27 February 2021 | New Scientist | 5SOME readers might remember the 1985
movie Brewster’s Millions. Richard Pryor’s
character has to spend $30 million in
30 days in order to inherit a $300 million
fortune. This week, we update the conceit,
inflating the sum to a cool $1 trillion, and
set a few ground rules: the money has to
be spent on projects to improve human
welfare, to restore the environment
and to advance science (see page 38).
It is the premise of How to Spend
a Trillion Dollars, a new book by New
Scientist’s podcast editor Rowan Hooper
that takes 10 megaprojects and costs
them out. It is a timely exercise, with US
president Joe Biden pushing a $1.9 trillion
coronavirus stimulus package through
Congress, with a $2 trillion climate plan
waiting in the wings. What could be
achieved, if money were no object?To take the examples we focus on this
week – solving world poverty, improving
public health across the globe and
preventing catastrophic climate
change – the answer is quite a lot. So much
could be achieved for what is, globally
speaking, a small sum, that you have to
wonder why we don’t just get on with it.One reason, of course, is that there is no
“we” endowed to act internationally with
this level of investment. Maybe there
should be. It would be no bad thing if this
book encourages greater public pressure
for action on many issues, and if it helps to
show that even big problems are soluble.Sadly, Hooper doesn’t tell us how to
get our hands on a trillion dollars. But by
assessing what it would take to tackle the
world’s biggest problems, he finds that
solving them is limited not by technology,
but by the availability of cash, and most
of all by a lack of political will. So much
might already be obvious, but the
situation makes little sense: again and
again financial analyses find that even
huge investments pay for themselves
many times over.
In that sense, it really is like a
new version of Brewster’s Millions:
spend now, win later, with more jobs,
better health and, crucially, a better
functioning biosphere. Spending
imaginary money is one thing, however.
Now comes the task of getting politicians
and the ultra-rich to make it happen. ❚Investing in the future
How far would $1 trillion go towards improving public health or the climate?
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“Solving the world’s biggest
problems is limited mainly by
a lack of cash and political will”EDITORIAL
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