Product Description

This volume provides a uniquely rich set of arguments and data for prioritizing our responses to some of the most serious problems facing the world today, such as climate change, communicable diseases, conflicts, education, financial instability, corruption, migration, malnutrition and hunger, trade barriers, and water access. Leading economists evaluate the evidence for costs and benefits of various programs to help gauge how we can achieve the most good with our money. Each problem is introduced by a world-renowned expert analyzing the scale of the problem and describing the costs and benefits of a range of policy options to improve the situation. Shorter pieces from experts offering alternative positions are also included; all ten challenges are evaluated by a panel of economists from North America, Europe, and China who rank the most promising policy options. Global Crises, Global Solutions provides a serious, yet accessible, springboard for debate and discussion and will be required reading for government employees, NGOs, scholars and students of public policy and applied economics, and anyone with a serious professional or personal interest in global development issues. Bjørn Lomborg is Associate Professor of Statistics at the University of Aarhus and the director of the Danish Environmental Assessment Institute. He is also the author of the controversial bestseller, The Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge, 2001).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #452361 in Books
• Published on: 2004-11-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 670 pages

Review
"This very useful compilation will serve to advance thinking and stimulate debate on these and related important contemporary global concerns." A.R. Sanderson, University of Chicago, CHOICE

"A hugely sensible book about global health and environmental problems, based on the 'Copenhagen Consensus' project documented in The Economist. Its authors, eminent economists, recognise that the resources to tackle such problems are finite and need to be applied where they are most likely to be effective. Better, for instance, to spend resources on the immediate problem of AIDS in Africa than the more distant one of global warming. This book is a healthy antidote to the narrow views of single-issue pressure groups." the Economist "Best Books of the Year"

"Especially recommended reading for government employees, non-governmental organizations, students of public policy and applied economics, and any individual with a direct personal or professional interest in global development issues." BOOKWATCH

About the Author
Bjorn Lomborg is Associate Professor of Statistics, University of Aarhus and former Director, Environmental Assessment Institute, Copenhagen. He is author of the controversial best-seller The Skeptical Environmentalist 0521 1010683.

Customer Reviews

Highly Recommended!
This report is an excellent, controversial and refreshing approach to global problems. Daily, the news media and politicians declare that another crisis is urgent. Often, loud, public resolutions accompany these pronouncements. Political blocs form to push through agendas based on those resolutions. The only thing missing from the process is a dispassionate analysis of whether the solutions make economic sense and, if so, which ones make the most economic sense. This book of compiled essays from the Copenhagen Consensus - as documented in The Economist - provides that missing element. The conference drew from United Nations documents to assemble a list of the most urgent problems facing the world and identified those that presented opportunities for solutions. Then it set the task of identifying solutions that would provide the biggest benefit for the cost, examining 38 proposals for spending $50 billion over four years. Surprisingly, some of the most economically rational projects never make headlines and never turn up in public exhortations. When was the last time you saw someone climbing onto a platform to demand mosquito nets to prevent malaria in Africa? That may not come up nearly as often as adherence to the Kyoto Protocol, which provides a far weaker cost vs. benefit scenario. According to the analysts from Copenhagen, the former seems to be a very sound use of the world's problem-solving resources, but the latter costs a lot and seems to deliver relatively few benefits. We highly recommend this intriguing, sweeping conversation.

No Minor Problems Here
This book talks about ten of the most serious challenges facing the world today:

climate change
communicable diseases
conflicts and arms proliferation
access to educationfinancial instability
governance and corruption
malnutrition and hunger
migration
sanitation and clean water
subsidies and trade barriers.

You certainly can't accuse them of taking on minor issues.

Each issue is introduced by an expert in the field who defines the scale of the problem and describes the costs and benefits of a range of policy options to improve the situation. After that two additional sets of alternate perspectives age given for each proposal.

The one complaint I have is that in the section on conflicts it talks only about civil war. While civil war is not minor (21 major conflicts in 2002 alone) the prospects for the future of conflict between the muslim world and the rest seem to be worthy of a category by itself, and may involve many more people than all 21 civil wars. Perhaps this is another book in its own right.

Directly addressing problems facing the world today
Global Crises, Global Solutions is an anthology of scholarly essays by learned authors directly addressing problems facing the world today, such as climate change, financial instability, communicable diseases, conflicts, cooruption, malnutrition and hunger, trade barriers, water access and more. Each problem is discussed from the point of view of an expert skilled at analyzing the problem's scale as well as cost-and-benefit policy options for improving the situation. Shorter pieces from additional experts with alternative positions provide balance in this superb springboard for debate and understanding key issues. Especially recommended reading for government employees, non-governmental organizations, students of public policy and applied economics, and any individual with a direct personal or professional interest in global development issues.