How to Spend $50 Billion to Make the World a Better Place Edited by Bjørn Lomborg Cambridge University Press, 183pp, £25 ISBN 0521866790
In view of his recent pledge to give away his fortune before he dies, Bill Gates is probably kicking himself for missing the 2004 Copenhagen Consensus - a gathering of economists dedicated to solving how best to despatch a hypothetical $50bn. Lucky, then, that Bjørn Lomborg, the event's convenor, has compressed the findings into a dinky handbook, offering all the advice a feckless billionaire could need.
The approaches range from the encouragingly simple (one expert suggests insecticide-treated mosquito nets) to the frustratingly opaque (another calls for "efforts to develop monitoring and transparency initiatives, as in the extractive industries"). Usefully, the recommendations are ranked in terms of importance: the global Aids crisis comes out top, while global warming languishes at the bottom (unsurprisingly, perhaps, given that Lomborg's most famous book is The Sceptical Environmentalist).
The touchy-feely title is slightly misleading, given that economics inevitably take priority over other, more human considerations. However, in an increasingly idealistic world, it is refreshing to read a book that is about concrete action rather than simply talking.
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