The Two Essential Actions Needed for a Better Future World

Humanity faces many serious challenges, but two actions could greatly improve the prospects for a more peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable world: accelerating the transition toward plant-based diets and achieving a durable resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Current threats to humanity are considered below, along with suggestions for actions that can reduce them.

The world has been rapidly warming up. Every decade since the 1970s has been warmer than the previous decade. All 26 years in this century are among the 27 hottest years on record. All of the 13 months from June 2023 to June 2024 broke temperature records. Both 2023 and 2024 broke worldwide temperature records, and climate experts think that 2026 and 2027 might be hotter due to the presence of a very strong El Niño and continued greenhouse gas emissions.

Sea levels are rising rapidly due to the melting of glaciers and polar ice caps, and there has been a significant increase in the frequency and severity of heat waves, droughts, wildfires, storms, and floods.

Climate experts are concerned about self-reinforcing positive feedback loops (vicious cycles), cases where climate events make future climate events more likely. One example is that during heat waves, people use more air conditioning. This means that more fossil fuels are burned, more greenhouse gases are emitted, and future heat waves become more likely. Another is that when wildfires occur, carbon-absorbing trees are destroyed, burned trees release their carbon into the atmosphere, and greenhouse gases are emitted in replacing burned cars, houses, and other structures, making future wildfires and other climate events  more likely.

Although it is largely overlooked, even by many climate experts, a primary driver of climate change is animal-based agriculture. Cows emit methane, a very potent greenhouse gas. Over 40 percent of the world’s ice-free land is used for grazing and growing crops to feed. animals. This has resulted in a sharp reduction in carbon-absorbing trees (from an estimated six trillion to about three trillion), raising atmospheric CO₂ to hazardous levels

It is essential that animal-based diets be sharply reduced to enable extensive reforestation. That would reduce atmospheric CO2 to a much safer level, increasing chances for a habitable, healthy, environmentally sustainable world for future generations.

On the second issue, an end to current conflicts, especially through a two-state resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, would bring many benefits. They include:

1. A successful Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement could reduce regional tensions, improve prospects for diplomacy with Iran, perhaps ending the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, and lessen the risk of wider conflict. Hence, instead of the current threat of a global recession due to the sharp increase in oil and other prices due to the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, there could  be many economic benefits.

2. A lasting peace could reduce one of the world’s longest-running conflicts, lowering the risk of wider regional wars that can disrupt global markets.

3. Security-related spending could be reduced, enabling more resources to be devoted to education, health care, infrastructure, scientific research, and environmental protection.

4. Greater regional stability could encourage foreign investment, tourism, and trade throughout the Middle East and elsewhere. Israel’s technology sector and Palestinian entrepreneurs could cooperate more extensively, benefiting both economies.

5. Peace could accelerate economic partnerships among Israel, Arab states, Europe, and Asia in areas such as energy, water management, agriculture, transportation, and artificial intelligence.

6. Reduced regional tensions could lessen risks to oil and natural gas supplies and shipping routes, helping stabilize global energy prices. That would also be helped by shifting from fossil fuels to renewable forms of energy.

7. Fewer wars would likely mean fewer civilian casualties, less destruction of infrastructure, fewer refugees, and reduced spending on emergency humanitarian assistance

While an Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution would require painful concessions from Israel, the many benefits for them and for the entire world justify them.

Among the potential benefits for Israel would be improved international standing, reduced antisemitism, a lessened migration deficit, and enhanced prospects for Saudi Arabia and other Muslim nations to join the Abraham Accords.

This analysis is shared not only by many world leaders but also by Commanders for Israel’s Security (CIS), an organization of more than 550 retired leaders of Israel’s military, intelligence, police, and diplomatic services. While reasonable people may disagree with its recommendations, few organizations possess greater collective expertise regarding Israel’s long-term security.

To increase Israel’s willingness to accept a conflict resolution, it should include no role for Hamas, a demilitarized  Palestinian state, security guarantees, a territorial swap that leaves most Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria within Israel, and international financial support that would benefit all the people in the region.

To increase the chances of Palestinian acceptance of a conflict resolution, the many potential benefits to them should be emphasized.

This analysis is consistent with basic Jewish values, including “Choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:19), bal tashchit (prohibition against needless destruction, based on Deuteronomy 20:19, 20), “Seek peace and pursue it” (Psalm 34:15), and the prophetic vision of nations living in peace (Isaiah 2, for example).

History shows that ideas once considered unrealistic can become accepted when circumstances change and public understanding grows. The stakes—for Israel, the Middle East, and future generations worldwide—are too great not to pursue every realistic path toward a more peaceful and sustainable future.