The Bottom Billion& Stern Review: on Poverty and Environment

On poverty, although a total of five billion people are heading prosperity, Collier said that still one billion people are stuck at the bottom. Collier said that there are multiple traps that hinder the bottom billion from growing—the conflict trap, the natural resources trap, the trap of being landlocked with bad neighbors, and the trap of bad governance.

On environment, the Stern Review argued that in order to facing the challenges of climate change, we should seek to mitigate as well as to adopt the situation. The review provided several solutions in pushing carbon pricing, international collective actions, and technological innovations. It is an academic way to talk about climate change as the Stern Review is good at listing out strategies and useful points. To read and to be impressed by the Stern Review, one should reach a threshold of having basic knowledge associated with climate change. When it comes to affect individual changes and to raise awareness, I think Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth did a better job to make the science, policies, technology, and geography down to earth and accessible.

The question coming up after I read this week’s readings (Including Appadurai’s Fear of Small Numbers, Collier’s The Bottom Billion, and the Stern Review executive summary):
Think about the policy debates by republican and democratic candidates—about Iraq, Iran, immigration, minorities, global warming and foreign policies. What do those teach us about globalization, and what do those candidates’ answers tell us about America as a global player, and as a player in globalization.