Fixing the world

The goal of this page is to give a global perspective on the problems of the world and the way to fixing them, if can be singled out.

The problems it's looking to identify must clearly be identified as bad. "hunger, violence..." and similar.

''Note: try to stick to Millions when quoting figures regarding to worldwide population or budget, in order to keep a better perspective. 265 millions has the trick to unconsciously seem higher than 1.2 billions''

Hunger
Source: wikipedia
 * Basal metabolism is between 4600 and 9200 kJ a day depending on stature, age and gender.
 * Physically active people must be able to spend a minimum of 12,500 kJ a day.
 * Most people around the world require daily physical exertion.

Source: Wikipedia
 * 1000M people are considered malnourished
 * 36M people die of malnutrition every year (58% of the yearly death toll)
 * Of which 5M children, more than half the child-death toll.
 * Children have higher basal metabolism and are more subject to die from lack of calories.
 * Note that the causes of death for children must be somewhat dramatic. They can't die of natural causes.


 * 884M 13% people have no access to a protected source of water
 * Source: Wikipedia


 * Links to hygiene and epidemies

Healthcare

 * XXX people have no health insurrance. XXX have partial health insurance.
 * Due to low income, XXX people are not in the position of getting treatment for a grave illness or accident.

Diseases

 * Epidemic prevention is bellow current standard for XXX people
 * Epidemics are not worried about in regions where XXX people live.

War
Megadeath war like WW1 and 2 seem to be out of fashion. The most deadly recent conflict (Congo) has killed 4M over the course of 6 years (98-04), which is way bellow the rate achieved mid-century in Europe.
 * Sudden death from war does not represent a significant death toll.
 * Source: Heavy web research. Put numbers if you can.


 * XXX people are directly affected by a war in the past 10 years
 * Can someone dig that number?

Sources: Global Issues, Global Security
 * Amount spend yearly worldwide on military: $1,500,000M ($1,5T)
 * 3% of the World GDP
 * Of which 46% is only for the USA (10 times that of the nr2 (China))
 * Rising steadily at the rate of 6% per year.
 * Estimated arm contraband budget worldwide: XXXX
 * It seems there are no available figures, neither in $ nor in volume.
 * An high availability of guns on a black market is likely to tip political protest into violence.
 * Violent protest seem to not work very well. Non violent protest is more likely to lead to change.
 * Reducing the availability of weapons is likely to promote social change, in addition to reducing war consequences. (Move to "solutions")

Inequalities

 * Racial
 * Gender
 * Social

Overpopulation

 * 2010 growth rate: 1.2%, steadily losing 0.03 points every year
 * Leads to a 2050 peak of 9,200M people followed by a decline (prospect likely to change).

Carrying capacity of the Earth
Current: 5,100M humans reducing steadily (as developing countries are developing and consume more per capita).

Arable land available on Earth: 10 to 20% of exposed surface: CIA factbook: 15M sq km Webster: 31M sq km Irrigated: 2,7M sq km source (also CIA factbook)

XX% of arable land in under intensive farming, XX% in organic farming, XX% in extensive farming.
 * Max: XXXX (optimizing production, limiting consumption)
 * Max with current cultivated land: XXXX

Is food the limiting factor? Is in not water? Or energy?
 * It could be something as unimportant as lithium. If one ingredient goes missing, many recipes will be unavailable.

70% of drinking water goes to irrigation.

Discrimination
Globalisation allow for strong mixing of populations. Cultures are confronted to each other more and more.

Ecology

 * Fossil fuel is running out
 * Biodiversity is running out
 * Desertification
 * Climate change
 * Possible rise of the sea level
 * Few recycling chains are available
 * The planet will be handed over to the next generation in a worse state

Causes of problems
Do not try to make one cause correspond to one problem. War creates violence AND famines for example. Stick to what is clearly causing problems globally.

Let's also concentrate of causes that can be fixed at an acceptable cost.

Please post your name if you're criticizing an entry.

Market economy

 * Consumer side: Consumption society : Material possessions as a way to happiness is causing society to produce non-sustainable quantities.
 * Producer side: Cutting costs at all price / Worker exploitation / Creation of artificial needs in consumers

Representative democracy

 * Elections: Need to please the people to govern.
 * Easy for well organized interest groups to create lobbies
 * Short mandates = Priority given to short term objectives

Inconsistent financial system

 * The more complex a system, the more exploitable.
 * Easy to escape regulation through financial havens
 * Lack of transparency
 * Lets the same financial entity be sold multiple times.
 * Makes it difficult to check the solvency of a financial institution.
 * Increasing automation that increases the risk of catastrophic runaway.

Media, race for attention

 * Misinformation of the consumer
 * Exageration of problems
 * Sensationalism
 * Combined with representative democracy, a great power is in the hands of private interests.

Corruption

 * Power corrupts
 * Greed corrupts

Broken education system

 * Clueless parents, debilitating education
 * Schools inefficient or elitist
 * Children are easy to manipulate / harness

Economics

 * Economical system that integrates the social and ecological factors in the essence.
 * Advertising as "information about a product you might not have heard of" rather than "creation of needs".
 * Put the consumer and the producer in the same boat (because that's where they are).

Growth

 * An economic growth based on the capability of a sector to grow sustainably.

Education

 * Relevant
 * Localized
 * Globalist
 * Efficient
 * Egalitarian, equalizing
 * For all, around the world

politics

 * Administration system optimized for longterm objectives.
 * Maximised and optimized fragmentation of political power.

Cultural identity

 * Each culture has a part of openness and a part of seclusion. Emphasize openness.

Media

 * Controled by the citizens

Localization
Production of goods geographically close to their consumption.

War

 * End country to country wars
 * End civil war
 * End weapon contraband

Ecology

 * Stop the destruction of ecosystems.
 * Reconstruct the destroyed ecosystems.

How to get there
Whatever you suggest must be DOABLE. In less than a year if possible.

For anything that can't be done in one year, please tag with LT for Long Term.

Finance

 * Modernize the concept of money-as-trust.
 * Base the trust-value on actual personal trust.
 * Pass financial legislation at the global level. UN international law.
 * Regulate or suppress exchanges between the UN economical space and the rogue economies.

Localization

 * Global carbon-tax based on the transportation of goods, reinvested in the destination region.

War

 * Indexind military budget on other administrative budgets.

Weapon contraband

 * Produced in licensed factories: have a UN referer in every one of them to ensure the traceability of each gun.
 * Produced in unauthorized factories: seek and destroy

UN reform

 * Suppression of "permanent member" status at the security council.
 * Index the UN weight of each country to the Human Footprint Index.
 * Set up a UN standing army.
 * Set up a UN terraforming unit (see mandate bellow).

Terraforming

 * Win back on the desert.
 * Replant the most critical forests.
 * Reconstruct the habitat of the most endangered species.

Culture

 * Promote vegetarianism

Links

 * http://fix-the-world.wikispaces.com/