Prioritizing ‘inconvenient truths’
Hunger and disease vs. climate change – the UN asks which of these is more important to saving the world?
Given a notional $50 billion, how would the ambassadors spend it to make the world a better place? Their conclusions were strikingly similar to the Copenhagen Consensus. After hearing presentations from experts on each problem, they drew up a list of priorities. The top four were basic health care, better water and sanitation, more schools and better nutrition for children. Averting climate change came last.
The ambassadors thought it wiser to spend money on things they knew would work. Promoting breast-feeding, for example, costs very little and is proven to save lives. It also helps infants grow up stronger and more intelligent, which means they will earn more as adults. Vitamin A supplements cost as little as $1, save lives and stop people from going blind. And so on.
Why does climate change score so low?
For climate change, the trouble is that though few dispute that it is occurring, no one knows how severe it will be or what damage it will cause. And the proposed solutions are staggeringly expensive.
See also this comprehensive post by Owen that takes stock of the world’s progress towards ‘making poverty history’ one year after Gleneagles.
Update: Bjorn Lomberg, organizer of the Copenhagen Consensus, has more:
Here’s one fact to consider: the entire death toll from the Southeast Asian tsunami is matched each month by the number of worldwide casualties of HIV/AIDS. A comprehensive prevention program providing free or cheap condoms and information about safe sex to the regions worst affected by HIV/AIDS would cost $27 billion and save more than 28 million lives. This, say the economists who took part in the Copenhagen Consensus, makes it the single best investment that the world could possibly make. The social benefits would outweigh the costs by 40 to one...
Regardless of whether we agree with the economists, everybody must admit that we cannot do everything at once. Discussing our priorities is crucial. Often, politicians avoid prioritization. Why? The glib answer is because it is hard. There are many interested parties. No group wants their solution to come last, and no government wants its country’s national challenges to be overlooked.
Lomberg is also the editor of a new book coming out: How to Spend $50 Billion to Make the World a Better Place.
Comments (4)
Delicious
E-mail
Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Interesting. In the long run it would seem that averting global warming would save more lives. Whose lives are more important: future generations who are not yet living or those who are alive today? In the long run we are all dead...except for those who were just born.
Posted by: Ethan Arpi | Jun 28, 2006 3:33:42 PM
I think this post is right on. I absolutely agree that global warming is an issue, but the world is full of inconvenient truths. The largest of these for me is the huge discrepency between how some of the world gets to live and the conditions that the majority of people are subjected to.
In my mind the challenge isn't seeing this as the priority, it's knowing how to fix it (www.asapafrica.org/blog.html).
Posted by: Stephanie | Jun 28, 2006 10:11:36 PM
How will you sustain life on earth? That’s what has to be looked after. Will the world be able to support the existing life? How can we make the earth a better place to live? That’s what has to be thought about. A huge population and no means for their survival, think how difficult it would be.
Lets all take a resolution that we are going to do something for the betterment of the world.
I came across this site. Just wanted to share it. It’s on an organization that is dedicated to planting trees along Houston's streets and freeways. I got the link from this site. It’s a sure Check for all you people http://www.dickweekley.com/affiliations.html
Posted by: Shawn Henry | Jul 7, 2006 7:06:57 AM
I sit looking from my office at Mt. Rainier in Washington state. Had it not been for 40 days of rain this year, we would not have snow on the mountain now, because of the warm weather.
Prioritizing for what? If the environment won't sustain the population, who cares. Perhaps we may already have TOO MUCH population and like wild fires, the population kill off from storms and disease may be natures way of gleaning out the over populated non-sustainable world.
As to whether business should engage in paying for all the problems of the world...ABSOLUTELY...if it is the likes of Exxon and Halliburton that fleese the people at will. We're still waiting for Exxon to pay up
Posted by: Paul T. Jackson | Jul 28, 2006 10:13:29 PM