The SDGs
The Sustainable Development Goals seem overwhelming at first, especially in terms of how to apply them and how to remember them.
However, there are ways that makes them a lot easier to think about and apply…
It should be noted that the SDGs were voted for in 2015 by the whole world (with the idea being to achieve them by 2030) and are >>>international goals. Therefore, each country will have its mix of these goals plus its own specific goals.
However, these 17 goals are still very useful goals of what matters most to the World and should be fully or partly relevant to most countries around the world, together with their individual development goals.
Because the SDGs can be overwhelming at first, methods need to be created to understand them more easily. For example, the figure on the right is one way to think about the SDGs- it shows four environment related goals, four economic goals and eight other goals, grouped as societal goals.
In practice, most people would find the economic goals the most urgent (because they need to pay for rent, food, needs), followed by the society goals, then followed by the biosphere goals. However, because there is a wide variety of goals within each of these three categories, what people find most urgent depends on individual goals within these.
If we think outside of how people prioritise their soonest needs and think about the long term, if you learn about the topic of planetary boundaries, the earth is first dependent on the environmental goals, then the good governance and economic goals (which came first- the chicken or the egg?), and then the societal goals. Because of the enormous costs involved in changing governments (e.g. if you live in a less developed country), it is usually best to safely, safely, safely, safely persuade governments and all background figures to stay within +5 to +10 ethics forever and to focus on what they need to do next.
However, how about considering the following method of organizing these, which should be easier to remember, understand and apply:
The Economy:
Infrastructure, industry and innovation,
No poverty- we need to protect the industries that employ huge numbers of people in good or good enough jobs, and around this, to create 100 new industries that employ enormous amounts of people in stable ways (that people will spend the same amount for hundreds of years) that compete with the 1 product sales of the wealthiest 0.1%, 1%, 5%s industries… however, please be ethical, please be nice, please focus on 1 product sales in >>>industries, and not people please. These are mostly good people who help the world in their own ways. Please focus on >>>product sales in industries, not on people. Please be ethical, please be nice.
Responsible consumption and production- e.g. individuals and organizations should work to reduce climate change emissions, waste and pollutants when producing and consuming goods and services. The two largest things to be solved here are how to make recyclables ingestible (the solution will probably be seaweed- they even have vitamins in them) and how to make these cheaper
Decent work- creating work shouldn’t be just about money, it should also be about providing long-term rewarding, interesting work with qualitative benefits where people can contribute more. Or in other words, the time that we spend at our jobs, commuting to and from our jobs, and the work we do around our jobs, and the 1 million %s each group does to improve each current job, the 10 million %s each group does to improve each current industry, and what can be learnt from the most difficult jobs and industries, and what can be learnt from the most satisfying jobs and industries, how this can be applied to current industries and current jobs, and how this can be applied to the 100 new industries above.
Economic growth- preventing recessions saves societies from a lot of problems. I’ve had a lot of doubts to if economic growth is real and it’s not all a win/lose situation- if you add all the money supplies together, we’re all competing for a % of one total money supply'. If this is true, then the world needs to choose the 10 most important economic goals (e.g. solving recessions, predicting inflation risks). However, the financial markets are based on >>>subjective assessments and inflationary bubbles, and their number one factor has always been that they are a rollercoaster. And in the short term and the medium term, on average, it has always been like this. It would be a really good idea for pension stocks to have limits to how much is in there per person, so that they don’t decrease a lot if larger amounts are withdrawn (something that only a few people know about). One goal could be to predict supply shocks across larger spending categories and inflation (especially climate disasters, droughts, and bank crunches because of the money multiplier effect), and to plan for these, so that, on average the total of people spend the same % of their income per month/year. Another way is that economic therefore need to compete in the >>>industries that have 60% of the wealth, and get richer people to spend way more, while also strongly preventing power paradox.
Basic Needs:
No poverty- this helps to pay for the following areas, together with ways to increase their quality level, ways to make them cheaper, and ways to encourage governments to help with these (e.g. through government subsidies)
Affordable and renewable clean energy
Zero hunger- this is about things like food prices if lower supply, especially climate change and increasing numbers of floods, droughts, extreme heat, about what people can buy locally, and about people’s income (a huge factor)
Clean water- higher incomes mean more taxes and increased ability for governments to pay for public services; however, this needs to be combined with governments caring about this and society having methods to cover areas the government can’t or won’t cover.
Good health & wellbeing- this is about increasing education about what the factors are to achieve this (e.g. 12 factors)
Quality Education:
You won’t find this in any development textbook, but I think that “human development capital” is 90% applied in the following way:
As well as “years of education” human development, everything I have worked on for 10+ years says that these are the most important areas:
at-school education for what needs long time to learn (e.g. trade languages, maths, internet literacy, reading, writing, speaking, understanding),
in the most important parts of life- good solution stimulators (my invention), good brain development, nutrients
lots of solution stimulators to problem solve both your relevant locations’ development and your personal 100 problems over life, social skills, +5 to +10 solution focus, resilience, good ethics
vocational skills, being pre-prepared to get into 12 different long term vocations (if have to change; this specifically means having the accreditations to get into 12 relevant vocational courses, even if you didn’t finish year 10), cheap and really cheap high quality vocational courses, that are priced based on the quantity of local or regional jobs available)
But it keeps coming back to that people are limited by the industries that are available. I don’t want a solution where people now have less… I want to avoid this as a solution.
But it comes down to that, if we have to make all the money supplies equivalent to one money supply and share all the money supplies (because printing money only creates increasing inflation), then the world can only spend the same average amount per month on the world of people’s products.
So how do you share the industries across the 99.9%?
Fairness and development empowerment:
Gender equality- this means that women can meet more of their needs, and have reasons to contribute more to a society’s success (because society helps them)
Reduced inequalities- these are inequalities across a wide variety of areas, and help people meet more of their needs and give them reasons to contribute more to a society’s success
Partnership for the SDGs- where different groups, countries and individuals work together towards the millions and millions of development priorities (however, only if, where safe enough)
The Environment:
Climate action- please see my articles on how to achieve this
Food security (not in the SDGs but it should be)- this is a lot of things- but especially how people can adapt to climate change (what farmers can do if they go through a 4-year drought), about limits to food production (10 billion people?) and about food prices when climate things happen
Responsible consumption and production- e.g. how individuals and businesses can work together to get the 800,000 billion %s to reduce climate change emissions, waste and pollutants when producing and consuming goods and services; this is both part of the environment and economy sections. It is such a large number because it needs to become really, really, really cheap. If its not really, really, really cheap, than it will be added to prices… that’s why its so important to get the 800,000 billion %s as quickly as achievable.
Life on land and below water- this is both biodiversity, especially of insects, which everything depends on, and are being affected by climate change (the insect apocalypse), and about the welfare of animals (e.g. plastic pollution)
Environmentally sustainable cities (because climate change is so urgent and 2025 is so soon, this is solving the priorities for climate change cities before 2025 and 2030, and then, solving the priorities for cities and the environment)
