It was really exciting to see William Nordhaus and Paul Romer receive the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences award this past week.  The announcement put a global spotlight on the need for governments to address climate change. Nordhaus has spent decades persuading governments to move to action, and his work detailing how carbon taxes could be used to advance carbon reductions among countries is a framework many feel should be adopted by the global community. 

Romer's work emphasized that economic growth is best driven by some of the most organic forces in the market — its people.  His research noted that most growth metrics relate to assets that can be counted, like GDP, employment rate, etc.  But the ability to generate new ideas — and for governments to encourage and foster innovation across a number of initiatives — is a greater indicator and lever of growth. 

Romer has given the example of climate change: "People think protecting the environment will be so costly and so hard they want to ignore the problem and pretend it doesn't exist.  Once we start to try to reduce carbon emissions, we'll be surprised that it wasn't as hard as we anticipated."

JOOB salutes this work, and agree that everyone — governments, businesses, and individuals — can each do something to help the planet. A little effort every day certainly can make a difference.