Bjorn Lomborg - The Adam Carolla Show

By Nicholas Newman, Oxford Prospect.  Increasingly, we are hearing the term that something must be done to solve the world’s almost never-ending ending crises. The media is full of pressing appeals that every problem is urgent and must be tackled immediately, with often little regard to the economic and social costs involved. Unfortunately, for policy makers, the real world of geopolitics and budgetary issues forces politicians to prioritise decisions. Often such policy decisions will be both tough to make and politically unpopular with the public at large.

Christiana Figueres, the former United Nations official responsible for the 2015 Paris climate agreement, has a startling vision for restaurants of the future: anyone who wants a steak should be banished. “How about restaurants in 10-15 years start treating carnivores the same way that smokers are treated?” Figueres suggested during a recent conference. “If they want to eat meat, they can do it outside the restaurant.”

If ratified, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that was recently agreed to in Atlanta will be one of the most significant poverty-reduction measures this decade. And what really needs to happen next in the fight against poverty is the introduction of global free trade, so nobody misses out.

The TPP agreement is significant, but covers just 40 per cent of the world’s economy. Negotiations have been going on for five years.