Here are 10 of what I believe to be the world's biggest problems:
1) Poverty - Too much of the world's population is living in terrible conditions and on the verge of death. People live where disease is rampant and babies have a huge mortality rate. In fact, in many parts of the world it is rare to live past your 40's. Although I believe that we are on the right track to solving this problem, with many of the world's wealthiest people contributing some of their money to helping others and creating philanthropies, I believe there could be more people contributing and looking for solutions. I think it's hard to really realize how other people are living around the world when many of us are so secluded and privileged in America.
2) Hunger - This problem ties into the poverty problem. Many people who live in impoverished conditions also do not have any food to feed themselves or their families. In dry areas it comes down more to the availability of fresh water for irrigation. I believe we'll eventually be able to use solar power to create mechanisms that make water safe for drinking and therefore a lot of hunger problems will be fixed.
3) Politics - This is a problem that is seen every day through many different news outlets and newspapers. There are too many people who are very similar and intelligent who take extreme sides on certain issues and end up creating unnecessary and counterproductive conflict. I think that if political parties didn't exist and we could get all of our most intelligent politicians and businesspeople to bring their heads together and collaborate, we'd have a much more efficient and effective way of solving things.
4) War over Religion - This is similar to the politics problem that I wrote about above, but it spreads throughout the globe. There are too many people that are so brainwashed by their religions that they'd go to incredibly extreme measures to fulfill whatever they're told to do. I don't see religion coming to an end any time soon, nor do I believe that it needs to, but I wish that people had a more open mind about other religions and that people focused on the "love" and "respect" part of their religions more than the hatred.
5) Climate Change - This is a problem that is becoming very clear in my generation and it is only going to get worse. Unfortunately, too many people care more about themselves and the money they are making than the environment and the long term consequences of their actions. While I understand this mindset, I'm afraid that if major changes aren't made soon, it's going to be too late. I think a great way to help this is by having companies and schools "go green". I also think that environmental education should be a larger part of the elementary curriculum.
6) Species Extinction - This problem ties in with climate change, but it is also just part of the circle of life. While I understand that many species are eventually going to go extinct no matter what, and that it is only natural, I believe that the destructive actions of humans and the resulting climate change has a lot to do with the increasing rates of extinction that we've seen as of late. A great solution to this problem is protecting natural habitats and helping endangered populations repopulate in safe environments.
7) Over Population - The birth rate around the globe is increasing exponentially every year. I remember when I was first told about this when I was in middle school, I was so taken aback and confused as to why more people weren't concerned about this. While it is true that people are reproducing at faster and faster rates, I believe that we will be able to expand our cities and suburbs enough to accommodate everyone in the near future.
8) The Power of Money - I realize that this is something that is probably never going to change, but the way that everyone's life (at least most people) revolves around money and the job they're going to get in order to make money so that they can retire and spend money is so depressing to me. I think it's absolutely absurd that the common path for the sophisticated American adult is to be schooled from age 4 until age 22, then work from 9am to 5pm from age 22 to 60. That's 60 years of your life that you spend ALL DAY just to make money. The only solution to this is to take a more obscure career path, which is often risky.
9) Education - The public school system in America is only a fraction of the educational problem in the world. In many parts of the globe, there are people that are completely uneducated, and there's nothing they can do about it. It would be nice to see a world where education was more readily available for everyone. I think programs like Teach for America that implement this are doing a great job.
10) Inequality - This problem ties into the problem that I discussed above regarding the power of money. There is a tremendous amount of wealth inequality throughout the world. In some places it is worse than others. For example, in some parts of south America, there are people living in slums right underneath people living in mansions. While this is one of the harder problems to solve, I think that countries with dramatic wealth inequality should start looking up to countries with lesser inequality.
