杏吧原创

We asked prominent thinkers and doers what they reckon will make the world a better place.

The world would be a better place if everybody learned to think like scientists. I don鈥檛 mean they should know more science, although that would be nice too. I mean that everybody should base their beliefs upon evidence, and be highly suspicious of any beliefs that are not based on evidence.

, evolutionary biologist, University of Oxford

The key to a better future for the entire world population lies in giving priority to the development of human capabilities.

The immediate priority must be universal primary and secondary education 鈥� all children in school at least through to age 15 鈥� everywhere in the world. New research shows that this generally leads to better health, higher economic growth and in the long run better government.

Better-educated women will choose to have fewer children who in turn will get better educations. Citizens empowered through education will be better able to improve their own living conditions, as well as the conditions of their societies, and will be better prepared for adapting to the consequences of climate change.

While education is not a guarantee for success it improves the chance more than any other intervention.

This calls for a radical reorientation of our development strategies: shift the focus from giving money to developing minds!

, academic and author of many books on population and development

Shutting down the rise in the atmosphere鈥檚 CO₂ is a must.

It will prove to be a huge and costly task. Conservation and non-fossil fuel energy alone won鈥檛 be enough.

In addition CO₂ capture and storage will have to play a big role. Key to this will be the ability to capture CO₂ directly from the atmosphere.

, environmental scientist who coined the term 鈥済lobal warming鈥�

Information technology has grown exponentially in price-performance and capacity since the first data processing equipment that was used in the 1890 American census.

Computers are now a billion times more powerful per dollar than they were when I was an undergraduate at MIT, and even this pace is accelerating. Computers will be another billion times more powerful per dollar in 25 years.

And it is not just computerised devices that are growing exponentially in this way. Health and medicine is an information technology now that we have the genome 鈥� the outdated software that runs our lives 鈥� as well as the means of changing genes in a mature individual using RNA interference to turn genes off and new forms of gene therapy to add new genes.

These technologies will be more than a million times more capable than they are today in 20 years.

Even energy is affected, now that we are applying nanotechnology to the design of solar panels. As a result, solar energy is doubling in capacity every two years and has been doing this for 20 years. We are only eight doublings from it meeting all of our energy needs and we have 10,000 times more sunlight than we need to do this.

As the price-performance and the capacity of these information technologies reach new levels, new ideas become feasible to overcome human suffering and to expand human creativity. For example, the world is now awash in mobile computing 鈥� half the world (3 billion people) have devices in their pocket that allow them to access human knowledge.

We could create an easy-to-use, artificial intelligence-based health diagnosis system that would allow ready access to high-quality diagnosis and remedial recommendations for the most common diseases in the developing world. That would leverage the computational and communications infrastructure that has just been put in place.

, inventor and futurist

Personal choices, when multiplied, are a powerful tool for change. If we all refused to drink anything but organic shade-grown coffee, that choice would have a major positive effect on neotropical migrant songbirds, whose plummeting numbers are closely connected with the destruction and poisoning of their habitat, and ultimately of ours.

And if the world were to ban fishing by bottom trawl dragging, the devastation of the ocean floor 鈥� proceeding at breakneck pace, and leading to the near-total destruction of the ocean fish we eat 鈥� could be halted before it is far too late.

, author, feminist and social campaigner

If each of us made service to others a part of our lives, the world would become an infinitely better place.

From the beginning Americans have dedicated themselves to 鈥渓ife, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness鈥�. But the happiness that was to be pursued was not the buzz of a sexual escapade or a shopping spree, it was the happiness that comes from feeling good by doing good.

This moment in history demands that we stop waiting on others to right the wrongs of our times. Now, more than ever, we must mine the most underutilised resource available to us: ourselves.

, author and founder of The Huffington Post

The best way to make the world a better place is to make it not the only place for us.

We should establish a self-supporting colony on Mars. That would make us a two-planet species and improve our long-term survival prospects by giving us two chances instead of one. It would change the course of world history 鈥� you couldn鈥檛 even call it world history any more.

We should do this before money for the space programme runs out.

, astrophysicist, Princeton University

Climate change is happening and will shape the future world. It is unlikely that we will succeed in slowing the pace of change, mainly because we are too slow and unable to make effective responses in under 20 to 40 years. More than this, the Earth itself will soon be in the driving seat and aiming at a 5 掳C hotter world.

I think that our best course of action is to spend at least as much effort adapting to global heating as in attempts to slow or stop it happening.

There are no heroes or villains: we accidentally and unintentionally triggered global heating, always a possibility when an intelligent communicating animal evolves.

The Earth system is far more powerful than we are and has its own goals, but we are of enormous value to it as well as to ourselves, therefore our shared imperative is survival.

, independent scientist and originator of the Gaia hypothesis

America faces enormous policy challenges, from global warming to a collapsing financial system. Yet America has practically no capacity for engaging in sensible policy solutions.

To an extent almost never matched in American history, policymaking has been captured by the interests necessary to fund campaigns. The world would be an enormously better place if policymakers in America could be independent of those interests 鈥� pursuing policy that made sense, and not that raised campaign dollars.

, professor of law, Harvard University

Public health and medicine have proved to be invaluable bridges to improved international understanding and cooperation 鈥� witness smallpox eradication, control of polio and biomedical research in tropical diseases.

Relevant national efforts today are fragmented across governments, uncoordinated and underfunded.

Why not create a strong World Health Organization that is funded and supported with the seriousness and intent that its performance deserves.

, leader of the smallpox eradication campaign

One of the biggest problems we face today is a feeling of helplessness. How can one person possibly make a difference in the face of overpopulation, poverty, overconsumption, deforestation and desertification, loss of biodiversity, pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, decreasing water supplies, human violence 鈥� and all the rest. No wonder people feel helpless and hopeless.

It is desperately important for us to understand that each one of us does make a difference. Every day we make some impact on the environment and the living beings around us. And we have a choice as to what sort of impact we make.

Although one person out of several billion doing his or her bit to save water, for example, would have no impact on the water crisis, a few million or billion doing the same would result in the kind of change we must see.

There is an indigenous saying: 鈥淲e have not inherited this world from our parents, we have borrowed it from our children.鈥� This is simply not true. When you borrow you intend to pay back. We have been stealing the future of our children.

We are, arguably, the most intellectual creature to have walked the planet. How come, then, we are destroying it?

I believe we have lost the wisdom of the indigenous people who made decisions based on how they would affect their people generations ahead. We make decisions based on, 鈥淗ow will this affect me now?鈥� Or, 鈥淗ow will this affect the next shareholders鈥� meeting, three months from now?鈥� And so on.

If we would all 鈥� and particularly the powerful voices in industry and government 鈥� regain the lost wisdom and think about future generations, the world would rapidly become a much better place.

, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and a United Nations鈥� Messenger of Peace

There are huge health inequities in the world.

This is not simply due to a lack of access to medical care. It is the result of inequities in power, money and resources, which, in turn, shape the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age.

We need to take action here to solve the problem. Health equity should be part of the consideration of all policy makers. If we can get the United Nations, World Bank, IMF and national governments to start thinking and talking in this way, that would be a good start.

, epidemiologist, University College London

Within hunter-gatherer groups, virtually all members possessed the same non-genetic information 鈥� that is, the same culture. The exceptions were few: perhaps a hunter with a favourite productive spot for placing rabbit snares, a group of women who knew the medicinal properties of a certain plant, a canoe-builder who had a special way of lashing on an outrigger support, or a shaman whose mentor had taught him a secret incantation.

One might estimate that all adults stored at least 75 percent of the group鈥檚 significant culture, the information it needed to survive and prosper.

Contrast that with the culture gap in Britain or America today. Even the most educated individuals can鈥檛 possibly store more than a millionth of one percent of their culture.

If given the correct pile of parts, few would know how to assemble a television set, let alone be able to describe the processes by which the parts were manufactured, the provenance of the materials they embodied, or the methods by which they had been gathered and processed.

Even most university professors could not describe how the basic process of evolution works, give a coherent description of the threat climate change poses to civilization, explain how population size influences vulnerability to novel pandemics, or tell why racism is biological nonsense.

This giant culture gap, a very recent phenomenon in the history of our species, is on display nightly in the evening news and in the blogosphere. To make the world a better place, societies must start trying to close the gap. If many more people know the basics of how the world works, civilization has a much better chance to reach sustainability.

People needn鈥檛 know about Sun Tzu or Beethoven, but once large numbers are familiar with such things as ecosystem services, elementary demography, and the constraints placed on human activities by the second law of thermodynamics, the human future will be much brighter.

, Bing Professor of Population Studies, Stanford University

These are urgent times, and perhaps now some of our messages will have greater resonance.

Blind faith in economic growth and gain as the be-all, end-all, cure-for-all has been misplaced. Fairness is at the heart of our ambitions.

Greater equity in the health status of populations, within and between countries, should be regarded as a key measure of how we, as a civilised society, are making progress.

, director-general, World Health Organization

I hope to change the world through spreading my virally as a smart meme, creating new ordinary heroes in every country, of every age, gender and social class to oppose evil in all its forms, and promote the civic virtues of compassion and justice.

We are doing this by creating new Heroic Imagination curricula in schools and camps, and will be using the web and mobile phones to spread the word. We want people to make a public commitment that they are 鈥渉eroes-in-waiting鈥� 鈥� doing small social virtuous acts 鈥� and becoming 鈥渉eroes-in-training鈥� using our Hero Resource kit guidelines, so that when the time comes for a major heroic deed, they will be willing and able to act heroically.

Most heroes are ordinary people who act socio-centrically by aiding others in need or for a moral cause, aware of the likely personal costs and without expectation of tangible reward.

, psychologist, Stanford University

I鈥檝e been thinking about your question 鈥� how to make the world a better place 鈥� since receiving your letter. Actually, it鈥檚 what I write and speak about all the time. A serious effort would be out of place here, and every brief response I think of seems trite or inadequate, requiring more explanation and background.

, linguist, philosopher and activist, MIT

In the middle of the 20th century, the US was largely a force for good in the broader world. That has changed, and not for the better. In recent years the US (and countries influenced by it, which include the UK) has been dominated by the three Ms: money, markets and me.

We need to flip those three Ms on their side and replace them with good work and good citizenship so that people pursue the three Es: excellence (they know their stuff), engagement (they care about work and citizenship) and ethics (they behave in ways that are responsible, not selfish).

Then we need to flip the figure another 90 degrees to form a W for We 鈥� members of society need to work together in the pursuit of good work and good citizenship. As President Obama says: 鈥淚t鈥檚 not about me, it鈥檚 about you and us.鈥�

No one can know whether the US will continue to be influential and, if so, in what ways. But if we want to make the world a better place, we need to be excellent, engaged and ethical in our work and in our citizenship.

, author of

One thing that could be done to make the world a better place is for citizens to demand that their governments shift the tax burden to fall more heavily on CO₂-producing activities.

The overall amount of taxes an average person paid would stay the same, so their standard of living would be unchanged, but it would encourage less use of products and services that increase the CO₂ concentration in the oceans and atmosphere.

The second thing that I recommend people do is look on the bright side of life! This can be done without being complacent about or turning a blind eye to the problems of the world. We really do live in an era of amazing global prosperity, tolerance and freedom compared to any other time in history. Let鈥檚 take a moment every now and again to appreciate that good fortune.

, founder of SpaceX and chairman of Tesla Motors

The single investment that would best help the world today would be in cheap policies to combat malnutrition, undernourishment and hunger.

Research for Copenhagen Consensus 2008 showed that getting basic micronutrients like vitamin A and zinc to 80% of the world鈥檚 140 million or so undernourished children would require just $60 million annually, and produce human gains valued at more than $1 billion a year.

We should focus much more on areas like this where we could significantly, effectively, and cheaply reduce human suffering and heartache.

, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre

Rather than highlight one of the giant problems waiting to be solved, how about we properly acknowledge one area of success and then spread it around?

In the Western world our average life expectancy brings us to our late seventies. There is much to celebrate in this achievement; it is testament to medical science, to education, to public health policy and to peace. This success raises some serious issues, though.

For a start, the time may now have come for a mature discussion of just how old we want to get, and how important quality of life is, and what we want to achieve with this previously unimaginable life-span, and just as importantly, how we would wish to manage our own old age and death.

More importantly though, we can鈥檛 escape that this is just a clumsy average. We all know too many people who die young; and in too many parts of the world, some in our own countries, there are entire populations that can鈥檛 reach this benchmark.

How about this as a promise? Let鈥檚 get everyone to 70. As a campaign promise, this would have massive implications for medical research and resources, for health information and for the fight against AIDS.

We鈥檝e far exceeded that number in so many countries, though. It is achievable. And you wanted an idea to improve people鈥檚 lives? How about a few more years of life?

Oh, and as a little treat for me, if you鈥檙e a 鈥渃omplementary鈥� medical practitioner who can鈥檛 stump up some evidence; there鈥檚 a new law. Every sentence out of your mouth has to finish with the words, 鈥淥f course, everything I say is for entertainment purposes only鈥�.

, comedian

As I have worked for more than a decade to share the impacts of globalisation on the Arctic and its peoples, I have come to realise that the deepest problem impacting our global civilisation is the great disconnectedness that has arisen between us.

Most people, communities and nations are no longer connected to their local environments and so make unsustainable choices. Moreover, we have lost our connections to others like us around the world whose ways of life are deeply impacted by the cars we drive, the decisions we make, and the disposable cultures so many of us have embraced.

The way forward then, beginning at the highest levels of our nations, international organisations and corporations, is to once again realise the deep interconnectedness between our societies, economies and global environment, and to reconnect courageously to address our global challenges as a shared humanity.

, environmental campaigner

The world population has more than doubled in the last half-century. It is now 6.8 billion, and is projected to reach around 9 billion by 2050.

If the global population were to continue to rise beyond 2050, the problems of providing the food, water and energy for an acceptable lifestyle (and of avoiding dangerous climate change) will be aggravated. The likelihood of this dire scenario depends crucially on the number of births in the next two decades.

More than half the world鈥檚 people live in countries where fertility has fallen below replacement level. Population is rising fastest in the countries least able to cope, particularly in Africa. That鈥檚 where 鈥榮 鈥渂ottom billion鈥� are increasingly concentrated, trapped in poverty.

The social trends that lead to the demographic transition towards lower fertility include declining infant mortality, availability of contraceptive advice, women鈥檚 education, and so forth. It should be top priority to bring these benefits to impoverished regions.

There is no necessity for the kinds of draconian 鈥減opulation control鈥� that have been implemented in some nations. These would be widely deplored, and have the regrettable consequence of stifling adequate discussion of population issues in general.

Measures which are surely benign 鈥� eliminating the most abject poverty, and empowering women 鈥� would lower fertility as a byproduct. If the demographic transition quickly extended to all countries, then the global population could stabilise, or even gradually decline, after 2050 鈥� a development that would surely be benign.

This goal should be an urgent international priority.

, astrophysicist, University of Cambridge and president of the Royal Society

There is never any one thing in life that can provide an answer to a question like this.

On a global governmental scale, clearly the best and most effective insurance policy for mankind would have to be legislative and economic protection of our surviving rainforests. This would give a greater benefit, in both planetary carbon and biodiversity terms, than any other single short-term action that could be taken in the near future.

The next four years of estimated rainforest destruction alone will produce greater emissions than aviation from 1903 to 2033.

The next governmental and social priority globally will need to involve concerted action to limit population pressure on the resources of the planet.

A strong personal ambition will be to help create genuine economic take-off for the space industry. If we are going to survive as a civilisation, we need low-energy and environmental access to space on an industrial scale.

, founder of Virgin Group and Virgin Galactic

We are in the information age. Information is now our most precious resource, limited only by the constraints of human intelligence, innovation and imagination.

However, like most resources, it is not shared equally. I would like to see full and free sharing of information and knowledge, across all sectors, disciplines and borders, guided by the shared values and universal language of human rights.

This would enable the progress, development and transformations necessary, in such fields as science, medicine and technology, to overcome our greatest challenges and make this world a better place for all.

All progress is accelerated through greater sharing 鈥� of ideas, resources, technology and wealth 鈥� and sharing is fostered through an appreciation of our interdependence and of how much we have in common.

In 1948, the was drafted. The shared values and responsibilities it enshrines, detail not just the rights vital to human dignity and well-being, but the means by which we can overcome even the most daunting challenges of the 21st century.

The only way we can realistically create and adopt solutions to tackle the crises of climate change, food insecurity, and lack of access to healthcare, is by working together through inclusive and transparent means.

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration includes the right 鈥渢o seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.鈥� In our lifetime, science and technology have transformed what the enjoyment of this right to information requires.

In 2007, less than one-fifth of the world鈥檚 people had access to the Internet, meaning that the majority remain unable to exercise their fundamental right to information, resulting in deprivations of many other kinds.

Access is improving, however. While computer ownership remains very low in the world鈥檚 least developed countries, penetration of mobile phones is increasing rapidly. In Africa, for example, mobile phone penetration is now at 37 per cent. By 2012, it is expected to climb to more than 60 per cent.

A significant proportion of the world鈥檚 population is going to be able to take part in the global sharing of ideas and solutions by accessing email and knowledge-sharing platforms on their mobile phones.

To ensure the full realisation of human rights for all, each community鈥檚 unique contributions are needed. Collaboration and knowledge sharing between communities, such as science, technology and medicine, is also essential, both within countries and beyond international borders.

A human rights framework improves policy coherence across sectors and disciplines. It is vital that governments do what they can to foster increased bridge-building and exchange of ideas.

Benefits will be seen throughout all sectors and in relation to all of our greatest challenges:

• The rapid transfer of green technologies to developing countries so that water distillation, solar-powered cooking, electricity generation, advances in battery technologies for more efficient and affordable electric cars, and many other sustainable development needs, can be adequately and equitably addressed.
• By protecting free thought and exchange, governments are more likely to retain their educated professionals, such as health workers that are now haemorrhaging from countries where they are so desperately needed.
• The cautious scepticism of the scientific community merged with the vision and activism of the human rights community is enabling the evolution of climate science into the concept of climate justice: recognising that global warming is caused by human behaviour in the developed part of the world, and impacts severely on the vulnerable life chances of those in poor countries who have not contributed to the problem. January saw the launch of the AAAS , aimed at facilitating collaboration among scientific organisations on questions of human rights. It is no exaggeration to say that everyone stands to benefit from such a project.

, president of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative

The most important thing we can do individually is to really focus our minds and think. That鈥檚 a prerequisite for getting anything useful done about any of the major problems we face.

Next time you are faced with a problem, pause. Instead of responding to soundbites with your gut reaction, get the facts, integrate them so you get a complete picture of the problem, and the possible solutions.

As an exercise, take one of your strongly-held opinions and challenge it. Spend a week, or better a month, researching it, read books, web sites and engage in forums that challenge your point of view.

You may find that you were mistaken. And if it turns out you were right, then so much the better.

, founder of Wikipedia

The most effective way to make the world a better place is through education that shapes the future rather than reflects the past.

By undercutting fundamentalism, education curtails violence and war. By empowering women, education curbs poverty and population.

The curriculum should shift from one watered down by consensus and lobbying to skills our century needs 鈥� for relationships, health, contraception, time management, critical thinking and recognising propaganda. For youngsters, learning a global language and typing should trump long division and writing cursive.

The most important goal of all should be to inspire curiosity and the desire to learn more.

, cosmologist, MIT