Module Content

Chapter 12
World’s Leading Problem

A. Environmental Problem

1. The World’s Leading Environmental Problem

The Conserve Energy Future website lists the following environmental challenges that the world faces
today.

a) The depredation caused by industrial and transportation toxins and plastic in the ground; the defiling of
the sea, rivers and water beds by oil spills and acid rain; the dumping of urban waste.
b) Changes in global weather patterns (flash floods, extreme snowstorms, and the spread of deserts) and
the surge in ocean and land temperatures leading to a rise in sea levels (as the polar ice caps melt
because of the weather), plus the flooding of many lowland areas across the world.
c) Overpopulation
d) The exhaustion of the world’s natural non-renewable resources from oil reserves to minerals to
portable water.
e) A waste disposal catastrophe due to the excessive amount of waste (from plastic to food packages to
electronic waste) unloaded by communities in landfills as well as on the ocean; and the dumping of
nuclear waste.
f) The destruction of million-year-old ecosystems and the loss of biodiversity (destruction of the coral
reefs and massive deforestation) that have led to the extinction of particular species and the decline in
the number of others.
g) The reduction of oxygen and the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because of
deforestation, resulting in the rise in ocean acidity by as much as 150 percent in the last 250 years.
h) The depletion of the ozone layer protecting the planet from the sun’s deadly ultraviolet rays due to
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the atmosphere.
i) Deadly acid rain as a result of fossil fuel combustion, toxic chemicals from erupting volcanoes, and the
massive rotting vegetables filling up garbage dumps or left on the streets.
j) Water pollution arising from industrial and community waste residues seeping into underground water
tables, rivers and seas.
k) Urban sprawls that continue to expand as a city turns into a megalopolis, destroying farmlands,
increasing traffic gridlock, and making smog cloud a permanent urban fixture.
l) Pandemics and other threats to public health arising from wastes mixing with drinking water, polluted
environments that become breeding grounds for mosquitoes and disease-carrying rodents, and
pollution.
m) A radical alteration of food systems because of genetic modifications in food production.

Many of these problems are caused by natural changes. Volcanic eruptions release toxins in the
atmosphere and lower the world’s temperature. The US Geological Survey measured the gas emissions from
the active Kilauea volcano in Hawaii and concluded “that Kilauea has been releasing more than twice the
amount of noxious sulfur dioxide gas (SO 2) as the single dirtiest power plant on the United States mainland.”
The 15 million tons of sulfur dioxide that were released when Mount Pinatubo erupted on June 15, 2001
created a “hazy layer of aerosol particles composed primarily of sulfuric acid droplets” that brought down the
average global temperature by 0.6 degrees Celsius for the next 15 months. Volcanologists at the University of
Hawaii added that Pinatubo had released “15 to 20 megaton…of (sulfur dioxide) into the stratosphere…to
offset the present global warming trends and severely impacts the ozone budget.

2. Man-made Pollution

Human exacerbate other natural environmental problems. In Saudi Arabia, sandstorms combined with
combustion exhaust from traffic and industrial waste has lead the World Health Organization (WHO) to
declare Riyadh as one of the most polluted cities in the world. It is this “human condition” that has become an
immediate cause of worry. Coal fumes coming out of industries and settling down in surrounding areas
contaminated 20 percent of China’s soil, with the rice lands in Hunan and Zhuzhou found to have heavy
metals from the mines, threatening the food supply.

Greenpeace India reported that in 2015, air pollution in the country was its worst, aggravated by the
Indian government’s inadequate monitoring system (there are only 17 national air quality networks covering
89 cities across the continent!). Furthermore, 94 percent of Nigeria’s population is exposed to air pollution that
the WHO warned as reaching dangerous levels, while Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, is the 7 th most
polluted city in the world. The emission of aerosols and other gases from car exhaust, burning wood or
garbage, indoor-cooking, and diesel-fueled electric generators, and petrochemical plants are projected to
quadruple by 2030.

Waste coming out of coal, copper, and gold mines flowing out into the rivers and oceans is destroying
sea life or permeating the bodies of those which survived with poison (mercury in tuna, prominently). The
biggest copper mine in Malanjkhand in India discharges high levels of toxic heavy metals into water streams,
while in China, the “tailings” from the operations of the Shanxi Maanqiao Ecological Mining Ltd., producing
12,000 tons of gold per year, “have caused pollution and safety problems. Conditions in China have become
very critical as the “toxic by-products of production process…are being produced much more rapidly than the
Earth can absorb. Meanwhile, for over a century, coal mines in West Virginia have pumped “chemical-laden
wastewater directly into the ground, where it can leech into the water table and turn what had been
drinkable…water into a poisonous cocktail of chemicals.” The system “goes back generations and could soon
render much of the state’s water undrinkable.”

Pollution in West Africa has affected “the atmospheric circulation system that controls everything from the
winds and temperature to rainfall across huge swathes of the region.” The Asian monsoon, in turn, had
become the transport of polluted air into the atmosphere, and scientists are now linking Pacific storms to the
spread of pollution in Asia. Aerosol is tagged the culprit in changing rainfall patterns in Asia and the Atlantic
Ocean. These climatic disruptions have similarity caused drought all over Asia and Africa and accelerated the
pace of desertification in certain areas. Twenty years ago, there were over 50,000 rivers in China. In 2013, as
a result of climate change, uncontrolled urban growth, and rapid industrialization, 28,000 of these rivers had
disappeared.

People’s health has been severely compromised. An archived article in the journal Scientific American
blamed the pollution for “contributing to more than half a million premature deaths each year at the cost of
hundreds of billions of dollars.” The International Agency for Research on Cancer blamed air pollution for
223,000 lung cancer deaths in 2010. In Indonesia and Malaysia, the link between forest fires and mortality
had been well-established. The aforementioned coal mining in West Virginia has also made people sick,
some with “rare cancers, little kids with kidney stones and premature deaths,” and children born with
congenital disabilities and adults having shorter life expectancy.

It has been the poor who are most severely affected by these environmental problems. Their low income
and poverty already put them at a disadvantage by not having the resources to afford good health care, to live
in unpolluted areas, to eat healthy food, etc. In the United States, a Yale University research team studying
areas with high levels of pollution observed that the “greater the concentration of Hispanics, Asians, African-
Americans, or poor residents in an area, the more likely that dangerous compounds such as vanadium,
nitrates, and zinc are in the mix of fine particles they breathe.” In India, studies on adults health revealed that
46% in Delhi and 56% of in Calcutta have “impaired lung function” due to air pollution. In China, the toxicity of
the soil has raised concerns over food security and the health of the most vulnerable, especially the peasant
communities and those living in factory cities. In 2006, 160 acres of land in Xinma, China was badly poisoned
by cadmium. Two people died and 150 were known to be poisoned; the entire village was abandoned. Hong
Kong faces the same problem.

In Metropolitan Manila, 37 percent (4 million people) of the population live in slum communities, areas
where “the effects of urban environmental problems and threats of climate change are also most
pronounced…due to their hazardous location, poor air pollution and solid waste management, weak disaster
risk management, and limiting coping strategies of households.” Marife Ballesteros concludes that this
unhealthy environment “deepens poverty, increases the vulnerability of both the poor and non-poor living in
slums, and excludes the slum poor from growth.

One of the major ironies of urban pollution is that the necessities that the poor has access to are also the
sources of the problem. The main workhorse of the public transport system is the bus. However, because it
runs mainly on diesel fuel, it is now considered “one of the largest contributors to environmental pollution
problems worldwide.” This problem is expected to worsen as the middle classes and the elites buy more cars
and as the road systems are improved to give people more chance to travel.

The other mode of transportation that the poor can afford is the motorbike (also called the two-and three-
wheeled vehicles). According to the Centre for Science and Environment in Delhi, India, “two-wheelers form a
staggering 75%-80% of the traffic in most Asian cities.” Motorbikes burn oil and gasoline and “emit more
smoke, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and particulate matter than the gas-only four-stroke engines found in
newer motorcycles.” Finally, adding to this predicament is the proliferation of diesel-run cars. These vehicles
usually command a lower price because of their durability and low operating cost, and hence affordable to the
middle class. However, they also release four times the toxic pollution as the buses.

3. “Catching Up”

These massive environment problems are difficult to resolve because governments believe that for their
countries to become fully developed, they must be industrialized, urbanized, and inhabited by a robust middle
class with access to the best of modern amenities. A developed society, accordingly, must also have
provisions for the poor---jobs in the industrial sector, public transport system, and cheap food. Food depends
on a “modernized” agricultural sector in which toxic technologies (such as fertilizers or pesticides) and
modified crops (e.g. high-yielding varieties of rice) ensure maximized productivity.

The model of this ideal modern society is the United States, which, until the 1970s, was a global
economic power, with a middle class that was the envy of the world. The United States, however, did not
reach this high point without serious environmental consequences. To this very day, it is “the worst polluter in
the history of the world,” responsible for 27 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. Sixty percent of
the carbon emission comes from cars and other vehicles plying American highways and roads, the rest from
smoke and soot from coal factories, forest fires, as well as methane released by farms and breakdown of
organic matter, paint, aerosol and dust.

These ecological consequences, however, are far from the mind of countries like China, India, and
Indonesia, which are now in the midst of a frenzied effort to achieve and sustain economic growth to catch up
with the West. In the “desire to develop and improve the standard of living of their citizens, these countries will
opt for the goals of economic growth and cheap energy,” which, in turn, would “encourage energy over-
consumption, waste, and inefficiency and also fuel environmental pollution.” With their industrial sector still
having a small share of the national wealth, these countries will be using first their natural resources like coal,
oil, forest and agricultural products, and minerals to generate a national kitty that could be invested in
industrialization.

These “extractive” economies, however, are “terminal” economies. Their resources, which will be
eventually depleted, are also sources of pollution. In Nigeria, Niger Delta oil companies have “caused
substantial land, water, and air pollution.” Nigeria is caught in a bind. If it wants “to maintain its current
economic growth path and sustain its drive for poverty reduction, (the very polluting) oil exploration and
production will continue to be a dominant economic activity.” If the United States lets its environment suffer to
achieve modernity and improve the lives of its people, developing countries see no reason, therefore, why
they could not sacrifice the environment in the name of progress.

This issue begs the question: How is environmental sustainability ensured while simultaneously
addressing the development needs of poor countries?

4. Climate Change

Governments have their own environmental problems to deal with, but these states’ ecological concerns
become worldwide due to global warming, which transcends national boundaries. Global warming is the result
of billion of tons of carbon dioxide (coming from coal-burning power plants and transportation), various air
pollutants, and other gases accumulating in the atmosphere. These pollutants trap the sun’s radiation causing
the warming of the earth’s surface. With the current amount of carbon dioxide and other gases, this
“greenhouse effect” has sped up the rise in the world temperature has risen at a faster rate in the last 50
years and it continues to go up despite efforts by climate change deniers that the world had cooled off in and
around 1998.

The greenhouse effect is responsible for recurring heat waves and long droughts in certain places, as well
as for heavier rainfall and devastating hurricanes and typhoons in others. Until recently, California had
experienced its worst water shortage in 1,200 years due to global warming. This changes recently when
storms brought rain in the drought-stricken areas. The result, however, is that the state is having some of its
worst flashfloods in the 21st century. In India and Southeast Asia, global warming altered the summer
monsoon patterns, leading to intermittent flooding that seriously affected food production and consumption as
well as infrastructure networks. Category 4 or 5 typhoons, like the Super Typhoon Haiyan that hit the central
Philippines in 2013, had “double and even tripled in some areas of the (Southeast Asian) basin. Scientists
claim that there will be more typhoons in the coming years.” In the eastern United States, the number of
storms had also gone up, with Hurricane Katrina (2005) and Hurricane Sandy (2012) being the worst.

Glaciers are melting every year since 2002, with Antarctica losing 134 billion metric of ice. There is
coastal flooding not only in the United States eastern seaboard but also in the Gulf of Mexico. Coral reefs in
the Australian Great Barrier Reef are dying, and the production capacities of farms and fisheries have been
affected. Flooding has allowed more breeding grounds for disease carriers like the Aedes aegypti mosquito
and the cholera bacteria.

Since human-made climate change threatens the entire world, it is possibly the greatest present risk to
humankind.

5. Combating Global Warming

More countries are now recognizing the perils of global warming. In 1997, 192 countries signed the Kyoto
Protocol to reduce greenhouse gases, following the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit where a Framework
Convention for Climate Change was finalized. The protocol set targets but left it to the individual countries to
determine how best they would achieve these goals. While some countries have made the necessary move to
reduce their contribution to global warming, the United States---the biggest polluter in the world---is not joining
the effort. Developing countries lack the funds to implement the protocol’s guidelines as many of them need
international aid to get things moving. A 2010 World Bank report thus concluded that the protocol only had a
slight impact on reducing global emissions, in part because of the non-binding nature of the agreement.

The follow-up treaty to the Kyoto Protocol is the Paris Accord, negotiated by 195 countries in December of
2015, it seeks to limit the increase in the global average temperature based on targeted goals as
recommended by scientists. Unlike the Kyoto Protocol which has predetermined CO 2 emission limits per
country, the Paris Accord provides more leeway for countries to decide on their national targets. It largely
passed as international legislation because it emphasizes consensus-building, but it is not clear whether this
agreement will have any more success than the Kyoto Protocol.

Social movements, however, have had better success working together, with some pressure on their
governments to regulate global warming. In South Africa, communities engage in environmental activism to
pressure industries to reduce emissions and to lobby parliament for the passage of pro-environment laws.
Across the Atlantic, in El Salvador, local officials and grassroots organizations from 1,000 communities push
for crop diversification, a reduction of industrial sugar cane production, the protection of endangered sea
species from the devastating effects of commercial fishing, the preservation of lowlands being eroded by
deforestation up in rivers and inconsistent release of water from a nearby dam. Universities also partner with
governments in producing attainable programs of controlling pollution. The University of Chicago’s Energy
Policy Institute sent teams to India to work with government offices, businesses, and communities in coming
up with viable ground-level projects that “strike a balance between urgently needed economic growth and
improved air quality.

When these local alliances between the state, school, and communities are replicated at the national
level, the success becomes doubly significant. In Japan, population pressure forced the government to work
with civil society groups, academia, and political parties to get the parliament to pass “a blizzard of laws---14
passed at once---in what became known as the Pollution Diet of 1970. These regulations did not eliminate
environmental problems, but today, Japan has some of the least polluted cities in the world.

The imperative now is for everyone to set up these kinds of coalitions on a global scale. For at this point,
when governments still hesitate in fully committing themselves to fight pollution and when international
organizations still lack the power to enforce anti-pollution policies, social coalitions that bring in village
associations, academics, the media, local and national governments, and even international aid agencies
together may be the only way to reverse this worsening situation.

B. Global Food Security

1. Global Challenges in Food Security

Malnutrition affects all countries in the world. Malnutrition, including over-and under-nutrition and micro-
nutrient deficiencies is the top contributor to global disease burden. Globally, 800 million people are under-
nourished, 2 billion are overweight or obese and 2 billion are micro-nutrient deficient.

The vast majority of the world’s hungry live in developing countries. Southern Asia faces the greatest
hunger burden, with about 281 million undernourished people. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the current rate of
undernourishment is currently around 23 percent. Despite decreasing under-nutrition, levels remain
unacceptably high.
 Despite improved food access at all income levels, diet quality is declining. Notwithstanding recent food
production increases, nutritious foods remain unaffordable for many. The consequences are sever; poor
nutrition causes nearly half the deaths in children under five, and one in four children suffer stunted growth; 66
million primary school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in
Africa alone. Without policy changes, obesity will increase in all countries and reach 3.28 billion by 2030,
increasing non-communicable disease prevalence and health costs.

2. Sustainable agriculture is the foundation of food security and has the potential to secure livelihoods

Agriculture is the single largest employer in the world, providing livelihoods for 40 percent of today’s
global population and it is the largest source of income and jobs for poor rural households. Investing in
smallholder farmers, as well as food production for local and global markets.

However, providing food and securing livelihoods must be done in a manner which does not compromise
the environment. Since the 1900s, some 75 percent of crop diversity has been lost from farmers’ fields. Better
use of agricultural biodiversity can contribute to more nutritious diets, enhanced livelihoods for farming
communities and more resilient and sustainable farming systems.

Reference: Third International Conference on Global Food Security, December 2017, Cape Town, Africa.

3. Global Food Security Index

The Global Food Security Index developed by the Economist (Magazine). Intelligence Unit with
sponsorship from DuPont, is a universal benchmarking tool on food security.

It examines the core issues of food affordability, availability, quality and safety, as well as natural
resources and resilience in 113 countries. It is based on 26 unique indicators that measure these drivers of
food security across both developing and developed countries. “This index is the first to examine food security
comprehensively across the three internationally established dimensions. Moreover, the study looks beyond
hunger to the underlying factors affecting food insecurity. This year the GFSI includes an adjustment factor on
natural resources and resilience.”

“This new category assesses a country’s exposure to the impacts of a changing climate; its susceptibility
to natural resource risks; and how the country is adapting to these risks.” The GFSI is available at no change
online at foodsecurityindex.eiu.com.

4. Overall

Singapore is the runaway winner (Global Rank: 19), followed by Malaysia (43). Rice exporters are at
lower tiers: Thailand (53), Vietnam (64), Cambodia (84), and Myanmar (80). Rice importers’ ranks, excluding
Singapore and Malaysia, are: Indonesia (73) and the Philippines (79). ASEAN countries with high GFSI are
ahead in affordability, availability, and quality and safety criteria.

a) Affordability

Singapore posted the highest per capita income at $73,168, distantly followed by Malaysia with $9,503 in
2016. Indonesia has $3,570, the Philippines $2,951, and Vietnam, $2,186. the two leaders had little (if no)
poverty. Malaysia’s poverty incidence was only 1.6 % in 2014 versus 21.6% for the Philippines in 2015.

b) Quality; c) Safety, and d) Availability

 Rice importers Singapore and Malaysia beat rice exporters Vietnam and Thailand by a mile. The index
has several factors of which supply sufficiency is only one of six. The Philippines is even ahead of Cambodia,
a rice exporter.
The level of development of a country affects the quality and safety criteria. Singapore and Malaysia are
far ahead. Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines are in the middle cluster.

e) Natural resources and f) Resilience (NRR)

The 2017 GFSI includes “a new environmental criterion that recognizes the growing emphasis on
resource conservation, climate change adaption, and sustainable agricultural practices. With factors, such as
temperature change, land deforestation, and depletion of water resources, the NRR category measures future
impacts on the countries in the GFSI.” (To read the report, please visit the link http://bit.ly/securefood or use a
smartphone to scan the QR code.)

5. Global Food Security Model

MINK is the process-based crop modeling for global food security. This was pointed out by Richard
Robertson of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFRI) in September 5, 2017.

Over the last decade, computer models of crop growth have increasingly been used to understand how
climate change may affect the world’s capacity to produce food. The International Food Policy Research
Institute (IFPSI) has undertaken a major sustained effort to analyze changes in the productivity of major crops
across the entire world. The results are integrated into economic modeling efforts ranging from household to
country-level economy-wide models to the global agricultural sector partial-equilibrium economic model
known as IMPACT. With the models working together, researchers can examine how biophysical changes in
crop growth interact with changes in social and economic conditions.

Now, for the first time, IFPRI is releasing a comprehensive volume describing the global-scale crop
modeling system behind IMPACT known as “MINK” for short.

Corp modeling starts at the field level and scaling this up to the global level is challenging. Climate data
must be collated, processed, and formatted. Representative crop varieties and planting calendars have to be
chosen. Fertilizer input levels need to be specified. Myriad other assumptions need to be considered and
appropriate values and strategies determined. And that is just the preparation phase. All the date then have to
be organized, exported, and run though the crop models to obtain simulated yields under different climate
scenarios and production environments. This necessitates employing parallel computing to get the job done
quickly enough to be useful. And then the reams of output data must be organized, manipulated, analyzed,
and finally interpreted to provide context as well as specific information so policymakers can play
appropriately for the future.

Naturally, with so much going on, the process can be mysterious for those looking in from the outside and
potentially confusing even for those on the inside.

The document addresses how MINK works at several different levels. There is the broad discussion of
interest to policymakers and managers concerning how global-scale crop modeling can be used, its strengths
and weaknesses, how to think about the issues, and where it sits in the wider context of agricultural and policy
research. At a middle level, every step of the process is described for those who wish to understand how it
works so they can use the results properly, but not necessarily generate the numbers themselves. Along the
way, though, various tips, tricks, and lessons learned are revealed for those who do, in fact, wish to replicate
this kind of work on their own. And finally, for collaborators and researchers who wish to use MINK
themselves, there is the nitty-gritty, nuts-and-bolts level documentation and tutorial aspects that literally say
“Change this number; click here and drag there.”

MINK has been used to provide insight for numerous reports, peer-reviewed journal articles, and the
popular press.

C. Global Threats: Violent Extremism

According to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), it is not
enough to counter violent extremism --- we need to prevent it, and this calls for forms of ‘soft power’, to
prevent a threat driven by distorted interpretations of culture, hatred, and ignorance. No one is born a violent
extremist – they are made and fueled. Disarming the process of radicalization must begin with human
rights and the rule of law, with dialogue across all boundary lines, by empowering all young women and men,
and by starting as early as possible, on the benches of schools.

UNESCO Member States adopted the landmark decision (Decision 197EX/46) to enhance UNESCO’s

capacity to provide assistance to States as they craft sharper strategies to prevent violent extremism.
UNESCO has also committed to the UN Secretary-General’s Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism,
with a focus on priorities of direct relevance to UNESCO’s work:
(i) education, skills development and employment facilitation;
(ii) empowerment of youth;
(iii) strategic communications, the internet and social media; and
(iv) gender equality and empowering women.

UNESCO is empowering young women and men to live up to their potential as positive change actors
through unique cross-sectoral work on:

1. Education as a tool to prevent violent extremism

UNESCO seeks to assist countries to deliver education programmes that build young people’s resilience
to violent extremist messaging and foster a positive sense of identity and belonging. This work is being
undertaken within the framework of Global Citizenship Education.

2. Youth participation & Empowerment

The UNESCO Youth team focuses on creating an enabling environment for the empowerment and
democratic participation of youth, in order to ensure that young women and men have the opportunities to
become active global citizens.

3. Media & Online coalitions for PVE

UNESCO is mobilizing stakeholders - particularly youth, policy-makers, researchers and media actors-  to
take effective actions, both online and offline, to prevent and respond to violent extremism and
radicalization on the Internet.

4. Celebrating Cultural Diversity

UNESCO is engaging youth in the protection of all forms of heritage and the promotion of cultural
diversity to foster more fair, inclusive and peaceful societies, through the #Unite4Heritage campaign
and Educational Programmes on Heritage and Creativity.