Global solutions to the world's major problems

Main world problems

1. War, terrorism, organized crime
2. Violation of human rights, poverty, famine, water
3. Destruction of nature, climate and the planet as a whole; deforestation, extinction of species, loss of biodiversity

Most probably people in general will agree that these are indeed amongst the priority problems to attend to, even if maybe with some nuances.

Main cause

Large Scale Corruption; this is the corruption of politicians, bankers, corporations and all other kinds of organized crime. It is this kind of Corruption, financed by black money, that keeps wars going on, keeps dictators in their place, allows traficking of weapons and all other kinds of trafficking, as well as breaking environmental, labour or safety rules, illegal deforestation, overfishing, poaching of endangered species or illegal dumps of waste. In short, large scale corruption allows those who commit the most dreadful large scale global crimes to get away with it. Without this Corruption, most of the most serious and threatening world problems would not exist.

Main global solutions

1. Nature First!
2. Full eradication of Tax Havens (bank secrecy, offshore "banking"
3. 100% VAT on TV commercials
4. From Corporations to Cooperatives
5. Introduce MAXIMUM wage
6. Educate and raise for society, not for profit.
7. Use hemp as sustainable alternative material on many levels.

Global problems eventually have to be solved top-down, but they need to be demanded bottom-up!

But unfortunately, as we all know politics is slow, influentiable by the lobbies of "the Markets" and frequently corrupt. So bottom-up support and even pressure is extremely necessary, in fact fundamental. This starts with raising the public awareness, to eventually lead to actions. These acition don't necessarily have to be protests or activism. Even simple independent initiatives or a shift of choices of the many, have the power to bring down the giants. Because after all, they depend on us, and are always very sensitive to the public opinion. History teaches us that a great deal of public awareness and pressure is needed before things finally get done from the top down, but eventually they always have! Here is where each of us plays an important role in taking or supporting initiatives that for their common sense explain, teach, spread and grow from the bottom upwards. In other words, the politicions have to do it, but we have to remind them, keep them alert and make them act!

Priorities

1. Nature First!
   This is essentially self-explaining and does not really need any further discussion, be it not its actual implementation, which will be treated. However, our starting point is that, as says a dutch saying, it does not make much sense to mop while the tap is open, mopping being the efforts to save or recover the environment that are nothing in comparison to the scale in which it is being damaged or destroyed by Large Industry, which of course is the tap. Not meaning that the efforts are not worthy, which they are, specially in creating awareness, but that here we prefer to focus on closing that tap. May it be clear that defense and recovery of nature is actually always the main background reason for all successive proposals and that defense and recovery of human rights can be considered to be directly associated.
2. Full eradication of Bank Secrecy and Tax Havens (Treasure Islands)
   This does not just mean:"avoid or reduce tax evasion". NO! This means the full elimination of just any place whatsoever, so that there are no Treasure Islands whatsoever, where Financial Pirates, Corrupts and other criminals can hide thier Loot.
   These Treasure Islands are at the base of the long corruption chain, that completely rottens and distorts global democracy and society for allowing non-transparant, secret financial operations. 
   Many attempts have been made over history to break Bank Secrecy and bring down the Treasure Islands, but they have always failed or have been applied in a reduced or softened form. Hopefully the recent, new impulse to eradicate Treasure Islands initiated by France's President Francois Hollande and followed by other european countries now do lead to real results. 
   This mission can only be considered truely completed when Switzerland, the mother of Bank Secrecy and all Treasure Islands, will finally and definitely abandon their Banking Act of 1934, that officially called into life Bank Secrecy and crippeled the possibilities for real global democracy. Related to this is:
   Eliminate profit or gain through financial speculation
   Money, economy and banks are nothing else but artifical and virtual concepts and values. They are just means that, throughout human history, have been elevated to goals, even if by themselves they do not improve personal or collective well-being. In itself capital has no added value for society and as such is not worthy of any (additional) income or profit as are labour or production and as should be: waste management, recycling and recovery of nature and environment (cradle to cradle).
3. 100% VAT on TV commercials
   This really should be, VAT 100% on all publicity of the Corporations (on stock-exchange), but since this might be complicated to regulate within the existing legal structures, a simple first step would be to just apply it to TV commercials, since those are practically monopolized by the Corporations. This increase in VAT has several very good reasons to be:
   To start with it is publically known that the Corporations use Tax Havens to avoid Income Tax on a huge scale. However, VAT is far more difficult to avoid for them, so applying a considerable increase on a product/service that is only used by them and will not affect smaller businesses or individuals is an excellent way to very slightly compensate for their scandalous income tax avoidance. 
   Secondly, publicity in general and tv commercials in particular do not offer any added value to people or society, in fact, it is harmful. Publicity does not do other than artificially increase the consumption need of the people, without anyone asking for it. So it is no more than reasonable to have Corporations contribute (back) to society at least as much, as they so eagerly "invest" in forcing their products, services or brands upon the people.
   Thirdly, in these times of "austerity" where public services are cut, schools and hospitals are closed or privatized, but taxes on all society are raised, in an apparently desperate search for state income by the government, it is no more than logical and reasonable that financial resources are obtained from the ones who most can afford it and actually were the originators of this actually fake "crises". 
4. From Corporations to Cooperatives
   For a sustainable, liveable and real honest world society it is essential, that business transformes from centralized, profit-obsessed, destructive Corporations to user and worker friendly, sustainable Cooperatives in wide networks. De advantages for society are numerous, while the few disadvantages will basically be related to the fact that some small elitarian group simply cannot make as scandalous amounts of money as they used to. May it be clear that this argument is absolutely irrelevant and may be considered "collateral damage", a concept that, in fact, was invented by that same small group and that they themselves have held as valuable according to recent world history.
5. Introduce Maximum wage
   By birth all people are equal and it makes no sense that anyone in the world would earn or dispose of a hundred or thousand times more wealth than anyone else. 
   Even so, possibly something can be said for meritocracy and the fact that a bigger reward can be a useful stimulus for increased performance of the individual person with benefits for society as a whole. If a minimum wage for decent living is guaranteed for those who simply are not as intelligent, fast, strong, able, competetive, ambitious or even willing, then those who do perform better, harder, longer, more efficiently, take higher risks or responsibility may well be awarded with more wealth, but without exagerating. Maybe a maximum income of 12 times that established minimum can be considered a reasonable span. This way one can "make" in a month the same as others in a year, but no more. This does not prevent that someone or a group that is at "max" could make even more, it just means that "min" has to go up correspondingly, thus avoiding anyone to be 'left behind' and assuring a minimum collective gain for all of society when 'the best' perform outstandingly. This might mean a slight shift in mentallity, although already, most who do perform 'best' in society are not exactly the ones who gain a hundred or thousand times more than the rest. That group (let's call them Pirates, maintaining the analogy) is basically limited to the ones who are more selfish, greedy and/or have less ethics, scrupules or collective sense than most. Those 'qualities' may well be eradicated together with Financial Piracy and Treasure Islands. 
6. Raise and educate for society, not for profit
   Many sources and references exist on the fact that education since the industrial revolution has developed to ever more to just serve the needs of the corporations, preparing young people to become a mere extension of the industrial process. In modern "developed" society, when someone delivers on direct, measurable contribution to profit, he/she can easiliy become an outcast of society, even if he/she is more valuable as a person than many CEOs. Ken Robinson's TED talk: How schools kill creativity expresses this excelently.
   
7. Turn to the use of "Hemp for global sustainability" (link to FB page)
   Additionally to liking and sharing; isn't there anyone engaged in actually setting up some hemp "industry" in some country or region where it legally can be done? Fortunately, now the options open since Uruguay became the first clever and reasonable country in the world to legalize hemp. They shortly must have a booming industry, hopefully based on Cooperatives and not infected by Monsanto like corporations.