Interesting!
Free Trade (removing subsidies) (EU and US, we're looking at you!) would add $2400 billion in commerce/wealth to the world ... per year. Half of that would be the developed nations.
I am not an economist, so I'll wait for an expert to clarify. I have heard that protectionism hurts mainly to the non developed countries.
Investing $12 billion per year in supplying micronutrients to the world's poor would significantly alter the health of 2 billion people.
Probably correct.
Finally, investing $27 billion into stopping and preventing HIV AIDS would show a 40:1 return on investment. Holy crap. Compare that to the 10:1 on treating/curing AIDS. Still a dollar well donated.
Don't know much about returns, but even with less returns or even no returns, Investing $27 billion sounds like an good altruistic idea.
He didn't mention if they've factored in whether selling developing nations cleaner energy sources (at lower cost than developing dirty energy sources) would give a bang-for-the-buck. I'd think that figuring out how to get solar cheaper and more portable than coal would change all the equations.
And finding a cure to Malaria will change all the equations too, or how to tame fussion, or time travel...
Finally, he forgot to mention specialisation. People, if they're going to do the grunt-work themselves, should continue focusing on what they're interested in. Focus and specialisation always gives the best returns.
That must be true for developed countries, I am not an expert in the area, but what specializations are you talking about in a third world country?
Ummm... you just copied some criticisms about Lomborg's book The skeptical Environmentalist. What does that add to the Ted's talk other than a sort of ad hominen? (even if you think that The Skeptical Environmentalist is wrong, what does it have to do with Ted's talk? It is like trying to debunk
Lord Kelvin's achivements on thermodinamics just because he estimated that the Earth was only 20-40 million years old.
But, since you posted this link, let me make some comments:
In it Lomborg argued that a statistical analysis of key global environmental indicators revealed that while there were environmental problems they were not as serious as was popularly believed. "The world is not without problems, but on almost all accounts, things are going better and they are likely to continue to do so into the future. The facts and information presented here should give us an opportunity to set free our unproductive worries and allow us to focus on the important issues, so that we may indeed help make an even better world for tomorrow".
True or not true? Did he say the world is without problems? Nope.
What he says is that most of environmental problems are not as serious as people think.
The committee found "the publication is deemed clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice". [9] They stated "there has been such perversion of the scientific message in the form of systematically biased representation that the objective criteria for upholding scientific dishonesty ... have been met"
Participating in a panel on the Earthbeat program, Dr Tom Burke, a member of the Executive Committee of Green Alliance in the UK and an environmental adviser to Rio Tinto and BP, challenged the suggestion that that made Lomborg an environmentalist: "That doesn't make you an environmentalist Bjorn, I mean that would make me a statistician because I've done some calculations".
The extensive and uncritical acceptance of Lomborg's claims prompted a reaction from many in the scientific community. In January 2002 Scientific American's editor, John Rennie, wrote the preface to a ten page critique written by four specialists. Rennie commented that "the errors described here, however, show that in its purpose of describing the real state of the world, the book is a failure".
By that logic, Just because John Rennie publishes a magazine called Scientific American doesn't make him a Scientist, nor the magazine a peer reviewed scientific journal.
The Skeptical Environmentalist is a recopilation of scientific papers published in peer reviewed scientific journals, it has more than 2000 citations and 200 pages, if a 10 pages comment is all thay can provide, it is not enough to debunk the whole book.
Lomborg sent a rebuttal of the 10 pages comment to the Editor, but John Rennie didn't want to publish it. That is not good for science, that is not good science, that is not science at all.
When Lomborg reproduced the Scientific American critiques on his website with his responses interleaved, the magazine threatened to sue him for copyright infringement. Lomborg withdrew the file from his website but it was later re-published on the Patrick Moore's website. Scientific American stated that the unauthorised reproduction was damaging its ability to sell copyrighted material, while Moore portrayed Lomborg as being persecuted for his views.
That makes Scientific American look even worse.
And about the book itself. I am not saying that is perfect, after all, a 200 pages book may contain some points open to debate, that is because it cover a wide range of topics. But overall contains many more points that are out of debate that proves his thesis right.
Would you deny, for example, that the O3 levels in the ozone layer are higher now than 20 years ago? No, you can't deny it. (and, BTW, do you have to be a physicist to aknowledge that, or even say that it is good that the O3 levels are growing? No, you don't have to, It is just that some people are pissed off because they think they want to have the monopoly of opinion)
Would you deny that the SO2 levels in atmosphere are lower nowadays than in 1900?
Would you say that there are less people with access to drinking water now than in 1900? No, you wouldn't
Would you say that the life expectancy now is lower than n 1900? No, you wouldn't. And I know you expect it to grow.
The book might contain some debatable points, but if you look at the data provided in the book, (data not generated by him, but taken out of real scientific publications, not Scientific American), you'll realize that there are way more parameters getting better than getting worse.
EDIT: Sorry, I didn't see your previous reply.
I was just about to bump this thread, I agree whole heartedly 
