The World’s 13 Biggest Problems, Ranked

Can we get the priorities right?

More than 99.9% of human history passed before the industrial revolution came along and changed everything. The last century alone (a mere 0.03% of our 300-millennia existence) saw our numbers quadruple and our economy explode by a staggering 3300%. In the historical blink of an eye, humanity became the dominant force on planet Earth.

In many ways, we’re like one of those child emperors of old. We hold tremendous power, but we lack the experience and discipline to wield it responsibly. The obvious result is a slew of serious global problems.

This article gives my pick for the top 13 (with seven bonus problems at the end). Understanding these big-picture problems and taking swift remedial action is key to making a success of the 21st century, which will surely go down as one of the most influential centuries in human history.

But this is not some doom and gloom article. I want to emphasize right at the start that we’re still making significant progress on many fronts (take some time to page through the Sustainable Development Goal graphs).

Indeed, the fact that we are moving forward despite all the problems outlined below illustrates our tremendous potential. Unlocking more of this potential to give ourselves a fair shot at building a just and sustainable global society this century is the ultimate goal of this article.

So, with that in mind, allow me to present the world’s 13 biggest problems.

Problem 1: Extreme Inequality of Opportunity

Life is unfair, ridiculously so at times. Most importantly, your birthplace remains the dominant factor in the level of material comfort you get to enjoy — a global lottery where a lucky few are born into affluence and the rest are condemned to the vicious cycle of poverty.

As the preceding graphic illustrates, there are many forces working to keep those born into poverty poor. And the poorer the country of birth, the stronger these forces become. The image below shows that strong institutions in social democracies like the Nordics give poorer folks the opportunity to build better lives for themselves and their children. In developing nations, however, it takes a shameful 7–9 generations on average for members of poor families to climb to the middle of the social ladder.

Indeed, those born into poverty in poor countries have almost no chance of building a decent life. This is the world’s greatest injustice, and the worst is that those of us who won the lottery of birth rarely lift a finger to address this #1 global problem. In fact, we still complain about not having enough.

There is no excuse for this inaction. As shown below, even an average Joe born into a rich society will have 20 people below him for every single person above him in the global income distribution — not because of his own hard work but simply because he got lucky at the lottery of birth.

The cost of this massive global inequality is tremendous. I quantified previously that the health and happiness that can be derived from equally distributing our resources is worth about 100% of global GDP. But that’s only part of it. If the billions of people who are economically excluded could actually contribute to the global economy, we could get so much more done. In addition, an equitable society inherently reduces socially destructive behavior like excessive instant pleasure consumption (Problem 2), oppression of women (Problem 3), crime (Problem 6), and corruption (Problem 9). It will also lessen the humanitarian and geopolitical problems arising from environmental constraints covered in Problems 10 an 13.

Yes, global poverty and inequality truly are our greatest global problems. And we should be doing a whole lot more to address them.

Problem 2: The Instant Pleasure Industry (IPI)

My pick for the second-largest global problem might come as a surprise. What I call the Instant Pleasure Industry, or IPI for short, is a multi-trillion-dollar behemoth whose business model relies on triggering instant dopamine releases to addict consumers to its products, usually with a broad range of detrimental longer-term consequences.

Examples include empty calories laden with sugar, salt, and saturated fat, addictive social media and video streaming platforms, and other vices like tobacco and alcohol. This is not to suggest that the IPI should be banned (the occasional glass of wine or movie night can enhance life), but serious action is needed to prevent addiction and the resulting problems from self-destructive overconsumption and binging.

The most visible negative effect of the IPI is the global lifestyle disease epidemic. Decades of slowly poisoning our bodies and minds with the IPI’s products strongly contribute to a wide range of disorders that are now responsible for 71% of global deaths, including 15 million premature annual deaths in the most productive age bracket of 30–69.

Aside from the incredible suffering brought by lifestyle diseases, they are also tremendously expensive. In the US, direct healthcare costs related to lifestyle diseases consume 6% of GDP. But that’s not even the biggest effect. When also accounting for the productivity losses caused by these diseases, the burden rises to 20%.

Then, there are the direct and indirect costs of producing all these harmful products. The tobacco and alcohol industries combine for a total annual turnover of $2.5 trillion. Although harder to quantify, producing empty calories (plus all the surplus calories required to cause obesity) and empty media probably consume even more of our time, effort, and resources.

Additional major costs of the IPI stem from a weakened immune system (increasing the likelihood of common infections like the flu) and detrimental psychological effects (like the mental health burden of obesity). These issues are leading causes of large productivity losses in the form of absenteeism and presenteeism, which cut an unbelievable 38 days of productivity from the average UK work year (48–77 days in Asian countries).

The IPI also plays a considerable role in sustaining Problem 1 discussed above. For example, underprivileged people are most likely to be obese and to smoke. In addition, the rate at which these problems are spreading to the developing world is particularly worrying. Overall, people who lost out at the lottery of birth are more likely to indulge in the dopamine hits offered by the IPI as a temporary escape from their difficult lot in life. Tragically, this severely handicaps their chances of bettering their lives.

Indeed, a big part of the problem is that we instinctively turn to the IPI when we’re down and in serious need of a mood booster. Ironically, the long-term effects of excessive instant pleasure consumption like obesity and other health problems, low productivity, and diminished self-esteem only serve to further increase demand for instant pleasure. Thus, the IPI plays a significant role in creating the misery that drives much of its business. After poverty, I view this as the world’s most destructive vicious cycle.

Problem 3: Women’s Rights in the Global South

Gender equality has come a long way in the West. For example, gender pay gaps are relatively small (US, Europe), especially among younger people. The remaining gap may be hard to erase, though, partly because STEM jobs (which play to men’s relative strengths) offer more lucrative pay.

Although there is still some room for improvement in rich-world gender equality, I do not view it as a major global challenge. Of far greater importance is the woeful state of women’s rights in most developing countries, especially Africa and South Asia.

Put bluntly, far too many women in the Global South are still treated as property with the primary purpose of producing offspring and keeping a home for their husbands. Aside from the suffering and indecency caused by this blatant discrimination, the most direct effect is very high fertility rates, leading to rapid population growth in the poorest world regions.

This challenge is most applicable to Africa, where the population is set to triple this century. On a continent already struggling to feed its citizens, this can only end in disaster. Climate change is not going to help either.

Aside from this humanitarian time bomb, gross gender inequality in the Global South also keeps women out of education and the labor force. Progress with Problem 1 above could be so much faster if women were allowed to help build society instead of having to bear and raise four or more children without any help from their husbands.

All told, rapid improvements in women’s rights in the Global South must be a top international priority. Neglecting it has severe consequences today and will be disastrous in the long run.

Problem 4: Uncontrollably Expanding Complexity

Our world is becoming increasingly complex, and, as any engineer will tell you, complexity quickly becomes problematic. When you have a complex system with many interconnected components, the whole system can be compromised by a small malfunction in just one of its parts. Finding and fixing such a problem and safely restarting the system can be a very tough task. And if the system becomes so complex that you don’t really understand it, a lasting fix becomes near-impossible.

Thus far, the benefits of more technology are still outweighing the added complexity it brings, but the gap is shrinking. For example, in spite of all its wonders, the incredible digital wave of recent decades has failed to arrest the slowdown in rich world economic progress. Meanwhile, developing nations (mainly Asia) are driving global growth with simple, old-school industrialization.

Yes, the downward trend shown below is enhanced by recent shocks like the global financial crisis and the Covid pandemic, but these are exactly the kinds of problems that should be expected from complex systems. It remains to be seen whether this linear decline continues beyond 0% growth (implying that rich world productivity actually enters a terminal decline despite ongoing innovation) or whether a sustained post-Covid recovery turns the tide. We’ll know soon enough.

Productivity is not the only thing that is failing to benefit from rising technological sophistication. As shown below, rich world happiness has been stagnant or slowly declining for the past 15 years. Finding real happiness in today’s complex world is tough, despite all its material and digital wonders.

It’s easy to understand why more technology is not necessarily better. Here are five sources of digital stress and anxiety that are all too easy to identify with (constant distraction being especially costly). Furthermore, relentless technological change requires ever-increasing levels of expensive education to function in society. More technological complexity also worsens Problem 1 by raising the threshold for landing a decent job and giving further leverage to a privileged minority who were handed every opportunity to become digital natives at an early age. Several other problems covered in this article are also intertwined with rising complexity (cybercrime covered in Problem 6 deserves special mention).

Looking to the future, it is hard to see meaningful changes to these trends. As a specialist in clean energy, I’m especially concerned about the growing drive to rapidly transform the global energy system (the very foundation of our society) to run mainly on intermittent wind and solar power. The increase in complexity of such a system relative to the status quo is immense, and this complexity is magnified manyfold when the transition is supposed to happen within a single generation.

Last but not least, this section would be incomplete without mentioning the next wave of technological advancement — artificial intelligence and automation. Along with tremendous opportunity, these game-changing developments also bring a wide range of interconnected technical, economical, and political challenges. As we enter the age of AI, we officially relinquish any hope of understanding the systems that govern our lives. Such a development would bring the biggest of all risks to the table (S and X risks). It should be done with extreme care.

Problem 5: The Desire to Impose Ideologies

Our history is one long tale of people enforcing their ideologies and ways of life onto other people. Often, the imposed ideology included being of a certain race, inherently devaluing certain population groups.

Hundreds of millions have died to satisfy this caveman instinct of their leaders, and it’s still ongoing. Luckily, we are keeping each other more tightly in check after the horrors of World War II, but arguably our main mechanism for preventing another global war, nuclear deterrence, is a major risk in itself.

But even if we put the unimaginable prospect of nuclear war aside, the resources spent on trying to impose our ideologies on each other (and resisting such imposition) remain exorbitant. On a global scale, the broader ideologies of the US, China, Russia, and some Middle Eastern countries are still in constant conflict. And, as shown below, the costs are massive — about 4.3% of global GDP (PPP) on military spending alone.

Locally, there are many controversial ideologies with fervent advocates on both sides of the debate investing tremendous amounts of time, energy, and resources to promote their views (and discredit opposing views). Here is a convenient list of 25 controversial topics consuming loads of resources.

In summary, the amount of suffering and productive effort wasted on attempts to force others to act according to our preferred ideology is tremendous, and there is little sign of improvement. It deserves a spot in the top 5 global problems.

Problem 6: Crime (Especially Cybercrime)

Despite rising living standards, crime remains a major global problem. As shown in the figure above, internal security (police, jails, the justice system, etc.), homicide, private security, and other violent crimes cost the world more than 5% of GDP (PPP). It’s hard to comprehend all the trauma and lost human potential encapsulated in this $7.2 trillion in damages.

But at least these “regular” criminal activities are relatively constant and well understood (they have been around for millennia). Unfortunately, a new form of crime is growing like a mushroom around the world: cybercrime.

This type of crime is estimated to already cost the world somewhere between $1 trillion and $6 trillion per year with continued exponential growth into the foreseeable future. Hence, the multi-trillion dollar question is, how long will this exponential growth last?

With the uncontrollable expansion of complexity covered in Problem 4, the answer is probably “too long.” If we have to spend an exponentially growing fraction of our time and energy protecting our digital lives against each other, it’s easy to see how cybercrime can erode any gains from increased technological sophistication.

It is also important to consider the potential for truly catastrophic damages from large-scale cyberattacks on massive infrastructure like electricity grids, defense assets, the financial system, and the vast quantities of data on cloud services. Our lives have become completely dependent on digital technology, and a nefarious entity gaining control over an important part of our digital world will wield the power to cripple the economy.

Problem 7: The Consumerist Treadmill

We all need a certain level of consumption to enjoy life — things like a solid roof over our heads and a reliable selection of healthy food. But we rarely stop there. Indeed, the world’s seventh-largest problem is tied to the large fraction of our effort that goes into oversized homes, luxurious SUVs, overflowing closets, soon-to-be-obsolete gadgets, and Instagrammable getaways.

Studies show that the correlation between consumption and happiness is small and mixed. But the fact that consumption is an ineffective path to happiness does not stop us from always wanting more.

Behind our insatiable drive to consume in excess lies something called the hedonic treadmill — the tendency of our minds to quickly reset to base levels of happiness after a positive (or negative) development. Yes, we get a temporary boost whenever we consume, but that high quickly fizzles out, always leaving us chasing the next consumerist fix.

The advertising industry has mastered the art of exploiting this weakness in human psychology. Emotion-laden messages emphasizing the happiness boost from consumption bombard us 8000 times a day, keeping consumerism strong and growing.

But we forget an obvious fact: Everything we consume must first be produced at a sizable cost in terms of effort and planetary resources. Thus, the harder we chase happiness through consumption, the harder we have to work, both directly (effort involved in production) and indirectly (extra effort associated with resource depletion and pollution).

If we genuinely enjoyed all this unnecessary extra work we’re creating for each other, it would be fine. But that’s not the case. Not even close.

The Gallup video above shows one of the saddest stats I’ve ever seen: 80% of people are disengaged with their work. This is a massive waste given the large fraction of our adult lives we spend on work (including commuting and after-hour emails) and the innate human need to make a meaningful contribution.

It only gets more ridiculous the more you think about it. We’re keeping each other tied to the grindstone of meaningless work through tens of trillions of dollars of environmentally-destructive, superfluous consumption that serves no useful purpose. Just imagine we could redirect all this wasted effort toward engaging work making the world a better place (e.g., solving the serious global problems discussed in this article).

Problem 8: A World Built for Cars

Cars are a central part of modern life. We simply accept that our cities must be filled with these 2-ton moving metal boxes. Buying your own 2-ton metal box as soon as you can afford it is the default choice.

But car-centered city design brings a wide range of problems with tremendous societal costs. For example, I previously estimated that the costs associated with the typical daily car commute destroy about a quarter of the value created by the average employee.

And it doesn’t stop there. Cities where the car is the only viable option for buying daily necessities, getting the kids to school and other activities, and finding a place to exercise safely may well double these costs.

On the topic of exercise, a car-centered society eliminates our most natural mode of physical activity — walking (or cycling) to where we need to be. The result is an unnaturally sedentary environment for the human body, leading to a frightening range of serious chronic illnesses.

Despite all these severe problems, our car addiction will be hard to overcome. Society has a peculiar fascination with cars and many of our cities are already built for cars rather than people, hence the costly ongoing electric car investment boom designed to perpetuate automobile dominance. Transforming these existing cultural norms and city layouts will be complex and expensive.

But it can be done, and momentum is slowly building behind car-free city centers and neighborhoods around the world. It is vital that this paradigm shift is accelerated to ensure that the costly car-dominant model is not replicated in too many of the urban environments continuously being built in the developing world.

Problem 9: Political Inefficiencies

As our world becomes increasingly complex, political inefficiencies are bound to increase. Voters have a poor understanding of the core issues, are increasingly prone to digital propaganda, and easily gravitate to extremes. Politicians are easily influenced by special interest groups, overwhelmed by complex and conflicting priorities, and incentivized to prioritize the short over the long term.

A two-party system like the US tends to flip between two ideologically opposed governments that spend much of their efforts undoing each other’s policies. Multi-party systems like Europe are mostly governed by coalitions that require so much compromise that little ever gets done. Single-party systems like China inevitably become oppressive despite their much higher efficiency.

But my biggest concern with political inefficiency is corrupt and incompetent officials in developing nations, especially Africa. The playbook for rapid catch-up growth has long since been written, all the required life-enhancing technologies are ready to be deployed, and the whole world wants Africa to succeed. Yet, economic development looks like this:

The good news is that the amount of money needed to improve Africa’s prospects is small. For example, the rich world spends as much trying to lose weight as would be needed to eradicate world hunger. But it’s not that simple. Thanks to corrupt and incompetent officials, money indiscriminately thrown at the problem will rarely reach those in need.

To make a success of this century, our politicians will need to work together at a high level of trust and confidence to solve global problems, including securing and effectively managing vast capital flows from rich to poor countries. This is absolutely vital to solving the #1 global problem discussed at the top of this article. But unfortunately, a lot will need to change before this ideal has any chance of happening on the required scale.

Problem 10: Unsustainable Agriculture

Agriculture has a tremendous environmental impact. It is responsible for a quarter of climate change, occupies half of all habitable land globally, and consumes 70% of global freshwater.

Agriculture is also the dominant driver of eutrophication and poses a threat to 86% of the 28,000 species currently threatened with extinction. These are the two environmental impacts that are currently exceeding safe boundaries most dramatically (eutrophication is caused by phosphorus and nitrogen flows).

Animal products are far more damaging than plant products. As illustrated below, these products supply only 18% of global calories and 37% of global protein, but occupy 77% of agricultural land and emit 66% of agricultural greenhouse gases. Furthermore, demand for animal products is set to expand dramatically as more people join the global middle class.

But that’s not the only problem with animal products. The only way to supply the rapidly expanding global demand is through factory farming. This practice comes with a wide range of problems, with animal cruelty being the most important. We would all agree that reducing global suffering is one of our foremost objectives. But does that only apply to humans? Agricultural livestock outnumber humans 4 to 1, so counting all sentient beings will massively increase the sum of global suffering.

Problem 11: The Western Retirement Model

Much has been said about the potential Western retirement crisis illustrated below. Despite falling fertility rates reducing the number of children we need to raise, the total number of people the average worker needs to support started increasing sharply around 2010. And this trend is set to continue up to 2060. Considering how many other important problems we have to overcome in this timeframe, this is not exactly ideal timing.

It’s sad the way our society has devolved to relegate people back to a child-like state of dependence the moment they cross 65, completely neglecting the wealth of experience these folks have to offer. Moreover, retirement can be detrimental to mental health, mainly due to a lack of purpose from no longer contributing to society.

Yes, it’s natural to slow down in older age, but abrupt retirement at 65 makes no sense. Most older workers can still add great value in roles like consultancy or tutoring during a decade-long ramp-down after 65.

Of course, the big problem here is the tragic statistic mentioned in Problem 7: Only 20% of people enjoy their work. For this reason, most people long for retirement, but when it finally arrives, it often turns into a depressing anticlimax. Indeed, the world desperately needs more meaningful work (and it’s not like there’s a lack of fascinating problems to solve).

All told, we are paying incredible amounts of money only to harm the health and wellbeing of the fastest-growing population segment. The Western retirement model is a huge problem that needs urgent change.

Problem 12: Bullshit Jobs

In addition to the vast amount of wasted production going into consumerism (Problem 7) and the Instant Pleasure Industry (Problem 2), there is another economic segment that is a complete waste of human effort and planetary resources. David Graeber calls these occupations “bullshit jobs,” broadly categorized into five types:

1. Flunkies whose only role is to make their superiors feel important
2. Goons working to harm the competition on behalf of their employer
3. Duct tapers who temporarily fix problems that have permanent solutions
4. Box tickers creating the illusion that something useful is being done
5. Taskmasters who manage people who don’t need supervision

While this problem may not be as enormous as the 20–50% of global jobs Graeber suggests, there is no question that it is real and large. I’m sure everyone reading this can intuitively identify with several of the five categories listed above.

Goons are arguably the most harmful category since they use their skills to harm other market participants instead of improving their own offerings. If one company hires an army of goons, other companies are forced to hire their own goons to defend their interests. Examples include telemarketers and most other advertising and marketing professions, lobbyists, some corporate lawyers, PR specialists, and headhunters. Most of the jobs in these sectors only exist as retaliation to the competition’s goons.

Problem 13: Excessive Use of Fossil Fuels

Fossil fuels have two major societal costs: climate change and air pollution. Depletion of this finite resource also deserves a mention, but peak oil warnings have been proven wrong repeatedly, and most agree that a future peak in oil demand is more likely to come from declining demand than constrained supply (e.g., this BP analysis). Gas is in a similar position to oil, and most gas demand can be substituted by much more abundant coal. Hence, it seems highly unlikely that we will ever face major problems from running out of fossil fuels.

Regarding climate change, the fossil fuel share of major greenhouse gases includes 86% of CO2 emissions and 33% of methane emissions. This gives fossil fuels a 70% share in driving global warming, although the historical share would be lower due to the larger share of land-use change in prior decades.

The cost of climate change is subject to vigorous debate, but the most common estimate is around 50 $/ton. This amounts to $1.8 trillion per year or about 1.3% of global GDP (PPP).

A big part of the uncertainty is that a ton of emitted CO2 does little immediate damage, but it stays in the atmosphere for a long time, causing a bit of damage each year. Thus, the big question is how much we discount these long-term damages in a future world that should be much richer and better equipped to handle the effects of climate change. There is no airtight answer to this question (and many others involved in climate change modeling), implying that the social cost of carbon will always be hotly debated.

Today, the costs of climate change are still modest. The natural disasters making the biggest headlines caused about $200 billion in damages last year, but it is uncertain how much is attributable to climate change. If half of these damages come from climate change, the burden is only 0.1% of GDP. Climate change can also cause 250,000 deaths by 2030, although fewer cold temperature extremes could cancel out this effect. These numbers remain small compared to those reviewed in Problem 2. Overall, the impacts of climate change resulting from likely emissions trajectories resulting in 2–3 °C of warming appear manageable.

Air pollution from fossil fuels has the exact opposite dynamic: serious today but on a clear downward trajectory. Greenpeace pegs the cost of fossil fuel air pollution at 3.3% of GDP in 2018, mainly attributed to 4.5 million excess deaths. Deaths are heavily concentrated in the developing world, mainly China and India where coal dependence and population density are both very high. However, aggressive measures are being implemented to curb these damages, as illustrated for China below.

In general, air pollution is much easier to deal with than climate change. First, mitigation is quite cheap. For example, avoiding 90% of air pollution from a coal power plant costs only about 60 $/kW (about 7% of the total plant cost). Politically, it is also relatively simple because there is a direct and immediate local benefit to any costs accrued in addressing the problem. Furthermore, face masks offer a cheap and effective way for individual citizens to protect their health. In contrast, local costs related to greenhouse gas reductions give benefits that occur globally and in the long-term future, making it much harder to motivate action. In addition, there is no cheap and simple way for underprivileged citizens to protect themselves against climate change effects.

Thus, although its effects are relatively small today, climate change remains the primary problem associated with fossil fuel use. Once again, the Global South is most at risk, especially if the gender inequalities in Problem 3 and the political challenges in Problem 9 cannot be overcome. Rapid economic upliftment (addressing Problem 1) is vital, first and foremost to improve livelihoods and alleviate resource pressures resulting from growing populations, but also to increase resilience to a warming climate. Fossil fuels have a major role to play in this economic upliftment, so the trick is to find the right balance between costs and benefits.

Other Major Issues

There are several other serious problems in the world, but I resolved to stop the detailed descriptions when I ran out of problems I can confidently rank above climate change. So, let’s just take a brief tour through seven additional problems, bringing the grand total up to a round number of 20.

• Supergerms. According to the Economist, the Coronavirus has caused almost 20 million excess deaths to date. The economic toll has also been great, especially for the poor. It is unlikely to be the last.
• Sleep deprivation epidemic. A chronic lack of sleep is the modern equivalent of smoking, harming our health and productivity in almost every way. It costs the world about 2% of GDP. Our current culture of busyness also robs us of the great benefits of rest.
• Loneliness epidemic. Paradoxically, our hyper-connected world is becoming increasingly lonely and socially isolated, with public health consequences that may be more severe than smoking and obesity.
• Overfishing and ocean pollution. The ocean is a highly valuable global resource. However, overexploitation of its bounty and continued plastic pollution are doing great damage.
• Excessive mineral use. The world is gradually transitioning from dependence on extracted energy to dependence on extracted minerals. There are many risks associated with this new dependency.
• Digital propaganda and echo chambers. There are many benefits to the internet, but the ease of spreading propaganda and entrenching our beliefs in echo chambers creates serious risks going forward.
• Unemployment. Even though 80% of people are disengaged in their jobs (see Problem 7), having no job is quite a lot worse. That is why the rise of automation presents a serious risk, despite its great promise.

Good Suggestions from the Comments Section

Several commentators contributed some interesting and thoughtful points. I’ll have to dig a little deeper, but the following may be better reflected in future iterations of this article:

• Uncertain consequences of a tectonic power shift from West to East
• Risks created by an inflationary financial system in a world running into limits to material growth (hopefully mitigated by an accelerating shift from physical to virtual consumption)
• Mass migration resulting from environmental pressures on large and heavily concentrated populations in Africa and South Asia
• Risks involved in implementing the large-scale changes required to correct the challenges listed in this article
• Various inefficiencies and shortcomings related to education both in the developed and developing world
• The transition away from fossil fuels in a global society with continuously expanding energy needs
• Potential for collapse of various important ecosystem services
• The continued rise in e-waste generation and challenges with recycling
• The societal implications of breakthroughs in human life extension

Final Thoughts

It is easy to imagine polar opposite futures for planet Earth. On the one hand, we certainly have the potential to create an almost utopian global society where everyone gets a fair shot at building a great life. But on the other, there are many plausible avenues to stagnation, decline, or even collapse.

In theory, the actions we need to take to accelerate progress toward a truly just and sustainable world are relatively simple. That will be the topic of a follow-up article (available here).

In practice, however, our society has so many twisted incentives for us to keep handicapping ourselves and our environment. Uprooting these broken incentives will require many millions of people to gain a proper understanding of the challenges before us. Only then can we effect real change, both on an individual and institutional level.

The prize for getting it right is enormous, and it really is incredibly interesting and inspirational to work on solving these issues. I hope this article can do its little bit to accelerate our collective evolution toward becoming responsible stewards of the Earth.

So, what do you think? Did I neglect some important global problems or get the rankings badly wrong? I’d be happy to learn from any informed commentators and update the article accordingly.