Investing in ART to treat HIV/AIDS

Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. That old quip, often attributed to Mark Twain or his friend Charles Dudley Warner, now guides most news coverage of severe weather. The media say that natural disasters are a result of climate change and we need to adopt radical policies to combat them.

Recent weather disasters — flooding across Asia and hurricanes hitting the US and Caribbean — have only increased the volume from commentators and politicians who tell us: “This is what climate change looks like.” 

The destruction, they say, provides added reason to double down on the Paris Agreement, the climate pact adopted in December 2015. Those who don’t think this way are haters and wreckers, no different from Donald Trump, who cancelled US involvement in the treaty.

Every day, policymakers around the world face a dizzying array of choices. The more they spend on, say, education, the less there is to run hospitals, fight pollution, or boost agricultural productivity. Lobby groups, activists, and the media promote certain causes – solar panels, the Zika virus, closing tax loopholes immediately – while less fashionable issues, like nutrition or non-communicable diseases, can slip beneath the radar.