Discussions of US foreign aid are often divorced from discussions of the US Farm Bill. At the Aspen Ideas Festival today I asked Tom Daschle, Dan Glickman, Lauren Bush and Beth Sauerhaft to connect the two.
As an approach to resolving some of the world’s most intractable problems, embracing the “Rational Middle” sounds like a terrific concept. Who could object to bringing together people of diverse views on energy and climate policy to discuss reasonable solutions in a respectful manner?
As our civilization struggles to understand both the meaning and making of Stonehenge or Easter Island, others may some day look back and try to give meaning to the immense pie charts that seem to be scattered over the American Midwest.
Markets may well be the most finely tuned mechanism we have for allocating resources efficiently around short-term costs and prices. But absent a robust framework of social and cultural values and priorities to channel market operations these efficient markets will lead to vast inequity and depletion of critical resources.
There is so much to do to “repair the world.” But we had best be sure we are asking the right questions before we put too much faith and resources in the answers.
A sense of change is in the air – and not just the crispness of the Fall air in the bucolic hills of Vermont, where I presented at the Dana Meadows Sustainability Institute.
Jonathan makes connections that other people miss. Beyond an understanding of any single environmental issue or energy challenge, he knows how to use knowledge to drive change, how to bring the right players to the table, and how to reframe seemingly intractable problems to create space for new approaches. He’s a strategic thinker with a very clear sense of how things work.
Ray Kopp
Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Climate and Electricity Policy, Resources for the Future