Five Future Problems America Refuses to Address
This is a Starter List
I’ve been proactive for years.
A few hard knocks in life were all it took for me to wise up and do whatever I could to avoid problems in the future. I hate fixing messes.
You’d think that the richest country in the world would have a pretty good grasp on historical events that caused unnecessary problems and take a proactive approach to governance.
Apparently, procrastination, denialism, and refusing to get ready for a rainy day are the norm. How many times have you seen warnings by experts that tell us what’s coming, but the majority response is lack luster?
Here’s five future problems that experts are predicting we’ll be facing in the not so distant future that so far we are either ignoring altogether or slow to respond to with a plan.
- There’s a serious shortage of doctors looming in the near future.
We’re not talking about 50 years from now. It’s already begun and it’s going to get worse over the course of the next 10 years. This is occurring during a time when higher education is being downplayed as a waste of time and it’s more difficult to bring in foreign doctors. Instead of promoting a pathway to college that is affordable and supported by a culture that admires education, we are tearing down universities and diminishing the voice of specialists as well as making higher education unaffordable for many. Go figure, eh? Of course, we’ll all suffer the dire consequences.
2. There’s a serious shortage of nurses as well.
So, that’s a double whammy for health care systems and ultimately for an aging population. As healthcare needs skyrocket, the shortage of qualified nurses will make it difficult to get home health and nursing home care. More and more people will be struggling to figure out what to do with mom and dad. I can easily imagine the stress that will cause in a culture where the aged are considered a burden who have outlived their usefulness.
3. There is a growing shortage of teachers.
Education once again is no longer considered important by many Americans. We were never a country that valued education if we compare ourselves to countries like Germany, Japan, or Korea to name a few, but we now have politicians who are literally trying to destroy our public schools. There’s probably a number of reasons why so many politicians are anti education. However, no matter their agenda, if we want to compete in the world, we need more education not less. Everything is more complex. Certainly, a lot of elderly feel completely lost in our highly digitized world. Education should be a national concern and it starts with good schools, highly trained educators, and support for the development of our young people from day one. The youngest among us are the future.
4. Our infrastructure is not ready to face the changing climate.
The fact is that our infrastructure is not just seriously antiquated, it’s seriously outdated. We’ve ignored it for so long that bridges are crumbling, roads are in disrepair, water and sewer systems are inadequate, and the electrical grid is insufficient. But even if we repaired it all according to the original standards that wouldn’t be enough. Because the original designs were for a weather system much less destructive that what we encounter today.
Unless our plan is to simply sink billions and billions of dollars into rebuilding over and over again, we need to take this task to heart. The Biden administration has made the first big effort in years to address some of these needs, but we’re coming into the game kind of late. We need to tackle this problem full force. Once again that calls for an army of engineers and other well-trained Americans, making my point that education is at the root of fixing things.
5. Climate change has taken center stage at last.
We are now reaping the consequences of procrastination, denial, and ignorance. If we don’t find a way to cooperate, develop new technologies and support innovation, we’ll continue to suffer dire outcomes. Without a solid plan that evolves with new knowledge, we’re destined to keep spinning our wheels. We need scientists and researchers more than ever now.
So that’s my short list.
It’s a very short list at that. There’s a lot wrong with America and the average Joe has no idea how to fix it. We need to stop pretending otherwise. It’s time to get busy. That’s how we fixed things in the past. Yeah. Once upon a time, this country had to be connected by a complex road system and guess what? That’s right. Someone engineered a plan and hired people to do it. It was the American government no less.
It can be done.
The question remains, however. Will we rise to meet the challenge? I contend that as long as we have a growing disdain for education, we’ll be tying our own hands behind our backs.
Maybe we’ll deserve what we get.
Teresa is an author, world traveler, and professional myth buster. You can find her books on Amazon.
