The watchlist
Rising problems
The Problem Atlas holds problems with mature evidence about what works. This page is the queue behind it: problems whose trend lines are real and climbing, but whose intervention evidence is still young. This is where problems audition for the Atlas β and where attention arriving early counts double.
Superbugs outrunning our antibiotics
Drug-resistant infections directly kill over 1.1 million people a year, projected to near 1.9 million by 2050.
Why it's rising: Antibiotics are overused in humans and farm animals while the pipeline of new ones has thinned to a trickle β resistance compounds, discovery doesnβt.
What works so far: Stewardship programs, incentive schemes for new antibiotics, vaccines that prevent the infection in the first place, and clean water cutting infection loads.
The deadliest weather, and the fastest-growing
Heat already contributes to roughly half a million deaths a year β more than floods, storms and hurricanes combined.
Why it's rising: Every fraction of a degree adds exposure, and the populations aging fastest live in the regions heating fastest.
What works so far: Heat action plans, early-warning systems, cool roofs and shaded cities β cheap, proven, and adopted by only a fraction of at-risk cities.
Pension pyramids meeting population columns
By 2050 one person in six on Earth will be over 65, and two-thirds of countries are already below replacement fertility.
Why it's rising: Care systems, pensions and labor markets were designed for young populations that no longer exist β the math breaks slowly, then suddenly.
What works so far: Healthspan research, care-workforce investment, later-life work redesign, and family support policies with honest evidence about what moves fertility (little does).
The steepest curve on any health chart
Anxiety and depression among adolescents have climbed sharply since the early 2010s; suicide is a leading cause of death for ages 15β29.
Why it's rising: Causes are contested β phones, isolation, economic anxiety β but the curve itself is not, and treatment systems were undersized before it began.
What works so far: School-based therapy programs, closing the treatment gap, and honest research on the social-media question instead of culture war.
Invisible until the wells fail
The aquifers behind roughly 40% of irrigated food are dropping, many at accelerating rates.
Why it's rising: Water underground is unmetered, unpriced and politically untouchable β so it is mined like a free resource until it isnβt there.
What works so far: Metering and fair pricing, drip irrigation, managed recharge, and crop choices that match the water that actually falls.
More people autocratizing than democratizing
Global freedom has declined for 18 consecutive years; most of humanity now lives under autocratic or autocratizing rule.
Why it's rising: The playbook β capture courts, starve media, keep elections as theater β travels between countries faster than the defenses do.
What works so far: Independent journalism, election infrastructure, anti-corruption enforcement β the same tools as the Atlas corruption entry, deployed earlier.
PFAS and microplastics, everywhere at once
Rainwater worldwide now exceeds proposed safe limits for PFOA; microplastics turn up in blood, placentas and Antarctic snow.
Why it's rising: The chemicals were designed not to break down, so every year of production is permanent β exposure only ratchets up.
What works so far: Restricting non-essential uses (the EU is moving), safer substitution, and destruction tech for the worst-contaminated sites.
Scam factories running on trafficked labor
Online fraud now steals an estimated $1 trillion a year, run partly from compounds where hundreds of thousands are held in forced labor.
Why it's rising: AI tools make every scam cheaper, more fluent and more personal, while enforcement stops at every border the money crosses.
What works so far: Financial chokepoints, platform takedowns, cross-border enforcement, and freeing the trafficked workers the industry runs on.