LIVE NOTES:

Harvard presentation

04/14/08

 

Jeff Sachs, new book, 

Common Wealth

 

60,000 damns built on world's rivers

About food production

Threaten species

Even a great deal of emerging disease is related to efforts to increase food production

AIDS may have been related to hunting of bush feed

 

Therefore, food production is 2nd great challenge

 

3rd great challenge to sustainability crisis:

Energy related

 

Can we find sustainable solutions to food, energy, and

 

There really are pathways at relatively

Find a way to substitute to a sustainable energy system

 

Solar radiation itself is 6,000 times our current energy use

Harnessing a small amount of solar energy could readily and realistically provide energy

 

North Africa by itself could provide half of electrical energy in Europe

 

One example of a long list of potential breakthroughs

 

Vast areas of energy efficiency which would not damage living standards

We may see something like a plug in hybrid, with 80 to 100 miles per gallon

Chevrolet says they will have such a vehicle rolling off production lines in 2010

Could translate to a dramatic reduction in energy demand in a short period of time

 

For Sachs, not a question of whether sustainable solutions exisit

 

Role of economics: 

Understand better what kind of institutions can bring about sustainable changes

 

Almost NEVER the market doing it, and questionable role of the patent

 

Most of our biomedical advances had at least half of their support from the National Institute of Health

How much do we find R&D at the federal level for energy systems?

 

Total $67 million for

60 minutes of Pentagon spending

 

Just as we have a National Institute of Health

Need a national institute for sustainable development

 

Need to identify how a mix of market mechanisms, academic institutions, national labs, plus comparable efforts internationally

 

We haven't begun to do it

The White House is only 8 weeks in acknowledging that global warming is real

 

Current debate is whether to tax or trade

Real discussion needs to focus on TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT

 

US Public Policy

A great deal of the US foreign policy is focused on military involvement / security concerns in the Middle East

Sachs: We cannot find our security without expanding our energy options

 

McCain calls Islamic extremism the transcendent challenge of our time

Sachs says it is actually a crisis of unemployment, hungry,  disaffected youth,

 

NO way our counter insurgency operations can do anything but foster of generation of

 

A lot of our current difficulty

Mainly financial mismanagement by Alan Greenspan and others that allowed a [housing] bubble to grow

If we want a better functioning economy, we better have a better answer to world's challenges

 

These macro challenges will be viewed....

 

America's technological lead will depend on us focusing on these challenges

 

Computer died again...

 

Top 10 recommendations to incoming President

1.  End Iraq war:  $200 billion per year

2.  End Bush tax cuts:  $250 billion per year

 

8. 

 

9.  We need a US government that can see again, and understand again

We have gutted the aid agency

Turned over development to Haliburton and other contractors

Develop at the Cabinet level, international professionalism

 

10. Put the Millennium Development Goals at the center piece of foreign policy

Sachs says that Bush has only put those three words together once in his presidency

UN goals call upon us to use our wealth

March 2002:  The Monterey Concensus

We urge the 0.7% of Gross National Income as a

70 cents per income, Instead we are at 16 cents, lowest of developed nations

$14 trillion dollar economy

 

Half towards war

 

The Pentagon will spend more this year than the entire world has ever provided to Africa in aid

 

Want the Millennium Development Goals to be mentioned in the Inaugural Speech so the World knows that the US is back!

 

End speech with 1963 words of JFK:

 

Calling for negotiated solutions with Iran

 

From public point of view seemed almost unimaginable

 

With common interests, we can find solutions

Common interests

 

President Kennedgy gave his speech

So remarkable that Krushchev (sp?) moved forward on negotiations, signed partial

 

Kennedy:

 

Too many of us think that Peace is impossible, that is

but that is a dangerous

We need not accept that view

Our problems are man-made

Man's reason and spirit has often solved the seemingly impossible

 

Let us focus instead on a more practical, more reasonable peace

On a series of concrete actions in the interests of all concerned

Genuine peace must be the product of many nations

Dynamic

 

Our is sustainable development

 

So let us not be blind to our differences, but let us

If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can make the world safe for our diversity

 

We all enhabit this small planet, we all breath the same air, we are all mortal

 

 

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Q.  Is it possible that the foundations will play a larger role in providing aid?

 

We should all lead, and let the leaders follow.

 

There are 1,100 billionaires

The estimated network of those billionaires are $4.2 trillion

If they had a foundation, and had a conservative payout of 5% they could fix the world's problems

 

John D. Rockefeller's gift of the 20th Century was perhaps the most transformative