Jeffrey Sachs, head of the UN Millennium Project and number 19 on the 2006 Harvard 100, has been promoting his new book Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet. At a talk Monday night at Columbia’s Miller Theater, the sprightly economist outlined a ten-point memo he would send to the incoming president. Item #9: the creation of a “cabinet-level Department for International Sustainable Development.” Sachs, himself the Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development at Columbia, argued that the current outlet for U.S. oversees assistance, USAID, is a “gutted shell of an agency” unable to meet the challenges of global climate change and population growth.
However, Sachs may lack the bare-knuckle diplomacy skills that would be necessary to push his proposals forward. Some reviewers of Common Wealth have noted a lack of political strategies to accompany his sweeping proposals. As the Economist put it, “If everyone in the world were as reasonable as Mr. Sachs, his solutions would be easy to implement. However, if everyone were that reasonable, there would not be so many problems in the first place.”
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