Freer trade isn’t dead yet, which is a good thing for all of us

Copenhagen Consensus president Bjorn Lomborg joins 'America's Newsroom' to explain how he believes the United Nations should prioritize global aid. 

2014-01-08 Will we be living better in 2050 than our predecessors did in 1900? The discussion over the state of the world, and whether things are getting better or worse, is not new. Scientists and philosophers have debated the topic for centuries. From Malthus to The Limits to Growth, pessimists have built their case for a future blighted by overpopulation, starvation, and depleted resources as optimists have tried to assure them that everything would be OK.

We’re erring on the side of positive expectations again. This time with Bjørn Lomborg. His new book is Best Things First. There he sets his sights on cost effective, acheivable goals that will lift the world’s poorest out of miserable conditions and inch us along in the direction towards those sustainable goals we hear about so much. We ask the minuscule billions of dollars question: Are the world’s most prosperous ready for such tangible win-win?