World Solve

Wild animals experience enormous suffering from disease, starvation, and predation, and it's unclear whether humans have any duty to intervene, given the massive scale and complexity involved. This unresolved question is a growing but underexplored area of ethics.

Vast areas of farmland worldwide have been degraded by decades of intensive use, and restoring their fertility can take years even with the right techniques. Scaling this restoration affordably remains an unresolved agricultural challenge.

Fertilizer and pesticide runoff from farms create dead zones in rivers and lakes where oxygen levels drop too low to support aquatic life. Preventing this runoff without harming farm productivity remains an unresolved environmental challenge.

Soil erodes far faster than it naturally regenerates in many farming regions, threatening long-term food production capacity. Reversing this imbalance at a global scale remains an unresolved agricultural and environmental challenge.

Crop residue and animal waste could theoretically be converted into biogas or other clean energy sources, but the infrastructure needed remains too costly for many farms to adopt. Scaling this technology affordably remains an unresolved opportunity.

Ocean shipping produces a significant share of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet the industry has been slower than others to adopt cleaner fuel alternatives at scale. Speeding up this transition remains an unresolved climate challenge.

Kelp forests support diverse marine ecosystems but are increasingly vulnerable to warming waters and invasive species that outcompete them once they weaken. Restoring and protecting these ecosystems at scale remains an unresolved conservation challenge.

Sustainable aviation fuel exists but remains far more expensive and limited in supply than traditional jet fuel, keeping airline adoption slow. Scaling production to meet real demand remains an unresolved industry challenge.

Insect populations, including many pollinators, have been declining in various regions due to habitat loss, pesticide use, and climate change, threatening the broader ecosystems and agriculture that depend on them. Reversing this decline at scale remains unresolved.

Construction and demolition debris makes up a significant share of total waste in many rapidly growing cities, and recycling this material at scale remains inconsistently practiced. Reducing this waste stream remains an unresolved urban sustainability issue.

A fungal disease combined with habitat destruction has driven sharp declines in amphibian populations across many regions, and effective large-scale intervention remains limited. Protecting these ecologically important species remains an unresolved conservation priority.

Textile factories, especially in regions with weaker environmental regulation, often release dye chemicals directly into rivers, causing serious water pollution. Making this process clean and affordable at industrial scale remains an unresolved challenge.

Many reforestation projects plant fast-growing single species rather than rebuilding complex, biodiverse forest ecosystems, which limits their true ecological value. Making these projects genuinely restorative rather than just visually green remains an unresolved challenge.

Larger plastic debris eventually breaks down into microplastics that are ingested by marine life and can work their way up the food chain to humans. Preventing this breakdown process or removing microplastics at scale remains technically unresolved.

Heavy metal contamination can persist in soil for decades, affecting both agricultural productivity and human health in nearby communities. Effective, affordable soil remediation at scale remains an unresolved environmental challenge.

Soot particles from fires and diesel engines can settle on snow and ice, absorbing more heat and accelerating melting beyond what temperature alone would cause. Reducing this pollution source at the scale needed to slow ice melt remains unresolved.

Artisanal mining, often for gold, frequently uses toxic mercury and lacks basic safety protections, harming both workers' health and nearby water systems. Making this widespread informal industry safer at scale remains an unresolved global challenge.

A large share of organic waste still ends up in landfills producing methane simply because industrial composting infrastructure isn't available in enough regions. Building this capacity out at the scale needed remains an unresolved waste management challenge.

Fraudulent warranty claims, sometimes supported by AI-generated fake documentation or images, can cost manufacturers significant money if not caught before payout. Detecting this kind of fraud at scale remains an unresolved operational challenge.

Defenses against these attacks, which flood a target with traffic to knock it offline, can sometimes inadvertently slow down real users as well while filtering out malicious requests. A cleaner separation between attack and legitimate traffic remains technically difficult.