Let's Get Our Priorities Straight

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I frequently talk about the imperatives of stopping the millions of deaths of children in Africa from malaria and the need to bring healthful drinking water to the third world. The cost of the latter has plummeted in recent years.We know exactly how to stop malaria deaths and the cost of bringing clear water to the third world has plummeted based on new technology.

We don't know how to control either the climate or weather.

So, where is our money better spent?

Recently, environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg came to a similar conclusion. Here are the opening paragraphs:


About a quarter of all deaths in the developing world comes from mostly easily curable, infectious diseases.
The biggest environment problem, by far measured in human deaths, is air pollution.
Global warming, which creates a lot of attention, is on an entirely different and smaller level. The World Health Organization estimate (a very maximal estimate) is about one-fortieth of the deaths from air pollution. Even if you assume all deaths from floods, droughts and storms, the number is an even smaller two-hundredth of air pollution.

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