Corruption is a debasement or subversion of integrity or purity and may occur in ideology or personal morality, culture, commerce, civil service (including police) or in politics. It constitutes a barrier to progress, and promotes conflict as a result of frustration and alienation; instability as a result of apathy; violence and crime. It may lead to social, ethnic, political, national and ideological disintegration and possibly revolution.

Corruption feeds on itself. People involved in petty corruption become increasingly involved in more and larger amounts. Corruption has many victims. Public corruption offenses affect all citizens directly and personally, particularly those at the lower end of the income scale. Building inspectors paid small amounts of money to approve shoddy work results in dangerous construction, substandard electrical wiring, and inferior building materials, usually in the poorest areas of town. Judges and lawyers who line their pockets result in criminals set free to victimize citizens. Taxpayers pay for corruption. When officials are bribed to award construction contracts the cost of the bribe goes into the cost of the construction often with interest. In a corrupt system, good people avoid public service. Honest contractors refuse to bid on government contracts; honest lawyers refuse to become prosecutors or judges; honest citizens avoid participating in politics either as voters or candidates.

Corruption has been highly detrimental for development. It introduces an element of irrationality in all planning and plan implementation by distorting the actual course of development plans. A common method of exploiting a position of public responsibility for private gain is the threat of obstruction and delay; hence corruption impedes the processes of decision-making and execution at all levels. It increases the need for controls to check the dishonest official. Thus it tends to make administration cumbersome and slow, and prohibits rational delegation of authority. Corruption and the widespread knowledge of corruption counteract the strivings for national consolidation and in particular, decrease respect for and allegiance to the government.

In its most evident form, corruption affects dealings of the public with government bureaucracy and political hierarchies whereby money or favour is given in exchange for a benefit from the official. This extends to dealings between business enterprises and the bureaucracy and politicians. But corruption may also affect any transactions, notably with or between businesses, even where no governmental or political body is involved. In its simplest form corruption consists mainly of bribery and tipping. Generally bribes are negotiated payments made before a transaction, whereas tips, reflecting gratitude are paid afterwards based on the evaluation of the donor with regard to short-term and long-term interest in the relationship.

Megafauna comprises extremely large animals, including whales, elephants and dinosaurs. Virtually all of these giant animals are now extinct.

Corrupt practices in business include diversion of company funds, tax evasion, and the use of bribery, intimidation and fraud. High company officials involved in corruption or seeking to extend the power of the company may offer bribes to public officials in return for favours. Commercial pressures on companies to improve performance increase susceptibility to unethical behaviour. Establishing criminal liability in such cases is a matter of law and evidence, generally with the requirement that the manager should know of the wrongdoing or be willfully blind to actions by a subordinate.

Corporate crime differs from white collar crime in that the latter is solely for the benefit of the individual, whereas corporate crime serves the corporate entity, even though in some cases the interests of the company and an individual may be connected. Embezzlement of funds from your employer is white collar crime. Deliberate inflated invoicing, which siphons funds from your clients' into your company's accounts, could be either corporate crime or white collar crime or both, depending on whether the perpetrator is able to take personal gain from the action.

A distinction can be also be made between unethical corporate activity undertaken at the discretion of a company employee and that undertaken with the tacit encouragement of, or by instruction of, superiors. Examples include cases where pollutants are dumped illegally to save disposal costs. It is considered impractical for top executives to know all the decisions taken by subordinates. In some cases such executives make it clear that they do not care how a job is done, provided it gets done. In other cases they deliberately turn a blind eye, or implicitly agree to it. And without in any way condoning unethical activity, executives may reward those subordinates who do get a job done under difficult circumstances. In all such cases the executives remain shielded from the blame by plausible deniability, although several countries have introduced new legislation to ensure that directors of companies are held liable for the criminal activities of the company and its employees.

Throughout the world, the vast majority of humanity's agriculture is non-sustainable and in spite of the substantial increase in food production over the past few decades, the present model of agriculture has not solved the world's hunger problem. In fact, our industrial, chemical intensive agriculture system has many damaging impacts. It degrades the fertility of soils, intensifies the effects of droughts and contributes to desertification, pollutes water resources, causes salinization, increases dependence on non-renewable energy, contaminates the food supply, and contributes to harmful climatic change. The knowledge, manpower, and resources exist to combat these escalating conditions, but the world's political and economic communities stand lethargic.

Relatively sudden and widespread disturbance of the social system and life of a community or region may be caused by one or more of the destructive forces of nature. Natural disasters are usually the result of geophysical or meteorological disturbances, the causes and mechanisms of which are now relatively well understood even though their occurrence and the detailed consequences cannot be predicted. The phenomena which mainly cause disasters are earthquakes and cyclonic storms, usually of tropical origin, but seismic activity under the sea can cause floods far from the centre of disturbance. Besides direct damage due to flooding, wind forces and earth movement, landslips and outbreaks of fire may occur to cause further damage and loss of life. Volcanic activity, besides being the cause of some earthquakes, can also cause damage from lava and ash.

The UNEP data book of 1991 notes that the frequency of natural disasters has increased in recent decade, adding that one reason may be a heightened awareness of disasters through reports in the media. It also suggests that natural disasters are becoming more significant in terms of magnitude and numbers. The most widely accepted reason is that the "hit rate" has increased considerably due to the continuing growth of world population. More than one third of the world's largest and fasting growing cities are now in regions of high seismic risk. Many of these are in developing countries where poor construction methods exacerbate the dangers. Many huge populations of non-urban people are concentrated in regions of environmental risk, such as variable rainfall; thousands of people have migrated to these regions in the past few decades as a result of population pressure and social conflict.

The world's societies and environment are increasingly suffering from the effects of natural disasters. A disaster usually results from the combination of a vulnerable environment and a hazard such as floods, tropical storms, earthquakes, landslides, wild fires, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis. They can cause the loss of life, property and livelihoods.