How to Spend $50 Billion to Make the World a Better Place

by Bjørn Lomborg

Edited by Bj�rn Lomborg, this abridged version of the highly acclaimed Global Crises, Global Solutions provides a serious yet accessible springboard for debate and discussion on the world's most serious problems, and what we can do to solve them. In a world fraught with problems and challenges, we need to gauge how to achieve the greatest good with our money. This unique book provides a rich set of dialogs examining ten of the most serious challenges facing the world climate change, the spread of communicable diseases, conflicts and arms proliferation, access to education, financial instability, governance and corruption, malnutrition and hunger, migration, sanitation and access to clean water, and subsidies and trade barriers. Each problem is introduced by a world-renowned expert who defines the scale of the issue and examines a range of policy options.

Genres: Economics, Nonfiction, Politics, Business, Self Help, Science, Philosophy

Paperback Bunko

Published January 1, 1744

About the author

Bjørn Lomborg is a Danish author and president of his think tank, the Copenhagen Consensus Center. He is former director of the Danish government's Environmental Assessment Institute (EAI) in Copenhagen. He became internationally known for his best-selling and controversial 2001 book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, in which he argues that many of the costly measures and actions adopted by scientists and policy makers to meet the challenges of global warming will ultimately have minimal impact on the world's rising temperature.

Reviews

[Y. L · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Copenhagen Consensus is where one economist in his own field of expertise is invited to submit his opinion on what he/she perceives as a global challenge, and then be given further perspective by two other experts in the field - much like a parent meeting where all the grown ups who think they know best sit together and discuss what would be best for their children and their children's future generations.

The book was written in 2006. It is now 2017 and I doubt we are anywhere near resolving these challenges confronted by the Consensus. Then again, "There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.” ― Franklin D. Roosevelt.

I shall not destroy the gist of this book and your curiosity by listing out the ingredients to the End of Our World in bullet points for you simply because problems of the generation(s) of many are hardly ever as clear-cut as a to-do list with due dates. The reader will best appreciate the complexity of our situation by piecing together the seemingly unrelated issues we have. I promise you it won't take long before he/she realises that our one and biggest problem is our very own humanity.

It didn't take long after my first few pages to admittedly come to terms on how saddening it is that we as a human race place priority and importance to our most concerning issues by rank of economical benefits rather than human lives and the value of it. Granted, economists are revered for their realistic take on our world and will stand up to be readily accountable for their assumptions and (well-calculated) decisions, but participants of the Copenhagen Consensus not being able (perhaps more reluctant than dismissive) to place a value on human life were as a whole incapable of balancing economic feasibility, humanity, sustainability and the sense of urgency for the challenges that we are currently presented with.

Lomborg's summary of the Copenhagen Consensus is fair and goes well in length and depth. Any further and it would have border-lined as an article in Econometrica. And for this very reason, I gave this book four stars because it was a little pointless - yes, it expectedly lacked depth, but by all means not three stars because Lomborg had nonetheless perfectly summarised the Consensus despite the lack of appreciable content.

[Matas Maldeikis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Banalybių rinkinys.

[Khari · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good little book. I learned a lot while reading it. I learned that economists are surprisingly full of common sense. We should have more panels of economists advising on things like education, climatology, trade, migration and disease prevention. Seriously. If we had economists talking to governments about the best place to spend foreign aid, then foreign aid might actually accomplish something other than lining the pockets of local warlords.

Obviously economists shouldn't be the final and or only voice to determine policy, but it would be really good to at least listen to their opinions and projections of cost and benefits of programs and make decisions based on which programs would have the least cost and greatest benefit.

Basically the ranking the panel came up with in this book was: focus on decreasing malnutrition and communicable disease first, then clean water, government and migration form, and lastly...climate change. Ha. I loved their basic analysis for climate change was "the panel urged increased funding for research into more affordable carbon-abatement technologies." Basically, do more research until you understand the process better. I agree. I agree with the designer of this think tank, Bjorn Lomborg, the number one resource on this planet is human minds, we should be saving as many of those as possible because one of them will come up with the solution to solving climate problems. Yes. We should be focusing on getting good nutrition to pregnant mothers and young babies and young children, good nutrition being the number one way to improve cognitive abilities. It's time we looked at humans as a resource and the method of problem solving instead of as a cancer on the planet.

Anyway, I thought this book was a good book to read not only for governments and policy makers, but even for everyday people because it can really guide charitable giving. There are a bunch of programs out there, for example Survival Initiative, that focus on providing prenatal vitamins and nutritional support to pregnant mothers as well as education on things such as breastfeeding over formula. These are programs that make a difference on the individual level and are supported by individuals, and yet align with what economists say is the least cost and highest benefit options. There are other programs such as Compassion, adopt a child, etc., that pair up a sponsor with a child to provide that child with nutritional supplements and educational supplies throughout their school life, another great program that meets the goals outlined in this book. The one that surprised me the most was mosquito nets. Insecticide treated mosquito nets was the number one solution for decreasing malaria and other mosquito-born diseases and they cost just 2 dollars. We don't even need the government to get these into action. How many of us can spare two dollars a month? There are all sorts of private organizations that donate these the Against Malaria Foundation, Compassion, etc.

I was glad I read this book. It means that I can make my giving more effective.

[Kåre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Det er først nu, jeg læser noget fra den begivenhed, som fandt sted i 2004.
Jeg syntes om Lomberg fra han kom frem og var på den måde helt modsat alle, jeg på det tidspunkt var sammen med. På Institut for Antropologi kunne de slet ikke have ham og fx Steven Sampson undsage ham helt direkte som helt tåbelig.
Retrospektivt er det stadig oplagt for mig, at hele projektet er godt tænkt og vigtigt. Selvfølgelig skal vi forsøge at forholde os rationelt til udfordringer, bla ved at rangordne dem i forhold til, om der skal hældes penge på dem nu, senere eller slet ikke. Oplagt, at man må komme frem til, at sikre succeser trumfer usikre, mere evidens trumfer mindre, nutid trumfer fremtid. Det er også disse prioriteringer, som alle de tre paneler kommer frem til uafhængigt af hinanden. Dermed er forsøget temmeligt robust.
Bogen er klart skrevet og kan læses af de fleste. Metoderne er økonomi og cost benefit.

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the Copenhagen Consensus convened by Lomborg, top economists gathered to assess which social problems deserve immediate attention and funding, the fruits of which are manifest in this book. Realizing that money is scarce while global issues are not, the Consensus established a prioritization model based on cost-benefit payouts where challenges like the spread of HIV/AIDS and malnutrition merit immediate care and carbon taxes and guest-worker programs do not.

The book's concept is excellent, however, because this is a diluted and reader-friendly version of Lomborg's Global Crises, Global Solutions, I would recommend avoiding this 187-pager and going straight to the source, replete with substantiated CBA's and proper referencing - both of which this book lacks in its attempt to not scare off non-economist, lay readers.

[Eliza · Rating 1 out of 5]

I liked the idea of exploring different issues, their costs and benefits, and ranking them in some kind of order of priority, but this book assesses issues in purely economic terms, as if in a vacuum, and I couldn't help but think that every argument would not quite occur in its predicted manner in the real world. Reading this book was sometimes a little tedious, boring and annoying because there were so many numbers. I'm glad I never studied economics! I don't think I ever could! I don't feel like I really learnt anything except that so many of our policies seem to be based off predictions made by experts that disagree with each other.

[Ravi Prakash · Rating 3 out of 5]

We have countless global problems but limited resources in terms of capital. When a massive task consumes all the resources, denying the small realizable ones its share, it is called the problem of 'starvation' in scheduling. Because it is so difficult to separate science and politics, and so much noise on social media, its difficult to to prioritize global issues. This is a good attempt by the author to rank order problems in terms of which can do the most 'good'.

[Troy Massey]

This short book is a backhand forth of supporting proposals for making the world abetter place....

Of the articles i have read thus far, my impression is that this Cambridge University Press / Copenhagen Consensus Center book, was an attempt to engage the academic economists in policy level discussions of how the world could be operated through Government / Private programs.

Pro United Nations and WTO the gist of what some of the various authors ( Global) have detailed is summarized in numerical ratings in the end of the book for Each proposal. When considering the proposals the panel "Was guided predominantly by consideration of economic costs and benefits". So in one sense truly this text is about a real approach by academics to compare the viability of projects to help make the world a better place by utilizing economic 'science' to valuate these problems.


Overall, I saw this book as an attempt to tie together now defunct ( or at least unpopular) ideas from 2006 about Market orientation and regulation among the world communities, whether by military force or by economic coercion ( trade agreements ), or other means. It was an interesting read as well as a partial look into the world of governance and policy thinking, at least from a world renowned institution of old. For my tastes I prefer more journalistic who, What, When, Where, Way, Why, Which meat and potatoes info. This was pretty high level and as undefined as it gets save for inference capacity for someone like me who likes to string new words together as measure and metric.


CHALLENGE OPPORTUNITY
1. Communicable Diseases...........Control of HIV/AIDS
2. Malnutrition & Hunger............Providing Micronutrients
3. Subsidies & Trade Barriers.......Trade Liberalization
4. Communicable Diseases...........Control of Malaria

GOOD

5. Malnutrition & Hunger.............Development of new agricultural technologies
6. Sanitation & Water....................Small-scale water technology for livelihoods
7. Sanitation & Water.....................Community-managed water supply and sanitation
8. Sanitation & water.....................Research on water productivity in food production
9. Governance & corruption..........Lowering the cost of starting an new business

FAIR

10. Migration...................................Lowering barriers to migration for skilled workers
11. Malnutrition & Hunger..............Improving infant and child nutrition
12. Communicable Diseases...........Scaled-Up basic health services
13. Malnutrition & Hunger.............Reducing the prevalence of low birth weight


BAD
14. Migration.....................................Guest-Worker programs for the unskilled
15. Climate Change............................Optimal Carbon tax
16. Climate Change............................The Kyoto Protocol
17. Climate Change.............................Value-at-risk carbon tax

In all, the book is a basic academic overview requiring an application of current events and relevant data without providing really any models to demonstrate how these 'ideas' will be implanted IF actually brought to the Ma$ter$ of Finance and their Government All.lie$... still its good to see what the Bourgeois is Claiming to be doing ;)

[Jason Gaby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book a lot. Interesting to get a look at some of the problems facing the globe along with some of the solutions we could implement.

Admittedly, as far as ranking goes, they kicked the can on a lot of the options, so that’s a bummer. And obviously, it’s a brief book, and I’m sure many of the topics could be expanded on with more views/opinions, but I felt it opened a good conversation about how to think about problems.

My biggest takeaway was that essentially all of these solutions fail if government is corrupt, and yet there’s no real way to make a government non-corrupt from the outside. A bit of a catch-22.

[Kale · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dry, oh so dry. Admittedly, I started to skim about half way through. Sinner yes, but I rather sit and listen to a 14 year old's PowerPoint (which he reads off) for 4 hours straight.

Maybe you're into that (you psycho). But in all seriousness, it's an alternative view on problems we face with poverty in Africa and has a view of multiple economists. 3 stars because it's not fun to read, but may be useful for the nerds who actually want to do things right over there.

[Wendy Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought Bjorn Lomborg wrote this--he actually edited it. The writing is pretty dry. I skimmed a lot of the chapters. Worth reading the summaries but maybe not the whole book. Bottom line--spend money on AIDS prevention/treatment, hunger/malnutrition, trade barriers and malaria prevention/treatment.

[Tamara O'Neill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting analysis from an expert panel of economists on where we should be putting our money to solve the worlds biggest challenges. Number 1 was treating HIV/AIDS where the investment yielded the highest reward averting 30 million deaths per year and adding their potential productivity contribution to society. Close second malnutrition and hunger, third global trade reform.

[Brandur · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pulls together recommendations of the Copenhagen Concensus, a meeting that asked what problems experts and policy-makers should address, given $50 billion to spend. Good material is covered, but it's not quite as engaging as Bjorn's previous hit.

[Mckinley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book. First comes a chapter about a global issues. Following it, is commentary by other economists on the viability and issues outlined in the previous chapter. An interesting way to better understand the problems and solutions.

[Maciej · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some Swedish guy complains about how we're not spending money on common sense shit.

[Andrew Hoffman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shows that it is hard to get your mind around how exactly to make the biggest difference in the world and that simple answers usually feel a little forced.

[Kit]

Recommend by Jordan Peterson on his podcast 8/29/18

[Harry Harman]

Bill Gates seems to be working on these issues like HIV, Aids, Malaria, Malnutrition, and is making good progress.

[Aleks · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd really like to see 2021 version of this.