With the fact we still have:
a lot of people unemployed/under employed
a real need to increase the amount of clean drinkable water
a real need to grow more food
a real need to create more energy and protect our energy sources
a real need to rebuild and expand on our infrastructure
I keep wondering why we aren't doing more to:
Desalinate water on a larger scale through building multiple desalination plants along the coastline with finding ways to supply energy to the desalination plants that would not be a drain on the resources we already use
use large arid areas that are known to be hot as farm land with creating a water pipeline from one or more water desalination plants to have a constant supply of water for the crops and any farm animals that can tolerate the heat well enough to thrive.
find more sources of energy and up scaling those energy sources that are already proven to work but are still in small scale and to incorporate things like solar panels into new building as part of the overall part of the design of the facade to incorporate the panels into the overall look.
actually deal with the crumbling infrastructure that we call our modes of transportation, our utilities and such to the point that we actually expand on what is already there to accommodate the ever growing populations with using double or triple the expected population growth in upgrading and expanding so we don't fall short of what we need.
doing this would help solve a lot of the problems plaguing our society while also putting millions of people to work partly with short term jobs with things like construction and manufacturing and permanent jobs that includes creating the water, growing the food/energy, the upkeep of the infrastructure, and the manufacturing jobs that would be needed to be able to maintain each of these.