5 Causes That Deserve as Much Recognition as ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, and its virality, raise interesting questions about which charities and health causes we choose to donate to. It seems to provide further evidence that celebrities and gimmicks often drive our charitable donating, perhaps more than they should. The feel-good campaign works like this: You film yourself throwing a bucket of ice over your head, post it to social media, and then challenge your friends to either do the same or donate $100 to the ALS Association, which works to end amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Now every famous person from media mogul Oprah Winfrey to business magnate Bill Gates seems to be dumping ice on their heads, heeding the call to battle against the motor neuron disease. The fun concept and celebrity involvement are working. Since July 29 when the challenge kicked off, the organization has reported receiving $22.9 million in donations. That's more than ten times the amount they raised in the same period last year ($1.9 million). Other charities are reportedly now searching for their ice-bucket equivalent. To be clear: ALS is an awful, debilitating disease that is worthy of donor dollars. It essentially triggers a slow paralysis in sufferers by causing the nerve cells to stop working. It's also a death sentence. From the time of diagnosis, most people live only two to five years. There's no cure, and scientists still don't know what triggers it. But ALS is also a rare disease as specified by the federal Rare Disease Act of 2002, with a nationwide incidence of 200,000 patients. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates the prevalence of ALS in the U.S. at about 12,000 persons, while the ALS Association reports it at 30,000. Here are five of the many other causes that deserve just as much- if not more - attention than ALS. Diseases Devastating the Developing World William MacAskill, founder of 80,000 Hours, suggests that if you're concerned about the impact of your investment, donate to charities that focus on diseases that impact the developing world. MacAskill explained that as a rule "donating money to the best developing-world health charities will reach at least 100 times as many people than if you donate to developed-world health causes." For example, consider the potential public-health impact of donated dollars, using a measure of disease burden like the quality-adjusted life year. With ALS, MacAskill said, $56,000 would provide one quality-adjusted life year to a sufferer. On the other hand, he said, "the same amount of money could provide 500 quality-adjusted life years, if you give money to bed nets for malaria." MacAskill continued saying, "People can get upset when you say some causes are more effective than others. That's not true, because it's as tragic for someone to die of ALS as it is for someone to die of malaria. But wanting to respect and honor a particular tragedy is different from trying to help as many people as you can." Poverty In 1973, the World Bank president said it would be possible to eradicate poverty within the 20th century, but that hasn't happened. The new goal is 2030. Philosopher Thomas Pogge, director of the Global Justice Program and Leitner professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale University, accused the wealthy in Western democracies of actively harming the world's poor by propagating the wrong political and economic systems. In a recent interview, Pogge argued that because poverty is "completely avoidable," it's a "massive crime against humanity." Today at least 80 percent of humanity live on less than $10 a day. There are 2.2 billion children in the world and about half of them (1 billion) live in poverty While the ALS Association's count of ALS sufferers at any given time is approximately 30,000, UNICEF says 22,000 children die each day due to poverty. They “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.” These "invisible" children are in need of fundraising tactics that are just as creative and effective as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Global Water Crisis Water problems plague half of all humanity: Some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation. Almost 2 in 3 people lack access to clean water and survive on less than $2 a day; 1 in 3 live on less than $1 a day. The gallons of water and ice dumped over a challenge participant's head is a waste of a vital natural resource, critics charge. "Fresh water is one of our nation's most precious resources," Jim Gulliford, executive director of the Soil and Water Conservation Society, told The Wire in an email interview. "It is a resource that should never be undervalued or wasted. This becomes even more important when areas of our country are suffering from drought." In just the last two and half years, the water level at the Folsom Lake Reservoir, located northeast of Sacramento has dropped from 97 percent capacity to just 17 percent, prompting California officials to fine residents $500 for wasting water for watering the lawn, washing cars or hosing down sidewalks. But not even the threat of penalty has prevented Californians from taking up the Ice Bucket Challenge. The ALS campaign, according to The Washington Post, has used an estimated 5 million gallons of water so far. Despite the number of celebrities who love the challenge and participated, a few, such as British comedian Ricky Gervais have expressed reservations. "Dear celebrities, OK, now that's enough. Please stop pouring lovely fresh water over your heads - Africa," tweeted Gervais on Aug. 19. War Against Black Males There’s a war going on outside and no Black man is safe from the institutional, systematic, or blatant racism committed against them. Black men are more likely to be racially profiled, stopped, frisked, arrested, prosecuted and jailed more than any other demographic in the U.S. And Black men are 49 percent more likely to be given a harsher sentence than their white counterparts for committing the same crime, especially nonviolent crimes. This war is a widespread evil and is conducted simultaneously across the Western world -- especially the U.S., England, Brazil, and Australia -- although it is a reality that many people refuse to believe exists. In his Abdullah-Johnson Theory of Black Male Alienation, Dr. Umar Johnson, a Philadelphia-based national certified school psychologist, posits the five stages of Black male alienation are: miseducation, psychotropic medication, mass incarceration, frustration/irritation, and extermination. The public will not tag three friends and family members on social media to challenge them to acknowledge the millions of lives lost to this war, particularly by police-sanctioned murder. Especially when so many may accept what many cops seem to believe: that Black skin implies criminality. Destruction of the Environment The planet's natural ecosystems and regenerating bio-capacity are being severely degraded, compromising its ability to sustain life. Forests, fisheries, oceans, range land, fresh water systems (lakes, wetlands, rivers) and other natural ecosystems are all threatened and many are on the verge of collapse. Americans dump 16 tons of sewage into their waters, every minute. One hundred and ten million Americans live amid such high levels of air pollution, the federal government considers it harmful to their health. The world has already lost 80 percent of its original forests and according to the World Resources Institute, 100 species die each day because of tropical deforestation. At this rate, 5-10 percent of the world's tropical forest species will become extinct every decade. Seventy-five percent of all the fish stock in the world are already either exploited, over-exploited, or recovering. A large study has found that up to one-half of all plants and animals species on dry land could face extinction by the year 2050 because of global warming. While humans would appear to be doing well, spreading our population across the globe, diminishing resources and other life forms on the planet tell a different story. "We are in the midst of a mass extinction, an event not seen since the disappearance of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago," says Worldwatch Institute. What a quandary it would be if after all the awareness and money raised to support ALS research, scientists discovered that our polluted environment is the cause of the disease, or worse, that the ALS cure was destroyed by deforestation.

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