One of my thoughts on this type of thing is that as long as world leaders believe in the Malthusian economics of lack, giving everyone in the world a high standard of living may be seen as dooming the world (or first world prosperity at least) rather than saving it. IF there’s only so much to go around, some may be inclined to keep options and wealth minimal for quite a few people so that they won’t be competing for resources, and also to maintain a source of cheap labor. I don’t really see that changing to a great extent unless/until widespread nanotechnology becomes available. Go Ray Kurzweil.
For now, I’m lucky to have enough options to be able to make the world I’m exposed to nearly perfect already. In my social world virtually everyone is in great shape, money isn’t too much of a problem, and there are always lots of exciting things left to do. The only holes in this reality are the panhandlers that frequent my town. Everyone else seems to do quite well.
I have little things that I do to make my world seem better:
give massages to friends
tell friends about interesting things I come across
donate blood (lets me feel like I’m helping people I’ll never meet)
do some volunteer work (lets me meet interesting people while providing some help)
donate money to some of the few charities that seem to really help (like Heifer)
walk/ride my bike more and drive less
Overall my focus is much more on improving “my” world than “the” world, moving to wherever conditions seem best and working from there, but in a small way my actions can contribute to the greater whole.
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