Economic Shock Could Throw 900 Million People Into Poverty, IMF Study Warns

By Harry Bradford

Hundreds of millions of people worldwide are on the brink of poverty.

A recent study by the International Monetary Fund warns that as many as 900 million people could fall back into poverty in the event of an economic shock like the Great Recession. That figure is three times the size of the U.S. population.

Why Globalism Is a Victory for You

By Deepak Chopra, Author, ‘Spiritual Solutions’; founder, The Chopra Foundation

It’s become commonplace to worry about China and its threat to the American economy. But everyone should stand back and realize that two billion people are rising up from poverty there. Throughout Asia the story is much the same as the dispossessed are getting a seat at the banquet table for the first time. It’s recorded that more has been done for world poverty in the past fifty years than in the previous five hundred, with much of that progress coming in the last twenty years.

Instead of resenting this trend, it should be celebrated as a victory for American values. Poverty is ending because of opportunity, progressive thinking and greater freedom, the very things that America stands for. Occasionally I hear a positive voice like Warren Buffett’s, who says that what’s good for China is good for the U.S. Ultimately, there will be a balancing out. The Chinese will have to take care of hundreds of millions of old people, no easy task with a policy of one child per family. Middle class incomes will mean greater consumerism, making China a country that imports goods from outside. But even if this balancing weren’t going to occur, the moral thing is to stop griping about the rise of impoverished nations like China and India.

We Americans sit at the head of the banquet table, as we have done for a century. Our standard of living is luxurious by any measure. It’s time to show generosity of spirit to the less fortunate. We use more energy per capita and produce more air pollutants than any other society (even if China is fast catching up in the latter category). We deal more arms to the world and instigate more wars. Yet the American ideal of peace continues to spread, with deaths from all forms of war, including terrorism, falling in the last decade by 20%, with a 75% decrease since the decades of the Cold War.

Fareed Zakaria is one of the few to bring this wider perspective to light. A few optimists won’t relieve American anxiety, but our growth and recovery, even since 2008, has been a success compared to the Great Depression, especially considering that bank losses and factory output fell more this time than in the Depression.

Sustainability Is the Sensible Alternative

By Kiotaka Akasaka, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information

 At every fork in the road, there is a road not taken. The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro was one of those defining moments when the world had a choice of paths to pursue. The Earth Summit marked a milestone with agreement by more than 178 countries on Agenda 21, the visionary blueprint for sustainable development. The path taken since then, regrettably, has not followed that vision of sustainability.

There has certainly been progress — but it has come at a price. Since 1992, the average life expectancy for the world’s seven billion people has increased by three and a half years. And despite adding 1.5 billion people since the Earth Summit, the world now produces enough food to feed everyone — although not everyone has access to that food. Today, 27 percent of the world’s population lives in absolute poverty, down from 46 percent in 1990.

At the same time, carbon dioxide emissions have increased by 38 percent since 1990. In the oceans, about 85 percent of all fish stocks are now overexploited, depleted, recovering or fully depleted. And close to two-thirds of the services provided by nature for human benefit are in decline, mostly due to habitat loss.

What all this suggests is that more people in the world are living better, but that the natural world that underpins this prosperity is constantly being eroded. There is, however, an alternative, and that brings us back to Agenda 21, which provided the general directions to balance our pursuit of prosperity and improved well-being with the protection of our environment.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon put it this way: “For most of the last century, economic growth was fuelled by what seemed to be a certain truth: the abundance of natural resources. We mined our way to growth. We burned our way to prosperity. We believed in consumption without consequences. Those days are gone.”

A Volunteer Trip To Nepal Turns Into A Lifetime Of Service

When 29-year-old Conor Grennan decided to move home to the United States after eight years in Europe, he opted to take a year-long detour around the world.

He had no higher aspirations than backpacking, but pressure from a friend prompted him to sign up to volunteer in an orphanage in war-torn Nepal.

Grennan thought his time at the children’s home would be an impressive anecdote, something he could use to win over future first dates. Instead, Grennan uncovered a startling secret that would send him on a path to find fulfillment and family — all in the service of others.

Climate Change Threatens to Undermine Progress on Development

Really more responsible for the problem are not really serious to sort out the problem. They just escaping blaming and pointing others.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost