WSJ: Gulf Coast Consensus - Leaders should list priorities using a cost-benefit approach.

Wall Street Journal ^ | October 11, 2005 | BJORN LOMBORG

[OESY]

The recent damage from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita shows that the U.S. is very vulnerable to climate catastrophes. Researchers point out that the North Atlantic has entered its active 35-year period; thus after 35 years of relative hurricane lull, we are poised for decades of violent weather. In the aftermath there is a strong political will and inclination to spend money....

[I]n the real world, most proposed programs are very costly and only some can be done. So we should start with the best ones first. Such prioritization has its intellectual footing in the global prioritization process initiated by the 2004 Copenhagen Consensus. There, some of the world's top economists looked at the major issues facing mankind. They produced a ranking of which projects would do the most good.

...Get all the best proposals to strengthen American climate resilience, and the estimates of their costs and benefits. The question is not whether New Orleans should be rebuilt.... Rather, the relevant question is how best to protect the city... in the future.

Should extra funding first go into higher and better levees? Should we invest in forward defenses, like the ones that could seal off Lake Pontchartrain from the Gulf of Mexico? Should we focus on restoring natural wetlands and the string of barrier islands? What about better and less brittle emergency procedures, improving communications, training, transportation, and coordination?....

The question still remains, however: Which proposals should be done first? Which ones would do the most good for the money spent? Here, these proposals would be evaluated and ranked on their costs and benefits by top economists. Such a "Gulf Coast Consensus" would essentially provide an authoritative answer to: What are the best policies to prevent future catastrophes such as Katrina?...

[OESY]

Mr. Lomborg, organizer of Copenhagen Consensus, is the author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist" (Cambridge University Press, 2001).

[stopem]

"Leaders should list priorities using a cost-benefit approach.

What a novel approach....

[Wonder Warthog]

"What a novel approach...."

Unfortunately correct.

[ghost of nixon]

Lomborg is an amazing guy - he's a honest leftie who did the research & ending up writing a brilliant & scathing book on the dishonesty of environmentalists, and the wastefulness & even danger of most the policies they promote. He has even, somehow, gotten the government of his native Denmark to start listening & using this "common sense, cost/benefits" approach to tackling enviromental problems. It seems he is starting to get some following over here -

[WasDougsLamb]

Leaders should list priorities using a cost-benefit approach.

Example Ray Nagin

Cost: Billions of dollars
Benefit: Himself

There. Ray is all done with his.