NationofChange
The issues inherent in the climate crisis as well as the solutions are complex, but Noam Chomsky and Robert Pollin do an excellent job of presenting a clear and actionable analysis of both. If you are looking for a solution based, well thought out approach to the biggest existential threat to humanity today, this book is a must-read.
In this month’s BookClub Pick, Noam Chomsky, the world’s leading public intellectual, and Robert Pollin, a renowned progressive economist, map out the catastrophic consequences of unchecked climate change and present a realistic blueprint for change: the Green New Deal.
Poor lives matter, but less 28 Jan 2021 / 18:26 H.
Current development fads fetishize data, ostensibly for “evidence-based policy-making”: if not measured, it will not matter. So, forget about getting financial resources for your work, programmes and projects, no matter how beneficial, significant or desperately needed.
Measure for measure
Agencies, funds, programmes and others lobby and fight for attention by showcasing their own policy agendas, ostensible achievements and potential. Many believe that the more indicators they get endorsed by the “international community”, the more financial support they can expect to secure.
Collecting enough national data to properly monitor progress on the sustainable development goals is expensive.
Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States within the Holy See’s Secretariat of State, at the Vatican Oct. 27, 2017. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA.
Rome Newsroom, Jan 27, 2021 / 07:04 am (CNA).- A Vatican official has encouraged Catholics to apply the Church’s social teaching to evaluate proposals for a “Green New Deal.”
Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican Secretary for Relations with States, reflected on topic in a Jan. 23 guest lecture for a course organized by the Centesimus Annus pro Pontifice Foundation on “The Church’s Social Doctrine for a Green New Deal.”
He pointed out that the philosophical underpinnings of some Green New Deal proposals contained a modern assumption that technological progress inevitably yields good results.
Current development fads fetishize data, ostensibly for ‘evidence-based policy-making’: if not measured, it will not matter. So, forget about getting financial resources for your work, programmes
Yves here. Sundaram discusses how the obsession with metrics, a long standing favorite topic of ours (see Management’s Great Addiction) produces policies that give short shrift to the poor and poor countries. One of the big fallacies is treating money as the measure of the value and quality of life. For instance, reducing the instance of cancer is worth more in rich countries because their lives are valued more highly in these models. Similarly, they often fall back on unitary measures like lifespan, and so don’t capture outcomes like diets heavy in low nutrient foods (think simple sugars) producing higher rates of non-communicable diseases and hence less healthy citizens