Director of Columbia's Earth Institute selected for 'Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet'
HOBOKEN, N.J., Feb. 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Jeffrey D. Sachs, an economist renowned for his international poverty-fighting efforts, has won the 2009 Green Book Award from Stevens Institute of Technology's Center for Science Writings.
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Sachs won for his 2008 book "Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet." A follow-up to his acclaimed 2005 bestseller "The End of Poverty," "Common Wealth" proposes detailed solutions not only for extreme poverty but also for related global problems such as overpopulation and environmental degradation. The book has been praised by Nobel laureate Al Gore; former UN General Secretary Kofi Annan; and Harvard biologist Edward Wilson, winner of the 2007 Green Book Award. In the preface to "Common Wealth," Wilson calls it "a state of the world report of immediate and enormous practical value."
Sachs is Director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University; Special Advisor to the United Nations Secretary-General; and a columnist for Scientific American and other publications. TIME has named him one of the most influential people in the world, and The Economist calls him "brilliant, passionate, optimistic, impatient."
John Horgan, Director of the Center for Science Writings, will present Sachs with the Green Book Award at Stevens on Monday, April 20, 2009. The event will be free and open to the public. The exact time and place of the event will be announced soon.
The Center for Science Writings created the Green Book Award in 2006 to draw attention to books that raise awareness of environmental issues. The award includes a prize of $5,000, which is underwritten by Turner Construction Company. Turner is the nation's largest general builder and is recognized as a leader in "green buildings."
Judges include the staff of the CSW in consultation with "Friends of the CSW," a group of leading science journalists. Edward Wilson received the first Green Book Award for his book "The Creation." Environmental activists Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger won last year's award for their book "Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility."
For more information, contact John Horgan at jhorgan@stevens.edu, 201-216-5057, or check the Center's website www.stevens.edu/csw.
About Stevens Institute of Technology
Founded in 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology is one of the leading technological universities in the world dedicated to learning and research. Through its broad-based curricula, nurturing of creative inventiveness, and cross disciplinary research, the Institute is at the forefront of global challenges in engineering, science, and technology management. Partnerships and collaboration between, and among, business, industry, government and other universities contribute to the enriched environment of the Institute. A new model for technology commercialization in academe, known as Technogenesis(R), involves external partners in launching business enterprises to create broad opportunities and shared value. Stevens offers baccalaureates, master's and doctoral degrees in engineering, science, computer science and management, in addition to a baccalaureate degree in the humanities and liberal arts, and in business and technology. The university has a total enrollment of 2,150 undergraduate and 3,500 graduate students with about 250 full-time faculty. Stevens' graduate programs have attracted international participation from China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America. Additional information may be obtained from its web page at www.stevens.edu.
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