How to Solve the World’s Biggest Problems | Natalie Cargill | TED

I'd like to start with a true anecdote,

which is that my friends have genuinely asked me

to stop sharing facts about wheat to our group chat.

I know, what’s wrong with them? They must be mad.

But to be fair to them,

they have been hearing a lot lately about wheat,

wheat-related innovation,

how it was funded by philanthropists,

and how it might have saved a billion lives.

So I'd love to share this story with you now

as I’m here to talk about the huge

and I think still largely hidden potential of philanthropy

to completely transform our world.

After World War II,

the global population shot up

and it really wasn't clear how we were going to grow enough food

to feed everybody.

In lots of places, the soil was completely depleted of nutrients,

lots of the crops that did grow were destroyed by disease

and the situation got really bad.

By the 1960s, scientists were saying mass famine is inevitable.

Millions of people might die.

However, what they failed to fully take into account

was the fact that decades before this,

philanthropists had already started funding research

into how we could improve crop yields in really difficult conditions.

The team was led by this man, Norman Borlaug,

and he worked in collaboration with the Mexican government.

They made some really incredible innovations.

So first they made the wheat grains about three times bigger,

which was amazing because they were massive.

It wasn't perfect, however, because they kind of fell over.

They then made the stems of the wheat much shorter and stronger,

which was ideal because they were massive and didn't fall over.

Great situation to be in.

So after much of what I now call wheat-related YMCA,

the team were able to develop really robust,

disease-resistant and incredibly high-yield crops.

This new way of doing things spread throughout the entire world

and the results were quite literally miraculous.

Entire countries came back from the brink of famine.

Global cereal production as a whole tripled in just 50 years.

And our friend Norman was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970.

I really love this story.

Not because it was the foolproof solution to global hunger,

because of course it wasn’t,

and actually it was fraught with problems of its own,

but because it demonstrates two really important ideas

that I think we're neglecting to apply to improving the world today.

One, it's pretty simple.

Huge problems can be solved

with the right amount of investment and cooperation.

The second

is that philanthropy at its best

is one of the most transformative tools we have

to bring about that improvement.

Now, I say at its best,

because I imagine you all know about philanthropy at its worst.

At its worst, it can be little more than a tool

in the hands of the ultra wealthy

to manage their own status or their own power.

It can have very little regard for what's actually needed

or what actually works.

Philanthropy at its best, however,

is still one of the most powerful tools we have,

especially when it can step in

and do the things that governments can't do

and markets won't do.

And this is exactly what happened with Norman and the Green Revolution.

Philanthropic funding to the tune of 100,000 dollars a year

from the Rockefeller Foundation in the '40s

in combination with government support,

was what we needed to get the project going.

If we'd had to wait for governments to take on all of that research

and all of the funding,

bearing in mind that governments tend to move slowly

and bearing in mind that extremely poor governments

don't tend to have an extremely large amount of money,

we might have been waiting for a really long time.

Similarly, if we'd had to wait for private sector investors

to take on all that risk themselves,

bearing in mind they probably thought

they had more profitable things to be doing,

we also might have been waiting a really long time.

Philanthropy was the thing that could come in,

speed things up and maybe save millions of lives.

And the final incredible fact about this story

is I had a really, really hard time choosing to tell it to you today,

because history is full of these hidden philanthropic success stories.

For example,

I could have equally told you about the pioneering suffragette

and philanthropist Katharine McCormick,

who single-handedly funded the development of the contraceptive pill.

I could have told you about how 80 million Americans came together

to fund the eradication of polio,

or about how just two foundations funded conferences

at the end of the Cold War

that dramatically reduced the nuclear stockpile.

So bearing in mind what we can take from all of this

are simple ideas: huge problems can be solved,

philanthropy can be transformative.

I'd like to invite all of you here today

to go through a thought experiment with me.

And as I say, it's my favorite type of experiment

because it's just really cheap to fund.

OK, thought experiment is this.

We're all philanthropists.

We want to bring about transformative change,

maybe even on the scale of the Green Revolution.

To do this,

we want to start by tackling some of our largest and most solvable

and our most neglected problems of all time.

And I want you to, if you can, imagine something really crazy.

We actually have a massive pile of cash to do this with.

I know.

Now, you might be thinking the eternal question,

where are we going to get a massive pile of cash?

And I agree, you know, you rarely find them lying around anymore, sadly.

But I do have a proposal.

The one percent.

If everyone in the global top one percent of earners

gave away just 10 percent of their income,

or if they are particularly wealthy

and this would be more money,

gave away just 2.5 percent of their net worth,

we would have an additional 3.5 trillion dollars to improve the world.

Now, this is a good number.

It's a decent amount of money, I agree.

OK, this is 3.5 trillion

over and above the one trillion that already goes to charity.

And -- this is a surprising bit --

if you're earning over 60,000 dollars a year after tax,

assuming you're a single person bringing that home after tax,

you are in the global one percent.

This is not to say that everyone bringing home 60K

can afford to give away 10 percent

because I absolutely see that is not the case.

However, it is to say that global inequality is really, really extreme.

OK, and as a final note, yes, this is just a made-up thought experiment,

but I think it can shine a real light on what we can do in monetary terms,

what it would take to solve some of our real problems in the real world.

So everything I'm about to share

is the result of extremely real research by experts at places like the World Bank,

the United Nations

and my co-founder Simran Dhaliwal is here tonight,

our own much smaller non-profit, Longview Philanthropy.

So,

what could we do with one year of the one percent giving 10 percent?

Let's find out.

For 260 billion dollars,

we could ensure that nobody lives below the extreme poverty line for the year.

That line is incredibly low.

It's 2.15 dollars a day

and one in 12 people currently live below that line.

One solution to this is really simple and really effective.

In fact, it's so simple, people are sometimes confused by it.

Why don't we give money directly to the poorest people in the world?

There's a very conveniently named organization that does this

called GiveDirectly.

Over 300 studies have been done on this type of cash transfer,

and the studies show that this works.

And it works because fundamentally people know what they need,

particularly when they're extremely poor.

Like Bahati, for example.

With her transfer, she bought a tank to store rainwater,

livestock and her first mattress.

And the fact that people know what they need

is also the reason that cash transfers often do more

to boost education than building schools.

They often do more to support businesses than business training

and they often do more to improve nutrition

than all kinds of food programs.

People don't need to be "taught to fish."

We need to end that meme now.

People are capable of fishing and investing

and a whole lot else

once they're not trapped in completely debilitating poverty.

(Applause)

For 300 billion dollars

we could massively reduce the risk of the next pandemic.

And honestly, what concerns me

is that the next one is going to be even worse.

And the reason is this.

It's currently possible

for somebody with the right type of experience in bioengineering

to go on the internet, to order the DNA necessary

to reconstruct the smallpox virus --

and as you'll know,

smallpox is a horrendous disease that we've eradicated --

to reconstruct that virus

and to release it into the world.

This is not some wild conjecture or some theory.

This is what scientists are warning us about

and what studies on similar viruses are showing could be possible now.

We are not prepared for this.

We're not even prepared for the next natural pandemic.

Here are some things we could do.

First, we could set up a screening program to track sewage and wastewater

for the early signs of the next potential pandemic.

Then we could upgrade existing lab facilities worldwide

to ensure that anyone who needs a new vaccine

can get it within six months.

Then we stockpile enough super effective super PPE

to cover every single essential worker in the world,

not just people in rich countries.

And we can also invest into research,

into germicidal light and other technologies

that could literally kill viruses in the air

before we breathe them in.

It's really early days,

but a breakthrough here could mean the end of airborne disease.

For 840 billion dollars

we can double what we spend on clean energy research and development

and really speed up progress to end climate change.

Clean energy R and D has been so effective so far.

Over the last 10 years,

the price of wind energy is down by 50 percent

and the price of solar energy is down by an incredible 90 percent.

One thing we can do now is build on this and start a clean energy sprint.

So yes, wind and yes, solar,

but also nuclear, also geothermal.

Also better ways of storing the energy we do create

and better ways of removing existing carbon from the air,

particularly right at the point where it's emitted.

For now, very minuscule-looking, mere two billion dollars,

an investment here, an endowment here,

could permanently quadruple philanthropic spending

to reduce nuclear risk.

That is less per year than what we spend on novelty socks.

(Laughter)

Nuclear risk is almost the highest it's ever been.

Right now, thousands of warheads,

each capable of killing hundreds of thousands of people,

are set on high alert.

We know that the early warning systems that should alert us to incoming attacks

have a massive history of false alarms,

which creates a huge risk of an accidental nuclear strike.

And we know in the event a potential strike is incoming,

the US president would have just 15 minutes to decide how to respond.

And we know that the US has actually really good early warning systems,

comparatively speaking.

This situation is absolutely insane.

Even if you think that living in a world without nukes is not feasible

or not even desirable,

there are safer ways to live in a world with nukes than this.

And because this is such a neglected area,

even a tiny amount of philanthropic funding would go a really long way

to getting the better policies we need.

(Applause)

Thank you.

For one billion dollars

we could increase tenfold the philanthropic money

going towards AI safety.

Bit of light relief because you're about to need it,

that's less per year than what we spend on toys for pets.

This little one here is actually my dog

and I think I'm quite a decent chunk of that one billion, if I'm honest.

(Laughter)

So, as you know,

top AI labs around the world are currently deliberately trying to create AI systems

that are smarter than humans at everything humans do

and then some and then some, because it won't stop there.

They're funded by tech money from the likes of Google and Microsoft,

and most AI researchers think that in the coming years or decades,

they're going to succeed.

What's going to happen then?

We don't know.

Which is terrifying

because even with the relatively simple systems we have today,

like ChatGPT,

companies didn't know how they were going to behave in the real world

until they've released them publicly onto the internet.

And yes, they've done some brilliantly helpful things,

but they've also done some much less brilliantly helpful things

like threaten to kill people,

threaten to hack into people's emails and blackmail them.

Now, fortunately, ChatGPT is not an existential risk.

But as these systems rapidly become more and more powerful,

this way of doing things is going to rapidly become

more and more deeply unsafe.

We need to put pressure on these companies to slow down,

and when the time is right, to maybe even stop.

OK.

So we have quite a lot of our budget left.

Let’s speed things up and see what we can do

not just to survive this century, but to thrive in it.

We could fund a 13-year plan

to ensure that everybody has access to clean water

and sanitation once and for all.

We could provide the additional funding needed

to make sure that hunger and malnutrition are gone within a decade.

We could give women control over their reproductive health

and fund free contraceptive --

(Applause)

Thank you.

(Applause)

Free contraceptive, maternal and newborn care

for every woman who needs it for at least five years.

We could fund the plan to end factory farming entirely by 2050.

We could massively suppress or even eradicate

the 20 neglected tropical diseases,

which tend to affect the poorest billion in the world

and tend to be incredibly cheap and easy to treat.

And we could massively suppress or even eradicate malaria, tuberculosis and HIV.

(Applause)

Thank you.

(Applause)

We're not doomed.

We don't need to resign ourselves or our loved ones

or our fellow humans or future generations

to unnecessary and avoidable suffering,

because we really can solve our biggest problems.

And we don't need to throw away one of the most powerful tools

we have to solve them,

because philanthropy really can be transformative.

And I think the thing to remember

is that everything I've gone through today,

it's not a complete list of the world's problems.

It is one option for what we could do with one year's worth of funding

from the one percent giving just 10 percent.

Imagine what we could do in year two.

Thank you.

(Applause and cheers)

Anna Verghese: Alright.

There is so much to get excited about.

So you did reference the people earning 60K,

maybe it's not as realistic to imagine committing 10 percent,

but I love to turn a thought experiment or an idea into actions.

So how do we get even close to that 3.1 trillion number?

What do you think we need to do?

Natalie Cargill: First of all, to reiterate that, it's not practical,

and there shouldn't be an exercise in, you know, making people feel guilty

or that they should do things they can't afford.

I think two things really help in terms of increasing donations.

One is just information on global inequality.

I think people think of the one percent in terms of rich countries

and just being aware that what’s not extravagantly wealthy in rich countries

is actually very wealthy in global terms.

And I think the second thing is having options and having information.

I think a lot of people, most people are incredibly generous

and do want to improve the world,

but it's not easy to navigate all the different options.

And so one thing we try and do

is just share this information as widely as we can.

AV: So talk about information.

You mentioned GiveDirectly as a great organization.

They're an Audacious grantee that we gave money to

during the COVID pandemic

and highly endorse sending your money that way.

Are there any other ideas,

organizations that you have researched that people can get access to?

NC: Yes.

Seconding GiveDirectly is amazing.

I think for people giving,

considering that something of a benchmark can be really helpful.

Another organization I'd really recommend people check out is called GiveWell.

So they're not a charity themselves.

They evaluate all kinds of global health interventions

to see which ones are kind of the best recipients,

if you're interested in global health and development.

Also, if you go to longview.org/pledge,

you can see all of the research that we we put together for this talk

and for each area we break down where we've got the estimate from

and where you can donate if you're interested.

AV: Wonderful, thank you Natalie.

NC: Thank you all so much.

(Applause)