Stuart Scott from TV Matters interviewed Jeffrey Sachs, University Professor of Economics and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia, who is attending COP22 this week. Sachs was a UN adviser on the 17 Sustainable Development goals (at the end of the attached document) to which nations have committed (2015). Sachs emphasized that we have accomplished a lot in bringing down mortality and making life better for the world’s poor, but many people are left behind and that (as the UN has realized), we must go beyond focusing on economic activity and include social fairness and climate change. Sachs is not in favor of any “stop growth” agenda; he believes growth can be understood in terms of progress, although there are biological and moral limits and planetary boundaries. We are, he said, at the edge of the cliff and near disaster, but the way forward is not to revert to a pre-monetary economy or to shutdown the market economy.
Coal, gas, and oil were wonderful for humanity in their time, but we have known for about 140 years that there are side effects. Now, we need to do something else. We have known and yet for about 25 years the world has basically wasted 25 years fighting with each other (obviously, he sees the Paris Agreement as a breakthrough in political commitment). Just this week, the U.S. government released a mid-century strategy, posted on the White House website–a deep decarbonization report–that is there for all to see. Sachs thinks Trump will wise up when he sees it and reads it (this author remains less sanguine that he will change course that much). Sachs emphasized that even if nations live up to their commitments/ambitions under the Paris Accord, it is not enough. He does not think geo-engineering (solar shades, shooting aerosols into the atmosphere) is sane (he called it totally terrifying); these methods will do nothing for the CO2 dissolving and acidifying in the oceans. However, he added, there may be some other ways to understand geo-engineering that make sense (pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere and capturing it).
Scott recommended a very short article entitled “The Creation of Society’s Shared Hallucinations” (which I found shared by its author on the web) for moving people to action. Sachs mentioned Pope Francis’s encyclical for its call to think wholistically. There are, he said, practical solutions if we bring our knowledge to bear on current problems. The 17 Sustainable Development goals, he said, should be memorized and taken to heart; it represents the world’s shared commitment to decency.
Sachs narrated the film linked here, ICT Solutions, that has been recommended by RINGO members.