The $75 Billion Dollar Question

Some time back, experts in economics were  asked a hypothetical question.  If you had $75 billion dollars to spend on making the human race happier or better or ending misery, how would you  spend it?

The results were surprising. Nutrition ranked high on the list. Micronutrients were rated very important.Top contender was to spend the money on vitamin A for health care in underdeveloped nations, because Vitamin A deficiency is a leading cause of blindness. Other answers were iodine treatments to prevent retardation in the unborn and the very young, and iron for the iron deficient. The top four answers were for trace minerals and one  vitamin. Each suggestion was evaluated by economists for cost and effectiveness. It was and still is astounding to realize how much of human misery can be prevented or alleviated for comparatively little.

Then an unfortunate thing happened. Along the way, a few scientists commenting on climate change began to say the cost of fixing our climate was too expensive. It would be better to spend the money alleviating suffering for the poor. Bjorn Lomborg included climate change among some of the causes that deserved attention, but  some colleagues of Robert Socolow, then at Princeton thought money should be spent on alleviating present problems instead of combatting climate change.  It’s a foolish way to view the challenge. No nation that I know of has the same budget line for health care and for energy fixes.  In the United States, health care funds spent abroad would be under the State Department or in the budget for the U.N. Much of the money comes from charities. It is hoped that climate change, on the other hand,  can be done by energy regulations, and by creating new jobs in the energy sector. Socolow estimates that we can do much with existing technology if we will only use several fixes at the same time, rather than thinking there is one fix-all solution. Whoever came up with the $75 Bllion Dollar challenge never meant for it to be an excuse for doing nothing on all fronts.-the present misery, which we should certainly try to alleviate, and the future harm that hangs over us.

To read more, see the Huffington Post on the “$75 Billion Dollar Question.”  You will be inspired to think of the good that can be done fairly cheaply, and disappointed that we are doing so little. But remember that the expenditures suggested  need to be renewed annually. Preventive measures on climate change can hopefully resolve difficulties for once and for all. And climate change is already causing great human suffering and promises more.