[asa] New Solutions to Global Warming article from Esquire Mag

I am curious what the AGW proponents on the list think about this article. I find it to be very reasonable and practical.

Here is an excerpt below.

John

The Copenhagen Consensus Center, which we started in 2004, put my conclusion about the Gore solution to the severest test. First, we commissioned independent research on solutions to ten of the planet's biggest challenges: problems like hunger, conflict, global warming, and barriers to education. World experts were asked to identify the best ways to spend $50 billion in their field. The findings, published in academic papers, were reviewed by a second team of specialists.
 
The point of the project wasn't simply to identify good ways to spend money — it was to promote prioritization between competing options. We gathered a team of the best economists in the world, including several Nobel laureates. We asked this group to consider, test, and debate all the research and identify the best and worst ways that a limited pool of money could be spent.
Economists are experts in prioritization. The massive media hype about certain problems is irrelevant to them; they focus simply on where limited funds could achieve the most good.
 
In 2004 — and again last year, when we repeated the global project — the world's top minds did not select CO2 emission cuts as the best use of money. In fact, both times, CO2 emission reductions came out at the bottom of their lists. In 2008, the top priority the Nobel-laureate economists identified was providing micronutrients to developing countries.
 
Three billion people — about half the world's population — lack one or more micronutrients, such as vitamin A, iron, iodine, or zinc. About two billion — or almost one third of the world's population — lack iron, a deficiency that causes physical and mental impairment. On average, a person with iron deficiency is 17 percent weaker and loses 8 IQ points.
 
We could so easily right this wrong. At a cost of less than $400 million a year, we could permanently help almost half the world get stronger and smarter. In monetary terms, for every dollar we spend, we could do more than twenty dollars' worth of good in the world.

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/new-solutions-to-global-warming-0809-5#ixzz0VN3gURQ0

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Thu Oct 29 19:37:58 2009