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How would you spend £30billion?
Topic Started: May 26 2008, 11:00 AM (327 Views)
sarah_blueparrot
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Fulla-Carp
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/envi...icle3993299.ece

Quote:
 
An introduction to the Copenhagen Consensus 2008

Scientists, politicians and economists are split on how best to solve the great challenges of our time

Mark Henderson, Science Editor

Choose your own priorities on our interactive table

Issues: conflict l global warming l disease l hunger l terrorism

Imagine that you are Bill Gates. Not to daydream about what to buy with a $58 billion fortune, but to consider how, like the Microsoft entrepreneur, you might give much of it away.

There are dozens of global challenges that could benefit from your philanthropy, but large as your financial resources are, they are not limitless. What would be your priorities? This week The Times is asking readers for their answers — while the Copenhagen Consensus project invites eminent economists to do the same.

Would your $50 billion be best spent on preventing the three great plagues of the modern era — malaria, tuberculosis and HIV, which claim tens of millions of lives each year?

Or might it be better to fund nutrition in developing countries, where almost 150 million children are underweight for their age and 200 million are chronically malnourished?

What about climate change, which many scientists consider to be the gravest threat of all? Should you invest in improving renewable energy technologies, to reduce reliance on fossil fuels?

Your choice would obviously be influenced by your social and political outlook, and by your perceptions of which challenges matter the most. But you might also want to be confident of getting a decent bang for your buck.

Is it possible to establish which of these challenges can be solved most cost-effectively, so that your generosity does the greatest good for the greatest number?

That is the question that a panel of eight economists, including five Nobel laureates, will attempt to answer next week, as the Copenhagen Consensusdeliberates in the Danish capital.

Over the coming days, they will hear presentations from 30 specialists in particular global problems, each of whom will make the case for a menu of solutions in their fields.

Ten topics have been chosen for debate: terrorism; conflict; malnutrition and hunger; education; the role of women; air pollution; subsidies and trade barriers; disease; sanitation and water; and global warming. The panel will decide on a league table, to guide investments by philanthropists, charities and governments. The exercise is the brainchild of Bjørn Lomborg, the controversial Danish statistician whose 2001 book The Skeptical Environmentalist upset many scientists and green activists with a revisionist view of ecological issues.

The outcome of the first Copenhagen Consensus, held in 2004, proved equally contentious, not because of HIV’s place at the head of the list, but because of what was at the bottom.

Climate change is a reality, the panel argued, but the Kyoto Protocol was not a cost-effective way of addressing it. Limiting greenhouse-gas emissions would postpone the problem only slightly, and at unacceptable cost.

Some commentators considered this to be a thought-provoking injection of rationalism to an emotional debate. Others dismissed it as the consensus of a “random group” of economists lined up to endorse Dr Lomborg’s well-known scepticism about Kyoto.

Further criticism has been directed at the merit of considering these issues purely in terms of cost and benefit. Factors such as social justice, ecological stewardship and political acceptability are also important, but are exceptionally difficult to price.

Other development economists, such as Jeffrey Sachs, of Columbia University, think it misleading to present action on global warming, hunger and malaria as “either-or” options, when all these need to be addressed.

Dr Lomborg recognises these concerns, but argues that his initiative remains useful. “Clearly, there are other issues that matter as well as cost-benefit analysis,” he said. “But unless you put prices and values on things, it is difficult to make informed choices.

“What we’re doing is pricing up the menu. That doesn’t mean you have to pick the cheapest dish, or even the one that’s best value, but you want to know what they cost. Of course, it’s hard to compare carbon footprints with deaths from infectious diseases, but we often compare apples with oranges in everyday life. The challenge to these economists is to compare unlike with unlike as best they can.

“Too often, it’s the most photogenic and PR-friendly options that get priority. We want to step back and ask what’s actually most worthwhile.”

A sample of the solutions offered to five of the challenges are presented here. You can view a full list and choose your own priorities on our interactive table. We also want alternative answers, and your views about the process. Is it really useful to judge these problems in terms of cost and benefit? What other factors need to be taken into account?

The best contributions will be published next Saturday — alongside the economists’ prescriptions for the great challenges of our time.


I would choose tackling overpopulation, and I'm surprised that it's not on the list.
Death is simply a shedding of the physical body like the butterfly shedding its cocoon. It is a transition to a higher state of consciousness where you continue to perceive, to understand, to laugh, and to be able to grow.

- Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
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Mark
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HOLY CARP!!!
I would spend it all to eliminate the personal income tax and fractional reserve banking practices.

Oh, and to eliminate the Federal Reserve as well.
___.___
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o 0
When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
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kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
I'd pay down my mortgage.

Then I'd steal Crash's woman away.
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Red Rice
HOLY CARP!!!
Babes and beer.
Civilisation, I vaguely realized then - and subsequent observation has confirmed the view - could not progress that way. It must have a greater guiding principle to survive. To treat it as a carcase off which each man tears as much as he can for himself, is to stand convicted a brute, fit for nothing better than a jungle existence, which is a death-struggle, leading nowhither. I did not believe that was the human destiny, for Man individually was sane and reasonable, only collectively a fool.

I hope the gunner of that Hun two-seater shot him clean, bullet to heart, and that his plane, on fire, fell like a meteor through the sky he loved. Since he had to end, I hope he ended so. But, oh, the waste! The loss!

- Cecil Lewis
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sue
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HOLY CARP!!!
sarah_blueparrot
May 26 2008, 12:00 PM
I would choose tackling overpopulation, and I'm surprised that it's not on the list.

I think that's a good thought, Sarah. Would cover quite a lot of the options they're discussing;" malnutrition and hunger; education; the role of women"

So where would you start? I've always thought education, education, education. Women need to know they are more than baby making machines, and it doesn't make much sense to keep popping babies when you have no money for food, clothing, shelter, education for those babies.
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sarah_blueparrot
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Fulla-Carp
Yes, education would be a good start. There's no point handing out pills and condoms if the knowledge isn't there to start with.

Of course it would a gruesome law, but following the Chinese and limiting every family worldwide to one child would go a long way to solving these problems in 25 years or so. :mellow: Or maybe families should have to prove that they can afford children... Oh my. These ideas are sounding a little too socialist for my liking!
Death is simply a shedding of the physical body like the butterfly shedding its cocoon. It is a transition to a higher state of consciousness where you continue to perceive, to understand, to laugh, and to be able to grow.

- Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
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jon-nyc
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Cheers
lol Kenny.


Sarah - if the population were to shrink so drastically who would pay our pensions?

In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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Moonbat
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Pisa-Carp
I don't know if i would actually do this but i have though that perhaps if one had the resources it would be worth trying to "fix" a single (small) developing world country.

Go to some African country, stand for election and tell the people that if they elect you for 15 years or so (maybe 30) you will spend 30 billion making their lives better. (I.e you essentially become a benevolent dictator)

Then massively control the border the country and pour resources into education, healthcare and constructing a working economy.

30 billion is a lot of money but on a global scale it's nothing, in terms of GNP of developed countries it's a drop in the ocean. If you could show the world that we really can fix the issues faced by developing nations. Not just patch them up a bit but actually solve problems so future generations are definitively better off. Then suddenly the imperative to do so would hugely increase.

The humanitarian problems the developing world faces are so extreme that all charitable work feels like a drop in the ocean like it's just giving someone who's got a an axe stuck into them some asprin. But if you could give a proof of principle, if you could show that it's possible to take the axe out - to transform an entire country - then this notion might be dispelled hence the single success could be a catalyst for a global effort on a scale unseen before.

Of course that's assuming that one can actually fix a country, that it's possible to do. I know plenty of people who will say that it isn't. I have no expertise, so maybe they are right. I don't know but really money is nothing more than a ticket to human endeavour and we can do quite a lot. You would have to spend a significant amount on figuring out how to spend the rest of your resources to maximum effect but i don't see why in principle it could not be done. Perhaps the timescales are too long perhaps you would need 100 years to get anywhere and by that time other developing world countries would already doing much better.

Still i think it's an interesting idea.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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sarah_blueparrot
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Fulla-Carp
Yes, an interesting idea, Moonbat. I'm not sure if £30b would be enough for the development of every aspect of life for one country, and immigration laws would have to be tightly controlled to stop flooding. It would provide a good example of how and what to tackle, if it worked, but it seems a bit unfair on the poor neighbouring countries.
Death is simply a shedding of the physical body like the butterfly shedding its cocoon. It is a transition to a higher state of consciousness where you continue to perceive, to understand, to laugh, and to be able to grow.

- Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
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Frank_W
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Hookers and blow, FTW!!!! :party: Posted Image
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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sarah_blueparrot
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:lol: Mr _W for President!
Death is simply a shedding of the physical body like the butterfly shedding its cocoon. It is a transition to a higher state of consciousness where you continue to perceive, to understand, to laugh, and to be able to grow.

- Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
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Frank_W
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:devilgrin: :woot:
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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