Prof. Jeffrey Sachs

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Posts by Prof. Jeffrey Sachs

• Opinion: White House's New Covid-19 Strategy is Madness

  Sachs argues that the Trump Administration is receptive to pursuing a “herd immunity”.  A ‘controversial  approach to Covid-19 that threatens to bring nothing less than mass suffering.’ Sachs is a regular contributor to CNN.com

• Red and Blue America Took Different Roads. Here's How to Bring Them Together

  America has been coming apart at the seams, with Democrats and Republicans increasingly unable of communicating with one another. Red states and blue states, as decided in the 2016 election, have confronted each other in incomprehension, and are leading very different lives with very different economic conditions. Reuniting America requires a forward-looking path of sustainable development that benefits all regions, including the states that have been hard hit by the long-term decline in manufacturing jobs.  Sachs is a regular contributor to CNN.com

• Geopolitical Cold War with China Would be a Dangerous Mistake, Economist Jeffrey Sachs Says

  CNBC’s Elizabeth Schulze interviews Sachs on the potential of  a cold war with China, which Sachs argues would be a terrible mistake.  It is time for us to come together on climate change.

• America’s Unholy Crusade Against China

  Last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered an anti-China speech that was extremist, simplistic, and dangerous. If biblical literalists like Pompeo remain in power past November, they could well bring the world to the brink of a war that they expect and perhaps even seek.

• G20, Heal Thyself

  As the world’s largest economies, the G20’s members have one overriding responsibility at their finance ministers' upcoming meeting: to agree on actions to suppress the pandemic. Ensuring effective public-health measures is today’s essential economic policy.

• How Inequality Fuels COVID-19 Deaths

  High inequality undermines social cohesion, erodes public trust, and deepens political polarization, all of which negatively affect governments’ ability and readiness to respond to crises. This explains why the United States, Brazil, and Mexico account for nearly half of the world's reported deaths since the start of the pandemic.

• New Unity Needed Amid Challenges of New Global Age

  Sachs discusses the current upheaval and changing form of globalization, arguing  that global solidarity is essential to the safety of the planet.

• The One Vital Message of Nearing 100,000 US Deaths

  Six months into the epidemic and around 100,000 deaths later we still do not have systematic contact tracing across the country. Neither the President nor Congress has focused on the topic even though it is the key to keeping Americans alive and restoring the economy. Sachs is a regular contributor to CNN.com

• We're Already in a Great Depression

  Instead of an imagined "tradeoff" between reviving the economy and safeguarding health, President Donald Trump's policies are delivering both a great depression and tens of thousands of deaths at the same time.  Sachs is a regular contributor to CNN.com

• Opinion: Trump's Anti-China Theory Implodes

  The big lie of the Trump administration is that China is the cause of America's problems. The meme has worked for a while, since it plays into American smugness that if China is succeeding, they must be cheating. Sachs is a regular contributor to CNN.com

• What Asian Nations Know About Squashing Covid-19

  While the coronavirus continues to ravage the country, with confirmed cases exceeding 1 million and deaths rising by the day, some states are lifting stay at home orders in hopes of salvaging the economy. With so many lives at stake, it's time the United States looked to those countries in the Asia Pacific region that have successfully controlled the pandemic to figure out how to save ourselves and the economy. Sachs is a regular contributor to CNN.com

• We Must Defend Multilateralism

  James Chau of The China Current interviews Sachs on COVID-19, China’s response, and the role of multilateralism in solving global challenges.

  This video originally aired on April 28, 2020

• Jeffrey Sachs on the Catastrophic American Response to the Coronavirus

  Isaac Chotiner of The New Yorker interviews Sachs on the coronavirus,  the challenges it poses to the global economy and why poorer countries have so far fared better compared to countries like the United States.

• The East-West Divide in COVID-19 Control

  The public health response will be decisive in stopping the COVID-19 coronavirus before it devastates entire populations in the West and around the world. And the right approach requires that the United States and Europe learn what we can from East Asia as rapidly as possible.

• Universities Should Listen to Their Students on Climate Change

  Students have pushed university administrators to divest, while administrators have pushed back, lecturing students about the “real world” of sound investing and the purported need to keep fossil fuels in the endowments. Eight years on, the lessons are clear. The students are the ones living in the real world, while university administrators, trustees, and endowment managers have been living in an energy fantasyland.

• We Need a President Who Will Help all Americans -- Not Just the Rich

  Sachs gives a brief overview of how America’s political system “has been sold to the highest bidder,” how that has impacted our economic and political life, and the impact on our wellbeing. Sachs is a regular contributor to CNN.com

   

• America’s Dangerous Iran Obsession

  The US, seemingly with no awareness of its recent history with Iran, and led by an emotionally unbalanced president who believes he may commit murder and get away with it, is still acting out a 40-year-old psychological trauma. As usual, it's others who are most at risk.

• Europe’s Green Deal

  The Green Deal announced by the European Commission is a demonstration of European social democracy at work. A mixed economy, combining markets, government regulation, the public sector, and civil society, will pursue a mixed strategy, combining public goals, public and private investments, and public support.

• Getting to a Carbon-Free Economy

  In this long-form, detailed piece, Sachs outlines the key pillars of the transition to a carbon-free economy in line with the Paris Agreement and demonstrates both its feasibility and affordability.

• America’s War on Chinese Technology

  In this Project Syndicate opinion, Sachs argues that America’s misguided war on Chinese technology will lead us astray from “the urgent task of harnessing breakthrough digital technologies for the global good.”

• Food for Sustainable Development

  Sachs and co-author Angelo Riccaboni argue that all companies within the food sector must adopt clear guidelines, metrics, and reporting standards to align with the Sustainable Development Goals.  Angelo Riccaboni is Chair of the Santa Chiara Lab at the University of Siena and Chair of the PRIMA Foundation.

• CEOs are Finally Admitting to Shortchanging Society. It's About Time.

  On Monday [Aug 19, 2019], 181 of the nation's leading CEOs issued a statement pledging that, above all else, corporations must have a commitment to all their stakeholders, including customers, workers, suppliers and the communities where they operate. Sachs is a regular contributor to CNN.com

• China is not the Source of Our Economic Problems -- Corporate Greed is

  Sachs argues that a “trade war with China won't solve our economic problems” and instead we must crackdown on corporate greed here at home, and invest in healthcare, education, infrastructure, and a higher minimum wage.  Sachs is a regular contributor to CNN.com

• Jeffrey Sachs on Why the Global Goals are Urgent, and How Tech Can Help

  In conversation with David Kirkpatrick, Sachs discusses our interconnected national and global crises and how we can make a healthier, more inclusive, and environmentally sustainable world.

  This video originally aired March 21, 2019

• The Green New Deal isn’t Outlandish - It is a Necessity

  Sachs considers the question of how we get to zero-carbon economies by 2050, not only in the US, but in Europe, China, India, and the rest of the world. Sachs is a regular contributor to The Hill

• Jeffrey Sachs: Ending child poverty is within reach

  Children are not only our most precious possession but also our most fragile. This may not seem correct: we are reminded constantly of the indomitable human spirit, of children rising from great poverty and hardship to the greatest heights of success. Such examples warm our hearts and yet mislead our judgment. Countless children suffer lifetimes of difficulty as the result of early childhood poverty, and millions worldwide die each year because their families are too poor to keep them alive.

• Democratic Naysayers are Wrong on Medicare for All

  In this CNN opinion piece, Sachs argues that political opposition to Medicare for All is “absurd,” given that single-payer is the much cheaper, fairer, and more efficient health care system. Sachs is a regular contributor to CNN.com

• Fully filling the Global Fund

  In this article, Jeffrey Sachs outlines the need for the Global Fund - how it has and should continue to help decrease the rates of AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria that currently kill around 2.5 million people per year. 

  Sachs argues that "In a world divided by conflict and greed, the Global Fund's fight against the three epidemic diseases is a matter of enlightened self-interest. It is also a reminder of how much humanity can accomplish when we cooperate to save lives."

• Opinion: Trump’s Policies Will Displace the Dollar

  The benefits that the US reaps from having the world's main international currency are diminishing with the rise of the euro and renminbi. And now President Donald Trump’s misguided trade wars and anti-Iran sanctions will accelerate the move away from the dollar.

• We Are All Climate Refugees Now

  This summer's fires, droughts, and record-high temperatures should serve as a wake-up call. The longer a narrow and ignorant elite condemns Americans and the rest of humanity to wander aimlessly in the political desert, the more likely it is that we will all end up in a wasteland.

• Medicare for All Makes a Lot of Sense

  The economics of Medicare for All championed by Sen. Bernie Sanders are actually quite straightforward. Under what advocates call "M4A," health care coverage would expand while total spending on health care -- by companies, individuals and the government -- would decline because of lower costs. More would be paid through the government and less through private insurers.

• America Is Falling Far Behind On Key World Goals

  The idea of sustainable development is that every nation (and local community) should aim for a triple bottom line: economic prosperity, social justice and environmental sustainability. However, many of our politicians have never warmed to the idea.

• Energy for the Common Good

  Aristotle famously contrasted two types of knowledge: “techne” (technical know-how) and “phronesis” (practical wisdom). Scientists and engineers have offered the techne to move rapidly from fossil fuels to zero-carbon energy; now we need the phronesis to redirect our politics and economies accordingly.

• Europe Must Confront America’s Extraterritorial Sanctions

  Europe’s biggest challenge in resisting US sanctions on Iran is not legal or even geopolitical. It is psychological: European leaders act as if the US still cares about a trans-Atlantic alliance of shared interests, values, and approaches.

• Denuclearization Means the US, Too

  The US demands that North Korea adhere to the provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and on that basis has encouraged the UN Security Council to impose sanctions in pursuit of denuclearization. Yet the brazenness with which the US demands not true denuclearization, but rather its own nuclear dominance, is stunning.

• The Sustainable Way Forward for Canada's Energy Sector

  Oil seems to make politicians lose their bearings. The get-rich-quick mentality or too-much-to-lose thinking is very hard to overcome.

• Facebook And The Future of Online Privacy

  The EU has taken the lead in responding to abuse by the likes of Facebook, thanks to its new privacy standards and proposed greater taxation of peddlers of online personal data. Yet more is needed and feasible.

• Italy's Politics and Europe's Future

  Italy – which stands at the border between Europe's prosperous north and crisis-ridden south, and between an open Europe and one seized by atavistic nationalism – will play a pivotal role in determining whether the EU survives long enough to reform itself. The coalition government that emerges will prove crucial.

• Trump Is Right About Syria: It's Time to Leave

  President Trump recently suggested that the United States should come out of Syria “very soon.” Leading voices of the foreign policy establishment — in the Pentagon, State Department, Congress, and the media — pushed back, calling for the United States to stay in Syria. Trump quickly acquiesced. Trump was right (yes, a rarity) while the security state was wrong yet again. It’s long past time for the United States to end its destructive military engagement in Syria and across the Middle East, though the security state seems unlikely to let this happen.

• China's Bold Energy Vision

  China’s proposed Global Energy Interconnection – based on renewables, ultra-high-voltage transmission, and an AI-powered smart grid – represents the boldest global initiative by any government to achieve the goals of the Paris climate agreement. It is a strategy fit for the scale of the most important challenge the world faces today.

• Ending America's Disastrous Role in Syria

  America’s official narrative has sought to conceal the scale and calamitous consequences of US efforts to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. That is understandable, because US efforts are in blatant violation of international law, which bars UN member states from supporting military action to overthrow other members' governments.

• The World Bank Needs To Return To Its Mission

  NEW YORK – The World Bank declares that its mission is to end extreme poverty within a generation and to boost shared prosperity. These goals are universally agreed as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. But the World Bank lacks an SDG strategy, and now it is turning to Wall Street to please its political masters in Washington. The Bank’s president, Jim Yong Kim, should find a better way forward, and he can do so by revisiting one of his own great successes.

• World Government Summit 2018 - The Global Happiness Policy Report

  Professor Jeffrey Sachs and Professor John Helliwell discuss how governments can benefit from the first-ever Global Happiness Policy Report.

   

• Remarks at the Ethics in Action Conference

  My remarks will focus on the ethical challenges of one particular aspect of the financial system: the investment management industry. Given the increasing size and importance of this industry globally, I believe that it is of utmost importance that we develop an ethical framework for its functioning.

• The West's Broken Promises on Education Aid

  The Global Partnership for Education, a worthy and capable initiative to promote education in 65 low-income countries, is begging for funds. The fact that it must do so – and for a paltry $1 billion per year, at that – exposes the charade of the US and European commitment to education for all.

• A Bold Bid for Climate Justice

  (CNN) Americans are paying a fearsome price for global warming. The federal government’s National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration reported earlier this week that the three powerful Atlantic hurricanes of 2017 — Harvey, Irma and Maria — cost Americans $265 billion, and massive Western forest fires another $18 billion. Scientists have shown that human-induced climate change has greatly increased the frequency and intensity of such disasters.

• (Opinion) The GOP's Rush To Tax Cuts Was Brainless

  I am writing from Beijing, China, where forward-looking policies in infrastructure, technology and diplomacy have fueled rapid economic growth and even more remarkable technological advancement. By the mid-2020s, China will most likely lead the world in key technologies for low-carbon energy, robotics and advanced transportation, among other areas targeted in China's long-term development strategy.

• A New Grand Coalition for Germany and Europe

  With America AWOL and China ascendant, this is a critical time for Germany and the European Union to provide the world with vision, stability, and global leadership. And that imperative extends to Germany's Christian Democrats and Social Democrats.

• War of the Rich on the Poor is Astounding

  Jeffrey Sachs, professor at Columbia University, discussed income inequality in the U.S. and tax reform with Tom Keene on "Bloomberg Surveillance." 

• US must transition to low-carbon energy

  Energy is the lifeblood of the economy. Without ample, safe, and low-cost energy, it is impossible to secure the benefits of modern life. For two centuries, fossil fuels — coal, oil, and natural gas — offered the key to America’s and the world’s growing energy needs. Now, because of global warming, we have to shift rapidly to a new low-carbon energy system.

• The US Plutocracy's War on Sustainable Development

  Billionaire US plutocrats such as Charles and David Koch, Robert Mercer, and Sheldon Adelson have long played their politics for personal financial gain – even if it means boosting inequality at home and blocking sustainable development worldwide. To stop them, US citizens will need to regain the upper hand in electoral politics.

• America's Goals and Politics of the Common Interest

  According to Aristotle, politics should be about the common interest. Yet everywhere we look, narrow corporate interests have pushed aside what’s best for most Americans. By adopting America’s Goals for 2030, we can restore the politics of the common interest and push corporate lobbyists to where they belong, the sidelines of politics. 

• The Disunited States of American Gun Control

  America today doesn’t just have red (conservative) states and blue (progressive) states, but de facto red countries and blue countries: regions with distinct cultures, heroes, politics, dialects, economies, and ideas of freedom. The recent massacre in Las Vegas suggests that it's time to let them go their separate ways.

• Big Oil Will Have to Pay Up, Like Big Tobacco

  Here is a message to investors in the oil industry, whether pension and insurance funds, university endowments, hedge funds or other asset managers: Your investments are going to sour. The growing devastation caused by climate change, as seen this month in Texas, Florida and the Caribbean, are going to blow a hole in your fossil-fuel portfolio.

• America’s Dangerous Anti-Iran Posturing

  More than ever, we need an era of diplomacy that emphasizes compromise, not another round of demonization and an arms race that could all too easily spiral into disaster.

• Overview SDG Index and Dashboards Report 2017

  This article includes excerpts from the 2017 SDGs report - a report that looks at the world, and individual countries' movements towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

  The exerpts look at the goals of the SDGs, what they are, and how certain areas and countries are doing in achieving the SDGs. It specifically looks at the "spillover" effects that countries have on other's ability to reach the Sustainable Development Goals.

  The report comes to five main conclusions:

  1. Every country faces major challenges in achieving the SDGs

  2. Poor countries need help to achieve the SDGs

  3. The universal SDG agenda contains important spillover effects

  4. Countries should usefully benchmark themselves against their peers as well as against the goal thresholds

  5. Countries and international agencies need to make substantial investments in statistical capacity to track the SDGs

• 2017 SDGs Report Top 10 Countries

  The 2017 SDG Index and Dashboards Report includes individual analyses of each country in regards to their progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. This article focuses on the top ten countries in regards to the scores given in this report, and provides the United States (Ranked 42nd) as comparison. 

• Jeffrey Sachs: Americans can save $1 trillion and get better healthcare

  In this article, Jeffrey Sachs, university professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia, discusses the big business of American healthcare and lays out a 10-point plan for achieving a feasible, fair and reasonable healthcare system that limits the monopoly power of the health care sector.

• Opinion: Tax Reform that Works for All

  This article originally appeared in The Boston Globe on June 27th, 2017.

  In this article, Professor Sachs discusses how a real tax reform would address four problems. First, it would raise total revenues as a share of GDP, in order to cut the chronic budget deficit. Second, it would address the crisis of falling wages and disappearing jobs facing working-class America. Third, it would curb carbon pollution, which is dangerously warming the planet. Fourth, to spur saving and investment, it would shift taxes toward consumption rather than income.

• Jeffrey Sachs at the Global Solutions: T20 Summit

  On May 20th, 2017, Professor Jeffrey Sachs addressed the Global Solutions T20 Summit in Berlin. In this speech, Sachs puts our current economic, social and environmental crises into historical context and addresses the importance of new ideas and solutions to the most pressing issues facing the world today, specifically those in the 2030 agenda of Sustainable Development Goals that were unanimously decided upon in September 2015 by a group of world leaders. 

• Will Economic Illiteracy Trigger a Trade War?

  US President Donald Trump and his commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, repeatedly commit an economic fallacy that first-year economics students learn to avoid. And their embrace of economic ignorance could lead to disaster.

• Prosperity In Sustainability

  "Our generation’s greatest challenge is sustainable development, meaning a nation that is prosperous, fair, and environmentally sustainable. Our nation’s goals should be the Sustainable Development Goals for the year 2030." 

  In this article, Prof. Jeffrey Sachs talks about the need for the new administration to take on the Sustainable Development goals. He states that none of them are out of reach, and that they are reminiscent of the bold goal-setting that has seen so many of America's greatest achievements.

  "In short, for a country with the wealth of knowledge, technology, and skills of the United States, we don’t need to settle for a rank of 22nd out of 34 OECD countries in sustainable development. By setting ambitious Sustainable Development Goals, and by engaging thought leaders across the country, the United States could once again set the standard for policy boldness and innovation, and inspire other nations, even today’s adversaries, to work together for a better world." 

• The Ethics And Practicalities Of Foreign Aid

  The Trump administration has recently put forward a budget that includes cuts to the foreign aid program. In this article Prof. Jeffrey Sachs argues the merits of foreign aid.

  Sachs' support for foreign aid is rooted in his morality: "My own support for foreign assistance is based on morality. “Justice, justice shall you pursue,” we are told in the book of Deuteronomy. Those who fail to help the poor cast themselves outside of the moral community." 

  There are also clear, measurable benefits to foreign aid:

  "Aid works when its main purpose is to finance supplies such as medicines and solar panels, and the staffing by local workers in public health, agronomy, hydrology, ecology, energy, and transport. US government aid should be pooled with finances from other governments to support critical investments in health, education, agriculture, and infrastructure, based on professional best practices. That’s how the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria works, as one important example. It’s a model of success."

  Sachs ends his article with the statement: "There is a real question: Who has aided whom over the past centuries? And can we live in morality and peace?"

• Why Millenials Will Reject Trump

  In the US, pundits remain fixated on traditional party divides, and not on the deeper demographic changes that are underway. Today’s millennial generation, with its members' future-oriented perspective, will soon dominate American politics, and the country will become increasingly liberal and economically just as a result.

• US Foreign Policy — From Primacy to Global Problem Solving

  Not for decades has American foreign policy been as uncertain and contested as it is today.

• Learning to Love a MultiPolar World

  The only sane way forward for the US is vigorous global cooperation to realize the potential of twenty-first-century science and technology to slash poverty, disease, and environmental threats. The rise of regional powers is not a threat to the US, but an opportunity for a new era of prosperity and constructive problem solving.

• US Must Transition To Low-Carbon Energy

  In this article Jeffery Sachs outlines how and why the U.S. should transition to low carbon energy.

  He states that while the Trump administration has talked about the resurgence of coal and other fossil fuels, he believes that the pushback from other world leaders and millennials makes this less than likely. 

  Sachs' roadmap to a transition to low carbon energy includes three steps:

  1. Energy efficiency: cutting back on excessive energy use through switching to energy-saving technologies.

  2. Transitioning to zero carbon electricity: by 2050 electricity should be generated entirely by non-carbon sources.

  3. Fuel switching: instead of burning fossil fuels in cars, people would use electricity or other substitutes.

  Sachs describes that global warming has already had major impacts on the world and the United States of America is in a prime position to use it's readily-available renewable energy sources to transition away from carbon energy and mitigate further consequences of global warming. 

• Investment for Sustainable Growth

  When the 2008 financial crisis hit, outlays on both consumption and housing plummeted, yet the investment that should have picked up the slack never materialized. It is time to usher in an era of high investment in sustainable development.

• The Fatal Expense of American Imperialism

  THE SINGLE MOST important issue in allocating national resources is war versus peace, or as macroeconomists put it, “guns versus butter.” The United States is getting this choice profoundly wrong, squandering vast sums and undermining national security. In economic and geopolitical terms, America suffers from what Yale historian Paul Kennedy calls “imperial overreach.” If our next president remains trapped in expensive Middle East wars, the budgetary costs alone could derail any hopes for solving our vast domestic problems.

• Facing Up To Income Inequality

  Jeffrey Sachs begins this article with a description of stagnating incomes "While household median incomes have stagnated since the late 1990s, the inflation-adjusted earnings of poorer households have stagnated for even longer, roughly 40 years" while higher income households have seen substantial increases. 

  Sachs describes that there are three main factors that contribute to this income inequality: technology, trade, and politics.

  Technology has raised demand for higher skilled, higher educated workers and has increased income for those groups while leaving other groups behind. While trade has increased competition for lower skilled industrial workers. Finally, politics in the United States has not tended to favor the working class and instead it benefits those who can pay for lobbying.

  Sachs then investigates the policies in the U.S. compared to those in other countries using the Gini index (a measure of income inequality varies between 0 - full income equality across households, and 1 - full-income inequality, in which one household has all the income) to compare countries both through market income and disposable income. He finds that the net distibution in the U.S. is especially low when compared to many other first world countries and ends with the statement that "these income comparisons underscore that America's high inequality is a choice, not an irreversible law of modern world economy."

   

• From the CIA to the GFE

  The US spends $1 billion per year on global education, and $900 billion on military-related programs. Unfortunately, it is not the only country where policymakers believe that sustainable development is best achieved through superior firepower.

• America's True Role in Syria

  Syria’s civil war is the most dangerous and destructive crisis on the planet. Unfortunately, President Barack Obama has greatly compounded the dangers by hiding the US role in Syria from the American people and from world opinion.

• The Meaning of Brexit

  Brexit is a watershed event that signals the need for a new kind of globalization, one that could be far superior to the status quo that was rejected at the British polls. What is required, above all, is a shift from a strategy of war to one of sustainable development.

• Financing Health and Education for All

  Our world is immensely wealthy and could easily finance a healthy start in life for every child on the planet. A small shift of financing from wasteful US military spending to global funds for health and education, or a very small levy on tax havens’ deposits, would make the world vastly fairer, safer, and more productive.

• America Returns to Cuba

  Barack Obama’s visit to Cuba is the first by a US president since Calvin Coolidge went in 1928. Normalization of the bilateral relationship will pose opportunities and perils for Cuba, and a giant test of maturity for the US.

• New Politics For Clean Energy

  The Paris climate agreement was a large step for the world, but implementation of that agreement is going to be much more difficult. 

  The U.S. government, and governments across the world will need "a new approach to an issue that is highly complex, long term, and global in scale." This sort of fast paced, wholistic transformation in industry is unprecedented.

  Sachs believes that "politics as usual" will not be sufficient to meet the need for this aggressive shift to reduce carbon emissions and that policies that look beyond the short-term political environment are needed to enact the necessary changes. Therefore, Sachs suggests removing the control of day to day planning and implementation of climate change regulation from "short term electoral politics" and creating "politically independent energy agencies with high technical experience."

• Ending the Syrian War

  Syria is currently the world’s greatest humanitarian catastrophe and most dangerous geopolitical hotspot. If the fighting is to stop, any solution must be based on a transparent and realistic account of what caused it to start.

• From Good Intentions to Deep Decarbonization

  In the run-up to the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris, many observers wondered whether plans submitted by more than 150 governments to reduce carbon emissions by 2030 would be enough. But there is a more important question: Will the chosen path to 2030 provide the basis for ending greenhouse-gas emissions later in the century?

• Teaching Companion for The Age of Sustainable Development

  This is the learning and teaching companion for The Age of Sustainable Development, by Jeffrey D. Sachs. Below you’ll find student companions for each chapter (which include chapter summaries, data activities, review and discussion questions), modeling companions to provide quantitative and mathematical background to the concepts discussed in the book, and Power Point slides.

• The Age of Sustainable Development

  Sustainable development is the central drama of our time. The world’s governments are currently negotiating a set of Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, for the period 2015-2030, following the success of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which run from 2000-2015.

• Entitlements Hysteria

  In this article Jeff Sachs injects some reality into much of the hysteria around entitlement spending. Many have heard the argument that healthcare costs are rising and that the government will go broke paying for programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

  Sachs, however, breaks down the number of the price increase. In 2012 the President's budget saw an increase in Medicare and Medicaid spending from 5.1% to 5.5%. This was not a substantial increase. Sachs warns that many of the long-term predictions should be taken with a grain of salt, "Mechanical extrapolations that assume that health care costs will rise much faster than GNP between 2011 and 2085 are utterly unconvincing. Why should healthcare costs continue to rise so far and fast when healthcare costs are already vastly over-priced now compared with what other countries pay for the same services? Why should we assume failure decade after decade to use the new information technologies to lower the costs of health-care delivery and administration?"

  This article is a reality-check about entitlement spending. Yes, it has grown and will continue to grow, but for programs that help so many people, the last thing that we need is to demolish the entire system.