World's Biggest Problems

"We are the change we are looking for; we are the change that we seek."
-President Barack Obama

1. The United States accounts for 5% of the world's population, but uses 25% of the world's energy.
Since there is ever increasing consciousness regarding sustainability, this has been and will be an issue that will have to be addressed by energy providers, consumers and politicians. The solution to it is extremely complicated. However, regardless of how the situation is addressed moving forward it will be solved because a focus will be put on not being wasteful in extracting copious amount of non-sustainable energy, but instead by maximizing the effectiveness of the energy resources we already have. 

2. Colorism across cultures causing discriminatory practices.
The concept of colorism goes back centuries, especially in black and Latinx communities that promote the concept of certain people being inherently superior to others due to lighter, more fair skin complexions and hair textures. This has to be solved with education on how equal opportunities for all people yields a more efficient workforce as well as progressive policies that afford all peoples with the necessary opportunities.

3. Extinction Across Species/Ecosystems
The extinction of species can lead to the destruction of ecosystems. This can lead to the decline of food sources for human. To preserve those ecosystems, and in turn these food sources, there has to be an active effort to preserve these ecosystems, including forming more sanctuaries and regulations on what work can be done in these areas.

4. Worldwide Income Inequality
This is a very broad topic in itself. However, in many developing countries the bottom half of people control less than ten percent of the wealth in any particular country. For the United States this can be particularly troubling, with one out of four of these people being affected in Asia, which as a region happens to be an economy that it is looking to work with, signing emissions deals and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This could be troubling, with the U.S. partnering with an economy that isn't as efficient as it could be.

5. Lack of Water
Currently, less than one percent of the world's water is safe to drink. With the amount of people in the world increasing, there's less water to go around. This has to be combated with new technologies that are created to treat larger amounts of unclean water faster.

6. The Prevalence of Armed Conflict
As the world becomes more and more developed, armed conflicts, regardless if its between nations or through independent organizations have a larger chance of hurting innocent civilians. Nations have found more damaging ways to harm each other, with crippling power structures through attacks in cyberspace and utilizing soft power (diplomacy) through sanctions more frequently.

7. Fear of Disease
Ebola is a disease that has been tracked since the 1970's. However, the recent outbreak has again raised the issue of world governments being effective at isolating and effectively treating infected areas and infected peoples. This has to lead in faster medical advances in being to identify potentially fatal diseases in people, especially in remote areas faster.

8. Information
With the advent of social media and the internet has come literally hundreds of thousands of platforms that people utilize to spread information. This could potentially lead to larger levels of misinformation among larger groups of people, or people being censored. This has to be solved as technology firms and companies work with world governments to ensure that policies are put in place to prevent this.

9. Governmental Instability 
Unstable governments that are prone to collapse could potentially create power vacuums that are filled by fanatic organizations that survive because of disorder. This problem becomes tricky to solve, with moral dilemmas on whether to keep up potentially corrupt governments or endure the consequence of allowing these independent organizations to flourish.

10. Unmotivated People
In several countries, there are several laws on the books that restrict the dissemination of information, voting, organizing into unions and striking. This is a problem by itself, but the problem is exacerbated when there aren't people to fight these issues. This problem will only be solved as long as there are people ready to fight for these rights.

-Oliver