Mountain Fund Visits Taos Solar Fest

The Mountain Fund joined the Solar Village at the Taos Solar Fest this past weekend (6/24-6/25). Here is a photo of the Mountain Fund at work educating the masses, one person at a time, on issues affecting mountain peoples and their environments. We received a great response and a lot of enthusiasm for the work of the Mountain Fund and its programs.

The Taos Solar Fest is a great music and education event and if you didn't make it this year you should certainly plan to go next year. In addition to great performances by artists such as Spearhead, Ani Difranco, Peter Rowan, Steel Pulse and others there are booths with information and volunteers happy to tell you about solar, environmental, and humanitarian causes.

One last photo that I have to share with you is of a
bicycle locked up outside of the festival. I titled this photo Taos Bicycle: Old West Meets New West.

Economic Possibilities Part 2

Economic Possibilities for Our Times, by Jeffery D. Sachs
Jeff Sachs' groundbreaking book asserts that extreme poverty can be eliminated from the planet by the year 2015. In this, the second part of our three- part series we will discuss the specific goals of the Millennium Development Goals including examination of what we in the US agreed to do, and what we are doing.
The Millennium Development GoalsThe Global Compact to End Poverty

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger


2. Achieve universal primary education


3. Promote gender equality and empower women


4. Reduce child mortality


5. Improve maternal health


6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases


7. Ensure environmental sustainability


8. Develop a global partnership for development

To see the full MDGs click here.
For us in what Sachs' calls a "high-income" country, these needs are already 100 percent fulfilled even for the relatively poor. To meet these needs for the world's poor will require a decade or more of investment. But, let's pause there for a moment and get a handle on what sort of investment is required. The total amount needed to meet all eight goals sounds like a staggering number, $72 billion per year, until it is put into context. There are roughly 1.1 billion people living in extreme poverty, the type of poverty that kills. Each of those 1.1 billion people however, requires the modest sum of roughly $65.00 per year in aid for the MDGs to be realized. Spending $65 per person, per year doesn't seem like too large an investment to make in our fellow humans.
Do we have the resources to afford the MDGs? Yes, without question. Again the small and personal numbers help to keep a real perspective on the issue. Consider five developing countries - Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda. In order to scale up infrastructure and social services by the year 2015 to address the needs of those nations will require about $100 per person per year from 2005 to 2015. The rich world, the one we live in has an annual per capita income of nearly $27,000 per person plus government revenues of an additional $7000 per person per year for a total of $34, 000 per person per year. An investment of $100 is a small sum. For the poorest countries however, $100 per capita is a very large sum, equal to the income per capita of Ethiopia in 2001.
Has something on this scale been attempted before?Absolutely. At the end of WWII the Marshall Plan was implemented to re-build war devastated Europe. The United States, from 1948 through 1952 contributed more than 1% of our gross domestic product to support the Marshall Plan. That's around ten times the effort we are currently making toward the MDGs as a share of our GNP. Today we are giving 0.15 percent of GNP toward the MDGs. We pledged to give 0.7 percent and are short of our pledge by 0.55 percent of GNP. Our GNP rises about 1.9% per year, meaning that the amount we have pledged, but not contributed is less than one third of the annual increase in our GNP. Think of it this way, if the US were on track to reach the level of $40,000 per capita disposable income by January 1, 2010, making our promised contribution would delay that until May 1, 2010 or a third of a year. This four month lag would mean that a billion people would be given an economic future of hope, health and improvement rather than a downward spiral of disease, despair and decline. I think we could stand the four month wait, don't you?
Another approach to the math.In 2000 the IRS issued a report on the richest taxpayers. The top four hundred tax payers had a combined income of $69 billion dollars or roughly $174 million each. The income of just these 400 taxpayers exceeds the combined incomes of Botswana, Nigeria, Senegal and Uganda which is $57 million dollars. Consider the most recent three tax cuts we have been granted and the impact of those cuts which amounted to $220 billion dollars per year. The tax savings of the households above $500,000 per year in income amount to about $50 billion per year, enough to fund our share of the MDG needs.
Why we can't wait for the top 400 taxpayers.The preceding paragraph may have influenced you to believe that if "they", the richest people in our country, would just pay their fair share all would be well. We get too easily trapped in the idea that "they" is someone, but not us. The truth is that if you and I don't take action, no one is going to. Waiting for the richest four hundred people to fork over $50 billion could be a long, long wait. Small amounts from people like you and I can make a huge difference.
I recently read, for instance, that their are 1.6 million people who climb in North America alone. Sounds like an exaggeration but try to get a route on the Flatirons on a weekend and you'll start to believe it. I took a look at the budgets for the 32 programs that The Mountain Fund operates and determined that if every climber each sent us just twenty- five cents we could meet all of our goals for program support here at The Mountain Fund. Just a quarter each and 32 programs would be solid for one more year. So, you see what each of us can easily afford to do. I know there have been a lot of numbers in this article and I urge you to go back over these and allow them to fully sink in. Once you do, I think you will agree that the end of poverty is firmly within our grasp.
Get a copy of The End of Poverty at our online bookstore here . Join in this discussion at The Mountain Fund Blog here.
(This article consists of excerpts and commentary on writings from both The End of Poverty and from the December/January issue of Time Magazine.)