World's Biggest Problems

With so many problems in the world, here are ten that I think are pretty big:

1.  Climate Change 
• Science has proved that humans are negatively effecting the climate. This will have many repercussions including loss of species' habitats, weather becoming more severe, rising temperatures, loss of polar ice caps, rising sea levels, and coast line cities disappearing.
• Some things that can be done about this are to invest in renewable fuels, make more effort to clean oil spills, pick up trash, and remove green house gasses from the atmosphere. 
2. Human Rights Violations
•  There are more slaves now than there has ever been in the history of mankind, including sex slaves, labor slaves, and people who would be considered free, but kept in slave-like conditions.  Also women in many countries are restricted from opportunities such as education, freewill, and life.  In addition, the treatment of female babies in China is disturbing.
• Important things to fix this problem would be to spread awareness, increase foreign aid efforts, increase peace efforts, and promote education for women and people in poverty.
3. Animal Protection
•  Many species are becoming extinct, endangered, or threatened, including the passenger pigeon, the northern white rhino, and manatees.  Humans treatment of the animals themselves, and their habitats, cause this issue.
• Increasing protection efforts would be the best way to help animal species survive.
4. Environmental Protection
• Many of the rain forests in the world are disappearing. This is caused by population growth, logging, among other things.  Also, with the destruction of rain forests, is the disappearance of plant and animal species.
• Increased protection efforts, more funding for state parks, and investing in alternative materials would help prevent deforestation and the destruction of the environment.
5. War
•  With war all over the world, including Africa, the Americas, and the Middle East so many people are being killed and forced to live in awful conditions.  It prevents people from accessing basic needs.
• Some things that would help would be limiting the leverage special interest groups have on politicians, increasing compromise efforts and deliberation, and providing access to education.
6. Hunger
• With 1/3 of the world obese, it seems ridiculous that 1/3 of the world is still starving.
• Governments in poverty need to be helped and powerful countries need to stop taking advantage of underdeveloped countries. Increased access to education and productive farming practices.  Increased investments in GMOs would also help provide food to hungry people.
7. Lack of Clean Water



Ganges River

• Rivers, like the Ganges and Yangtze, are very unsanitary.  This river is contaminated with feces, diseases, and other pollutants.  Without access to other water, this is what people have to use for bathing and drinking.
• Education is a priority to prevent people from continuing to use this polluted water.
8. Population Growth
•  Population is growing at a rate that Earth won't be able to handle.  The fast growing population has resulted in urban sprawl, encroachment on animal habitats, sanitary issues, job availability, and poor transportation.
• This is a tricky one to solve.  Of course you can always say education, but actually reducing population would require killing or limiting births which both aren't acceptable.
9. Unequal Distribution of Wealth
•  In the U.S. alone the distribution of wealth is extremely skewed, with the top 5% having 60% of the wealth, and the lowest 40% having only 0.2% of the wealth.  Other places in the world have even worse distribution.  This issue keeps the poor people from rising above the poverty line.
• A solution would of course be to tax the rich and redistribute the wealth, but that defies the concept of capitalism and with the rich very influential in governments, probably will not happen.
10. Disease
•  With lack of food, access to clean drinking water, and education about disease transmission, the outbreak of AIDS, yellow fever, Ebola, and other diseases is concerning.
• Providing more education about the spread of diseases along more access to health care and sanitary efforts would help stop the spread of disease.