Surely the biggest problem we have in the world is that we all die. But we don't have a technology to solve that, right? So the point is not to prioritize problems; the point is to prioritize solutions to problems.

So it's mainly a question of helping the Third World overcome the effects of global warming.

Of course, the world is full of problems. But on the other hand it's important to get the sense... are we generally moving in the right direction or the wrong direction?

The obvious issue is providing clean drinking water and sanitation to every single human being on earth at the cost of little more than one year of the Kyoto treaty.

When thinking about the future, it is fashionable to be pessimistic. Yet the evidence unequivocally belies such pessimism. Over the past centuries, humanity's lot has improved dramatically - in the developed world, where it is rather obvious, but also in the developing world, where life expectancy has more than doubled in the past 100 years.

The fact that we're catching more fish per person than we've ever done before doesn't mean that there are not particular places where we've managed fisheries badly.

Obviously any group that has to have funding also needs to get attention to their issues.