A preview of the unpublished book A CIVILIZATION WITHOUT A VISION WILL PERISH: AN INDEPENDENT SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH by David Willis. CHAPTER 1: INDIFFERENCE TO POVERTY (Part 60). This blog is a continuation of the review of The End of Poverty: How We Can Make it Happen in Our Life Time, by Jeffrey Sachs, published in 2005
Columbia University would lead the way
Incoming President Lee Bollinger later shared with me his vision that Columbia University would lead the way in the United States to become a truly global university. All of the UN Millennium Project work has depended utterly on the Earth Institute. Fundamentally, progress on the MDGs rests on thorough scientific understanding of the underlying challenges of disease, food production, undernutrition, watershed management, and other related issues. These, in turn, require specialized expertise. Modern science has given us technological interventions, or specific techniques for addressing these problems, such as antimalarial bed nets or antiretroviral drugs. To name just a few examples, the Earth Institute is
Pioneering the use of geographic information systems (GIS) in rural Ethiopia to monitor, predict, and respond to malaria epidemics
Using specially programmed cell phones in remote rural Rwanda to provide real-time health data to the Ministry of Health
Introducing new agroforestry techniques to triple food crops in the nitrogen-depleted soils of Africa
Designing new efficient and low-cost battery devices to power lightbulbs in villages too poor and remote to join a power grid in the near future
Demonstrating how high-tech forecasting of El Niño fluctuations can be put to use in impoverished countries in the timing of crop planting and harvesting, the management of water reservoirs and fisheries, and in other ways
Applying state-of-the-art hydrology, geochemistry, and public health to devise solutions to the crisis of arsenic poisoning in Bangladesh’s water supply.
The institute is built on five clusters
The Earth Institute provides a unique academic base for garnering the science-based, cross-disciplinary understanding needed to confront the practical challenges of sustainable development. The institute is built on five clusters – earth sciences, ecology and conservation, environmental engineering, public health, and economics and public policy. By joining these disciplines under one roof, the Earth Institute can better connect the sciences with public policy to find practical solutions to problems at all scales, from local villages to global UN treaties. Bringing these five clusters together makes possible the kind of rigorous thinking about the challenges of the MDGs that otherwise rarely takes place, even in partial perspective. One of the remarkable and deeply heartening aspects of directing this unique institute has been the enthusiasm with which the scientists have rallied to the cause of fighting extreme poverty. Their eagerness to use cutting-edge scientific knowledge to solve some of the most pernicious problems facing the most vulnerable people on the planet is inspiring.