For Christmas I was given Commonwealth: Economics For A Crowded Planet by Jeffrey Sachs.
This book covers a range of challenges
facing the world and is optimistic in suggesting solutions.
Commonwealth contains a number of startling insights.
First, the human domination of major components of our world. Humanity controls
45% of the land, around 60% of the water cycle and nearly 80% of marine
fisheries. Agriculture is the principal user of water and uses as much as all
the rest of the demand put together. As a result the Ganges, the Yellow River
and the Rio Grande no longer reach the sea because the water is abstracted
along the way. We are using groundwater, otherwise known as “fossil water”
because it’s been trapped underground for millions of years, in the mistaken
belief that it’s an infinite resource.
Sachs shows how we can address these
problems and in particular the problem of population growth. He shows how
government intervention is essential and demonstrates that the free-market
economies will not address these problems. He also shows that social welfare
economies outspend both free markets and mixed economies on R&D, they
contribute more in aid and have the lowest proportion of their domestic
population in poverty.
Sachs is an American, but that does not
stop him from criticizing his country. He complains that poverty in the US is
more widespread than in even the average free-market economy. The US struggles
to meet its 0.7% GDP target for foreign aid, yet spent $572bn on the military
in 2007. This is nearly as much as the whole of the military spending by all
the other countries in the world. Spend on humanitarian and development aid by
the US was just £14bn. In Sachs’ opinion, few of the world’s current problems
can be solved by military means.
This book was written and published in 2008.
It closed on an optimistic note. Sadly the actions which Sachs expected to be
taken have not been taken. In many ways the world has gone backwards. He echoes
the Stern Report (2006) in saying that immediate action will be much cheaper than
if we delay. And yet, instead of a strengthened Kyoto agreement which Sachs
looked forward to in 2012, the actual result concluded last December was even
weaker than the original agreement, with many decisions postponed for yet more
years. Meanwhile, the US shows no signs of moving away from its policy of using
military solutions almost regardless of the nature of the problem, the people
of Haiti squat in disease-ridden refugee camps still waiting for the aid funds
promised more than a year ago and exceptional weather brings fires and flood to
Australia, with hurricanes and blizzards attacking parts of the US with
ferocity that they’ve never seen before.
I very much hope that Jeffrey Sachs will
write a sequel, but we can’t sit around waiting for it. Spread the word. Take
action now. At the risk of sounding histrionic, the future of humanity depends
on what we do this week, this month, this year. Leave it much longer and it’ll
be too late!
