Leaders try to fix every problem — like poverty and education — but end up getting nothing done

The Do-able Dozen: There is one clear opportunity for humanity — boosting agricultural research and development for the poorest half of the planet

Between 2000 and 2015 the world made great progress on the Millennium Development Goals, which aimed to hit important targets in education, income growth, fighting disease and so on. In 2015, world leaders followed up that success by establishing the Sustainable Development Goals, a hodge-podge of 169 priorities. We’re now halfway to the target date of 2030 and, not surprisingly, progress has been minimal. In part, COVID setbacks are to blame but the crucial problem is lack of focus. Today, Bjorn Lomborg kicks off a 12-part weekly series in which he and his colleagues at the Copenhagen...

Partisan “fact checks” are undermining open discourse about important issues, including climate change. Earlier this month I wrote an accurate post on Facebook about the growing polar-bear population. The post undercut alarmist climate narratives, so it was wrongly tagged as a falsehood.