Global Crises, Global Solutions.

• Author: Doktori, Daniel
• Position: REQUIRED READING - Brief article - Book review

GLOBAL CRISES, GLOBAL SOLUTIONS Bjorn Lomborg, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 670 pages.

Rather than concern themselves with the ephemeral effects of natural disasters, in Global Crises, Global Solutions, editor Bjorn Lomborg and eight of the world's most prominent economists identify what they see as the ten greatest challenges to the contemporary global community Having done so, they take the bold step of attempting to prioritize these ten crises using cost-benefit analyses. The prioritized list, known as the Copenhagen Consensus, includes climate change, communicable diseases, conflicts, access to education, governance and corruption, malnutrition and hunger, migration, sanitation and access to clean water, and finally, subsidies and trade barriers.

Lomberg's 670-page volume comes from the Cambridge University Press and was produced in association with The Economist. It is organized into ten sections, each corresponding to one of the global crises. Every section includes a "challenge paper" authored by an economist of slightly lesser renown than the eight experts, who describes the issue in depth and argues for its placement atop the list of priorities. The challenge paper is then followed by two "alternative perspectives" which dispute...