Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet

I just finished Jeffery Sachs' book Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet and wanted to recommend it to any person interested in the environment and how it might tie into global politics, economics, and social issues.

The book includes a bit of everything - science, politics, social concerns, population demographics, economics. For those who aren't as familiar with climate change, Sachs gives a nice and easy to understand summary of the scientific evidence for global climate change and the environmental consequences that will follow. There are also chapters on population growth, poverty, and global politics.

For me, the most enlightening chapters were on US foreign policy and how these policies help solve (or more correctly fail to solve) global problems. Having traveled outside of the US, it now makes sense to me WHY everyone dislikes the US so much - the US takes the attitude of "you're with us or against us" rather than one of cooperation and neighborly conduct. The problems the world faces today are ones that everyone has a hand in causing and in resolving, and one country acting like they can just let the other countries deal with their own problems will eventually be detrimental to the world.

Another interesting section in the book was the statistics on foreign aid. I never saw the statistics on it before, but there is definitely a correlation between amount of foreign aid given to developing countries and how successful they became later. Foreign aid can help stop the poverty trap and prevent civil wars and conflicts that engulf the world from happening. Countries that have a large percentage of its population in extreme poverty are more likely to have troubled communities desperate to survive. Add on the environmental stress of climate chance, such as water scarcity and food shortage, and uncontrolled population growth, and you have a potentially explosive situation on your hands. Places where civil wars and conflicts that have occurred in the last few years have all been places where there was a high percentage of young people and where there was high environmental stress.

In short, I found the book really enlightening and I highly recommend everyone to read it, especially fellow Americans!