What do you want to change about the world?
Do you wish there were a cure for cancer? Do you want to prevent the destruction of the environment? Would you like to end hatred?
Almost everyone would say they want to solve these problems. But is it really true?
You might believe you care about the world. You might say it’s terrible when you see bad things in the news like war, poverty and the destruction of the environment.
But unless you’re doing something to change these things, you can’t keep claiming you care.
We are what we do, not what we say.
What exactly are you doing today or on any other day of your life to help cure cancer or help stop climate change?
Do you do anything?
It is possible to change the world. We just have to make the changes we want to see.
You can start right now.
In 2 minutes, you can change the world.
Here’s how…
1. Remove one piece of plastic from the ocean using this online tool (it takes 1 minute and it’s free)
It’s estimated that ocean plastic will outweigh fish in the sea by 2050. It’s in the food we eat and now it’s in our blood, poisoning us. You can help by removing ocean plastic using this online tool:
Remove a piece of ocean plastic in one minute
2. Help end child marriage (it takes 2 minutes)
If you find the idea of child marriage horrific, help stop it by signing this petition:
When a girl is married before she’s completed her education it limits her potential to get a career and support her country’s economy. The result is a cycle of poverty. She marries young, spends her life raising children, is unable to get a well-paid job and her children, being poor, do the same.
Helping girls stay in secondary school and preventing child marriage are key to ending poverty.
If you want to help even more consider making a donation to Action Aid or the Malala fund to help keep girls in school.
3. Help save lives (it takes 5 minutes)
If you had a bad accident you might take it for granted that you’d receive the blood you need to survive. But your survival in that situation depends on people volunteering to donate blood. Have you ever donated blood?
4. Help scientists cure cancer (5 mins)
You can’t say you want to end cancer but do nothing to stop it. If you want to help researchers find a cure, help by raising money to fund their work.
Imagine if half the country raised $100 each. Imagine how those funds could help accelerate research. Maybe researchers could develop better treatments by the time you or someone you love needs them.
- Fundraising runs for American Cancer Society
- Fundraising runs for Canadian Cancer Society
- Fundraising runs for Cancer Research UK
- Fundraising runs for Irish Cancer Society
- Fundraising runs for Australian Cancer Council
- Marathons in the United States
- Marathons in Canada
- Marathons in the United Kingdom
- Marathons in Ireland
- Marathons in Australia
5. Switch your home electricity to 100% renewable (7 mins)
You can’t say you want to stop global warming while continuing to burn fossil fuels every day.
The most important thing you need to do is switch your home electricity to a 100% renewable supplier.
It’s pointless buying an electric car if you haven’t switched your home electricity to 100% renewable because you’re just charging your car using coal.
To see the renewable home energy tariffs in your area use the links below:
- Renewable energy providers in the United States
- Renewable energy providers in the United Kingdom
- Renewable energy providers in Ireland
- Renewable energy providers in Canada
- Renewable energy providers in Australia
Some of you might be thinking, even if you switch to a renewable energy tariff you’re still using the same grid electricity as everyone else. Here’s my answer to that:
If 0% of people switch to renewable tariffs, 0% of the grid will be created using renewables.
If 100% of people switch to renewable tariffs, 100% of the grid will be created using renewables.
Climate change is a choice. You can make businesses stop burning fossil fuels. You just have to stop paying them.
6. Help end poverty (5 minutes using this online tool)
It’s sad seeing children starving in TV adverts. But we don’t have to keep seeing those adverts. We can help end poverty by lending a very small amount of money to a business in a poor country.
The small business owner will use your loan to expand their business, which in turn may provide jobs and expand economies.
I’ve given two loans on the Lend With Care website and have already started receiving repayments. You can watch the businesses progress to the goals in your account area.
UPDATE: I’ve now given three loans and the first one is fully repaid:
Lend money to a business through LendWithCare.org
In reality, the reasons children are starving are far more complex—war, corruption, climate, etc—but improving the economy is at least one small thing you can do to help right now.
7. Help prevent the extinction of endangered animals and the loss of vital natural habitats (it takes 5 mins)
Adopting an endangered animal like a tiger is a clever way to protect millions of animals and the natural habitats they inhabit. Large animals like tigers and elephants need large areas to roam. By adopting an animal like a tiger, the WWF doesn’t just protect that animal, it protects a large natural habitat, which is home to millions of other animals.
Can you spare $3 a month to help save the last wild tigers?
8. Help end climate change using this online tool (5 mins)
It’s been estimated that the planting of 1 trillion trees could sequester 200 gigatons of carbon over their lifetimes—equal to the annual emissions of more than 43 billion cars.
Buying a tree planting gift doesn’t just sequester carbon, it also provides habitats for millions of animals, provides work for people in poor areas and helps reduce desertification.
If you want to make the world a better place, planting trees is a good place to start.
9. Help prevent the extinction of the most important animal species on earth (3 mins)
Without bees, we’d be screwed. All those fields of wheat, corn and other crops we all rely on for food are pollinated by bees and other pollinators. Bees are considered the most important, yet they’re also in incredible danger due to pesticides, disease and loss of habitats, which have led to American bumblebee populations declining by an estimated 90%.
Help bees by placing a ‘bee hotel’ in your garden or on a windowsill and planting flowers that help feed bees.
You can help even more by switching to organic food, which isn’t grown using pesticides. The pesticides used to protect the food you eat are designed to kill insects. We don’t yet know the full implications of continuing to use fertilizers and pesticides to grow crops and kill millions of animals every year, but we’re starting to see the repercussions in the massive loss of bee populations in the United States. No doubt, there are other terrible consequences waiting to reveal themselves.
10. Share this page with two friends who you think will do all 10 steps (2 mins)
If you’ve completed the steps on this page, you’ve made the world a better place — just a little bit. But imagine if 100 million people did it? We’d change the world completely.
It is possible to change the world. We just need to get enough people to take action.
This article oversimplifies the world’s problems. However, all the world’s current biggest problems — war, poverty, climate change — are an unnecessary result of decisions made by humans.
We have chosen this world.
We sit in our comfortable seats, burning gas to heat our homes, overeating until we’re fat. Poisoning ourselves until we die of cancer.
Our apathy ticks to the rhythm of our safe, comfortable routines, as we constantly fail to appreciate the significance of each passing moment.
And that’s how our generation will be remembered: for its apathy.
A generation that stared into screens. That ignored the wrongs. And chose instead to idolize.
We’re the lucky ones. We’re not starving. We’re not poor. If we won’t spend an hour making small changes that could change the world, who will?
Three more ways you can help
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