11:24 AM

Wired 12.06: You Can Cure AIDS. Or End Hunger. Choose.

Danish professors of statistics aren’t known for lighting fires under anyone. But there was Bjørn Lomborg sparking an inferno in 2001 with his book The Skeptical Environmentalist, in which he methodically demolished widely held ideas that the earth was, well, going to hell. Since then, Lomborg has fought a running battle with the eco establishment, which calls him a 21st-century Dr. Pangloss. But Lomborg doesn’t deny the existence of global scourges; he just wants to face them honestly. Which brings us to the Copenhagen Consensus, his ambitious effort to set priorities for the top 10 issues facing the world: climate change, disease, war, education, financial instability, corruption, hunger, population, water, and trade. The project has tapped nine respected economists - four of them Nobelists - to create a hot list for spending limited resources.