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Our world is a hungry world-but it does not have to be. It is sick world - but it does not have to be. It is an impoverished world -but it does not have to be. How soon can we change it? What will it cost? What will our world be like afterwards? Our task can be stated safely enough. The right combination of good land, good food, raw materials, factories and healthy people can produce a world of plenty for everyone. Today we have at our command be knowledge to enable us to build up the right combination on a world wide scale. Fundamental to the whole problem is health, because fit people have the energy and inclination to take on bold enterprises. What we must work for is to set rolling a snowball of progress. It will gather size as it travels, By making some countries healthier than they were we make sure their people will produce more food. As the food production of the world increases, so will the available energy of mankind grow greater. This will lead to higher production still of food and other things. Gradually we shall get rid of the dead- weigh of illness and starvation that is holding up progress. At an every-increasing speed we shall move towards a world of plenty in which all share. How long will it take? If we put our minds to it, we can transform the world in twenty years. But it will need the nations to work together. The more we scare each other and threaten each other, the more we shall spend on preparing for a destructive war and the less we shall spend on ensuring a constructive and continuing peace. What will the new, healthy, prosperous world be like when we have built it together? Making guesses about of future is always risky, but we can see some of the outlines of what is to come. There will be less tension in the world because there will no longer be such great differences, between the 'have' and 'have-not' nations. There will be more leisure for all because there will be more fit people to share the work of the world, and because atomic power and electronics will be turned fully to the service of man. The world will be more beautiful because man will have time, money and energy to spend on making it so. Ugly towns will be restored, deserted will be watered. Wars will become increasingly less likely because we shall all be directing our powers for the benefit of all. Each of us has a choice to make. We can choose to help transform the world, in however small a way, or we can choose to regard the whole matter as hat our concern and so leave the world to drift towards disaster. We can team up with what is just and right-or shirk our responsibilities.
Q. What is wrong with the world?
