At The Earth Institute of Columbia University’s State of the Planet 2010 Conference last Thursday, Dr. Jeffrey Sachs (left, photo by Eileen Barroso), the economist, intellectual tummler, and director of said Earth Institute, summed up the State of the Planet as “interconnected, crowded and complex.” Later, he threw in “wondrous” and “challenging,” and nary a one of these adjectives would seem unwarranted. Sachs, like his conference, is wonderfully intelligent and perceptive, but he has a bit of a weakness for the obvious platitude. Well, who among us is perfect. His co-host, Hans Vestberg, the president and CEO of Ericcson communications, threw out some nicely provocative statistics, such as: there are 4.6 billion cell phone subscribers in the world; that five years from now, that number will rise to 6-7 billion, and that 80% of the world will be web-connected; that for every 10% increase there is in connectivity, there is a one percent increase in sustainable GNP (chicken and egg issue here, perhaps); and bu 2050, the world will triplicate, which is the first time I’ve heard this word used outside the context of some kind of form, and though I’m not sure Hans used the word correctly, it sure does make an impression.The third (and last) co-host, Matthew Bishop of The Economist, talked about the need to “revive the spirit of internationalism,” which seems like quite a good thing to do.
Bishop then hosted a panel on Climate Change. Columbia’s Wallace Broecker, professor of 
Earth and Environmental Sciences, was pretty sour on the prospects of humankind solving global warming before things become too dire. “I hope nature turns on the hear to convince people. Not enough emphasis has been placed on basic physics. It’s going to happen.” Mark Cane, also of Columbia, dismissed the Fox News reporters who mocked Al Gore during the recent snowfalls in Washington. “Either they are extraordinarily stupid or extraordinarily cynical.” (Is both not an option?) Johan Rockstrom, Executive director of the Stockholm Environment Institute, agreed. “We are the worst case pathway. We are seeing all the tipping points–rapid acidification of the oceans, sea levels are rising faster. We can no longer exclude a one-meter rise in sea levels this century.” Although Rockstrom was unhappy with the outcome at the recent Copenhagen summit, he was pleased when he saw a photo of Barack Obama and Angela Merkel discussing the issue. “Now, for the first time, this is not just the environmentalists’ problem. It is owned by Big Politics.” Broecker was dismayed that we have had such a lame response. “We have to prepare to do what we’re going to have to do, which is capture and store CO2. Starting that would cost tens of millions, not billions, but we’re not doing it.” The panel then connected to a similar discussion that was being held at Tsinghua University, whose star was (I believe) Qi Ye, a profesor of Environmental Policy, who rather dryly congratulated the US in passing health care reform (“a century-long effort to solve a problem of the last century”) before saying that solving climate change would be the problem for the century to come. “China has a quarter of the emissions of the US,” he told us matter-of-factly. “Chinese emissions are not going to peak before the US.” In other words, we’re going to have to lead, and none of that nonsense about waiting for the developing nations to do the same. Or not. “Maybe we should let China lead,” said Broecker. “They’re going to do so eventually.” (Photo by Eileen Barroso shows New York panelests Bishop, Rockstrom, Cane and Broecker below a satellite feed from China; Qi Ye is third from left.)
A second panel on solving poverty was also quite interesting. Perhaps most surprising was the good news–robust improvement in agriculture in Malawi and Cambodia. Interesting comments from Princess Maxima of the Netherlands, who talked about micro investments, and how improvements in financial infrastructure in the poor countries will have a stupendous effect; a big key, said James Mwangi, CEO of the Equity Bank in Nairobi, will be the ability to structure loans without collateral, or, more properly, with social collateral. Finally, Achim Steiner, the Executive Director of the UN’s Environmental Programme, made an excellent point. “We have to get rid of the 20th century myth that makes nature invisible in the equation of value. We have to realize that a tree standing is worth more than a tree cut down. We have to make the economics of biodiversity visible.” (Photo by David Wentworth of Bishop, Vestberg, Columbia’s Upmanu Lall, Columbia’s Glenn Denning, and Princess Maxima, listening to The Economist‘s Jonathan Ledgard from Nairobi.)