With over 11,000 blogs (and counting) contributing to the one-day discussion of a single issue — poverty — you’d expect some great things to happen.

11,000 posts from 11,000 people, speaking to an estimated audience of tens of millions worldwide. By day’s end there will no doubt be many, many more who have added their voice against this issue.

Poverty. An enormous threat to not just your own little place in the world, but the world itself.
From globalissues.org:

Almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 per day.
At least 80% of the entire human population gets by on less than $10 a day.

Almost two in three people lacking access to clean water survive on less than $2 a day, with one in three living on less than $1 a day. More than 660 million people without sanitation live on less than $2 a day, and more than 385 million on less than $1 a day.

There are 2.2 billion children alive around the world today. Half of them — 1,000,000,000 children — live in poverty.

Around 27-28 percent of all children in developing countries are estimated to be underweight or stunted. The two regions that account for the bulk of the deficit are South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

Some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.

Every year there are 350–500 million cases of malaria, with 1 million fatalities: Africa accounts for 90 percent of malarial deaths and African children account for over 80 percent of malaria victims worldwide.

Close to half of all people in developing countries are suffering at any given time from a health problem caused by water and sanitation deficits. Some 1.8 million child deaths occur each year as a result of diarrhoea alone.

Close to half of all people in developing countries are suffering at any given time from a health problem caused by water and sanitation deficits.

For the 1.9 billion children from the developing world, there are 640 million without adequate shelter (1 in 3), 400 million with no access to safe water (1 in 5) and 270 million with no access to health services (1 in 7).

Worldwide, 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5. This is equal to the amount of children in France, Germany, Greece and Italy. 1.4 million of these die each year from lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation.

You’d think with this kind of mass exposure to one of the greatest threats to humanity — and single greatest cause of lost human life — there would be something, anything, said that would actually address the issue and provide workable solutions to the problem.

So. What do people have to say about this vile, evil threat to human existence known as poverty?

Not much.

Almost every blog I’ve taken a look at on Blog Action Day’s live ticker is nothing more than a paragraph or two that essentially say this:

Poverty Is Bad.
We Blogged About It.
Send Your Money To Charity.

It’s a great idea. Organize a worldwide effort to expose the effects of poverty, strike a chord with bloggers worldwide, and have them offer solutions to combat one of the greatest problems that has ever faced mankind.

Problem?

The solutions I’ve seen — simply giving to a charity for this reason or that reason — are about as effective as placing a band-aid on a gaping neck wound.

No doubt, a lot of people will be spurred into action. Many people — including those who may have never given to charity before — will be made more aware of the global poverty problem thanks to massive blogger participation, and have the opportunity feel good for trying to make a difference.

Don’t misunderstand — you should certainly give.
Give all you can.

Even a few dollars to a charity of your choice can feed, clothe, house, provide education and medical care — giving the basic stuff of life to those who do not have it. Stuff that we take for granted every day.

And feel good for doing so. Feel good for making a difference, no matter how small.
But don’t kid yourself into believing that this will eliminate poverty any time soon. It won’t.

Charity helps. But in spite of all this education and awareness prodding about how poverty affects people both in developing countries, and sometimes too close to home for comfort — charity alone has not, and probably cannot, tackle the problem of extreme global poverty.

There’s a lot of people out there. A lot.

The good thing is there’s a lot of money out there too.
The bad, is we’re spending it on all the wrong things.

We’ve grown accustomed to throwing money at our problems — both real, and perceived — in hopes that someone else will come up with a good solution. While this can and does solve many of our problems, it’s a slippery slope to walk down.

For example?

We trust the experts, we trust our representatives, and we trust governments to do the right thing for all of us. Not just in our hometown, not just in our country — but the world.

We trust the newspapers and television when they tell us that terrorism is the most pressing problem facing humanity today — and for good reason.

Terrorism has killed thousands of people worldwide.
Terrorism has killed thousands of people here in the US.

You’re constantly reminded of the threat of terrorism to humanity, and the need for your support through taxes to combat it. Because terrorism kills a lot of people. Right?

Have you stopped to ask someone — how many?

I’m citing the Bush Administration’s report and Patterns of Global Terrorism below:

Between 1995 and 2000 there were 2076 deaths from global terrorism.
3547 in 2001.
725 in 2002.
625 in 2003.
1,907 in 2004.
14,602 in 2005.

Official figures before 1995 or after 2005 weren’t readily available.
If anyone finds a source of this information, let me know.

In ten years, 23,482 people died from acts of terrorism around the world.

However, in just one day — yesterday — acts of poverty have been the cause of death of more men, women, and children than all the acts of terrorism in the last ten years combined.

According to UNICEF, between 26,500 and 30,000 children under the age of five die every day due to poverty.

These statistics are significantly higher, estimated between 80,000 and 150,000 deaths per day, when children older than 5 and adults are taken into account.

Let that sink in.
Hunger, thirst, and disease continue to kill more people than bombs or bullets ever have — or likely ever will.

That’s not to say terrorism isn’t a deadly, vile threat to humanity also.
Because it is. It’s a horrible thing.

But let’s take an objective look at the problems facing the world today:

Global military spending, much of which is now used either directly or indirectly to fight the global war on terror, topped $1.2 trillion in 2007. The United States spent more than half, approximately $630 billion. All of these funds come out of your pocket, through taxes.

Global humanitarian aid to impoverished people amounts to about $11 billion. Most of these funds come out of your pocket too, through direct contribution.

To break it down, with rough figures:

A few dozen deaths per day from terrorism.
One hundred thousand deaths per day from poverty.

Yet somehow we justify the allocation of more than 50 times the amount spent on humanitarian aid to military projects. How many impoverished lives could be saved if we spent that money elsewhere?

It’s not hard to see which is the wiser investment.
And if you really gave a damn about poverty, you’d be rethinking your investment strategy.

Still, there are 11,000 blogs and 11,000 bloggers who believe that well meaning — but essentially half-assed — gestures such as posting a video, or writing a quick blurb, and linking to a website or a few poverty relief charities will actually eliminate poverty.

Sure. It’ll help.

One more child will eat tonight.
A hundred more will eat tomorrow.

Hundreds of thousands will receive help from your charitable donations each month.
But there are billions of others who will not.

Millions of people will die a slow, excruciatingly painful death due to malnutrition and starvation.

Millions more will die from disease caused by unhygienic living conditions and filthy water.

Billions more will continue to live out their miserable lives — penniless, hungry, and ill.

But that one — that one little girl or boy that you helped with your donation — won’t have to suffer as much.
And that’s good enough for most of us.

Really, what more can we do?

Individually we can’t do much, can we? We lead busy lives. And it’s so damn easy to throw our money at some charity — in hopes that the worldwide poverty problem will be solved, someday.

But that’s the beauty of the internet, blogging, and initiatives such as Blog Action Day.

Together we can each help one more poverty-stricken family because of massive humanitarian collaboration.
We can all get together on a scale never before seen, and tackle the issues we’ve never dared before.
We can all do a little bit more because of these things.

Or, we can totally miss the point.

Poverty exists because we allow it to exist.
Poverty exists because you allow it to exist.

Poverty exists because we are oblivious to the fact that if people everywhere — scratch that, let’s start with the 11,000 who have participated in Blog Action Day — if we take a good look at the numbers, where our money is going, and where our money could be going, we would see that extreme poverty could be completely eliminated in less than a year with just a few small changes.

What changes?

Let’s start with the $2,000,000,000 spent every single week to fund the war in Iraq.

Whether you support the war for ideological reasons or not at all isn’t the issue here — if you’re an American, this is two billion dollars of your money used to fund a project against terrorism, which has a global death toll that doesn’t even come close to one percent of the deaths caused by poverty.

What would happen if your money went to poverty relief efforts instead?

Instead of reactive measures to suppress the relatively insignificant number of deaths caused by terrorist violence? Instead of reconstructive efforts to rebuild what we have destroyed?

Two billion dollars a week.
Over 100 billion dollars a year goes straight to Iraq to fund our military presence.

This is important to consider when you realize that only about 50 billion dollars would be needed to achieve universal access to basic social services in ALL developing countries.

The following report is outdated, but even adjusting for inflation — it would cost less than what we spend in Iraq to provide these basic human necessities for everyone. Everywhere.

This part of the report outlines costs for providing clean water sources for all, basic medical care, reproductive care for women, free education and literacy programs, and other services that truly make a difference in the world.

See: United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 1998, Chapter 1, p.37

If the funds used to fuel our presence in Iraq were reallocated to worldwide poverty relief, we could nearly — possibly even completely — eliminate extreme poverty in every developing nation around the world.

It’s your money.
Where do you want to see it go?

Trying to prevent a few dozen deaths a day, or actually preventing a hundred thousand?

The idea becomes clearer when you imagine that anti-American terrorism would be reduced even further just by the act of applying these funds to poverty relief. Who would want to shout ‘Death To America’ when America provides so much humanitarian aid to the world, instead of an ever-increasing military presence?

It’s your money.
Through private donations, or through taxes, this is your money at work.

Now again I’m not suggesting Blog Action Day is a bad idea, or that you shouldn’t give to charity. Every dollar counts, every contribution helps just a little bit more — and as a whole we’ll undoubtably contribute a record amount to charities fighting against poverty through this effort.

But you don’t have to stop there.

This is just one idea. One solution, for one project, for one country.
No doubt there are many other great ideas for finally eliminating extreme global poverty.

Whether this ‘re-budgeting’ is practical or not, is up to you.
If you’ve got a better idea, by all means: share it with the world.

Blog Action Day is a step in the right direction, but you should realize that the real power in collaborative efforts like this isn’t just to raise awareness and contributions — the power lies in raising concerns about the core causes, and thus practical solutions, of poverty.

Once we understand this, discuss solutions, and act — we will actually make poverty history.
Or, we can just keep giving to charity and hope for the best.