"A tense community, an impending showdown, and time running out—the classic movie, High Noon, is a perfect metaphor for today’s global situation," says Jean-François Rischard, former World Bank vice-president. Rischard, author of the book, High Noon: Twenty Global Problems, Twenty Years to Solve Them, writes that the world faces a crucial window of opportunity to solve its most serious challenges. The author highlights the urgent need for new approaches to global problem-solving. The old way of doing things no longer works.
Because you will be the innovators of tomorrow, why not begin thinking today? This research project asks you to identify and investigate one of these twenty challenges in depth. The links provided for each of the twenty challenges will give you a sense of the issues they encompass. After surfing around, select one challenge to conduct your own internet investigation and research. What statistics and facts make this problem one of the top twenty? What are some of the underlyinging issues or subtopics? Why does this particular challenge interest you? Post your answers to these questions.
List of the 20 challenges:
ReplyDelete1. Global warming
2. Biodiversity and ecosystem losses
3. Fisheries depletion
4. Deforestation
5. Water deficits
6. Maritime safety and pollution
7. Massive step-up in the fight against poverty
8. Peacekeeping, conflict prevention, combating terrorism
9. Education for all
10. Global infectious diseases
11. Digital divide
12. Natural disaster prevention and mitigation
13. Reinventing taxation for the 21st Century
14. Biotechnology rules
15. Global financial architecture
16. Illegal drugs
17. Trade, investment, and competition rules
18. Intellectual property rights
19. E-commerce rules
20. International labor and migration rules
Scholars, remember to make your first posting before class on Friday, 2/13. In your first paragraph, identify the 20/20 Challenge topic you've selected, and include several facts and/or statistics that help justify why the challenge made Rischard's list. In your next paragraph, name a sub-topic that interests you under that particular challenge. Finally, in you last paragraph, explain why the sub-topic concerns or interests you.
ReplyDeleteLater, taters,
Bagsters
Global warming
ReplyDeleteIndustrialization, deforestation, and pollution have greatly increased the amount of green house gases he have. This is our fault and we can stop it.
It is an issue that pertains to everyone on this planet and we need a joined group effort to solve it
around the worldAverage temperatures have climbed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880
Glaciers and mountain snows are melting
Montana's Glacier National Park now has only 27 glaciers, versus 150 in 1910
In the Northern Hemisphere thaws is coming a week earlier in spring and freezing begins a week later.
Biotechnology rules is me second topic im intersted in. Biotechnology has helped scientists make advancements in medicine, agricutural growth, and engineering. It is extremly useful and scientists should be allowed to experiment and decide if what they found was moral or not.
Combating Terrorism
ReplyDeleteTerrorism has become a major problem over the past decade. Stats show, that from 2003 to 2004, the acts of terrorism and the deaths due to terrorism increased dramatically. In 2003, there were 175 acts of terrorism reported resulting 625 deaths. But, in 2004, there were 651 acts of terrorism reported resulting in an astounding 1,907 deaths. Terrorism is a global issue which no one is safe from. Especially here in the U.S., acts of terrorism have been increasing, while the threats of terrorism are increasing at even more of a dramatic rate.
Terrorism has many issues surrounding it. There are insurmountable amounts of reasons why people get involved with terrorism. It can be anywhere from greed, religious inspiration, or just complete human corruption. Terrorism is a problem that needs to be stopped, and they only way to stop, is to decrease the encouragement of terrorism. The after-effects of a terrorist act cause great concern, and it is an underlying issue that usually goes overlooked. Everyone knows the physical after effects in an attack based around a nuclear bomb, but what about the emotional effects of a more common attack? Here in the U.S., the emotional pain from 9/11 can be viewed just as severe as the physical pain suffered from 9/11. The loss of loved ones, the loss of building that housed many American jobs, the trust in airline services, and the loss of millions of dollars trying to rebuild. Everything from death to everyday life is effected. Terrorism is a huge issue, with other sub-issues, and all of them must be stopped for the greater good of the world.
This challenge interests for one main reason. The reason is my everyday exposure to terrorist actions. There are stories on the news and on the internet, there are movies and TV shows about terrorism, and there are even video games about stopping terrorism. I believe this is a great start in stopping terrorism. Between playing a game of Metal Gear Solid, to watching an episode of 24, I see many of the problems facing terrorism. Although terrorist attacks have never crossed my mind as a possibility for me to do, after everything I have seen from these forms of media communication, terrorism has been completely discouraged in my mind. I believe these are certain steps we need to take, as a community, to discourage the acts of terrorism.
The one that i am selecting is number 8, conflict prevention and combating terrorism. Most countries are too poor to actually buy weapons, but downgrading militaries sometimes just give away assault rifles and other arms for as little as 6 dollars. Since 1945, cheap, under the rug arms have killed over 50,000,000 people. Most of these cheap sales occur in drug infested areas, places run by drug lords and criminals. It is estimated that around 500 million arms are in circulation around the globe at the point in time.
ReplyDeleteI am hoping to focus on a more detailed topic, but for the most part, i am still going have a little bit wider of a perspective of it. Illegal weapons sales when armys downgrade is a huge problem and that is what i would like to my project on. I might focus more on certain countries or continents.
This interests me because first off, it is a huge problem, one that needs to be solved, or at least have people educated on. So many civil conflicts and terrorist cells are armed by these under the run sales, and millions of people are dying because of the them.
The topic I'm considering doing is illegal drugs. In the United States, which is the #1 consumer of illegal drugs, 8% of the population have reported using illegal drugs/substances in the past month.
ReplyDeleteOne sub-topic is drug trafficking and organized crime by drug cartels. Drug cartels are extremely powerful due to the high profit they get from selling illegal drugs. Not only are the cartels dangerous, but the products they sell are dangerous for the consumer.
I became interested in this topic when i read an article about Pablo Escobar, a Columbian drug lord who was listed in Forbes as the 7th wealthiest man in the world.
The 20/20 Challenge that I’ve selected is number 7) the massive step up in the fight against poverty. Poverty is a problem that greatly affects our world that many people are unaware of. According to UNICEF, 26,500-30,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.” From these statistics we can blatantly see that poverty must be addressed swiftly and timely. The End Poverty 2015 Millennium Campaign is going to great measures to see that poverty is diminished completely. They realize that in this day and age we have the resources and the will power to stop poverty in its tracks because it is simply inhumane to allow millions of people to continually suffer. With nearly one billion people living on less that one dollar a day Rischard has realized that now is the time to knock out poverty because the world is more prosperous than ever.
ReplyDeleteCorrespondingly, I have chosen to focus on a specific type of poverty that directly affects the city of Atlanta. An estimated 100 million people worldwide are homeless. These people who lack housing are unable to maintain adequate shelter so they live on the streets with little to no material possessions. The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) defines a "chronically homeless" person as "an unaccompanied homeless individual with a disabling condition who has either been continuously homeless for a year or more, or has had at least four episodes of homelessness in the past three years." Some experts estimate that anywhere between 10,000 and 20,000 people become homeless each day. With only 2,600 shelter beds available in the city, several thousand homeless Atlantans have nowhere to sleep at night. Even with these frightening statistics there remains a “city upon a hill” for homelessness in Atlanta—Trinity Community Ministries.
Trinity Community Ministries began operations in February of 1981 in response to the demand for emergency housing for homeless men in downtown Atlanta. Trinity’s mission is to “provide faith-based, transformational opportunities for people who are homeless and hungry and for volunteers.” I became involved with Trinity through our school’s community service club in the fall. I was anxious about going to the house but when I arrived I was greeted with big smiles and warm hearts. Immediately my heart reached out to these men who have had such different lives than mine, but continue to wake up each day and work to better their lives. Homelessness has been considered the “silent epidemic” in Atlanta but the Trinity House is desperately working to provide these men with opportunities to regain control of their lives and permanently get them off the streets.
I have chosen to select biodiversity and ecosystem losses as my broader topic. It is obvious that we are facing a global crisis. More and more animals are becoming extinct every year as a result of the human population. For example, 83 mammal species (2.1 %) have become extinct since the year 1600. This number is expected to rise rapidly within the next few decades due to the urbanization of the modern world. There are 11,046 threatened animals and plant species worldwide, and 998 endangered animal and plant species in the United States alone. Earth is as much the animals' planet as it is ours, so it is necessary that we respect the environment we live in so to protect the animals we live with.
ReplyDeleteAs my sup-topic I have elected to research the dangers of human development towards the mammals of the Ocean. Over and over again, people hear about pollution, global warming, and modernization. However, not until recently have we actually seen the effects of these horrific complications of the modern world. Sea levels rising, oil spills diluting the water, and mass fishing ruthlessly killing unwanted visitors. Ever since I was younger, dolphins have been my passion, my room is filled with dolphin paraphernalia. Knowing that dolphins are in danger because of the human lifestyle is unnerving. For example, through fishing nets alone, over 300,000 dolphins/whales/purpoises die each year. That's about 821 animals a day! After research, not only the destruction of dolphins upsets me, but also the ocean animals as a whole. The ocean has been around since the beginning of time with little or no complications, people today have no right to change this fact and mess with nature's way.
Digital Divide
ReplyDeleteThe topic that I’m currently interested in researching is the digital divide. In the US, Canada, and Australia, 50-89% of the populations use computers. In parts of Africa, south America and east asia computers are used by only 12-25% of the populations. As we move into a digital age, with access to computers goes power and influence over things that affect everyone, whether they actively participate in the digital community
One subtopic is the global digital divide, which includes the statistics listed above instead of focusing on the divide between people within a smaller community.
The global digital divide interests me because I think that its very important that people have the means to access the global discussions that are going on daily through digital media and that people who cannot access these discussions are at a severe disadvantage
Topic-#8 Peacekeeping, conflict prevention, and combatting terrorism
ReplyDeleteThis is a pressing topic, but also very broad. Numerous issues such as terrorism, global proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, some possibly in the hands of rogue nations, the horrid situation in Darfur, the balance of power between the United States and nations such as China and Russia, and many others make it evident that global conflicts and international threats are a high priority. Terrorism has only increased in the last decade as a response to American arrogance. Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and other countries feel threatened by unilateral actions by the US, and have started mobilizing. China is rising economically and hegemonically. Their rise to a world superpower status can be interpreted as peaceful or as a threat to the United States. In this new era, cooperation and peaceful coalitions are mandatory to a “crisis-free” world. Many other global issues, such as the state-sponsored genocide by the Sudanese government, conflict in the Gaza Strip, and the ongoing Indo-Pakistan feud, require much-needed attention.
I have decided to narrow this huge spectrum down to one specific problem: the CTBT (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty). In 1999, the United States Senate decided not to ratify this treaty and received severe condemnation from the Clinton Administration and governments all over the world. This decision was based on the fact that countries won’t be deterred by this and will continue to develop and test nuclear weapons, posing a threat to United States national security. Ironically, the reason other countries procure weapons is because they feel threatened by the US’s actions. Failure to ratify this treaty only sparked more hostility. Hopefully Obama can diplomatically reverse Bush’s active and stubborn resistance to the CTBT. If the US were to reduce its aggressive postures and ratify the CTBT, it would restore US nonproliferation leadership. Currently, the treaty has 180 signatories but only US ratification, which would spur China, North Korea, India, Egypt, Iran, and Israel to follow suit, can have help the treaty reach full force and help the world transition to an environment free of hostility and high-alert weapons.
I picked this topic because issues revolving around international relations and foreign policy, especially when weapons and power are in the mix, really interest me.
*The CTBT is a treaty that bans all nuclear tests and explosions in all environments, for military or civilian purposes
ReplyDeleteBio-diesel sounds like a great idea:
ReplyDeleteAlgae is awesome
1. The yields of oil from algae are significantly higher than those from traditional oilseeds
2. Algae can grow in places far from farmlands & forests, minimizing damages caused to the environment and food chain.
3. Algae can be grown in sewages and next to power-plant smokestacks where they convert the pollutants and give us oil!
The topic that I'm currently interested in is International Labor and Migration Rules. There is an estimated 12 million foreigners living in the US illegally and I feel that this is partially a result of the laws that the US has put it place. This 12 million includes those who have entered the US without the necessary papers, and people who have overstayed their visas. The rate of unauthorized entrances into the US has accelerated during the last twenty years. Since 1980, about 5 times as many illegal immigrants enter the country every year. About 40% of illegal immigrants have been here 5 years or less.
ReplyDeleteI am interested specifically on illegal immigration rules and the results of these laws. Migration laws are something that definately need to be addressed, that's why it made the list for the 20 Global Problems.
I breifly studied this topic before and it was very interesting. With the sophomore project coming up, I felt that this is a good oppurtunity to research it with more detail.