OK—this is
profoundly embarrassing. I am sitting in a café, which is where I spend a lot
of my time. There are two reasons for the hours I spend here: the first is a
need for people, since writing can be a solitary profession; the second is that
I’m too lazy to make my own food.
I am
therefore wasting huge sums of money, something that nobody but the shop owner
could condone. And the worst thing? Though I am barely making enough money to
keep afloat—as is Mr. Fernández—we are in the richest 4.0% of the world.
I know this
because I went to a
site called givingwhatwecan.org and entered a (probably too high) estimate
of our combined incomes after taxes. And there, right on the page, was the
button for “how rich am I?”
The sum I
entered was 50,000 USD. OK, what happens when I put in 100,000 USD? “You are in
the richest 0.15% of the world’s population,” was the answer. And 1,000,000
USD? Less that 0.1%.
The site is
absolutely fascinating, as was the talk by the philosopher Peter Singer, which you
can see below. I live perfectly well on $30,000 a year; I am 56; I am willing
to donate 10% of my income; I will “retire” at age 65. OK, so I went to another
page to see what effect I could have. And guess what? In the 9 years of giving,
I would have saved 11 lives, I would have saved 491 years of healthy life, and
I would have produced 9,000 years of school attendance.
But
wait—suppose I retired at age 85? How would the world fare?
Total
you would earn: 870,000
Total you would donate: 87,000
Lives
you could save: 35
Years
of healthy life you could save: 1,582
Years
of school attendance you'd produce: 29,000
That’s the
graphic that popped up at me.
How is it
possible? Singer has the explanation:
However,
it is also possible to make extremely effective donations towards the world's
poorest people. Because they have so little money, every dollar you give can
make a tremendous difference — especially if spent on the world's most
efficient aid programs. Read on to see just how much you could achieve and how
little it would really cost you.
And it’s an
important question, because the right charity can be a hundred times more effective
than another, less effective one. So which charity gives you the biggest bang
for the buck?
Here again,
Singer sails through with the answer. He recommends four charities that are the
most effective. Here are the four.
Against Malaria Foundation. Why? More than a million people die
each year of malaria, 70% of them are kids under 5. A 3$ net can prevent the
disease—and 100% of your money goes to the nets. Best of all, you can see where
your nets are distributed. Here’s the
website: http://www.againstmalaria.com
Schistosomiasis Control Initiative. The initiative aims to control and then
eliminate the parasitical disease schistosomiasis, which afflicts more than 400
million people in sub-Saharan Africa. Untreated, schistosomiasis leads to
kidney, liver, and spleen damage; 76 cents will provide a dose of the drug
needed to treat and cure. Here’s the website. http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/schisto
Deworm The World. 600 million kids around the world need
to be dewormed; less than fifty cents is all it takes to treat one kid. This
organization has treated 40 million children in 27 countries. Best, treating
kids leads to significantly improved school attendance—a nice added benefit.
Here’s the website. http://www.dewormtheworld.org
Project Healthy Children. The project aims to confront malnutrition
by food fortification, essentially supplying the vitamins that you and I take
for granted. But a child goes blind every minute—80% of them because of vitamin
deficiency. Zinc deficiency kills 800,000 children a year; Vitamin A deficiency
kills 2.5 million children under age 5 every year. Here’s the website. http://projecthealthychildren.org
Singer came
up with the idea of asking people to pledge 10% of their income until the day
they retire. Here’s the pledge:
The Pledge to Give
I
recognize that I can use part of my income to do a significant amount of good
in the developing world. Since I can live well enough on a smaller income, I
pledge that from today until the day I retire, I shall give at least ten
percent of what I earn to whichever organizations can most effectively use it
to help people in developing countries. I make this pledge freely, openly, and
without regret.
As well, he
came up with the idea of forming chapters of people who are working together to
practice effective charity. So far, there are 10 chapters, 317 members, and
$126,300,000 pledged.
OK—this is
what I’m gonna do. Every day, I’m going to put my change into a piggy bank,
which I will empty when full. I’ll take it to the bank, and get it changed;
then, I’ll send a quarter of that amount to each one of the four charities.
Second
strategy, I’ll play Bach suites once a week in the café where I am spending so
profligately my money. I’ll put up a little sign announcing the charity of the
week, and ask for donations.
Singer
makes two further points—the materialist rat race of working to make money to
spend money on stuff that doesn’t make us feel better but does mean we have to
go back to work the next day is ridiculous. But oddly, giving money to a worthy
cause does make us feel better. So shouldn’t we change trains?
Second, in
terms of human impact, the money you donate may be the most important thing—by
far—you’ll ever do in your life.
