World’s Biggest Problems

1.     Obesity

- Obesity extends beyond just affecting the individual person. The number of obese individuals has increased greatly in the last couple years and will continue to increase unless something is done. We need to create an environment where the easy meal choice can be a healthy meal choice. Obesity currently cost billions due to the loss of productivity and if we have any chance of decreasing this number, people need to become more aware of healthy alternatives.

2.     Natural Resource Depletion

- In the last decade or so we’ve seen a dramatic decrease in available resources. As it stands now, unless we make some changes, we will run out of resources like water and oil. To help combat the depletion we need to help conserve trees, and make conscious efforts to reduce pollution and electrical use.

3.     Deforestation

- Forests produce the air we breathe and it’s estimated that over 15 million acres of forests are destroyed each year. With the decrease in forests we experience increased carbon dioxide and loss of specie habitats. To help with this we need to make an effort to plant more trees, some organizations already exist that are devoted to planting trees.

4.     Access to clean drinking water

- We see this problem more in under-developed countries but as resources are becoming depleted, I would assume that this problem could spread into more developed countries. For example, Michigan has recently experienced contamination of their water and as a result shipments of bottled water have been sent to residents. In my opinion, the key to increasing access to clean water is education. In most cases we as humans can be blamed for the contamination of the water and the only way I see to solve this is through the education of the effects of our actions.

5.     Spread Of Infectious Disease

-We’ve seen an increase in diseases in the past couple years and I expect the number to continue to increase. I think one way to solve this is through education and vaccination. It’s understandable that some parents are concerned about vaccinating their children and I think the best way to help them is by educating them.

6.     International Terrorism

- Terrorism has increased in the last decade and a half with an exceptional increase in the last couple years. In my opinion the best way to help decrease terrorism is to get to the root of the problem. I think that everybody does something for a reason and if we can understand the motivation behind some of the recent actions that have taken place I think that we can start to change things. 

7.     Poverty

-Poverty is present across the entire world with large populations in under-developed countries. To help decrease poverty we have to look toward people that have experienced poverty first-hand to find a solution. I think that solving poverty is more complicated than just throwing money toward it. In my opinion, the only way to solve poverty is to have people who truly understand what living in poverty means to help formulate a solution.

8.     Unemployment

-The unemployment rate has fluctuated in the past couple years with only a slight decrease apparent. The problem that I see a lot in my hometown is that businesses are not creating new jobs; they are simply building a new store and transferring everybody. The solution is that there needs to be more jobs and the question is how do we create more jobs? I think one way is to expand small businesses. There are millions of small businesses across the globe and if we can increase the demand for their products than (hopefully) the small businesses will start to hire more people to fulfill the demands.

9.     Intolerance

- Intolerance encompasses a lot of different areas including religion, sexuality, and race. In the past decade we’ve made large strides toward tolerance but it seems in the last couple years we’ve taken steps backwards. To solve this I think it really depends on the next generation, most people in this generation already have set views on certain people and I think it would be a waste of time to try and change their views when we can instead focus on future generations.

10.  Money

- Our society has become more materialistic in the past couple of decades and I think in general it’s become unhappier. Today’s world is all about status and having “things”. To solve this we need to start focusing back on intangible assets and relationships. Somewhere along the way we lost focus of what was truly meaningful and became a society where we had to have to most stuff and people had viewed someone as better if they had more money.

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