The Intellectual Territory

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By GOLDIE BLUMENSTYK

Jeffrey D. Sachs is an international economist who directs the United Nations' Millennium Project, which is working to eradicate hunger and disease around the world by 2015. He is also director of an interdisciplinary research center on sustainability at Columbia University, called the Earth Institute. His latest book, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time (Penguin Press, 2005), features a foreword by his friend and fellow antipoverty activist Bono, lead singer of U2.

Q. In the 1970s some colleges offered cross-disciplinary majors in peace studies. Few if any still do. In 30 years, will this interest in sustainability also seem like a quaint academic fad?

A. I don't think you can say definitely that this is here to stay. My guess is that the subject matter is going to grow in importance because the issues of energy systems, climate change, biodiversity, resource stress, are likely to intensify.

[For sustainability] the first question is, Is there real intellectual meat in this at a research level? At an educational level? Are there a set of skills or body of knowledge? Is there a true center of this, that doesn't reside in a single department but really must cross departments?

That gets judged by publishing, by demands for students emerging from the Ph.D. program, by our ability to provide practical answers to pressing problems. And I'd say we're in the early days of that, clearly. Second, for better or worse, universities require financial resources to carry out their mission, and the question is whether this kind of activity will get funded, by whom, whether students will want to take these programs, and whether they'll get [hired for] jobs at the other end and by whom.

Q. Looking broadly at industry, academe, government, and nongovernmental organizations, who should be leading on sustainability issues? Who is?

A. [Since I am] an economist, you won't be surprised to hear that I believe in the division of labor. I think the real role of academia is to provide the scientific input to this challenge. That's uniquely a responsibility of academia. Look at the World Bank. They just don't have the science. They don't have the capacity.

Q. Is academe taking an appropriate leadership role? Is government?

A. Interestingly, this whole issue, which seemed very obscure a few years ago, is really coming to the forefront, maybe because nature is taking the lead and saying: You've got a real problem here.

I think Hurricane Katrina was an incredible wake-up call, the big heat waves that we've been seeing, and of course the growing findings that the underlying climate science is panning out. Reality is confronting us with serious problems, and this is drawing forward some responses right now. ... The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NASA are providing key scientific input in this process. So are the National Academies of Science. But the political process is tremendously slow and behind.

Academia is starting to step up to this, though I believe there is a lot more to come ... . A number of businesses are discussing these issues, but frankly, even something as central as man-made climate change still really is not high on the list of American media and political priorities right now. It ought to be, but it isn't.

Q. How do institutions find money to support research in this broad area?

A. We are in an age of mega-philanthropy, and a lot of the new leading foundations are coming to the support of this kind of cross-disciplinary effort. That's one source.

Individual philanthropists who take particular interest in climate change, disease control, or poverty are also contributing. And we have had very explicit discussions with NSF and with other academic funders about thinking about how those organizations actually create new funding paths to support this kind of work.