BJØRN LOMBORG is adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, and author of the best-selling The Skeptical Environmentalist. He was named one of the 100 globally most influential people by TIME magazine in April 2004. Foreign Policy and Prospect Magazine had him listed as the world's 14th most influential intellectual in October 2005.

In May 2004 he organized the "Copenhagen Consensus" which brought together some of the world's top economists. Here they prioritized the best opportunities to the world's big challenges, essentially answering the question: If we want to do good, where should we start? In June 2006 he assembled a number of top UN ambassadors, including representatives from China, India and the UN, representing about half the world's population. They also answered the question, and came out with a similar ranking, the first of its kind for the UN. From the Copenhagen Consensus emanated the two edited volumes, Global Crises, Global Solutions and How to Spend $50 Billion to Make the World a Better Place.