Common Wealth or Winning Our Energy Independence

Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet

Author: Jeffrey D Sachs

From one of the world's greatest economic minds, author of the New York Times bestseller The End of Poverty, a clear and vivid map of the road to sustainable and equitable global prosperity and an augury of the global economic collapse that lies ahead if we don't follow it.

The New York Times - Daniel Gross

Even congenital optimists have good reason to suspect that this time the prophets of economic doom may be on point, with the advent of seemingly unstoppable developments like climate change and the explosive growth of China and India. Which is why Sachs's book—lucid, quietly urgent and relentlessly logical—resonates…Sachs smartly describes how we got here, and the path we must take to avert disaster. The director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and the author of The End of Poverty, Sachs is perhaps the best-known economist writing on developmental issues (or any other kind of issues) today. And this is Bigthink with a capital B.

Publishers Weekly

In this sobering but optimistic manifesto, development economist Sachs (The End of Poverty) argues that the crises facing humanity are daunting-but solutions to them are readily at hand. Sachs focuses on four challenges for the coming decades: heading off global warming and environmental destruction; stabilizing the world's population; ending extreme poverty; and breaking the political logjams that hinder global cooperation on these issues. The author analyses economic data, demographic trends and climate science to create a lucid, accessible and suitably grim exposition of looming problems, but his forte is elaborating concrete, pragmatic, low-cost remedies complete with benchmarks and budgets. Sachs's entire agenda would cost less than 3% of the world's annual income, and he notes that a mere two days' worth of Pentagon spending would fund a comprehensive antimalaria program for Africa, saving countless lives. Forthright government action is the key to avoiding catastrophe, the author contends, not the unilateral, militarized approach to international problems that he claims is pursued by the Bush administration. Combining trenchant analysis with a resounding call to arms, Sachs's book is an important contribution to the debate over the world's future. (Mar.)

Copyright 2007Reed Business Information

Lawrence R. Maxted <P>Copyright &copy; Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. - School Library Journal

In his first book, The End of Poverty, development economist and UN special adviser Sachs laid out how extreme poverty in places like Africa could be alleviated. Here, he identifies and offers strategies for dealing with the leading global threats of the coming decades, such as environmental degradation, overpopulation, and resource depletion, arguing persuasively that much of the threat to humanity comes from those living in extreme poverty. He calls for wealthy nations to invest in efforts to improve the conditions of the extremely poor and thereby lessen the impact of extreme poverty on the planet. He explains in detail the goals that need to be met and how governments, not-for-profits, the private sector, and even individuals, can cooperate to achieve them. He reserves much of his criticism for the United States, which he says spends far too much on military technology that will prove ineffective in dealing with the true threats to our security. Though Sachs avoids jargon and writes clearly, the book would be heavy going for casual readers. Nevertheless, his work is an eloquent plea and a solid argument for global economic and political cooperation. Highly recommended for most libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ4/15/07.]

Kirkus Reviews

Economist Sachs (Earth Institute/Columbia Univ.; The End of Poverty, 2005, etc.) limns social, environmental and economic forces that are reshaping the planet-for better or worse remains to be seen. Thanks to technological and agricultural innovations, Sachs writes, economic growth has reached into every corner of the globe, particularly in Asia, and "the world on average is rapidly getting richer in terms of income per person." At the same time, the population continues to grow, increasingly concentrated in vast cities. More people earning more means more consumption. In the face of this and against the likelihood of resource scarcity, can that growth be sustained? Sachs examines the prospects, suggesting that the greater challenge may be simply to lift the poor nations of the world, mostly in Africa, to some sort of health while improving life everywhere. In that regard, he observes, citizens of the United States have suffered the dismantling of social services, a "great right-wing attack [that] . . . has systematically reduced the scope of the social welfare system in health care, job protection, child support, housing support, and retirement security." Yet, he optimistically adds, the financial cost of making "major corrections" is small relative to the size of the U.S. economy, assuming proper prioritizing-the war in Iraq, for instance, is costing "roughly 1 percent of national income each year in direct outlays" that could otherwise subsidize universal healthcare coverage. In Africa, improvement in public investments-assuming corruption in the system can be removed, that is-can spur private investment and even prompt an economic boom. The future need not be grim, Sachs maintains,but getting to a better one will require concerted international effort, UN leadership and private initiative. A welcome contribution to the sustainable-development literature, accessible to nonspecialist readers but most useful to those with grounding in economics and international policy. Agent: Andrew Wylie/The Wylie Agency

What People Are Saying

Common Wealth explains the most basic economic reckoning that the world faces. We can address poverty, climate change, and environmental destruction at a very modest cost today with huge benefits for shared and sustainable prosperity and peace in the future, or we can duck the issues today and risk a potentially costly reckoning in later years. Despite the rearguard opposition of some vested interests, policies to help the world's poor and the global environment are in fact the very best economic bargains on the planet.
—Al Gore, Winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize and Former Vice President of the United States

Table of Contents:

Foreword   Edward O. Wilson     xi
New Economics for the Twenty-first Century
Common Challenges, Common Wealth     3
Our Crowded Planet     17
Environmental Sustainability
The Anthropocene     57
Global Solutions to Climate Change     83
Securing Our Water Needs     115
A Home for All Species     139
The Demographic Challenge
Global Population Dynamics     159
Completing the Demographic Transition     183
Prosperity for All
The Strategy of Economic Development     205
Ending Poverty Traps     227
Economic Security in a Changing World     255
Global Problem Solving
Rethinking Foreign Policy     271
Achieving Global Goals     291
The Power of One     313
Acknowledgments     341
List of Acronyms     347
Notes     349
References     361
Index     371

Interesting book: Revisiting the Culture of the School and the Problem of Change or In Defense of Israel

Winning Our Energy Independence: An Energy Insider Shows How

Author: S David Freeman

s. david freeman has had the ear of federal officials since the days of JFK. He helped bring about the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Nixon. He headed the Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation's largest nuclear program, under Jimmy Carter. From New York to Los Angeles, Freeman has headed agencies and utilities companies, continually working to make utilities more environmentally safe, more efficient, and more cost-friendly to
the customer. He authored Energy: The New Era. He has three children and nine grandchildren. He is currently president of the commission overseeing the Port of Los Angeles and lives in neighboring Marina del Rey.