An instructive piece from the June 22, 2006 The Economist:
...over the weekend, Mr [John] Bolton [US Ambassador to the UN] sat down with UN diplomats from seven other countries, including China and India but no Europeans, to rank 40 ways of tackling ten global crises. The problems addressed were climate change, communicable diseases, war, education, financial instability, governance, malnutrition, migration, clean water and trade barriers.
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.
In Posts on this Blog, the last one as recently as yesterday, I pointed out the 4 questions that always should be asked re "global warming"--1. Is it occurring? 2. If it is occurring, have humans caused it? 3. If humans have caused it, can anything at this point be done about it? 4. If so, at what cost (e.g., to prevent 1 degree of warming over the next 100 years, would you be willing to cut industrial production, etcetera, even if meant an economic depression)?
The Economist Post is either a useful twist on question 4 or, indeed, an independent question 5. In a world of limited resources, if you had an extra dollar, better to spend it on preventing a 1 degree of warming over the next 100 years or to get a child a meal, or a tetanus shot, now? Think about it.
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