1. Hunger

A shocking United Nations report^* from 2015 gives the following horrific statistics about world hunger.

• 795 million people—or one in nine of the world's population—do not have enough to eat and thus do not have access to the nutrients and vitamins essential for proper development and health.
• 98 per cent of the world's undernourished people live in developing countries.
• In 2015, 800 million people went to bed hungry each night.
• The world's children are disproportionately affected by food and nutrition shortages.
• As of 2015, 90 million children under the age of five—one in seven worldwide—were underweight.
• Ninety per cent of the world's hungry children live in just two regions: Southern Asia and sub‐Saharan Africa.
• Living with chronic hunger and malnutrition puts children at risk of dying from common colds and infection. Even if children do recover from these diseases, their recovery times are often delayed.
• Globally, 160 million children have inadequate height due to chronic hunger and malnutrition.
• 35 million people die of hunger every year.

^*Source United Nations report http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/2015_MDG_Report/pdf/MDG%202015%20rev%20(July%201).pdf

What is worse, according to a report in the Guardian, food waste is extremely high. Annually, approximately one‐third of all food produced for human consumption is wasted. That includes about 45 per cent of all fruit and vegetables, 35 per cent of fish and seafood, 30 per cent of cereals, 20 per cent of dairy products and 20 per cent of meat. It amounts to around 1.3 billion tonnes of food that is allowed to go to waste each year.

In the UK alone, 15 million tonnes of food are lost or wasted each year. Consumers throw away 4.2 million tonnes of edible food annually. Foods most often to be found in British bins are bread, vegetables, fruit and milk.

The Questions to ask yourself:

• What can I do to address this?
• What can I do to help?
• What cause can I support?
• How can I avoid wasting food?
• How can I help get food to those who need it the most?
• What charities or legacies can I support?

These questions are not going to have answers straight away. You may feel helpless in the face of the scale of the problem, and with such extraordinary statistics. But having the intention to work together with others of a similar mind, with a similar consciousness, can make a difference. We are all together on an increasingly small and increasingly interlinked world. Your success does not need to be at the expense of others. You can pay your success forward, to help those who are left behind. That is the next step of human consciousness.

2. Slavery

Slavery comes about by dehumanising people, removing them from being considered as having the special human qualities of independent thought and feelings for other people.

In Brené Brown's book, Braving the Wilderness, she talks about how dehumanisation occurs. In cases of conflict, she points out how most people find the idea of murder, torture and other human rights violations opposed to their moral code, provided they see the other person as included within their moral code. Brené describes how it's easy to see someone with a different political view as an ‘asshole’ when considered as part of the group they belong to, even though you happen to know personally members of the group whom you actually respect.

But the need to see the larger world, the bigger threat takes away individual positive traits. A narrative begins in which people are described as being outside of the normal moral codes you adhere to. The Nazis called the Jews Untermenschen, that is, subhumans. Slave owners also justified their brutal treatment of their slaves by considering them as livestock—that is, as animals. Once this new frame is created, then you are able to exclude groups from your moral view. After that, you can do anything you want to them.

The history of slavery is a long and cruel one. From the start of the 16th century to the 19th, slavery allowed Great Britain, the Netherlands and France to become leading world economies. More than 10 million people were sent to the Americas as slaves.

We in the West, look back on these times as ancient history. But they are not.

Brené's description of dehumanisation is going on right now. Indeed, she argues that in the modern world, we are even more susceptible to these dehumanising tendencies with the rise of social media and 24‐hour news that simply reinforces what we have already been told.

For modern slavers, the same kinds of calculations are made as the ones their predecessors made. People will see slaves through the filter of dehumanisation that they have picked up and accepted as part of the dominant group. That is certainly the case with traditional slavery, in which society was told a convenient lie about slaves, which enabled them to ignore their suffering. But slavery is nowhere near as prevalent as it once was, right? We have gone beyond this. The world is a more civilised place than back then… Right?

The shocking truth about slavery is that, although it was abolished around 150 years ago in the USA, there are more people in slavery today than at any other time in world history.

Tens of millions of people are trapped in various forms of slavery throughout the world, right now. Research estimates that 40 million, I'll repeat that, 40 million people are enslaved worldwide. The revenue for traffickers from slavery is estimated to be around $150 billion annually. The work they are forced to carry out varies from forced labour, including child soldiers, to prostitution and being child brides in forced marriages, treated as goods.

• Roughly 78 per cent of modern slavery involves labour slavery. It's not only the manual labour in fields, though it can include mining, logging, ranching, fishing and much more besides. Slavery can also be found in the service industries, where cleaners, gardeners and maids are forced to work under inhuman conditions for little or no pay.
• It is also estimated that 22 per cent of slaves are trapped in forced prostitution.
• Of all these slaves, about 26 per cent are children.

Is there anything more despicable than enslaving another human being? The fact is, there are enslaved people closer to you than you think.

A global charity called A21 is doing vital work to raise awareness about slavery, as well as working to free modern‐day slaves. A21 has a powerful slogan that I think applies equally to all the subjects in this chapter:

‘No one can do everything but everyone can do something’. We must take action.

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The Questions to ask yourself:

• Was I aware of this modern world problem?
• Is there someone I can help in this situation?
• How can I help?
• What charities or legacies can I support?

You can start by finding out more at A21 and other anti‐slavery organisations.

3. War

There are several different ways to define what a war is, but a commonly quoted definition is that it is an active conflict that has claimed more than 1000 lives.

A figure quoted by the New York Times puts the prevalence of war in perspective. According to some reckonings, of the past 3400 years, humans have been entirely at peace for 268 of them. That's just 8 per cent of recorded history, less than one‐twelfth.

In the 20th century alone, at least 108 million people were killed in wars. The total number of people killed in all wars throughout all of human history is estimated upto 1 billion.

Innocent civilians in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, die annually because of war. Tens of millions have been displaced and are living in resettlement camps. How many are being murdered and tortured is impossible to say, but terrorism and human rights violations are going on every day.

When these wars are completely forgotten and ignored, each and every death is even more tragic.

• Were you aware of this?
• How much more will you be able to help when you have more influence and power?
• Questions to ask yourself:
• Is there something I can do?
• Is there someone I know in a country at war or in this situation?
• How can I help?

4. Gender Equality

To the modern eye, it almost seems unbelievable that it was so late in history before basic equal rights between men and women were recognised by law. It was not until 1975 in the UK that the Sex Discrimination Act was established to make it illegal to discriminate against women in employment, education and training.

It is worth stopping to consider for a moment that in Britain before the 1970s a woman could not get a credit card, report workplace sexual harassment, serve in combat or get a mortgage or a loan without a male guarantor.

That so much of the truly important legislation was only passed within the last 50 years is a sobering thought for those men who deny that women are not treated fairly. The fact is, the world is full of instances of inequality and women are treated, used and abused by people in positions of power or by selfish and abusive men. The #MeToo movement in 2018 has been a stark example of how far there is to go yet.

In the pursuit of allowing everyone to become the best they can be, it's vital that we resist deeply conservative cultures around the world that do not allow women to be educated, to take part in civil and political life, and to act, speak and think freely.

We should question all cultures and religions that allow women and young girls to be given or sold to men by arranged marriages, and those that embrace female genital mutilation.

Women's emancipation is an essential movement. We should not stop until the world has realised full equality between men and women.

This is by no means the end of the struggle for women's emancipation, with increasingly more steps made along the way, but with attitudes among men who grew up in a world in which women were traditionally seen as inferior still deeply entrenched in some quarters.

The Questions to ask yourself:

• If you are a woman and you are free and live in a free society, what are you doing to help those in need?
• If you are a man, do you fight for women's equality?
• How can you make your surroundings equal?
• How are you educating your kids towards helping equal rights?
• Do you and your friends stand up to bullies?

5. Racism

Racism is a complex issue and drives very strong emotions, and rightly so. The history of groups abusing other groups because of the colour of their skin or a belief about them has already been starkly shown in this book in the discussion on the history of slavery. Of course, African‐American racism isn't the only type, but it is an area that creates extremely strong feelings, not least because the legacy of slavery can still be seen in America in the educational system, in the prison system and in social structures generally.

In Britain, too, and across Europe, racism has an incredibly complex history. The history of the various empires of Europe was inextricably linked with a racist view of the world. Other peoples were regarded as inferior by Europeans, and abused because of it.

Yet every continent has its racists: those people who have fallen into the trap of dehumanising others in order to be able to feel a grievance more strongly, or make a political point more easily.

Let's be clear what I'm talking about with the term ‘racism’. It's a set of beliefs or series of actions that are marked out by discrimination or prejudice against a person or a group based on judgements about different biological and ethnic features. It might be a different coloured skin that causes the prejudice, or it could be other genetic features. More broadly and loosely using the term, it can also include feelings of hatred toward a particular culture rather than a ‘race’ (the term ‘race’ is not recognised in modern scientific terms). So, it might discriminate against a religion, a nationality, a language and so on.

Although racism is strongly condemned by many governments and intergovernmental bodies, institutionalised racial inequality and discrimination are still widespread and can include not only discrimination, but also prejudice, verbal and physical assault.

State‐sanctioned racism includes such phenomena as segregation, slavery, genocide, inequality, police brutality to particular ethnic/cultural groups. Examples of it at its worst include the transatlantic slave trade, European imperialism, US segregation, apartheid and Nazism.

Racism affects everybody because it breeds mistrust and suspicion. These in turn breed fear and hatred. There has been a general idea since World War II that the world is becoming more open and less fearful, with greater trade and travel opening up new cultures and borders. But in the last 10 years or so, there has been an increase in racism in what we think of as ‘enlightened’ countries.

Although international consensus evolved in the 20th century so that formerly accepted attitudes towards prejudice have been roundly rejected, with racism widely recognised as a crime, nevertheless racist attitudes persist. States, governments, private enterprises and individuals are all to blame.

Racism is a complex problem with countless minutiae and gradations. Anywhere one group is treated differently or unjustly, there is racism. And racism holds people back. It stops them being who they really are for fear of judgement and for lack of support. It encourages a mindset in some of its victims that they are never going to get on in life, that they are destined never to succeed. In some it breeds resentment and anger towards their oppressors. Racists themselves fear an idea of people they themselves have created or have been influenced into believing. And the confirmation bias in showing that people from some cultures do bad things only seeks to entrench views. At the same time, it's vital to recognise that there are cultural differences, which mean that some groups may indeed treat their women or children worse than others. If you have a mind to enable others to prevent abuse of power wherever it lies, then make that ideal your guiding light. Through education one can build empathy, understand how others feel—and rather than have prejudice, meet each person and work out who they are on their own terms.

The Questions to ask yourself:

• Am I aware of situations of social injustice?
• Am I non‐judgemental?
• How can I educate my children, family and those close to me?
• Is the company I work for open to other cultures and ways of thinking?

6. Extinction of Wildlife

Humankind is the most successful species the world has ever seen. Think about that word success again. Do you remember what I said about having the right kind of success? About not being successful at the expense of those around you? The same can be said of humankind and its place in the world. It seems quite a strange idea, to call the degradation of our home and the extinction of countless animals that we share the planet with a success. Yet that is exactly what our success has meant. That is what I have been arguing for throughout this book—the idea of success as being wider than just about you.

A report from 2014 published in the Guardian discussed how hard our impact has been on the species we share the planet with. It revealed that the number of wild animals on Earth has halved in the past 40 years. Humans, it reports, are killing and destroying creatures on land, in rivers and in the seas for food, through pollution or through destruction of their habitats.

The analysis was performed by scientists at WWF and the Zoological Society of London. Professor Ken Norris, the Zoological Society's director of science, made the following comparison:

‘If half the animals died in London Zoo next week, it would be front page news. But that is happening in the great outdoors. This damage is not inevitable but a consequence of the way we choose to live.’

This isn't only being sentimental about animals. As Dr Sylvia Earle pointed out, our planet is our life support system. That so many animals are dying out is a sign that the entity that provides our food, water and air is under unprecedented strain. The consequences for humanity are potentially dire.

Marine animal populations have also fallen by 40 per cent overall, and if ecosystems throughout the seas are stressed too far, then we may find our seas fished out. The problem is unwise and unchecked consumption. As the Guardian reports, as poorer countries often supply goods and food to wealthier countries, rich countries are outsourcing environmental decline to poorer ones.

The result is that the world is operating at unsustainable levels of consumption, with calculations that, at current levels, today's average rate of consumption requires 1.5 Earths to sustain it. UK consumption, were it the same throughout the whole world, would require 2.5 Earths. US consumption would require 4.

But things can be done to stabilise and reverse this. Some countries are showing that animal life can be saved, if the right will is put to it. Intensive conservation efforts with tigers in Nepal have turned the population decline around. And animals are not just things to save; the health of species is an indicator of the health of the world's ecosystem. It's vital that we get behind it.

The report concludes:

‘We all—politicians, businesses and people—have an interest, and a responsibility, to act to ensure we protect what we all value: a healthy future for both people and nature.’

Shocking numbers:

• 99 per cent of currently threatened species are at risk due to human activity.
• The current extinction rate is estimated by experts to be between 1000 and 10,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate.
• Experts say humans are creating the sixth great extinction.
• WWF estimate that we could be losing as many as 100,000 species a year.
• Elephant populations have dropped by 62 per cent over the last decade.
• Poachers hunting for ivory, meat and body parts kill an estimated 100 African elephants A DAY.
• Only 400,000 African elephants remain.
• 30 per cent of Africa's savannah elephants were wiped out by poachers between 2007 and 2014.
• More than 6000 rhinos were shot and butchered for their horns in South Africa during a 10‐year period starting in 2007.
• In the final four years of that period, a thousand were killed every year.

Some species we have lost:

• Spix macau
• Javan tiger
• West African black tiger
• Pyrenean ibex
• Golden toad
• Baiji dolphin
• Zanzibar leopard

The illegal wildlife trade is estimated at between $10 and $20 billion a year, and is linked to organised crime. It harms endangered wildlife, fuels conflicts, feeds corruption and undermines poverty eradication efforts.

Questions to ask yourself:

• What can I do?
• What will I do?
• Do I care enough to make a difference?
• Are there any charities or legacies I can help or support?

7. Plastic Waste

One increasingly serious problem facing the modern world is plastics pollution. The problem has been building up for the last 70 years or so, although plastics themselves have been around for far longer than that.

The first modern plastic, Parkesine, was invented in 1856 by Alexander Parkes, a chemist in Birmingham, UK. Over the following century, advances were made in plastic manufacture, including the creation of Bakelite and polystyrene, mass production of PVC, polyethylene, polypropylene and many more substances. Now, plastics have proliferated in both type and use, and their cheapness and disposability have led to the problem of mass usage without anyone thinking about how to actually dispose of them safely.

Because some plastics can take up to 1000 years to biodegrade, they are simply hanging around in the environment. As they age, they don't fully decompose, but break into smaller and smaller parts until they are microscopic. This has created a whole new problem for humanity to face—that of microplastics pollution. In the sea, microplastics are getting into the food chain and poisoning wildlife, as was highlighted by a BBC documentary, Blue Planet, which showed the slow death of a whale calf in the oceans due to plastics poisoning. A 2017 study reported by Time magazine revealed that on average, 83 per cent of all the world's tap water is contaminated with plastic microfibres. In Europe an average of 72 per cent of tap water samples were contaminated. In the USA, it was 94 per cent.

It's estimated that 50 per cent of all plastics are used in single‐use items, but plastics aren't just found in obvious throw‐away items such as packaging and disposable items like pens and razors.

Plastics are found in paint, in clothing and in countless consumer goods. Billions of miles of electric cabling are insulated with plastic, while pipework is made from it; it is found in take‐away food containers and building materials, in car tyres and countless other places. Plastics pollution has now reached record levels in the once‐pristine Arctic. It's found all over the Earth, in soil, air and water.

Annually, in excess of 8 million tonnes of plastic are dumped into our seas. 300 million tonnes of plastic now litter the oceans, and though much of it can be seen floating on the surface, even the deepest trenches are being affected.

Yet plastic in itself doesn't have to be the enemy—it is, after all, a valuable resource. How we deal with it, however, does need to change in a major way.

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Some plastics statistics (courtesy of plasticoceans.org):

• 40 per cent of total plastics produced are used in packaging.
• An estimated 500 billion plastic bags are used each year. That's over a million bags per minute.
• Each plastic bag is actually used on average for just 15 minutes.
• The last ten years has seen more plastics produced than through the whole of the 20th century.

8. Global Warming

I find it bewildering that the argument about global warming is even happening. A study found that 97 per cent of actively published climate scientists agree that man‐made global warming is real. There is not really a strong debate to be had. If it weren't for a few maverick climate scientists who are either misunderstanding the data or are wilfully misleading the public, the debate would be long over. However, there is too much vested interest that doesn't want to confront the idea of change and wants to protect its investments in the oil industry. It really is as simple as that.

For those people who aren't experts, then it is a bewildering choice to make. A general emotion of distrusting scientists who don't tell you what you want to hear has been growing in the world, along with a reactionary attitude that rebels against reasoned argument. Remember what I said before about how emotions sway decisions? In the case of man‐made climate change, people's emotions are being fired up and directed, rather than reason being used. Unfortunately, this isn't about getting someone to buy a product you produce or invest in your company. It's about denying the harm human beings are doing to the planet, and using emotions to keep yourself comfortable by avoiding facing up to hard truths. But this is only going to make things harder for everyone. My advice to climate change deniers is, for the love of your kids and their kids, read more, research, wake up and act. Even if there is the slimmest chance that the vast majority of climate change scientists are right (and they are) then you cannot afford to risk your children's future to feed your sense of identity, indignation or political bias. Get beyond it.

Think for a moment. Do you really believe that the huge population of the Earth, with its use of more and more resources—so much more than 50, 100, or 200 years ago—does not have an impact on the planet? Human beings are constantly destroying forests, building more cars and roads, creating more pollution. Is it such a huge step to think that this might be affecting the way the atmosphere behaves? Do you really think that the vast proliferation in electrical goods, cars, plastics, household goods, boats—everything that humanity manufactures—has no effect on the world it is made from? Really? How is that even possible?

Climate scientist John Cook released a fascinating report that shows how the amount of heat being built up in the Earth due to human activity is equivalent to 4 Hiroshima bombs every second, or put another way, somewhere around 350,000 Hiroshima bombs every day.

This is having its effect. As the globe warms, warmer air is holding more water over the desert regions of the world, with some of them now starting to show early signs of sprouting into life. On the other side of the equation, recent studies have shown that the Amazon rainforest could be seriously affected by climate change and man‐made emissions, with the potential to turn it into desert in a few short years if drought were to set in. This would release a huge amount of stored carbon into the atmosphere as the trees died and broke down, and would accelerate climate change drastically.

CO₂ levels in the atmosphere have increased by 34 per cent since the 17th century. This is being absorbed by the sea, which is becoming increasingly acidic. Already, shellfish and corals are starting to show signs of weakening and dying due to increased sea acidity. The Great Barrier Reef is going through an ecological shock, with corals dying off at an extraordinary rate due to sea acidification. Estimates state that the acidity of the world's oceans since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution has increased by approximately 30 per cent.

Between the years 1961 and 1997, the world's glaciers lost 890 cubic miles of ice. As the northern ice cap melts due to rising temperatures, sea levels are also beginning to rise. Low lying land across the world is being swallowed up by the sea. A one‐metre rise would be enough to displace over 100 million people. Meanwhile, for the first time, regular freight ships are able to travel through the Northwest Passage above North America.

27 per cent of all the world's carbon emissions comes from the USA. No wonder people don't want to face up to the truth—it would mean huge changes in their way of life. The chief cause of carbon emissions is from cars, of which there are expected to be over a billion by 2030 and over two billion by 2050.

And kudos to some inspiring men—to Al Gore and his Global Reality Project and all the amazing work he has done to create awareness of global warming. Also to Leonardo DiCaprio's amazing documentary Before The Flood.

That said, we are all responsible and those in power have to take action. There are some signs of things going in the right direction, and on 22 April 2016 the Paris Agreement was signed by 195 out of 196 of the world's countries, with only North Korea declining to sign. The Agreement set targets for the reduction of carbon and aims to limit global warming to between 1 and 2 degrees centigrade. In 2017, the USA also dropped out of the agreement, leaving other countries to push on and take the lead. France has already announced its intention to phase out all petrol and diesel cars by 2040, and stop burning coal for power production by 2022. So, while former leaders in the world become less relevant, others see the opportunities for renewal and change that dealing with climate change brings. That is one of the examples about how adapting to change keeps you ahead.

My first question is: how are people and some world leaders denying the facts?

Questions to ask yourself:

• So the question, here and now, is what am I doing?
• How am I helping?
• Understanding the concept ‘No one can do everything but everyone can do something’, how can I contribute at home?
• In how I travel?
• At work? Or in the world?
• How committed am I to help?

Wealth Redistribution

One of the things I've really come to admire is how people in positions of power and wealth, who don't need to do anything for others, are working to make the world a better place and address major challenges. They include film stars, politicians and business leaders.

Wealth inequality has been growing at an alarming rate over the last few decades. A 2017 report by Oxfam revealed that the wealth of the 3.6 billion poorest people in the world is equivalent to the wealth of just eight men. That means that eight men have the same wealth as half of the entire world put together. The report, An Economy For The 99 Percent, shows how much wider the gap between rich and poor has become than most people imagined. It reveals the scale of tax avoidance and evasion by those wealthy enough to find ways to keep their money hidden from the taxman. At the same time, the super‐rich are using their influence to drive down wages and influence politics, meaning that the world's economies stop working for everyone but favour the few who are already extremely rich.

The figures are sobering. One in ten people survive on less than $2 a day. Hundreds of millions are trapped in a cycle of poverty due to lack of opportunities, corruption and low education. It's fracturing societies and means that people all over the world are being left behind with stagnating wages, while corporate bosses take home obscene amounts of money.

The richest people in the world are accumulating wealth at such an astonishing rate, the report notes, that the first trillionaire could be created in just 25 years. To make sense of such an extraordinary figure, you would need to spend $1 million every day over a period of 2738 years to spend $1 trillion.

The super‐wealthy enjoy advantages with investments that are closed to ordinary investors, and their wealth is often either inherited or might be made in sectors prone to corruption. Meanwhile, the discontent at how little wealth is ‘trickling down’ to the rest of the populace has been blamed for the discontent of voters across the world, who voted for far right leaders with extreme policies, who appear to promise change, but will deliver no such thing.

Solutions are available if governments work together to end the extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of a few by increasing taxes and supporting opportunities for the world's poorest people. Only this way can the world improve.

And among some enlightened wealthy people, there is agreement. For example, there is a growing interest in philanthropy among Silicon Valley's billionaires. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg are at the vanguard of this new consciousness—seeking to give away much of their fortunes before they die.

They are right. Ignoring the problems and the challenges of the world is no longer an option. To do so will create more problems, more suffering and more instability in the years to come, in which the world is already under stress from over‐consumption.

All of these problems—the environment, poverty, education and wealth—are deeply connected and are part of the litany of injustices we see in the world. There is a saying that, as you get older, you begin to become more selfish. I have to say, this is not always true. For me, I admit my consciousness about world problems has come late in life. I will be honest: in the past, I've always looked from a distance at volunteers and philanthropists. It's not been something on my radar. I suppose, like many, I simply never understood—or simply felt it wasn't my concern.

But my work in the personal development world has made me focus far more on people and their suffering than before. There is no right time or right age to become environmentally and globally responsible and aware. What happens is, as you become increasingly aware of the problems and ignorance strips away, an emotional response comes from within that seeks to answer the questions each new revelation forces you to ask.

For me, and I hope for you, the answers that come back will show that you are ready to help. That way we can help others out of poverty and suffering so we can all become the best we can be.

Things need to change. The Questions to ask yourself:

• Am I aware of this?
• Do I care?
• Is this a cause worthy of me?
• What can I do to make a difference?
• How can I help?
• What can you I do?
• When?