents serious health risks, the challenges are different. There are many additional concerns, which periodically make the national news. All of these topics relate to the concept of sustainability, which may be imperiled as developing countries achieve a higher quality of life.
