Why do the global glitterati ignore water and air pollution?

The United Nations environment summit in Rio this week is a great example of how good intentions can thwart real progress on global problems.

What’s the world’s biggest environmental challenge? Ask the global elites at U.N. conferences, and they’re likely to answer: “global warming.” Global warming is indeed a concern, and we need smart solutions. But let’s put things in perspective. According to statistics from the emergency disasters database, deaths caused by flooding, droughts, heat waves and storms—including the effects of global warming—now account for about one-twentieth of one percent of all deaths in the developing world. From 1990-2007, that averaged about 27,000 deaths per year.

By contrast, lack of access to clean drinking water and sanitation kills almost three million annually. Almost two million people, meanwhile, die each year inhaling smoke from inefficient and dirty fuels such as dried animal dung, crop residues and wood. Another one million die from the effects of outdoor air pollution.

All told, more than 13% of Third World deaths—about six million in total—stem from air and water pollution. This means that for every global warming-related death, at least 210 people die each year from old-fashioned air and water pollution.

Even an extremely ambitious climate policy—aiming to cut global carbon-dioxide emissions by 50% below 1990s levels—would entail enormous costs but save very few lives. Inexpensive policy changes, however, could virtually eliminate pollution-related deaths, which are so much more numerous than global warming-related ones.

Why then, do U.N. elites focus all their efforts on a feeble attempt to assist one person before successfully preventing 210 deaths? Because global warming feels more important—more hip. The majority of people in wealthy countries have lived their entire lives with clean air, clean water and electricity supplied through a grid. Air and water pollution is just old hat.

But surely “helping the world” isn’t about making us feel good. It’s about actually helping poor nations.

Nowhere are these misplaced priorities more apparent than in U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s favorite program, “sustainable energy for all,” which has emerged as a key goal of this year’s summit. The program aims to ensure that all people have access to energy, but it places an inordinate emphasis on “green” technologies.

The program’s celebrity backers correctly point out that 1.3 billion people lack electricity, meaning it’s “lights out” when the sun goes down. They rightly anguish that three billion people rely on dirty fuels. But then they argue that “green” energy is the way to help.

Why would we choose inefficient, intermittent and costly technologies to solve a simple problem? Simply put: Because it makes us feel good.

Take former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, a member of Mr. Ban’s global sustainability panel. In a recent statement, she gave perhaps the starkest example of attempting to solve a substantial problem with a feel-good policy: “Smoke from wood, dung and coal from cooking and heating remains one of the world’s major public health problems. Major investment is needed to accelerate the move away from carbon fuels and to improve energy efficiency.”

Sure, sometimes solar panels in far-flung communities can work. But generally, reliable electricity for those billion-plus people who lack it should come from simple, cheap solutions like hooking up generators or, better yet, power plants—which, just like ours, mostly run on fossil fuels.

The same goes for tackling indoor air pollution. In some circumstances, solar cookers can be a good idea. But the technologies that have served us well, such as kerosene and natural gas, are much more likely to be cheap, flexible and useful for hundreds of millions of people.

It’s the height of arrogance to think that Third World countries should use weak and expensive technologies just to make some in the West feel good. In essence, the global elite is telling coughing Third World people sitting in their dark hovels: “Get a solar panel.” That’s akin to telling people suffering from water pollution to drink Perrier. Or indeed, to suggest that breadless people should eat cake.

There are real and often overlooked environmental problems to be tackled. We need to talk less about ineffective, “feel-good” solutions to global warming and more about smart fixes to air and water pollution. We need to take back our environmental summits from the well-meaning glitterati and do what works.

Forty years ago, humanity was warned: by chasing ever-greater economic growth, it was sentencing itself to catastrophe. The Club of Rome, a blue-ribbon multinational collection of business leaders, scholars, and government officials brought together by the Italian tycoon Aurelio Peccei, made the case in a slim 1972 volume called The Limits to Growth. Based on forecasts from an intricate series of computer models developed by professors at MIT, the book caused a sensation and captured the zeitgeist of the era: the belief that mankind’s escalating wants were on a collision course with the world’s finite resources and that the crash would be coming soon.

The Limits to Growth was neither the first nor the last publication to claim that the end was nigh due to the disease of modern development, but in many ways, it was the most successful. Although mostly forgotten these days, in its own time, it was a mass phenomenon, selling 12 million copies in more than 30 languages and being dubbed “one of the most important documents of our age” by The New York Times. And even though it proved to be phenomenally wrong-headed, it helped set the terms of debate on crucial issues of economic, social, and particularly environmental policy, with malign effects that remain embedded in public consciousness four decades later. It is not too great an exaggeration to say that this one book helped send the world down a path of worrying obsessively about misguided remedies for minor problems while ignoring much greater concerns and sensible ways of dealing with them.

BBC asked Dennis Meadows, co-author of Limits to Growth, to debate its predictions, but he said no sound bite would convince people who would listen to people like Lomborg. Yet, this debate is not about sound bites, Lomborg explains on the BBC Today program. It really is about a 40 year track record of spectacularly bad predictions. Limits to Growth set the agenda for worrying about the wrong problems with poor solutions. Hear more on BBC Radio 4′s The Today Programme.

By Bjorn Lomborg

COPENHAGEN ― Tens of thousands of people will soon gather in Rio de Janeiro for the United Nations Earth Summit. The participants, ranging from weary politicians to enthusiastic campaigners, are supposed to reignite global concern for the environment. Unfortunately, the summit is likely to be a wasted opportunity.

The U.N. is showcasing the alluring promise of a “green economy,” focused on tackling global warming. In fact, the summit is striking at the wrong target, neglecting the much greater environmental concerns of the vast majority of the world.

Global warming is by no means our main environmental threat. Even if we assumed ― unreasonably ― that it caused all deaths from floods, droughts, heat waves, and storms, this total would amount to just 0.06 percent of all deaths in developing countries. In comparison, 13 percent of all Third World deaths result from water and air pollution.

So, for each person who might die from global warming, about 210 people die from health problems that result from a lack of clean water and sanitation, from breathing smoke generated by burning dirty fuels (such as dried animal dung) indoors, and from breathing polluted air outdoors.

By focusing on measures to prevent global warming, the advanced countries might help to prevent many people from dying. That sounds good until you realize that it means that 210 times as many people in poorer countries might die needlessly as a result ― because the resources that could have saved them were spent on windmills, solar panels, biofuels, and other rich-world fixations.

But of course, poor countries’ tangible pollution problems are not trendy, and they do not engage outspoken campaigners, media, and governments the way that global warming can.

Nowhere are the failed priorities better illustrated than in the U.N.’s official, colorful “Rio+20” leaflet. Here, the U.N. helpfully provides a layman’s explanation of the summit, along with examples of its envisioned “green economy” in action. We see scary pictures of dry riverbeds (the result of global warming), along with plenty of pretty solutions like wind turbines and solar panels.

The problem is that green energy mostly is still much more expensive, less effective, and more intermittent than the alternatives. Yet, the summit literature claims that it will boost economic growth and eradicate poverty. But seriously, why do well-meaning First Worlders think that the Third World should have energy technologies that are more expensive, feebler, and less reliable than their own?

Without a hint of irony, the leaflet is called “The Future We Want.” But, in a world where a billion people go to bed hungry, and where six million die each year from air and water pollution, most of those in the developing world likely have a very different set of priorities for their future.

The leaflet cheerfully claims that China’s shift “to a low-carbon growth strategy based on the development of renewable energy sources (has) created jobs, income, and revenue.” In fact, over the past 25 years, China has quadrupled its carbon dioxide emissions. While China does produce about half of the world’s solar panels, 98 percent are exported to reap generous subsidies from rich-world markets. Only 0.005 percent of China’s energy comes from solar panels. China’s decades-long economic expansion has lifted 600 million people out of poverty, but the enormous pollution that this has entailed does not fit into Rio+20’s green narrative.

Likewise, the brochure explains that some farmers in Uganda have embraced organic farming. Unfortunately, Africa is almost entirely organic now ― leading to low yields, hunger, and deforestation. Africa needs to boost its yields, and that means enabling farmers to use modern crops, fertilizers, and pesticides. Producing less with more effort might appeal to well-fed First Worlders, but it is literally starving the poor.

Reading further, the leaflet gushes that France has created 90,000 jobs in the green economy. But the stark reality remains hidden: the average cost of each green job is more than $200,000 per year, which French taxpayers patently cannot afford. And economic models show that France has lost as many or more jobs because of the extra costs of the subsidies.

Adding insult to injury, a beautiful photograph shows electric cars finishing the “Zero Emissions Race” in Geneva. Omitted is the fact that most electricity still comes from burning fossil fuels, so the cars are anything but “zero” emissions. And, more importantly, most of our planet’s inhabitants still dream of owning some form of mechanized transport ― which is unlikely to be an electric vehicle with a price tag of $50,000 or more.

In a world plagued by serious problems caused by air and water pollution, this breezy focus on trendy topics and unrealistic solutions is deeply disturbing. A disconnected global elite is flying to Rio to tell the world’s poor to have a solar panel.

Rather than pandering to advanced countries’ obsessions, Rio+20 could do more good for humanity ― and the planet ― by focusing on the top environmental problems and their simple solutions.

Copenhagen, 14 May  –   Under the auspices of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, a gathering of 60+ prominent economists — including four Nobel Laureates — has produced a ranking of the best investments that are likely to deliver the biggest bang for the buck in terms of improving the lives of the world’s poorest people.

Bjørn Lomborg, head of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, remarked: “It may not sound sexy, but solving the problems of diarrhoea, worms and malnutrition will do good for more of the world’s poor than other more grandiose interventions. That is the conclusion of some of the world’s brightest minds, who came together for this year’s Copenhagen Consensus. If the world’s policymakers and humanitarian charities were to reorient their priorities around adopting these and other smart solutions, the world would be a better place.”

The economists evaluated how the world could prioritise the spending of $75 billion – a 15% increase on current aid spending – on issues such as chronic and infectious diseases, armed conflict, biodiversity, climate change, hunger and malnutrition, among others.

Lomborg explained how this applies to one specific priority, that of improving agricultural output.* Lomborg said “Spending two billion dollars annually to make more productive crops would generate global returns of much more than 1600 percent. Not only would it reduce hunger, but through better nutrition, make children smarter, better educated, higher paid and hence break the cycle of poverty. At the same time, higher agricultural productivity means humanity will cut down fewer forests, for the benefit of both biodiversity and earth’s climate.”

Lomborg concluded, “We live in a world constrained by scarce resources. This year’s Copenhagen Consensus shows how we can achieve the most good today, and tomorrow, by prioritising our spending on the world’s most pressing issues.”

ENDS

* Immediately following are Copenhagen Consensus 2012 rankings combined with detailed information from the background research papers. The Copenhagen Consensus 2012 priority list, in order of ranking, is included at the end.  Background research papers are available at  http://tinyurl.com/cc12-research

Copenhagen Consensus 2012 Ranking  combined with information from background research papers

CC12 RANKING	Challenge / Priority	Expenditure	Benefit for each dollar spent
1	Fighting Malnutrition Today, more than 100 million children start their lives with inadequate nutrition, impairing their mental abilities and causing physical defects. To provide both short- and long-term benefits, this sum of money would provide micronutrients, complementary foods, treatments for wormsand diarrhoeal diseases, and behaviour change programs. This would reduce chronic under-nutrition by 36 per cent in developing countries. It would also improve cognitive functions, increase learning and in adulthood increase incomes 24%.	$ 3 billion annually	Each dollar spent reducing chronic undernutrition has more than a $30 payoff
2	Malaria medicines These funds would prevent 300,000 child deaths if used to extend the Global Fund’s Affordable Medicines Facility-malaria financing mechanism that makes combination therapies cheaper for poor countries. This approach also safeguards the most effective malaria drug for the future. Later in 2012, donors will decide whether to renew this facility; the Copenhagen Consensus findings add to the case for them to do so.	$300 million	Each dollar spent generates $35 of benefits
3	Expanded childhood immunisation coverage Spending $1 billion annually would save one million children.	$1 billion	The benefits would be 20 times higher than the costs
4	De-worming treatments for children This sum could treat 300 million children to rid them of parasitic intestinal worms, which are detrimental to their wellbeing.  Free of these parasites, children would be more nourished, more alert, likely to stay in school longer and generate more income as adults.	$300 million	Each dollar spent generates at least $10 of benefits
5	Expand tuberculosis treatment Spending $1.5 billion annually would spare one million adults from death.	$1.5 billion	Each dollar spent would generate $15 of benefits

6	Increase agricultural output / yield enhancements By increasing investment in agricultural R&D, this solution potentially could yield many benefits to both people and the environment.  Not only would it reduce hunger by increasing food production and reducing food prices, but also it would protect more biodiversity by reducing the need for forest land to be converted into agricultural land. Simultaneously, it would help in the fight against climate change, because forests lock up carbon.	$ 2 billion annually	For R&D, each dollar spent would have at least $16 return.
7	Early warning system for natural disasters For less than $1 billion a year, the establishment of effective early warning systems for natural disasters in developing countries could alleviate the disaster damage and avoid long-term economic damage resulting from catastrophes.	Less than $1 billion annually	Each dollar would give up to $35 of benefits, directly and indirectly
9	Hepatitis B vaccine Hepatitis B falls in the category of chronic diseases, which increasingly affect people in the developing world as their lifespan improves.  Hepatitis B is the major cause of liver cancer worldwide. For $122 million, we could achieve global coverage and avoid 150,000 deaths.	$122 million	Each dollar spent generates $10 of benefits
10	Low cost heart attack drugs If these medicines were more widely available in developing countries, up to up to 300,000 heart-attack deaths could be prevented each year.	$200 million	Each dollar spent would generate $25 of benefits
12	Investigate the feasibility of planetary cooling through geo-engineering technologies This would serve to better understand the technology’s risks, costs, and benefits, but also act as an important potential insurance against global warming.	Appx $1 billion annually	A rough estimate is that each dollar spent could yield $1,000 of benefits
14	R&D for HIV/AIDS vaccine The AIDS epidemic which threatens every aspect of development for dozens of countries. A vaccine would be the ultimate preventative tool.	$100 million	Each dollar spent would generate more than $11 of benefits

Copenhagen Consensus 2012 Priority Ranking

1	Bundled Micro-Nutrient Interventions	Hunger & Education
2	Subsidy for Malaria Combination Treatment	Infectious Disease
3	Expanded Childhood Immunization Coverage	Infectious Disease
4	Deworming of Schoolchildren	Infectious Disease
5	Expanding Tuberculosis Treatment	Infectious Disease
6	R&D to Increase Yield Enhancements	Hunger, Education & Climate
7	Investing in Effective Early Warning Systems	Natural Disasters
8	Strengthening Surgical Capacity	Infectious Disease
9	Hepatitis B Immunization	Chronic Disease
10	Acute Heart Attack Low ]Cost Drugs	Chronic Disease
11	Salt Reduction Campaign	Chronic Disease
12	Geo ]Engineering R&D	Climate Change
13	Conditional Cash Transfers for School Attendance	Education
14	Accelerated HIV Vaccine R&D	Infectious Disease
15	Information Campaign on Benefits From Schooling	Education
16	Borehole and Public Hand Pump Intervention	Water & Sanitation
17	Increased Funding for Green Energy R&D	Climate Change
18	Increase Availability of Family Planning	Population Growth
19	Heart Attack Risk Reduction Generic Pill	Chronic Disease
20	Community Led Total Sanitation	Water & Sanitation
21	Sanitation as a Business	Water & Sanitation
22	Increasing Tobacco Taxation	Chronic Disease
23	Community Walls Against Floods	Natural Disasters
24	The Reinvented Toilet	Water & Sanitation
25	Protecting All Forests	Biodiversity
26	Retrofitting Schools to Withstand Earthquake Damage	Natural Disasters
27	Crop Advisory Text Messages	Hunger
28	Extension of Protected Areas	Biodiversity
29	Strengthening Structures Against Hurricanes and Storms	Natural Disasters
30	Elevating Residential Structures to Avoid Flooding	Natural Disasters

By Bjørn Lomborg

COPENHAGEN—This decade has seen remarkable progress against humanity’s greatest challenges. Consider the declaration of victory over polio in India, which seemed impossible 10 years ago. January marked one year since the country’s last reported case. Or look at the strides made against malaria: Over the past decade, the number of cases has been reduced by 17 percent, and the number of deaths has dropped by 26 percent.

Despite global population growth and economic crisis, absolute poverty—the proportion of people living on less than $1.25 a day—is falling in every region of the world. In fact, the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme poverty in half has been achieved five years ahead of time.

Just a few years ago, the use of male circumcision as a tool in the fight against HIV/AIDS was largely unknown. Today, UNAIDS and the World Health Organization recommend it as a means to combat HIV/AIDS, and more than 10 African countries are implementing strategies to increase its availability. Similarly, the concept of using geoengineering to respond to climate change has moved from science fiction to an area of serious research.

But, while the last decade has given much reason for cheer, there are areas in which we cannot claim such success. Climate change has emerged as one of the most talked-about problems, yet global negotiations have fallen apart, and we are barely any closer to cutting carbon emissions than we were 10years ago.

Similarly, violent conflicts continue to take a toll that is far too high. And, while the world met the Millennium Development Goal for providing clean drinking water five years early, the provision of sanitation has fallen behind: An astonishing one-third of the world’s population, 2.5 billion people, lack access to basic sanitation, and more than 1 billion people defecate in the open.

Other problems have emerged and grown over the decade. If current patterns continue, tobacco use may account for some 10 million deaths per year by 2030, with most occurring in low- and middle-income countries: We might see roughly 1 billion tobacco-related deaths in this century, compared to 100 million in the 20th century. Cardiovascular diseases account for 13 million deaths in low- and middle-income countries each year, more than a quarter of the entire death toll, and risk factors are growing.

The state of challenges facing humanity changes rapidly. So does our knowledge of how best to respond. Policymakers and philanthropists need access to regularly updated information on how to use limited funds effectively.

The Copenhagen Consensus project, which I direct, provides a link between academic research and concrete economic analysis that can be used by decision-makers in the real world. Every four years, researchers and Nobel laureates work to identify the smartest responses to the biggest problems facing humanity.

In 2004, the Copenhagen Consensus highlighted the need to prioritize measures to control and treat HIV/AIDS. More money and attention was soon devoted to HIV prevention and treatment. In 2008, the Copenhagen Consensus focused the attention of policymakers and philanthropists on investments in micronutrient provision. Public acceptance of this idea led to an increase in efforts to reduce “hidden hunger”— that is, people suffering from not getting the nutrients that they need.

This May, more than 30 Nobel laureates and researchers will work together once again to identify the smartest ways to respond to global challenges, based on the latest information about the toughest problems facing our world.

Since 2008, the global economic crisis has made it even more necessary to ensure that development and aid spending is used wisely, where it can make the biggest difference. The Copenhagen Consensus project carries out the difficult task of comparing one set of initiatives with another by using fundamental economic tools and principles.

First, teams of world-renowned expert economists write research papers on the costs and benefits of a range of investments that address specific challenges. Debate and discussion is encouraged by ensuring that three papers are written for each topic, so that a range of expert opinions is available. This provides a framework with which we can see the full price tag, incorporating all of the costs, benefits, and spin-offs to society from using a limited amount of money in a particular way.

All of this research constitutes a valuable contribution to international development and aid policy. But the project goes a step further. A panel of the world’s top economists—including four Nobel laureates—test and debate the experts’ recommendations, and identify the most attractive possibilities. Alongside the research papers, the Nobel laureates’ prioritized list provides an important input for policymakers and philanthropists.

While the past decade has witnessed much progress and reason for hope, there are still many important problems to tackle: malnutrition, sanitation, education, civil conflicts, climate change, and natural disasters, to name some of the most prominent.

But are the most prominent problems necessarily those that we should addressimmediately? The research and the prioritized list make us consider the reasons for our current priorities, and challenge us to spend limited resources to do the most good first. And what are the best things to do first?

Slate readers will have an opportunity to answer this question themselves. Over the next two weeks, I will summarize each of the 10 key research papers for Copenhagen Consensus 2012.

In each of the 10 articles, published on the day that each research paper is released to the public, I will outline the latest thinking on the smartest ways to respond to one global challenge.  I will ask Slate readers, each day, for your views about that day’s choices. Would you rather policy-makers prioritized efforts to improve agricultural output, for example, or that they invested more in micronutrient interventions in developing countries?

At the end of two weeks, I’ll provide you with the findings from the Copenhagen Consensus 2012 expert panel of Nobel Laureates, and contrast their priorities with those from Slate. We will discover what investments Slate readers would prioritize to continue to make rapid progress against the planet’s biggest challenges.

Next month, May 7-10, we will see the third global Copenhagen Consensus where we bring together more than 60 world class economists presenting smart solutions to the world’s biggest challenges, ranging from malnutrition to education, civil wars to climate change and natural disasters to free trade. A top panel including 4 Nobel Laureates will examine the costs and benefits of the smartest solutions and conclude with a list of the world’s best investments for the coming years.

In Dr. Lomborg’s new Project Syndicate column, he shows us why such a priority setting is more needed than ever.

You can read more about the Copenhagen Consensus 2012 conference here.

By Bjørn Lomborg

COPENHAGEN – This decade has seen remarkable progress against humanity’s greatest challenges. Consider the declaration of victory over polio in India, which seemed impossible ten years ago. January marked one year since the country’s last reported case. Or look at the strides made against malaria: over the past decade, the number of cases has been reduced by 17%, and the number of deaths has dropped by 26%.

Despite global population growth and economic crisis, absolute poverty – the proportion of people living on less than $1.25 a day – is falling in every region of the world. In fact, the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme poverty in half has been achieved five years ahead of time.

Just a few years ago, the use of male circumcision as a tool in the fight against HIV/AIDS was largely unknown. Today, UNAIDS and the World Health Organization recommend it as a means to combat HIV/AIDS, and more than ten African countries are implementing strategies to increase its availability. Similarly, the concept of using geo-engineering to respond to climate change has moved from science fiction to an area of serious research.

This decade has also witnessed a 60% increase in global development aid. Bill Gates’s Giving Pledge challenge has graduated from concept to campaign, with at least $125 billion promised to good causes.

But, while the last decade has given much reason for cheer, there are areas in which we cannot claim such success. Climate change has emerged as one of the most talked-about problems, yet global negotiations have fallen apart, and we are barely any closer to cutting carbon emissions than we were ten years ago.

Similarly, violent conflicts continue to take a toll that is far too high. And, while the world met the Millennium Development Goal for providing clean drinking water five years early, the provision of sanitation has fallen behind: an astonishing one-third of the world’s population, 2.5 billion people, lack access to basic sanitation, and more than one billion people defecate in the open.

Other problems have emerged and grown over the decade. If current patterns continue, tobacco use may account for some 10 million deaths per year by 2030, with most occurring in low- and middle-income countries: we might see roughly one billion tobacco-related deaths in this century, compared to 100 million in the twentieth century. Cardiovascular diseases account for 13 million deaths in low- and middle-income countries each year, more than a quarter of the entire death toll, and risk factors are growing.

The state of challenges facing humanity changes rapidly. So does our knowledge of how best to respond. Policymakers and philanthropists need access to regularly updated information on how to use limited funds effectively.

The Copenhagen Consensus project, which I direct, provides a link between academic research and concrete economic analysis that can be used by decision-makers in the real world. Every four years, researchers and Nobel laureates work to identify the smartest responses to the biggest problems facing humanity.

In 2004, the Copenhagen Consensus highlighted the need to prioritize measures to control and treat HIV/AIDS. More money and attention was soon devoted to HIV prevention and treatment. In 2008, the Copenhagen Consensus focused the attention of policymakers and philanthropists on investments in micronutrient provision. Public acceptance of this idea led to an increase in efforts to reduce “hidden hunger” – that is, people suffering from not getting the nutrients that they need.

This May, more than 30 Nobel laureates and researchers will work together once again to identify the smartest ways to respond to global challenges, based on the latest information about the toughest problems facing our world.

Since 2008, the global economic crisis has made it even more necessary to ensure that development and aid spending is used wisely, where it can make the biggest difference. The Copenhagen Consensus project carries out the difficult task of comparing one set of initiatives with another by using fundamental economic tools and principles.

First, teams of world-renowned expert economists write research papers on the costs and benefits of a range of investments that address specific challenges. Debate and discussion is encouraged by ensuring that three papers are written for each topic, so that a range of expert opinions is available.

This provides a framework with which we can see the full price tag, incorporating all of the costs, benefits, and spin-offs to society from using a limited amount of money in a particular way.

All of this research constitutes a valuable contribution to international development and aid policy. But the project goes a step further. A panel of the world’s top economists – including four Nobel laureates – test and debate the experts’ recommendations, and identify the most attractive possibilities. Alongside the research papers, the Nobel laureates’ prioritized list provides an important input for policymakers and philanthropists.

While the past decade has witnessed much progress and reason for hope, there are still many important problems to tackle: malnutrition, sanitation, education, civil conflicts, climate change, and natural disasters, to name some of the most prominent.

But are the most prominent problems necessarily those that we should address immediately? The research and the prioritized list make us consider the reasons for our current priorities, and challenge us to spend limited resources to do the most good first. And what are the best things to do first? We find out in May.

To find out more about OMEGA you can read about the project at: http://www.algaeindustrymagazine.com/nasas-omega-scientist-dr-jonathan-trent/

Check here for Lomborg’s most recent op-ed: Gone With the Wind, which discusses the price of wind energy with a focus on the UK.

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/gone-with-the-wind