World Issues and Your Solutions

What are your solutions to the world issues we face?

The following is a list of my solutions to world problems.

1. Waste Management: garbage in oceans, landfills and streets.
Solution: Find a way to burn waste and garbage without creating air pollution. We would have no more need for using up and polluting our land and sea.

2. Cheap process of desalination (separating salt from sea water) to increase world's clean water supply. Israel has mastered desalination but it is an expensive proposition.

3. Build canals of water underneath deserts which would increase land mass for human settlements. Deserts are the most underused real estate because of lack of water to sustain life.

4. Biodegradable birth control. Pills and condoms which will organically decompose and not harm the environment.

5. Infrastructure repairs of bridges, tunnels, asphalts. Create more jobs in the process.

6. Quieter lawn equipment (leaf blowers and lawnmowers). Mufflers to bring peace and quiet to the neighborhood during Spring and Summer.

7. Soundproof walls, windows and curtains mandated in all new buildings to cut down on the nuisance of noisy neighbors.

8. Quieter construction equipment to eliminate noise from the streets.

9. Quiet truck engines when they idle their engines in front of food stores.

10. Address crime (more jobs and training), poverty and homelessness (homes built smaller but smarter).

11. 70% of the Earth is covered by uninhabitable seas. Build inhabitable ocean/sea/water world or colonies like in Dubai to transplant, redistribute and ease human populations to address overpopulation on land.

This topic got deleted when I was verified. I am reposting. If you previously posted on this topic, kindly share your thoughts again. I hope to hear from more of you.

The main thing I would like to see change, is to stop allowing the people who make messes, and who use both inanimate and live resources (i.e. labor) decide how much it should cost. The reason why a lot of the pollution and noise problems you list are there, is because the people who are creating the messes in order to provide goods and services, are allowed to pass the cost of the messes and most of the real cost of production, back to future generations, or to the people who live nearby (as in the case of noise and air and water pollution).

If people couldn't get away with taking real costs as profits, they wouldn't make the messes to begin with.

Just a few quick points to ponder...

As far as noise pollution...just move out of the city
Seriously, this also goes to your point about making canals in deserts.
95% of the world population lives on 10% of the land mass of the earth so we don't need to screw up deserts that have their own unique ecosystem.

Another interesting FACT that most people do not know is that the air is a lot better now then before the industrial revolution. Before the use of oil and natural gas everyone used wood or coal for heating, cooking and things like smelting causing a lot more carbon emissions, Also there were millions of more horses for transportation and farming which of course created a lot more methane (greenhouse gases). Just look at China and some of the more undeveloped countries that have very poor air quality because they still use wood and coal for heat and cooking etc..

Lastly, most garbage is biodegradable but I agree that the type that is not is our most pressing issue of our time.
Plastics (and some rubbers) are a true threat to our oceans and environment and we need to have a better recycling program and/or waste disposal of such material.

Just two more interesting tidbits of info that people may not know.
Over 95% of our oceans are still unexplored.
And believe it or not just over 7% of the earths land mass is still unexplored.

1. Waste Management: garbage in oceans, landfills and streets.
Solution: Find a way to burn waste and garbage without creating air pollution. We would have no more need for using up and polluting our land and sea.
Cause: Too Many People
People produce waste. A person produces a certain amount of waste but the more people the more waste being produced. Plus, waste is produced supporting the people, the more people being supported, the more waste being produced.
Solution: Decrease the number of people producing waste
Less people = less waste needing managed.

2. Cheap process of desalination (separating salt from sea water) to increase world's clean water supply. Israel has mastered desalination but it is an expensive proposition.
Cause: Too Many People
People require clean water. Supporting groups of people requires more clean water. The waste from large groups of people pollutes clean water.
Solution: Decrease the number of people requiring clean water and polluting the natural resources that already exist.

3. Build canals of water underneath deserts which would increase land mass for human settlements. Deserts are the most underused real estate because of lack of water to sustain life.
Cause: Too Many People
More people means more real estate is needed.
Solution: Decrease the number of people, and you won't need more real estate to support them

4. Biodegradable birth control. Pills and condoms which will organically decompose and not harm the environment.
Cause: Too Many People

5. Infrastructure repairs of bridges, tunnels, asphalts. Create more jobs in the process.
Cause: Too Many People

6. Quieter lawn equipment (leaf blowers and lawnmowers). Mufflers to bring peace and quiet to the neighborhood during Spring and Summer.
Cause: Too Many People

7. Soundproof walls, windows and curtains mandated in all new buildings to cut down on the nuisance of noisy neighbors.
Cause: Too Many People

8. Quieter construction equipment to eliminate noise from the streets.
Cause: Too Many People

9. Quiet truck engines when they idle their engines in front of food stores.
Cause: Too Many People

10. Address crime (more jobs and training), poverty and homelessness (homes built smaller but smarter).
Cause: Too Many People

11. 70% of the Earth is covered by uninhabitable seas. Build inhabitable ocean/sea/water world or colonies like in Dubai to transplant, redistribute and ease human populations to address overpopulation on land.
Cause: Too Many People

At one time in my life I thought that technology and cooperation could fix the world's problems. What I figured out is no matter what is done or how its done, our species has reached a tipping point in numbers. No fix is really going to fix it. Its like putting a band-aid on a shotgun wound.
As infant mortality rates decrease and longevity increases we are facing ever growing sustainability issues that will increase and increase until we cause our own extinction from over-population.

Our methods contribute to our demise.
Cultivate more food to maintain more people.
More people consuming, creating more waste, noise, etc.
Healthier people creating more healthier people, eating more food requiring more food production because they are living longer and producing more waste.
More, more, more...

Nature tries to balance our population but our technology and motivation prevents it from happening.

The issue isn't A Lack Of.
The issue is Too Much Of.

At recent count, we now have 7.5 billion people on the planet and growing. How would you suggest we cull them? Do we base it on IQ, strengths, talents, criminal activity, financial and social status? Or just eliminate in one fell swoop? The collateral damage (of all the beautiful minds) would be devastating

I don't have any suggestions.
Optimally, I would suggest an exodus to a large space habitat but we have nothing like that available or even in the works.
Over-population is a world issue and we as a species can't work together on anything.

At any rate, constructing and supplying such a habitat would cost trillions of dollars and require decades of unification.
Top that off with the fact that we still don't have the technology needed.

Nature could cull us on its own. A Super-Global Pandemic could wipe out large portions of the world population but it would be terrible and random.
Plus the loss and contamination of a multitude of people would cause related deaths, famine and loss of stability. I fear that would be way more extreme than a directed culling.

I really, don't see any viable solution.
The problem is only going to get worse.
When will we hit 10 Billion? Five years? Ten years?
What is very bad is that nothing is seriously being accomplished and we are already into the tipping point.

Its the elephant in the row boat that nobody wants to look at.

Maybe the governments could start a contest and give grants or prizes to scientists or people who come up with a viable realistic humane solution to overpopulation. It may not be necessary to cull. We could follow the Chinese example and set limits on number of children per family. Preventative measures.

Yes to population control.
Set a 2 child limit, and an extra one if both previous kids die. Then attrition from disease, sterility, and gay marriages will bring population down gently.
Give bonuses in the form of care, to childless elderly.

Give bonuses and incentives. Excellent idea, Notbeold.

Reproduction control is only a patch.
But at least it is a step in the right direction.

My reservations on its effectiveness stems from the current population levels and the propensity of our species to gain immortality through our progeny.

7.5 Billion people, roughly 3.8 Billion couples.
Of the 3.8 billion couples there are people that are too young or too old to replicate at any given time.
Lets say there are 3 Billion couples that are able to replicate.
If each couple has one child we increase the population by 3 Billion additional people per generation. At two per couple, 6 Billion and so on.

With our medical technology and our mandate to preserve life, more babies are surviving birth than ever before. Additionally, More people are living past their reproductive prime than ever before. Overall, death-rates are decreasing. More people are living and living longer.

If 3 Billion babies were born and 3 Billion people were to die the population would still increase overall. Those 3 Billion babies grow up to be 1.5 Billion couples having babies.
Reproduction control would decrease the rate of increase but not solve the problem. It would give us more time to find a solution.

We are at the edge of a change in moral and values that promote the consensus that human life is unique and every single one is special.
It is China that shows us the change in morals.
In China, human life is not unique, not special.
It has become devalued in general.
Is this the fate of the human race? Maybe, maybe not.

Most of us value human life. Culling by extermination is repulsive to our morals and values. It would be an effective fix but at what cost?
Do we sacrifice our humanity in favor of survival?
Will we reach a point where mass deaths from natural disasters and wars will be insignificant?

Exodus from the planet may be our only hope for fixing our population problems while maintaining our humanity.
The thing is, for such an exodus to work, The 'frontier' will need to offer people something they want. Otherwise it would be a banishment or exile.
Such a mandatory displacement would also effect our humanity.

The problem is progressing faster than the solution.

I refuse to believe that everything is doom and gloom. There are always genius solutions to every problem if we think outside the box. I am not a hopeless dreamer but I am not a cynical downer either. Hope springs eternal.

Me too.
My world is content and full of joy.
I concentrate on positives but when I see negatives, I examine and study them to see the cause.
It gives my optimism contrast which allows me to appreciate things I experience even more.
I consider myself a realist.
I try to exist in harmony with reality, embracing it.
I know reality is neither positive or negative, those qualifiers are purely inconsequential and completely personal.
Emotions and passions cloud reality.
I still have passion, have emotional maturity but I am drawing a distinction around reality so my emotions and passions are more accurate for me.

For instance, My truck is a truck. I don't name it, It has no personality. When it breaks it is not mad at me. I don't get offended because it won't cooperate. This frees me from insecurities that affect my self-esteem. No matter how much I scream at it, punch it, pet it it will not be repaired until I repair it.

Encourage more dangerous selfies to thin out the vain and uncoordinated.
More dangerous food fads for the foodies, eg puffer fish.
More extreme games and sports, like avalanche skiing and knife juggling.
Like in Futurama - Suicide booths !

But I think food / chemical based fertility issues will be the largest population reducer over time, with plastic component hormone disruption, continuing DDT type problems, water pollution, etc.

And get people to ignore religious non-birth control.

Bumped it back up for ya...

Population issues aside for the moment, there are a few ideas I've had in the past that could contribute to bettering world conditions.

Establishing a 100% Recycling System

Nearly everything humans toss in the trash can be recycled.
It is a matter of separating the components, building a bank of those components and selling the material back to manufacturers.

We have great sections of land that is not suitable for business or residences but could house pre-recycling centers in communities.
Different centers for different materials.
Not only would it create jobs of sorters, material handlers, and management levels it would create an influx of revenue to the city, town or county.

The presorted materials, partially disassembled would then be shipped to state wide facilities for further processing.
Again creating even more jobs and more revenue but at state levels.

Then, all materials get transferred to the national facility.
Where it is further sorted and stockpiled to be sold in mass to manufacturers.

Organic waste is separated and dispersed to community greenhouses wioth the bulk leftovers going to a national greenhouse facility.

Hazardous waste is contained and rendered safe as currently being done.

why limit the production of children, when they could euthanize people before the age of getting their social security

btw, I am not for abortion, limiting children, or euthanasia.
I am just clarifying that your suggestion was as idiotic as mine

And on all the noise issues listed SupremeMe1, ear plugs are cheap, work well, and when finished with, can double as chewing gum !

On recycling I see a mega-factory with co-generation heat recovery, electricity generation, steam production and compressed air, used to sort garbage into categories of resource, and bundle / compress / melt it and / or process it to factory ready standards for re-use. Very High temperature incineration probably used on the intractable waste, with precipitators and scrubbers to remove most of the exhaust gas evils. Fungus growth heaps to remove heavy metals from soil. Compost heaps to sterilise and recondition soil.

Metals recovery, rag and fibre recovery, protein recovery, plastic recovery, food oil and fat recovery, lubrication and hydraulic oil recovery, paint rubber and solvent recovery, battery re-processing, chemicals neutralised and re-processed.

Fats, oils, and solvents are supplement fuel for boilers and turbines.

A big factory where garbage goes in, and ready materials to specification come out.
And concentrated poisonous left overs are destroyed or safely contained, not sent to land fill or sea dumping.

Great suggestions, everyone. I hope to hear from more of you. Maybe more intellectual giants will post here and surprise me. I know this topic is challenging.

With our technology and population we should be building mega-projects.
With a mega-project the initial funding is thru the government then as the project continues the government funding is subsidized by businesses that are created or flourishing by the workforce, supportforce and infrastructure.
Think the pyramids but much bigger and functional.

Not only could there be national projects there could be world projects.

A trans-Atlantic tunnel bridge doesn't have to span the entire Atlantic ocean. A high-speed mag-lev train could make it feasible to transverse via Greenland.
Now think of all the infrastructure that would be needed to build and maintain such a corridor.

With mega-structures, people stay employed for two or three lifetimes. Meaning not only do you and your children have a job, your grandchildren and great grandchildren do too.

Plus, industry drives innovation. New technology will be discovered, new, better devices will be created and new social trends will develop.

Many of the jobs will not even be working on the project itself. Jobs will be created to support the people that are. Over time, the jobs will flow with the project as it moves along. Effective recycling will essentially create a moving front of industry and technology. Leaving behind environmentally friendly residential communities and the support structures needed to sustain them.

A high-speed transportation corridor from northern Alaska to the tip of Argentina. Not only a highway but a trainway that is expandable by technology advancements to mag-lev freight. All along its route will be spurs that branch off as inter-country highways and by-ways.

As sea levels continue to rise many cities will be flooded. The question isn't if we will need to move our port cities, the question is when.
Will we wait until the water invades before we take action or will we build new cities with determination and attention to environmental impact?

Will we build giant floating cities like the Freedom Ship?



http://freedomship.com/

Or similar?
Just think of the jobs, infrastructure and support needs of the workforce of building not one but 10 Freedom Ship structures. Then, after they are built, all the support jobs and industry to maintain them. Not to mention special ports and transportation facilities.

Will we build great underwater farming facilities? Think of the technology that will be developed, think of the jobs it would create and think of the resources that could be harvested in a ecological cycle.

While I personally don't see how the physics of a space elevator could work, I can imagine huge space launch ports being built around the globe.
Eventually, if we try, space based mining and resource recovery could cause great space stations to be built, manned and supported.

For anything positive to happen, our species needs to have a shift in thinking. Ignoring the problems we face is not going to save money.
All the money in the world will not save you if there is not enough time to act.
Complacency Kills.