Copenhagen Consensus

It's been a couple of weeks since Bjorn Lomborg's Copenhagen Consensus Center (www.copenhagenconsensus.com) released the results of its latest look at what to do about the world's really, really big problems. Lomborg is the Danish economist and environmentalist who, in 2001, completed "The Skeptical Environmentalist", a look at the numbers behind environmental arguments. Lomborg found, to his surprise, that the numbers weren't very good. After publication of the book and all sorts of things were hurled his way by the enviro establishment but nothing stuck.
in response, Lomborg started the Copenhagen Consensus Center in 2004. The idea is that top economists and others consider the Big Problems and recommend what should be done first. Those "others" have included United Nations ambassadors and a groups of college students, mostly from developing countries.
The conclusions of these quite different groups track one another. In general, there are a bunch of modest actions—modest on the scale of things—that can be done to reap large benefits. The latest report, from 50 economists including Nobel prize guys, The report is, the release says, "A prioritized list highlighting the potential of 30 specific solutions to combat some of the biggest challenges facing the world (starting with).... Combating malnutrition in the 140 million children who are undernourished." Item two is global trade, DOHA development plan.
Global warming is happening, Lomborg says. It just that tale is far more complex than allowed by the preaching of Al Gore and his acolytes. And Gore's recommended radical actions would produce trivial benefits at great cost. In his latest book, "Cool It," Lomborg argues his approach by saying, "Far from being amoral to compare costs and benefits, it is essentially moral to ask: How do we help the most? Can it be moral to do anything less?"