What The World Wants

This chart seeks to make the point that what the world needs to solve the major systemic problems confronting humanity is both available and affordable. Clearly, to deal with a problem as complex and large as, for example, the global food situation, with just a small part of a single graph is incomplete, at best. The following explanations of the charts various components are not intended as complete or detailed plans, but rather as very broad brush-strokes intended to give the overall direction, scope and strategy. The paper, "What the World Wants Project" goes into more detail. It is available from the World Game Institute at the address below. (References listed at bottom of page contain supporting documentation, further explication and related information.)

Strategy 1. Eliminate Starvation and Malnourishment/Feeding Humanity: $19 billion per year for ten years, allocated as follows: $2 billion per year for an International Famine Relief Agency—spent on international grain reserve and emergency famine relief; $10 billion per year spent on farmer education through vastly expanded in-country extension services that teach/demonstrate sustainable agriculture, use of local fertilizer sources, pest and soil management techniques, post harvest preservation, and which provide clear market incentives for increased local production; $7 billion per year for indigenous fertilizer development. Educational resources of Strategy 10 coupled with this strategy. Closely linked with #'s 2, 3, 4, 9, 10. Cost: 55% of what US spends on weight loss per year.

Strategy 2A. Provide Health Care For All: $15 billion per year for ten years spent on providing primary health care through community health workers to all areas in the world that do not have access to health care. Closely linked with #'s 1, 3, 4, 5, 9.
Strategy 2B. Provide Special Child Health Care: Within the 15 billion, $2.5 billion per year spent on: a) providing Vitamin A to children who lack it in their diet, thereby preventing blindness in 250,000 children/year; b) providing oral rehydration therapy for children with severe diarrhea; and c) immunizing 1 billion children in developing world against measles, tuberculosis, diphtheria, whooping cough, polio and tetanus, thereby preventing the death of 6-7 million children/year.
Strategy 2C. Iodine Deficiency Program: $40 million per year for iodine addition to table salt to eliminate iodine deficiency, thereby reducing the 566 million people who suffer from goiter and not adding to the 3 million who suffer from overt cretinism.
Strategy 2D. AIDS Prevention and Control Program: $6 billion per year allocated as follows: $3 billion per year for a global AIDS prevention education program; $2 billion per year for providing multiple drug therapy to AIDS patients in the developing world; $1 billion per year for research and development for an AIDS vaccine or cure.
Costs for all Health Care Strategies: 16% of what US spends on alcohol and tobacco per year.

Strategy 3. Eliminate Inadequate Housing and Homelessness: $21 billion per year for ten years spent on making available materials, tools and techniques to people without adequate housing. Closely linked with #'s 1, 4, 5, 9. Cost: amount US spends on golf every 16 months.

Strategy 4. Provide Clean and Abundant Water: $10 billion per year for ten years spent on making available materials, tools and training needed to build and maintain the needed wells, water and sewage pipes, sanitation facilities and water purifying systems. Closely related to #'s 1, 2, 3, 9. Cost: 1% of what the world spends on illegal drugs per year.

Strategy 5. Eliminate Illiteracy: $5 billion per year for ten years; $2 billion spent on a system of 10 to 12 communication satellites and their launching; $2 billion spent on ten million televisions, satellite dish receivers, and photovoltaic/battery units for power—all placed in village schools and other needed areas throughout high illiteracy areas; the rest (90% of funds), spent on culturally appropriate literacy programming and maintenance of system. Closely related to #'s 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11. Cost: 5% of the cost of the Gulf War; 14 months of what the US spends on video games.

Strategy 6. Increase Energy Efficiency: $33 billion per year for ten years spent on increasing car fleet mileage to over 50 m.p.g., plus increasing appliance, industrial processes, and household energy and materials use to state of the art. Closely linked with #'s 7, 8, 12, 13, 14. Cost: 13% of what US teenagers spend per year.

Strategy 7. Increase Renewable Energy: $17 billion per year for then years spent on tax and other incentives for installation of renewable energy devices, graduated ten year phase-out of subsidies to fossil and nuclear fuels, research and development into more advanced renewable energy harnessing devices. Closely linked with #'s 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14. Cost: 13% of current subsidies to electricity prices in the developing world.

Strategy 8. Debt Management: $30 billion per year for then years spent on retiring $500 billion or more of current debt discounted to 50% face value. Not only helps developing countries get out of debt, but helps banks stay solvent and furthers international trade. Closely linked with #'s 1, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14. Cost: 3.8% of world's annual military expenditures.

Strategy 9. Stabilize Population: $10.5 billion per year for ten years spent on making birth control universally available. Closely linked with #'s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Cost: 1.3% of the world's annual military expenditures.

Strategy 10. Preserving Cropland: $24 billion per year for ten years spent on converting one-tenth of world's most vulnerable cropland that is simultaneously most susceptible to erosion, the location of most severe erosion, and the land that is no longer able to sustain agriculture, to pasture or woodland; and conserving and regenerating topsoil on remaining lands through sustainable farming techniques. Both accomplished through a combination of government regulation and incentive programs that remove the most vulnerable lands from crop production; and by farmer education through vastly expanded in-country extension services that teach/demonstrate sustainable agriculture and soil management techniques. Closely linked to # 1. Cost: $3 billion less than the annual cost of US farmland loss; half the amount of price subsidies given to US and European farmers.

Strategy 11. Reverse Deforestation: $7 billion per year for ten years spent on reforesting 150 million hectares needed to sustain ecological, fuelwood, and wood products needs. Planted by local villagers, costs would be $400 per hectare, including seeding costs. Additional costs for legislation, financial incentives, enforcement of rainforest protection. Closely linked with #'s 10, 11. Cost: 0.9% of world's annual military expenditures.

Strategy 12. Reverse Ozone Depletion: $5 billion per year for twenty years spent on phasing in substitutes for CFC-20, CFC taxes, incentives for further research and development. Closely linked with # 14. Cost: 3.7% of US government subsidies to energy, timber, construction, financial services and advertising industries.

Strategy 13. Stop Acid Rain: $8 billion per year for ten years spent on combination of tax incentive, government regulation and direct assistance programs that place pollution control devices (electrostatic precipitators, etc.) on all industrial users of coal, increase efficiency of industrial processes, cars, and appliances. Closely linked to #'s 6, 7, 11, 14. Cost: about 1% of world's annual military expenditures.

Strategy 14. Reverse Global Warming: $8 billion per year for twenty years spent on reducing carbon dioxide, methane and CFC release into atmosphere through combination of international accords, carbon taxes, increases in energy efficiency in industry, transportation, and household, decreases in fossil fuel use, increases in renewable energy use and reforestation. Closely linked with #'s 6, 7, 11, 13. Cost: 17% of what the insurance industry paid out in the 1990s for weather related damage; 1% of world's annual military expenditures.

Strategy 15. Removal of Landmines: $2 billion per year for ten years spent on setting up cottage industries in each of the 64 countries that have landmines planted in their soils. Participants are intensively trained in the safe removal of landmines; compensation set at more than a days wage for each removed mine in each respective country. Closely linked with #'s 2, 16, 17, 18. Cost: less than the cost of a single B-2 bomber; less than one half what the US spends on perfume each year.

Strategy 16. Refugee Relief: $5 billion per year for ten years spent on an international Refugee Relief Agency that guarantees the safety of refugees and coordinates the delivery of food, shelter, health care and education. Closely linked with #'s 1, 2, 3, 4, 15, 18. Cost: 20% of the amount of arms sales to developing countries.

Strategy 17. Eliminating Nuclear Weapons: $7 billion per year for ten years spent on dismantling all the world's nuclear weapons and processing the plutonium and enriched uranium in nuclear reactors that produce power and render the radioactive materials into non-weapons grade material. Closely linked with #'s 15, 16, 18. Cost: 25% of what is spent each year on private "security"—private guards, weapons detectors, video surveillance, etc.

Strategy 18. Building Democracy: $2 billion per year for ten years spent on the following programs—an International Democratic Election Fund that would help finance voter education and multi-party elections in countries making the transition to democracy; a Global Polling Program that would ascertain what people from all over the world think and feel about key global issues; and a Global Problem Solving Simulation Tool that would enable anyone with access to the Internet to propose, develop and test strategies for solving real-world problems. Closely linked with #'s 5, 15, 16, 17. Cost for all three programs: less than one B-2 bomber; 0.025% of the world's annual military expenditures.

Major References: UNDP, Human Development Report 1996 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); UNICEF, State of the World's Children 1996 1995, 1994; Giving children a future: The World Summit for Children, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, 1990); UNHCR Refugees II-95, Public Information Service UNHCR 1995; The World Bank, World Development Report 1996 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996)); World Resources Institute, World Resources 1995-96, 1992-93; World Watch Institute, Vital Signs 1996; State of the World 1988-96, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996); Ho-Ping: Food for Everyone; Energy Earth and Everyone; World Game Institute, Doubleday, New York.

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Related Article: [What the World Wants Project]