How to Save the World for Just a Trillion Dollars: The Ten Biggest Problems We Can Actually Fix by Rowan Hooper is a business book published in 2022.
While it might sound far-fetched, Hooper argues that real, global change could be achieved for around $1 trillion. While that’s a huge sum, it’s not out of reach. The richest 1% control $162 trillion in global wealth, and the U.S. spends over $1 trillion each year on its military. In contrast, the WHO runs on just $4.8 billion, and the IPCC on only $200 million.
Recent actions prove big spending is possible – like the $2.2 trillion COVID stimulus and the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill passed last administration. Hooper’s approach avoids politics or direct military intervention. In this post, we’ll break down the first three strategies for change: tackling poverty, fighting disease, and driving climate action.
Enjoy!
Table of Contents
Ch 1 – World Poverty
- The Scale of Poverty
- 760 million people live on less than $2/day
- Splitting $1 trillion among them = ~$1,315 per person
- Universal Basic Income (UBI)
- Large-scale trials show recipients worked more, not less
- Tested formats: lump sums, installments, unconditional, or with suggested uses
- Has been widely studied, including by the World Bank across multiple programs in dozens of countries
- Recipients spent less on temptation goods (alcohol, tobacco)
- Evidence suggests money isn’t wasted, even without restrictions
- Increased food consumption, health, women’s empowerment, and political engagement
- Sri Lanka: One-time cash gift → 1 year later: income up 64–96%
- Breaking the Poverty Trap
- Metal roof vs. straw roof in Rift Valley
- Metal lasts 10+ years, catches rainwater; straw = $150/year
- Poor can’t invest upfront, remain trapped in short-term survival cycles
- Psychological Impact
- Ethiopia: fake “success story” video shown in villages
- 1 year later: +20% kids in school, +28% education spending
- 5 years later: +40% spent on education, more invested in businesses
- Education as a Multiplier
- Labeling cash transfers for education cut dropout rates by 70% – even with no enforcement
- Educated individuals earn more and have better life outcomes
- Budget $1T
- Universal Education (10 years): $400 billion
- Cash Transfers: $600 billion
Ch 2 – Cure All Diseases
- Trillions spent globally on COVID demonstrated potential ROI of prevention and preparedness
- Current Health Challenges
- Malaria: 228M cases, 400K deaths in 2018 – mostly children under 5
- Has killed half of all humans in history; referenced as early as 2700 BC
- Tuberculosis: 2M deaths annually
- Tropical diseases: Impact over 1 billion people each year
- Goal: not to eliminate sickness entirely, but ensure universal treatment and near-zero lethality
- Universal Health Coverage (UHC)
- High ROI through added Value-Adjusted Life Years (VALYs)
- Can be achieved in less than a generation – fast social and economic returns
- Ethiopia has only 3 doctors per 100,000 people, leading to high child/maternal mortality
- Vaccines & Prevention
- Challenges lie more in development and distribution than technology
- ROI of 21–54% in low-income countries
- Polio success: From 350,000 cases/year to just 33
- Saved 1.5M lives, prevented 18M paralyses, saved $40–50B globally
- Pandemic Preparedness: $3.5B investment could ensure vaccines within 100 days for outbreaks (e.g., HIV, SARS, Ebola)
- Cell Mapping
- Retina alone has 100+ cell types – crucial to understand human biology
- Enables regenerative medicine, organ repair, and precision treatments
- Wilms tumor treated by regenerating healthy kidney cells
- Cystic fibrosis linked to recently discovered pulmonary ionocyte
- Budget $868B
- UHC in Ethiopia: $100B
- Vaccines & outreach: $100B
- Malaria & tropical diseases via mosquito gene modification: $100B
- TB eradication: $23B
- HIV and other infections: $30B
- Antibiotic resistance: $10B
- Human Cell Atlas: $5B
- Major diseases (heart, cancer, neuro): $300B
- Regenerative medicine/lifespan: $200B
Ch 3 – Climate Change
- CO₂ is the key greenhouse gas due to its heat-trapping effect
- In 1988, global emissions were ~20B tons/year – now at 37B tons
- Half of all CO₂ emissions in history have occurred in the last 30 years
- Pre-industrial CO₂ levels: 280 ppm; now over 420 ppm
- Warming of 2°C would raise sea levels by 13–20 feet, threatening cities like NYC, London, Mumbai – affecting 630M people
- Potential economic damage: $70 trillion this century
- Fossil fuel use is still rising
- Oil demand projected to rise 35% by 2030
- China bringing 200 GW more of coal online – equal to the current EU total
- India: Half of electricity still comes from coal
- Urgency of Limiting Warming
- At current rates, we have ~10 years to stay below 1.5°C
- Cost of action: ~$2.5T/year until 2050
- Savings: $20T by 2050 from avoided damage
- Renewables Are Already Cheaper
- Wind and solar are now cheaper to build and operate than fossil fuels – even over existing fossil plants
- Example: Wind from North Dakota, Texas, Kansas alone could power the U.S.
- LCOE (Levelized Cost of Energy) proves renewables are more economical
- Grid Feasibility & Storage
- Berkeley study: tested grids in 139 countries every 30 seconds for 5 years → found 100% renewable grids are viable
- No technical or economic barriers – only political
- Global cost to achieve net-zero by 2050: $100 trillion (~$3T/year)
- U.S. share: ~$7.8 trillion → would create 3.1 million jobs
- Budget $1T
- Renewable energy deployment: $860B
- Hydrogen economy: $50B
- EVs and rail incentives: $25B
- Nuclear development: $35B
- Net-zero buildings incentives: $10B
- Industrial decarbonization: $20B
Check out more Other posts!
- Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
- Mastering Jujitsu by Renzo Gracie and John Danaher
- How to Save the World for Just a Trillion Dollars by Rowan Hooper
- Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson